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"I guess the arguement boils down to, do you want cheap things, or are you willing to pay double and have a job? The jury is still out."

The jury should not be out on this issue for a conservative. Essentially, the use of tarriffs to protect wages is a form of government coercion to force consumers to pay more for a product that is either inferior or more costly or both. Should a conservative advocate the use of the power of government to set wages and employment levels? If you want to base your decision on purchases based upon US content, then that is fine, well, and good. It is the use of the power of government to force others to make that same decision where I have a problem.

The jury should not be out on this issue for a conservative. Essentially, the use of tarriffs to protect wages is a form of government coercion to force consumers to pay more for a product that is either inferior or more costly or both. Should a conservative advocate the use of the power of government to set wages and employment levels? If you want to base your decision on purchases based upon US content, then that is fine, well, and good. It is the use of the power of government to force others to make that same decision where I have a problem.

Amen! You just broke it down, and as my late uncle used to say, let it be broke! ;-)

Actually the issue is divisive for many conservatives that have children nearing college age. What do you tell them to study that isn't a target for BPO? Everybody can't be a dentist, lawyer, politician or business owner. While these are fine professions there are over 300 million Americans.

At the moment no one would be encouraged to go into the sciences and risk their future career path being wiped out. Engineering requires increadibly intelligent people and we are discouraging those people from even entering the field.

America's dominance in technology was born of our science community. If no one wants to enter the field then we are denying ourselves future dominance in the technology field. Countless innovations have come from the science community that have fueled job growth over the years. Now we are eliminating the act of innovation itself.

I have no faith in the business community to provide future opportunities like I do the true innovators, our scientists, engineers, software developers, etc.

The short term answer is general trade tariffs combined with targeted tax cuts for affected industries. The long term answer is a complete overhaul of our tax system, changes in our regulatory practices, limits on settlements and ultimately a much smaller federal government.

The solution is not a simple "no tariffs" or a "tariffs forever" approach. We all know that reducing the burden of our government will not happen quickly. We cannot expect people to compete wage to wage with third world countries with the current cost of government while those root problems are addressed. If we do many professions will simply be wiped out or voluntarily avoided by the masses. That avoidance will cause a massive void in our scientific capacity and risk our national security.

Your mom and pop model of the world is ridiculously archaic.

The modern multinational corporation is something closer to "The Company" in the Alien series than your libertarian fantasy of a mom and pop firm. Babbling about "free markets" ignores the reality of a transnational corporate plutocracy "harmonizing" legal systems and governments througout the world to benefit a gated community shareholder elite.

You don't like economic decisions made in Washington. Would you rather they were made in the Cayman Islands ?