Posted on 06/18/2025 7:36:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I think our duty to a representative and limited government, a constitutional republic, doesn’t end when we exercise one day of democracy — Election Day and the vote. If our candidate makes mistakes, it’s up to each of us to speak out — not to criticize, but to educate, to ask him to do better. The following is an attempt to apply principle to the specific issue of tariffs and the overarching principle of constitutionally limited government.
Congrats: Any citizen who consumes (buys) goods made in China, you are going to pay 35 to 50 percent more for everything you buy from that country.
To say it another way, China does not pay this tariff. Consumers do. If that’s how my government helps, please stop.
The argument supporters make centers on repatriating American manufacturing.
But consider why businesses moved their production overseas in the first place: Certainly lower-cost labor, but also less regulation from the foreign government and low tax rates, resulting in lower cost of manufacturing and higher earrings.
Ask the same question but from a different perspective: Why did business decide to move production out of America? High costs of regulation and high tax rates. In other words, our own government created an untenable business environment through its bureaucracy and high tax rates.
Higher tax rates are caused by excess federal spending. Higher taxes are spurred by congressional spending. If it didn’t spend so much, the government wouldn’t have to take so much of our income through taxes. Turn the kaleidoscope around, and you get a new view...
In an attempt to justify a bloated bureaucracy (the “more government is always better” mentality) and excessive federal spending, our own government decided to hurt citizens and private industry through higher taxes and more regulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
When Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, Ross Perot said : Listen for the giant sucking sound as good paying American jobs go away
Companies moved production overseas for cheap labor and being allowed to throw garbage right into the ocean.
Cheaper than slave labor?
In the wake of the Trump Train, the article and its anti-tariff message begins to sound like propaganda.
Indeed, however certain safety regulations are welcomed. But as with taxes, regulations have gotten out of control. We have many idiots making laws, it's not perfect, voters need to wise up. How? Let's start with School reform, another thing that seems to have been swept under the rug, again.
“Congrats: Any citizen who consumes (buys) goods made in China, you are going to pay 35 to 50 percent more for everything you buy from that country.”
A fallacy right out of the gate on this one. The percentage is based on the cost to the seller, not the price to the final consumer. For example, if a seller normally buys something from China for $2 and sells it for $8 in their store, the increase is on the $2, not the $8. So yes, the seller can raise their price, but they will not raise it 50 percent!
We can’t have a real discussion about this if we continue with this mistaken premise that the tariff is on the final price somewhere in the US market, rather than on the cost.
Chinese children have small, nimble hands.
“On December 3 1984, more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, immediately killing at least 3,800 people and causing significant morbidity and premature death for many thousands more. The company involved in what became the worst industrial accident in history immediately tried to dissociate itself from legal responsibility. Eventually it reached a settlement with the Indian Government through mediation of that country’s Supreme Court and accepted moral responsibility. It paid $470 million in compensation, a relatively small amount of based on significant underestimations of the long-term health consequences of exposure and the number of people exposed.”
THIS IS WHY US CORPORATIONS CHOOSE TO MAKE SOME OF THEIR PRODUCTS OVERSEAS.
IF this had happened in the USA. Union Carbide would no longer exist. Maybe they should not.
I believe in the principle of comparative advantage, but I also know from personal experience that some offshoring was done purely to satisfy investor demands for short-term quarter-over-quarter profit gain. There was also a masss psychology in which moving jobs overseas was seen as an indication of smart and prudent management. Opposition meant career suicide.
Not one damn was given about the devastation of American communities.
In a nutshell ... the company met every environmental regulation on the books at the time the plant was open. The plant started operating in the early 1950s. When the EPA tightened the restrictions on PCB discharge in the 1970s, GE closed the plant in 1976.
That should have been the end, but in 2002 the EPA made a landmark decision that forced the company to spend years doing a cleanup of the Hudson River -- at a cost of more than $1.6 billion.
After that, I figured no corporate CEO with an IQ over 80 would ever open a heavy manufacturing facility in the U.S. If your company is potentially going to be on the hook for a ten-figure environmental cleanup even after you've met all the applicable environmental regulations in place while you are operating, then you're dealing with a corrupt, inept government that can never be presumed to be acting in good faith.
I would have no problem with GE moving every manufacturing job out of the U.S. after that fiasco.
China has been eating our lunch and were about to also eat our dinner. Our trade deficit was sending billions to our enemy. It has to stop, everything else in this article is baloney!
They used any excuse because they are traitors.
Those businesses simply wanted cheap-as-dirt labor to make things half-owned by China, to be brought back with no effective tariff rate into the US. Think about that. If they didn't like our regulation, but still owned 100% of their company, they were willing to let a communist country own half of their company and all brought in intellectual property to have cheap products churned out. They then find out that China is using their factories to churn out clones under infinite “brand” names to undercut those stupid US companies.
That is the only answer. They were dumb, but got locked into grudgingly upgrading their 50% owned companies in China because, well, apparently in business today, you throw good money at bad money.
thos is why my neighbors burn their garbage, plastic, metal, Styrofoam, all kinds of stuff that will kill you or make you very sick... instead of taking it for proper disposal. Because they can.
Corporate America has done the same thing. Dumped toxic waste into the nearest river or stream, made workers clean up toxins without proper protections. China and the epa wouldn't get alone.
Dupont is a prime example of this mind set. People are disposable, who cares about fish and kids, we're making money
Did USMCA fix NAFTA? I know that there were changes, but did it really improve jib creation?
Your neck screams for the noose.
PEROT WAS CORRECT.
TRUMP IS TRYING TO BRING JOBS BACK HERE.
THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT IS UNIONS.
THEY ARE LIFE-SUCKING WEASELS
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