Posted on 07/28/2012 4:02:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are currently fighting over who is the more patriotic. Obama slams Romney for having outsourced jobs to China during his Bain Capital days. Romney punches back by labeling Obama Outsourcer in Chief. The latest is that both John Boehner and Harry Reid are voicing outrage over Americas made-in-China Olympic uniforms. Burn them! thunders Reid.
Republicans and Democrats strangely agree that outsourcing is unpatriotic, and that the moral and patriotic thing to do is to Hire American and Buy American.
Well, no. Not in a thousand years. The fear of outsourcing and international trade is economic nonsense and moral blindness. More than that: this anti-profit attitude is un-American.
Despite the ongoing Europeanization of America, America still symbolizes the land of freedom, entrepreneurship, profit-making, above all, individualism.
But collectivism is the premise of Hire/Buy American: we are to view ourselves and others not as individuals, but as units of a nation. Businesses are urged to pay more in labor costs, simply to hire workers who are American; consumers are urged to forgo Walmarts low prices, pay more, simply because the pricier goods were made by our guys. This is not rational patriotism, it is not Americanism, it's primitive tribalism.
American individualism means making buying decisions on the basis of economic merit, giving no regard to the nationality or race of the seller. Lets not hide behind patriotic-sounding slogans. Lets name things straight for a change: giving preference to American sellers over foreign sellers is the same mindless injustice as giving preference to sellers who are white over those who are black.
Economic nationalism is as morally outrageous as racism. Buying on the basis of nationality or race is the same collectivist evil: judging men and their products by the group from which they come, not by merit.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
So you can agree that labor costs in the USA are not prohibitively expensive? Can you drop that canard from your free trade mantra/dogma. Then we can discuss the other issues.
To better compete with China. FORWARD!
So let's back up a bit and discuss theory: how does one respond to a strategic rival?
1. take away the areas in which it has a strategic advantage, andSomeone please explain how raising taxes does either.
2. increase the areas in which you have a strategic advantage.
The very same way that strategic rival competes with us:
By using the rules to their advantage.
China even now, does not import America cars - it builds them. In China.
We are losing. Worse every day. Either we change the way we do business with China, or we break it off.
Not some day. Not later. Now.
I agree that is a problem, but while we attack that issue I am not going to let the free traitors sell out the country using that as an excuse. It's almost like the lobbyist make the regs that congress passes to give them an excuse to off shore a factory. This whole thing is an incredible screw job.
We exported 5.34 billion dollars' worth of autos to China in 2011.
Granted, not enough . . . and some of those are BMW's from South Carolina, so a protectionist would say they don't count. Also, China recently imposed additional duties on U.S. auto imports. That dispute is on-going.
Of course you can't, that's why taxes need to be raised right away!
Tariffs are easily avoided. Just don’t buy the import.
Exactly! Fight taxes with more taxes. Win win!
It will keep the factories here. Is a tariff as dirty and slimy as moving our factories to a communist country comrade? There is a price to pay for everything friend.
Since when do tariffs save jobs?
Did Bush's steel tariffs save jobs?
How many jobs do our stupid sugar tariffs/quota system cost?
There is a price to pay for everything friend.
Exactly! I prefer lower taxes, lower costs and more employment.
It seems like you prefer the opposite.
Tariffs work, you know it. You are the economically stupid one here.
You bet, we should double the price of every import, especially oil, and watch our economy bloom!
That is the beauty of tariffs, you get to pick and choose which products are subject to a duty. For instance a 20% duty on electronics would be more than justified. Oil, not so much. But an oil tariff would increase political pressure to deregulate, that's for sure.
Unless, of course, the product you buy contains something like oh, for example, steel.
Isn’t it funny? Free-traders, on this thread, are accused of claiming that there is a free lunch, by people claiming there is a free lunch.
Excellent description vis-a-vis labor arbitrage.
Move manufacturing to where there is cheap labor and export to the U.S. (ditto professional services)
.. but it seems to me that free trade that involved producing "over there" would be where our guys found it necessary because exporting to meet the demand "over there" became too expensive. In Europe for lots of examples.
.. meanwhile they continue to produce products here in the U.S. where their products have been sold for years.
OK government regulations and taxes force them to produce "over there" and export to us here.. then how come, rhetorical questions, foreigners come here buying our businesses and establishing their own businesses here? How can they do it and a lot of our guys say that it cannot be done and be profitable? I think that at least 80 percent of our businesses do just fine "stuck" here, BTW.
I believe that there is a difference between free trade and labor arbitrage.
Corporations are free to do both but this is America and I am free to have the opinion that labor arbitrage that benefits the Communist Party of Red China is just plain stupid
.. I really do believe that 1) Lenin was right, corporations are useful idiots in that case and 2) Deng implemented a version of Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP).
I understand that others see Red China transitioning to freedom and democracy -- or simply just "another system."
China - Kinder, Gentler Communist Regime. Faking the stupid round eye since 1972©
There is a protectionist, on this very thread, who recommended a 100% tariff on all imports into the US. Of course he insisted that doubling the price of foreign sourced oil would have no impact on the price of US sourced oil, so he might not be the strongest advocate of the protectionist mantra.
For instance a 20% duty on electronics would be more than justified.
Excellent! I'm sure there would be no pressure to impose a tariff on the competition of Solyndra, for example. All tariffs would be strictly based on the economic well being of the country.
Like the legislation that causes 300 million of us to pay double or triple the world price for sugar, to help a few sugar cane growers.
But an oil tariff would increase political pressure to deregulate, that's for sure.
Every time the government has crushed our economy with their stupid policies, we've always reduced regulations. Right. /sarc
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