Posted on 04/25/2011 7:29:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
... no evidence that a rising level of imports or growing trade deficits have negatively affected the U.S. economy. In fact, since 1980, the U.S. economy has grown more than three times faster during periods when the trade deficit was expanding as a share of GDP compared to periods when it was contracting. Stock market appreciation, manufacturing output, and job growth were all significantly more robust during periods of expanding imports and trade deficits.
It's true that the U.S. has lost more than 5.5 million manufacturing jobs in the last ten years, from more than 17 million jobs in 2000 to fewer than 12 million jobs in 2010... And yet during that same period, manufacturing output (data here) actually increased by more than 5%, from $3.1 trillion in 2000 to $3.26 trillion (measured in 2005 dollars) this year... On a per employee basis, manufacturing output per worker increased by more than 50%, from $182,000 in 2000 to $278,000 [in 2010.]
It's true that manufacturing jobs are decreasing, but rather than blame the Chinese, [Trump's] anger would be better targeted... if [he] blamed American innovators and even American manufacturing workers.
What do the Chinese do with the dollars that we use to buy their products? Do they burn these dollars or otherwise not use them commercially? ... If the Chinese do not burn their dollars, then they (or other foreigners with whom the Chinese deal) must use these dollars either to buy American products or to invest in the U.S. economy (or both). To the extent that foreigners buy our products, by [Trump's] reckoning they must be "rebuilding" America. ... Do such investments harm America? Does foreign investment in America not help to "rebuild" America? If not, why not?
The whole idea of "consumers" is a Gramscian subversion.
The people who live and work in the USA are citizens, and our countrymen.
If they choose to "consume" with their earnings, that's Liberty.
But the notion that the PURPOSE of government is to supervise, protect, and stimulate "consumers" is pure Leftism.
Actually, Trump is a little off there. US manufacturing jobs and factories were virtually handed to China and other cheap laobor nations on a silver platter with trade policies that could have had no other result.
You seem to be the one whining, and show me one thing i said about fairness.
I’m all for “Free Trade”, but that sure as hell ain’t what we’ve got today.
Also, a question, would we have allowed ourselves to send our manufacturing to Japan in the 1930s, like we’ve done to China?
This is what it comes down to: Globalists vs. Patriots. It’s all good and well to grovel at the altar of “Free Trade”, but you cannot deny that the globalists and international bankers have gotten rich off the dismantling of economies world wide. Do you think Soros is the only villain?
Go on Youtube and watch “Argentina’s Economic Collapse”. It’s a multiple-part series about how globalists came in and cherry-picked the productive assets of the country and left their government, which is no more or less corrupt than our own, hopelessly in debt.
The truth is that the average IQ is still 100. An average worker in any industrial country wants to work with things, not ideas. These people have been taught for a hundred years that they should be able to make a living working 40 hours per week. Any less and they think the boss is shorting their hours; any more and they are being screwed unless they get bonus pay.
In the town where I grew up, the cotton mills are gone. The machines have been crated up and sent God-knows-where, and the buildings have been torn down. I’m not saying that cotton mill jobs were the greatest jobs ever, but average people could make a living there. In order to change that for the better, the educational establishment would have had to shift the bell curve to the right, and we all know that hasn’t happened.
In mathematics, it is useful to check the limits of an equation or calculus. Taking “free Trade” to its logical limits; Nothing should be produced by anyone but slaves as that is the lowest common (cheapest most efficient) denominator, logically then nothing else makes sense the the Free Trader. The ultimate goal is to eliminate all manufacturing from every developed country and make a killing to boot. Free traders are sellouts to commies, nothing else.
This 'genius' fails to mention our (admitted) unemployment rates have been near 10% for a couple of years, and that real unemployment is 17% - 18%, and probably even higher than that, and has been high for a few decades.
And he also fails to mention that means tested government benefits now paid to welfare recipients and low wage earners now total $950 billion per year.
So, trade deficits are great? The higher the better? This idiot fails to connect the soaring imports and soaring trade deficits and soaring real unemployment and soaring government benefits paid out to working age adults who don't work, or work in low paying jobs, he fails to connect all that with our soaring budget deficits and national debt.
This article illustrates the sort of thinking that has put us in the financial and real unemployment position we've been in for years.
Sorry, that part of my post was really directed at others, not you.
Do you not understand that import tariffs are taxes on *American* consumers?
Yet further up the thread you praise fair trade - which is exactly what you just described - raise taxes on imports to stimulate consumers to buy American.
So, is it the government's job to supervise, protect, and stimulate consumer's or not?
If I get to choose between “Free Trade” and financing a trillion dollar trade deficit that goes along with it with high taxes, or a tariff and no trade deficit, I will choose the tariff. Call me AN AMERICAN!
Companies that hire elsewhere when Americans are unemployed is not to be admired any more than a company that sells American secrets to make a profit.
What I believe is that the US is damn near dead. Pretty soon it won’t matter if we import any Chinese goods. We won’t be able to afford cheesy toxic Chinese crap.
What I wish is that our government would quit holding the US back so that we could create an atmosphere for job creation and growth in America, something other than burger flipping and assembly, but that hasn’t and won’t happen.
Vicious cycle. No good jobs, people rely on government.
But lets talk about the title of this piece. How many sheeple are going to be impressed reading this title? Like it or not, it will be seen as the GOP isn’t for fair trade and is for screwing the US in favor of China.
PEOPLE WANT JOBS LIKE WE USED TO HAVE IN AMERICA. IT WAS BETTER THAN CHEAP CRAP BOUGHT WITH CREDIT CARDS.
LOOK WHERE THAT HAS TAKEN US.
The GOP are such masters of communicating ideas. /sarc
That is outright nonsense. Do Americans still wear clothing and shoes? Are those now being made by robots in the USA?
Few of the labor intensive jobs, or jobs that required significant manual dexterity, or manual labor, have been replaced by technology since WWII. They've simply been exported to cheap labor nations like China, and they were not high paying union jobs, but mostly lower paying, non-union jobs.
Of course there has been a need for manufacturing job growth to supply the US consumer market. And that job growth has occurred. It's just occurred in cheap labor nations where the jobs to supply US consumer products have been located.
There are probably more jobs necessary to supply the US consumer market now than ever before because there are so many products that didn't exist only three or four decades ago, not to mention a population that has doubled since the 1950s. And those labor intensive jobs to produce clothing and shoes and many other products for the US market also still exist - just in various cheap labor nations rather than in the USA as they did until they were exported started in the 1950s until the present.
"Financing" a trade deficit? Do you even know what a trade deficit is? All a trade deficit means is we (individual Americans) give them (Chinese manufacturers) money and they give us *stuff* - useful stuff. Guess what - I have a trade deficit with my local Wal-Mart. There's nothing wrong with that.
Companies don't exist to be admired, and hiring elsewhere isn't against any law - nor should it be.
Trump is right ...Middle class jobs are leaving the country because of free trade laws .. Families that used to be tax payers are now government dependent..
Trump is right ...Middle class jobs are leaving the country because of free trade laws .. Families that used to be tax payers are now government dependent..
Vicious cycle. No good jobs, people rely on government.
On this, we entirely agree.
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