Posted on 02/20/2012 4:35:01 PM PST by tobyhill
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum promised Monday to revive manufacturing, cut taxes and shrink government, pledges that drew loud applause from conservative Michigan voters who said he was more in line with their values than native son and GOP rival Mitt Romney.
Santorum's growing connection with Michigan conservatives risks embarrassing Romney in his home state. Romney was counting on a strong finish in Michigan's presidential primary on Feb. 28 to carry him into the big, multistate round of voting a week later on Super Tuesday.
But Santorum, fueled by a recent trio of victories and sensing an opportunity to upset or at least bloody Romney with a strong primary finish of his own, is charging hard at a state that he says shares many of the same characteristics as his blue-collar state of Pennsylvania. Santorum pledged Monday that, under his administration of less government and more individual freedom, "manufacturing jobs will come back here to Muskegon."
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
I worked in printing till about 93 or so when most of the printers ran for the border. There’s still some printing in the area but its almost all related to the auto industry.
My non union shop used to print union contracts and were “on call” during negotiations because the contracts needed to be printed as soon as we got them. Apparently they couldn’t find any unionized printers willing to go to work on short notice in the middle of the night. LOL
Ha, thanks for that! Needed a laugh this morning!
“So did you get a good suit at a good price?”
Yes. I did ask whether there were any suits made in the US and was told that ‘no, there weren’t.’
“Is there something else you wanted that you didn’t get?”
Actually, yes. Shoes.
Why do you ask? If you are impuning that I could have paid a higher price elsewhere or had one tailored, I am not in that position. But none of my suits fit anymore at all, as they’re over a decade old now, and I was ashamed when I had to wear something at a funeral that really wasn’t a suit at all. This is likely to be among the last I ever buy.
I bet it would be super easy for a smart guy like you to state simply and directly just why this is so.
And then please tell us all how much manufacturing is sufficient to constitute this "base".
I hear Larry Kudlow question this issue on occasion too. Personally, the looser the definition the better. The lower we can get tax rates in this section of the economy, the bigger the prosperity boom will be. Add that to the policies on cutting regulations to the bone that Santorum argues, and we can turn this ship around in short order.
Support Rick Santorum for president in 2012.. bring jobs back to America .. America needs something else to trade other than our debt !
“What is “economic warfare”? Do you mean “competition”? Competition is part of reality. We can’t stop it. The Chinese have every right to manufacture stuff and sell it. If they are violating trade agreements then that is something we should take up with them. But if they are just working hard and trying to get rich then so what? Why shouldn’t they?”
No friend...is warfare. The Red Chinese are set on conquering us either economically or militarily....it is just a matter of time. I am primarily a social/morale conservative...but military defense is not far behind. China is a threat to us and our future. I want to put an end to that. The so-called free markets are just an instrument they use to defeat us.
Whether you don’t want to pay more or not...IF I have any say, I will put national security ahead of a “free market” where the Chinese are beating us badly. Plus, much of our military resources must be focused on the Pacific because of the rise of China with empire ambitions - they need to be stopped. By cheap today and your children and grandchildren will pay the price in the future. Every dollar going to Red China is just financing their rise.
A liberal, a moderate and a conservative walk into a bar.
The bartender looks up and says, "Hi Mitt".
OK, I’ll play. Not smart, I just live in a country that is a few years further down the path yours is following.
It is pretty simple.
If you make nothing, what do you have to trade? And if you make nothing, trade you must with those who do produce the things you want and need.
Ideas? That ain’t worked out so well in terms of employment, has it. R&D has an upfront cost that has to be met by someone. Remember the joke when Windows 95 came out? The most dominant operating system in the world sold one copy to China.
Services? To who do you sell them? I live in the banking capital of the world and, according to my son in law who works in the City, you could replace 90% of the people there with a computer and have no downside.
Raw Materials? Ask the Canadians how well that works. The extra value is in the working of the raw materials from high bulk, low profit goods into low bulk high profit goods.
Making actual physical things to sell domestically and for export kicks the whole economy into high gear. Not just at whatever plant is producing the things for sale. You need drivers, which means you need truck builders, road crews, heavy plant builders, shipwrights, steelworks, marine engine makers, powerplant and line workers .... You get the idea.
When we lost a Honda plant here, the official layoff was 1500 people. In fact, it was nigh on 5 times that, thanks to associated layoffs. The reverse holds true too. When a plant is built, employment skyrockets.
As to how much would constitute a base, say 40% of domestic consumption. Roughly what Norway and Germany have and it seems to have cushioned them from the worst effects of the recesion. High enough to be competative, high enough to ensure employment for them as want to work (and some who don’t) and high enough to support R&D without bailouts or grants.
Lots of other people have already weighed in here. Like it or not, this is a key part of Rick Santorum’s appeal to conservative blue collar voters. It's more appealing to the “rustbelt” states of the upper Midwest — states that we absolutely **MUST** win in order to win the general election — but it also could be refitted to appeal to Southerners who are upset about the loss of the textile mills and similar industry that first moved out of the Midwest to the South before moving overseas.
Now Yam, whether you like it or not, there is a conservative argument for being “America First.” I do not believe the federal government belongs in the business of selecting winners or losers in the economy when it comes to choices between American companies, but from a conservative perspective, just exactly what is wrong with saying we need a certain minimum amount of manufacturing capability in the United States for national defense purposes? Just exactly what is wrong with specifying that the federal government will give preference to bidders based in the United States?
The federal government has no business telling Americans what to buy or who to buy it from. As a native Michigander, I refuse to buy a foreign-brand car, and I choose to buy American-made products when I can, even if they're more expensive. The federal government should not be making that choice for me, but it certainly has every right to make that choice in its own purchasing decisions, and in setting tax policy and tariff policy to avoid the complete destruction of our manufacturing capacity.
Don't get me wrong — I really do understand the view of George Bush and his friends that capitalist democracies build roads and infrastructure, not bombs. Bush and his allies made a deliberate decision to try to enable the capitalist-minded people in China in the hope they will prevail in their own country's internal politics.
Unfortunately, what that has generated is not democracy but a fascist or Prussian-style militarized market economy. Read articles like this in the New York Times and ask if that's the country we want controlling our ability to manufacture key items we need for our economy:
Why China’s Political Model Is Superior
By Eric X. Li
Published: February 16, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/opinion/why-chinas-political-model-is-superior.html?_r=1
Notice I did **NOT** say I oppose trade with China. I believe trading with China is a good thing and needs to continue. I do, however, believe we have an important national security issue if we completely export all of our manufacturing capability overseas. To argue that free trade ends wars is simply naive, speaking both historically and pragmatically, because some people simply will not view their self-interest in purely economic terms.
We have no peer-level military competitor on the world stage right now. If we have one in the future, it is most likely to be China. We can hope that China will become a capitalist and democratic economic rival, as Japan has become, and if that happens I'll be very happy.
If it doesn't happen, our current policy on exporting our manufacturing capacity is heading us down a road that leads to a very bad end.
There is no such thing as “making nothing”.
So long as people are working and investing they are making something.
You have not defined “manufacturing”, nor have you demonstrated why any certain amount of it is necessary to an economy.
And all of your hand-waving about the insufficiency to our national purposes of various other classes of economic activity is utterly worthless.
So long as private firms are turning a profit then they are doing what they should.
Neither you nor I nor anyone else knows what the American businesses of tomorrow should be. Let each individual business owner decide for himself where his opportunity lies.
There is no conservative argument for protectionism. If there were, someone would have stated it on this thread already.
...from a conservative perspective, just exactly what is wrong with saying we need a certain minimum amount of manufacturing capability in the United States for national defense purposes?
If you can state rationally why this is so and what the percentage is then do so. If you can't then there's your answer.
Just exactly what is wrong with specifying that the federal government will give preference to bidders based in the United States?
We are not discussing federal purchasing. We are discussing federal subsidies to certain American companies regardless of who buys their products. The fact that you can't follow the discussion should tell you something important.
Answer the question coward, how would the ChiComs respond?
Since the country was funded with tariffs the first 80 years of existence then by your distorted reasoning the founders were liberal. LOL.
In most cases the tariff would not do what you said because the product ISN"T MADE IN THE USA ANYMORE, get it? Example flat screens.
Worth repeating.
central_va: “Since the country was funded with tariffs the first 80 years of existence then by your distorted reasoning the founders were liberal. LOL.”
I think that Central Va has just made the argument based on original intent of the Founders.
I don't have the statistics—others can do a better job of providing them—but my understanding is that the federal government was primarily funded by tariffs on foreign products until the adoption of the federal income tax. If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will point that out as well.
Just because something was done for a long time doesn't mean it was right. I'm not an isolationist and I don't believe in “Fortress America,” for example, and that means I am deliberately and intentionally going against the clearly stated objections of George Washington and other Founders to getting entangled in foreign wars.
However, the history of American tariff policy **DOES** mean a conservative case can be made, based on original intent of the Constitution, for maintaining at least a certain level of manufacturing capability.
Now moving to the issue of whether I can prove we have to have manufacturing capability in the United States to fight wars — as long as we're dealing with relatively small wars like Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, or Afghanistan, I grant your point.
Everything changes if we have to face something like the Soviet Union or China.
You may believe we will never again face a peer-level military conflict. I hope you're right. But what if you're wrong? Is there something wrong with having a military manufacturing capability in the United States that can't be interrupted by cutting the shipping lanes, or by boycotts from foreign enemies?
The strategic petroleum reserve exists for “SHTF” scenarios like that. If anything, it ought to be expanded. It takes years, not weeks or months, to build manufacturing plants. They can't be erected overnight and workers can't be trained overnight.
Right now, if China wanted to do so, they could destroy our economy virtually overnight by cutting off all trade with the United States and preventing South Korea and Japan from exporting goods to the United States. You may say that's about as likely as an invasion from Planet Pluto, and again, I hope you're right — but if so, how do you account for the behavior of the Chinese sixty years ago in Korea? Both Presidents Bush took an important gamble to engage China in commerce to empower its capitalist and commercial classes, and I'm glad they took that gamble, but I'm not happy if trade with China had the unintentional result of destroying our own manufacturing capability.
The fact is that while we are gutting our manufacturing capabilities, China is expanding theirs tremendously. Governments can change quickly, and while capabilities can't be developed quickly, those which already exist can quickly be changed from peaceful to belligerent purposes.
I have said many times that I want to see China become a strong power on the world scene. I would love to see them follow the model of Japan and become an economic powerhouse, competing with us in business and not in belligerent activities. However, preparation is what we do for things we think are unlikely but would be devastating if we guess wrong.
"...because you are stupid." "...If you were smarter..." "he’s an economic ignoramus like you." Argument through insult...not very convincing.
"meaningless since you don’t define “free trade”, “unequal”, and “didn’t work”." Seriously?
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