Obama And Romney Are Wrong: Outsourcing Is Actually America At Its Best

Forbes ^ | 07/28/2012 | Harry Binswanger

[SeekAndFind]

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are currently fighting over who is the more patriotic. Obama slams Romney for having outsourced jobs to China during his Bain Capital days. Romney punches back by labeling Obama “Outsourcer in Chief.” The latest is that both John Boehner and Harry Reid are voicing outrage over America’s made-in-China Olympic uniforms. “Burn them!” thunders Reid.

Republicans and Democrats strangely agree that outsourcing is unpatriotic, and that the moral and patriotic thing to do is to “Hire American” and “Buy American.”

Well, no. Not in a thousand years. The fear of outsourcing and international trade is economic nonsense and moral blindness. More than that: this anti-profit attitude is un-American.

Despite the ongoing Europeanization of America, America still symbolizes the land of freedom, entrepreneurship, profit-making, above all, individualism.

But collectivism is the premise of “Hire/Buy American”: we are to view ourselves and others not as individuals, but as units of a nation. Businesses are urged to pay more in labor costs, simply to hire workers who are American; consumers are urged to forgo Walmart’s low prices, pay more, simply because the pricier goods were made by “our guys.” This is not rational patriotism, it is not Americanism, it's primitive tribalism.

American individualism means making buying decisions on the basis of economic merit, giving no regard to the nationality or race of the seller. Let’s not hide behind patriotic-sounding slogans. Let’s name things straight for a change: giving preference to American sellers over foreign sellers is the same mindless injustice as giving preference to sellers who are white over those who are black.

Economic nationalism is as morally outrageous as racism. Buying on the basis of nationality or race is the same collectivist evil: judging men and their products by the group from which they come, not by merit.

[1rudeboy]

It was a trade arrangement that allowed countries, so designated, to have reduced, little, or no tariffs while trading with the US.

No. It is a designation that countries are allowed to go by the book. And the book is here:

Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.

[rurgan]

China has the newer factories, newer equipment, newer machines etc. .so China workers are more productive..

If U.S. workers are so productive then why does China make most of the consumer electronics in the world, most of the world's steel in tons? When 9 billion people in the world turn over their consumer products they see “Made in China”. We the U.S. can't even make our own consumer electronics much less those of the world.

The government has been huge for decades, government regulations have been onerous and numerous for decades . Yes that hurts the U.S. but as you can see from this graph it is only after Clinton signed the china free trade agreement and the U.S. started trading with China much more that the U.S. job creation and economy got annihilated:

[1rudeboy]

post hoc ergo propter hoc

There I go, pointing out another logical fallacy . . . everyone saw what happened last time.

[BfloGuy]

it is my duty as a citizen to make sure this "trade" is fair and is in the best interest of my fellow citizens. Yes, I used the word fair.

It is none of your business whatsoever if I make a trade that is, in your opinion, unfair. All that matters is that the trade is legal (i.e., no drugs) and that I value what I've purchased more than what I've sold.

You sound like Bloomberg. Who the heck are you to worry over what other Americans buy and sell? We are citizens of the United States and that does not make us slaves to each other.

This is the old "common good" argument -- the one the liberals, socialists, and Fascists have relied on for a century. The "common good" is best served when each individual is left free to do what is in his own best interest.

Yours is a very authoritarian outlook.

[BfloGuy]

How did the USA survive as an economic powerhouse before that dumb ass Nixon played nicey nicey with Mao?

You'd be more correct to ponder how the US declined economically after Nixon broke the dollar's link to gold. It's lost 80% of its purchasing power since that happened.

The government's policy of inflation is the root cause of our economic problems.

[BfloGuy]

The U.S. has not created a single net job in the last decade.

That's a Democrat talking point. Millions of jobs were created in the last decade. But when a recession [a recession that was not caused by foreign trade] wipes those out, you get no net gain.

Your obsession with foreign trade is blinding you to reason.

[central_va]

Yours is a very authoritarian outlook.

I explained my position and you can call me names, but I am sticking to it. Why don't you just close the loop and move to China?

[rurgan]

You called it right way back then.

[central_va]

The government's policy of inflation is the root cause of our economic problems.

It doesn't really matter, because all of this "free trade" insanity will end abruptly when the eventual conflict with China over Taiwan erupts. The day the first missile is fired, all of the container ships criss crossing the Pacific will be recalled and left to rust. All the factories owned by western powers in the PRC will be confiscated. And will be LMAO.

[rurgan]

U.S. manufacturing jobs have declined by 36% in the last decade and that is because of trade with other countries. millions of Americans have lost their jobs because of that. We have to stop China now.

China has been destroying the U.S.A. China has caused untold misery, unemployment, homelessness and killed many Americans by denying them a chance to make a living.

So by your logic we have to allow china to do anything to the U.S.A. and Americans individuals or American companies as long as they call it "trade" or economics.NO we need the military for stopping China from invading the U.S. with troops . likewise we need to stop China's economic war against the U.S.A and from what China is doing to Americans. We need the government to protect Americans against armies, against China, against immigrants, against anything foreign. By your logic then we have to allow U.S companies to import an unlimited number of immigrants also( are you for that too?)Yes we need to limit government inside the border but we need a border and to protect that border against immigrants , china , the UN, WTO, .We need a fortress America .We must be for America first and let China go to hell! I declare war against China.

China also manipulates currency and This article is just one more example of how china is destroying what remains of U.S. manufacturing and so destroying the U.S.A. . Every American should read this :

https://www.stlbeacon.org/?_escaped_fragment_=/content/23613/anti_dum
WASHINGTON – Steel wheels, nails and bedsprings made in Missouri are on the list. So are pipes, paintbrushes and coat hangers from Illinois. Not to mention a host of other products, from Silicon Valley electronics to Detroit auto parts.

If it seems that the Chinese are throwing cheaper versions of everything but the kitchen sink at U.S. markets, think again. This month, an Illinois kitchen-sink manufacturer — the Elkay Cos. — asked Washington to slap an “anti-dumping” tariff on Chinese steel sinks.

Whether the product is sinks or steel wheels, the complaints by U.S. manufacturers allege that China unfairly subsidizes the plants that make such products, allowing exporters to sell them in this country at less than fair market value.

In the most recent Missouri case, executives of Hayes Lemmerz — an international steel wheels manufacturer that employs more than 300 people at its plant in Sedalia — asked the U.S. International Trade Commission on March 8 to order punitive duties against Chinese imports that they contend unfairly undercut their prices.

“Don’t let dumped Chinese wheels shut down these plants and cost these good, hardworking Americans their jobs,” said Donald Hampton Jr., who supervises the steel-wheel plants in Sedalia and Akron, Ohio.

[Toddsterpatriot]

You call me an idiot but you don't even understand how China manipulates currency

I've asked you before, explain. Spell it out.

[3Fingas]

Thanks for posting the link. It was very instructive.

The current meaning of MFN is not what it used to mean at the start of this republic. The effect of MFN now is to just grant Normal Trade Relations (NTR); however, that was not always the case. The meaning of the term changed starting in the 1930’s as did the number of countries to which we extended MFN status. If your point is that we do not have free-trade, I agree with you. We don’t. No country in the world truly has free trade. So, it’s a very Utopian idea to believe in free trade. A much more effective approach is to have bilateral trading agreements based on mutual interests and national security considerations. My problem with the pro “free-trade” movement is that they wish to extend NTR and even so-called Free Trade Agreements to countries hostile to our national interest and without regard for the economic consequences of this liberalized trade. They are also very comfortable with the notion of surrendering our sovereignty to extra-Constitutional organizations such as the WTO.
Returning to my point about China’s MFN status, it was a huge sell-out by our politicians and the consequences have been disastrous to our nation. If you don’t think that MFN resulted in reduced tariffs for the Chinese, here’s a report by the CRS which clearly shows the benefit such a status provides:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CGMQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.au.af.mil%2Fau%2Fawc%2Fawcgate%2Fcrs%2Frl30225.pdf&ei=sAUbUKuEG6Pg2QWWtYCQAg&usg=AFQjCNFO7vosfeAc6QNhoqJxbtkjL7iL5g

[central_va]

Link: What Chinese Currency Manipulation Looks Like

[1rudeboy]

Here's another link for you:

Fuel-economy standards will pinch consumers (Replacing Steel with Aluminum to Comply w/Cafe EPA Std.)

To be followed, presently, by protectionists whining that we don't sell enough steel, and therefore steel must be made more expensive.

[1rudeboy]

Good Lord, again. I will gladly pay a tariff on posts to this forum if it will keep protectionists from linking to communist websites.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Thanks, but I really needed the guy who claimed, "By the amount that Chin has undervalued their currency so that a China worker makes 50 cents per hour so their production is really 50 times what it says in dollars"

To post his explanation and proof.

[Toddsterpatriot]

I will gladly pay a tariff on posts to this forum if it will keep protectionists from linking to communist websites.

Well, they do have many areas of agreement with Marx.

[central_va]

It is a lefty website, but the info is presently in a lucid manner. If you don’t like the source do your own research. I should have to explain the currency manipulation to a self professed economic genies.

[3Fingas]

Well, you are right about that. We don’t sell enough steel. We’re too busy selling our scrap to China so that they can send finished goods back to us — minus the scrap they use to modernize and expand their army and rapidly expand their nukes.

Brother, I think you are a patriot (How could you not be seeing as we are both FREEPERS?), but we are going to have to agree to disagree on this subject.

[1rudeboy]

Blow me. If you can’t make an argument without linking to communists, then you are a communist. Alternatively, you don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Same thing.