Posted on 08/17/2017 3:02:17 PM PDT by Mafe
Progressives used to pressure U.S. corporations to cut back on outsourcing and on the tactic of building their products abroad to take advantage of inexpensive foreign workers.
During the 2012 election, President Obama attacked Mitt Romney as a potential illiberal “outsourcer-in-chief” for investing in companies that went overseas in search of cheap labor.
Yet most of the computers and smartphones sold by Silicon Valley companies are still being built abroad — to mostly silence from progressive watchdogs.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Ping.
VDH is my man. I have been saying this for 2 years.
Not only do these companies rob the US of their due in taxes, they also rob America of jobs the would be generated if that money circulated in the US economy. Don’t buy their products and make these greedy anti-American pigs deal with it. Furthermore, pressure congress to pass the laws necessary to keep that money and jobs at home.
I’d go further:
I’d say they’re the new **Tehran Morality Police**, going around busting chicks for wearing makeup or having their shoulders uncovered, or dudes for not keeping a beard.
Very, very, good article. Facebook, with 2 billion monthly global users, has now effectively cornered social media. Google has monopolized internet searches — and modulates users’ search results to accommodate its own business profiteering. Amazon is America’s new octopus. Its growing tentacles incorporate not just online sales but also media and food retailing. Yet there are no modern-day progressive muckrakers in the spirit of Upton Sinclair, Frank Norris, and Lincoln Steffens, warning of the dangers of techie monopolies or the astronomical accumulation of wealth. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook are worth nearly $1 trillion each.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450549/silicon-valley-liberals-ignore-their-anti-business-history
the worst part about it is the fact that they are liberal. Gonna make it very easy for the anti-Messiah.
Yes, they are. It is an excellent way to look at it.
I recently heard an EBay exec say, “We’re the only ones (meaning the dot.coms) who are trying to make the world better.”
Oh, you mean through social engineering and leftist donations?
Really, we are going to attack successful American companies now, spouting protectionism. I personally don’t want to pay more the 2x the price for a smartphone or computer thank you very much. I cannot stand facebook, what a productivity wasting service, and use duckduckgo for searching. But I can appreciate all the positive ways these companies have changed society. Maybe you don’t remember the clusterf_ck of email spam before cloud based gmail, or how to learn practically anything from youtube. I am thankful these things exist and I hope they can continue to innovate, though that is unlikely as they move into liberal, group think, bureaucratic middle aged companies. We don’t have 3 or 4 hundred thousand people willing to spend 10 hours a day putting phones together for 2$ an hour. China does today, though that will change as their people build other options into their economy. Where are the conservative boards these days. Just because the US government has ruined our currency doesn’t mean these companies Trillion dollar values matches other historical big and powerful companies.
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/08/22/a-history-of-ridiculously-big-companies.aspx
And somehow Amazon has evaded paying amd collecting sales taxes in every state amounting to billions in lost revenue for all but a handful of states.
They play by different rules than the vast majority of businesses and they are run by lying liberal hypocrites who buy their power. Facefart sells every scrap of personal information without the consent of users which has led to identity theft and massive fraud. These companies own the old media monopoly that is destroying free America. They are not our friends.
From the article: The progressive movement took hold in the late 19th century to “trust-bust,” or break up corporations that had cornered the markets in banking, oil, steel, and railroads. Such supposedly foul play had inordinately enriched “robber baron” buccaneers such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan.
Yet today, the riches of multibillionaires dwarf the wealth of their 19th-century predecessors. Most West Coast corporate wealth was accumulated by good old-fashioned American efforts to achieve monopolies and stifle competition.
Facebook, with 2 billion monthly global users, has now effectively cornered social media.
Google has monopolized internet searches — and modulates users’ search results to accommodate its own business profiteering.
Amazon is America’s new octopus. Its growing tentacles incorporate not just online sales but also media and food retailing.
Yet there are no modern-day progressive muckrakers in the spirit of Upton Sinclair, Frank Norris, and Lincoln Steffens, warning of the dangers of techie monopolies or the astronomical accumulation of wealth. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook are worth nearly $1 trillion each.
Conservatives have no problem with anyone doing well, so their silence is understandable. But in the Obama era, the nation received all sorts of progressive lectures on the downsides of being super-rich.
Obama remonstrated about spreading the wealth, knowing when not to profit, and realizing when one has made enough money. He declared that entrepreneurs did not build their own businesses without government help.
DiogenesLamp is, ah, concerned that traditional conservatives do now, or have in the past, support "protectionism" as opposed to "free trade".
VDH's article notes that sides have switched, and I'd argue, more than once.
The old Whigs and new Republicans from their beginnings supported higher tariffs to protect US producers.
The old Democrats opposed higher tariffs, favoring more "free trade" to reduce their import costs.
Republican Teddy Roosevelt was the first big Trust Buster, but, iirc, Progressive Democrats (i.e., Woodrow Wilson) also took up that effort, as did Democrats generally until recent times.
Classical conservatives favor free-trade and vigorous competition, but some promises of free trade have not been realized.
Among other things we seem to have exported millions of jobs, thousands of factories & businesses, resulting in higher unemployment & lower wages.
That's the point Donald Trump's Republicans address in saying, effectively: "we're tired of being the stupid people."
In that Trump follows in the mold of Lincoln era Republicans and, if VDH's points here indicate, possibly in that of a Teddy Roosevelt's trust busters.
Conservatives don't want to deny the successful their success, but we do want to be certain they've achieved it fair & square.
As am I. He usually nails it in his columns.
DiogenesLamp is, ah, concerned that traditional conservatives do now, or have in the past, support "protectionism" as opposed to "free trade". VDH's article notes that sides have switched, and I'd argue, more than once.
Back in the 90s I was pretty much a party line "free trade" sort of person. Patrick Buchanan, of all people, pointed out the erroneous thinking regarding free trade, and made me realize that much of what I had been told was not quite right. Now i'm not sure what to do regarding trade and tariff's, but Buchanan's suggestion that we require foreign competitors to match our labor costs, safety standards and other burdens on US business, or face an equalizing tariff, seems reasonable to me.
The old Whigs and new Republicans from their beginnings supported higher tariffs to protect US producers. The old Democrats opposed higher tariffs, favoring more "free trade" to reduce their import costs.
One side (the North) was clearly benefiting from higher tariffs, and the other side (the South) was clearly being hurt economically by higher tariffs.
Classical conservatives favor free-trade and vigorous competition, but some promises of free trade have not been realized. Among other things we seem to have exported millions of jobs, thousands of factories & businesses, resulting in higher unemployment & lower wages.
Exactly. Not only that, it isn't fair to make our people compete against (nearly) slave labor in other nations.
Conservatives don't want to deny the successful their success, but we do want to be certain they've achieved it fair & square.
Amen. Here I agree with you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.