I was referring to the specific Bush II policy on sheet steel used to make the shells of washing machines and similar appliances.
I was not referring to the bigger picture. The bigger picture is about a lot more than cheap labor. US Labor regulations, US EPA regulations were more costly to many companies than labor differential
US Labor Union control of work rules was more costly than labor. The work rules would not allow high paid workers to do what needed to be done. They sat idle waiting for work to do.
But EDUCATION is behind a lot of our problems. In the 1950s many Eastern Europeans came. They couldn’t speak English but were good at math and excellent for tool & Die and Machine shops. Due to the Iron Curtain and 1965 changes to immigration rules, that source of good math skills disappeared.
US schools were not producing enough people good at math. Draw a line from Chicago to Rockford and you had the Machine tool and Tool&Die Capital of the world in 1950s and 1960s.
But in the 1970s, and increasingly in the 1980s there were not enough qualified mathematically inclined people to staff the high skilled end of manufacturing.
The high math skilled, high priced jobs went to Asia first. It then became cheaper to locate the low cost labor closer to the high cost labor.
We are in even worse shape now. It is amazing the number of IT workers with BA/BS, and even MA/MS who cannot do simple 5th grade math. They don’t know the mulitplication tables. They don’t know common 5th grade concepts such as transitive closure.
One problem with our labor is that much of it is not worth high wages.
Sixty years ago, when I was young, even though I was on a college track, I still could take sewing, cooking, and home nursing in high school. The schools also had shop, carpentry, mechanics, etc. This kind of education has almost disappeared from our schools, so we tolerate illegals. I have a son who is dyslexic. Although he could not learn to read until the 5th grade, he could do math, although until the fifth grade the only numbers he did not write backwards were 0, 1, and 8. I’ve noticed that in mostly black inner city schools the kids often have higher scores on math standard tests. I don’t know if this is because of dyslexia or lack of exposure to standard English, or both.
We definitely need to got opportunities for good non college subjects back in our high schools, also access to apprenticeship programs. The idea that all students should be aiming for college is foolish. I once was helping a group of licensed street vendors try to keep their licenses. We met with a Councilmember. After considerable discussion, I pointed out that half the population was below average in intelligence. He gave me a strange look like, “Wow, I never even thought of that.” I have a college degree, what the heck is “transitive closure?”
A problem with top management pay is that much of their work is not worth $10 to $20 million. Of course they send jobs overseas to cheap labor, otherwise they would not be able to so overpay themselves and still keep stockholders happy.