One important factor in creating wealth is minimizing the use of your most expensive resources by finding alternatives. In a wealthy country, human labor is usually one of the most expensive resources you can possibly use. That’s why wealthy people, companies, and countries always replace their most labor-intensive activities ... through automation and/or through relocation of production to cheaper locations.
Why would anyone volunteer to join the Marines and get paid a paltry $1000 a month to get shot at and blown up by a bunch of fanatical rag heads. Makes no economical sense to do that.
Lots of folks see it that way but they're missing the fact that there's a reason the market sets prices as it does. American workers cost ten times as much per hour as does a worker in Togo, and the reason is that it takes ten hours for the Togon to do what an American can do in one.
Don't believe the Marxists who try to say wages are set by privilege, by law, by custom, or anything other than the free market. Marxists lie.
The Tariff Twits live in a fantasy world. Unthinkingly, they overlook the inevitable Step 2 in any tariff regime - acquiring special advantage though political power.
15 minutes after a tariff is imposed, lobbyists seek - and always get - special treatment in the form of exemptions, delays, etc., from politicians. This further distorts price signals in the market.
I learned all I needed to know about tariffs in 1982. I was shopping for my first new truck and had decided on a Toyota. Right then, Reagan capitulated and congress imposed a $500 tariff on Jap trucks (the truck cost about $9000). THE NEXT DAY the Detroit Big 3 raised the sticker price of their competing products by $495. So, not just Jap truck buyers were harmed; EVERY truck buyer was harmed. (It’s called economics.)
Funny, the “job saving” stories appeared on all the networks, but no reporter asked me about the $500 hole in my pocket. Through political influence, I was “taxed” to support a union job and an inefficient producer was subsidized. That’s the way tariffs work - every time.
Increases in standard of living are inextricably tied to productivity gains. By distorting the market’s pricing system, we are all poorer. Some are just too stoopid to recognize it.