Posted on 03/20/2016 2:57:17 PM PDT by central_va
The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution.
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What exactly are we going to produce with a 63% increase in manufacturing capacity, and who is going to buy it?
Until one of them decides they'll take less than 12%.
A tariff is a tax. You are just raising costs to our businesses. That money will be mispent just like all money going to the government is.
They are not mutually exclusive. BTW was George Washington a liberal? He signed the Tariff act of 1789.
A classical liberal, yes. 70 years later we knew tariffs were a disaster and most were abolished or reduced to a non-consequential rate.
That’s a legitimate point, but it meant far more in 1940 than it does in 2016. The need for large-scale industrial capacity for military purposes is almost non-existent in an age of space travel and intercontinental ballistic missiles. A war that is fought today using 1940s-era military capabilities would last about two hours.
So he threatens them and they give in? Just like that?
If you haven't noticed the rest of the world is a hell-hole for business, through poor workforces and/or corruption. Labor costs aren't the incentive for businesses to offshore, it's our own hellishly high corporate taxes and regulation costs.
The USA has fought 4 major wars since WWII where one nuclear device would have ended the conflict instantly, yet all four conflicts were fought conventionally. Nuclear weapons will never be used afain when both sides can use them.
Great then the tariff is working!
the problem is not the person with eight grade education. the problem is those getting masters Degrees and PHD”s.
most of those that have only a high school diploma are doing the grunt work and cant hurt the economy that bad. The problem is that a lot of people who have gone to school to become the leaders of today in business and politics are making real bad decisions.
Really? So if Ford doubled its production of every vehicle model it produces, it would have no trouble selling them all?
Only if the assumption that the next war will only either be a nuclear holocaust or a shootout with Third World chumps. It may well prove to be neither, and it would be prudent to guard against any eventualities, especially when to do so would be of more benefit by employing people in this country as opposed to employing hordes of Chinese and transferring wealth and power there.
The U.S. is still involved in ongoing military campaigns today. Are we in danger of running out of ammunition or military hardware?
Yep, and we have a choice now between a conservative who would take conservative steps and a populist who would take the liberal step of raising taxes (tariffs). You choose the liberal step.
As for environmental regulation changes, and massive welfare reduction? Really? In what universe? We had significant welfare reduction in the 1990s, but while it did move people off welfare, it did NOT move them into higher paying jobs. Most remained in the minimum wage range.
People were doing well after the Contract with America. But like I said, welfare reduction is just one of the steps we need to take, we need more than one.
And fair trade is not a “liberal” step. It is Adam Smith’s step, and George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln’s “step.”
We had 70 years to learn tariffs are a disaster, and most were reduced or eliminated by the 1850s. We have an efficient way now to collect taxes that are business friendly, the low flat income tax. Tariffs only raise costs to business and drive business to non-tariff countries.
We traveled through hundreds of small towns and noticed countless scuttled manufacturing facilities. It was worse than I could have imagined. Large factories with thousands of sq ft foot prints vacant, knee high weeds growing through the cracks of the cement employee parking lots.
Free trade? I say treason! Our country has been sold out.
I've heard, America has the highest corporate tax rate than other countries, higher cost of regulation that drove corporations overseas.
Perhaps this is true to some extent. May I submit, why is it that a recent report revealed scores of multi-billion dollar corporations had zero to negative federal income tax burdens? Corporations moved operations to China in large part that have little or NO regulation, little or NO environmental safeguards, little or NO worker safeguards. Apple, Nike to name a couple, caught red handed utilizing child labor, slave labor in these developing countries.
China's air/water quality is atrocious. Where is the level playing field for American workers? There is no way Americans can compete against these conditions.
Workers in China worked 16 hours a day for paltry wages, lil or no benefits to advance their standard of living. In fact, Foxconn installed nets around their manufacturing facilities to catch workers attempting to commit suicide by jumping from the roof. Many died before they installed the nets. Just insane!
Nafta was sold as a trade agreement that would eventually raise the standard of living of the average Mexican worker...never happened. These workers still receive only a few dollars a day and many corporations moved operations from Mexico to China when labor cost rose, abandoning these workers. Many people in Mexico suffering from elevated cancer clusters from improper disposal of manufacturing waste into the Rio Grande river.
Free trade? This is in no way, no how free trade nor is it fair trade. It is now a national security issue. The middle class has been crushed as the largest transfer of wealth in global history happened before our very eyes and the American people were fed a pack of lies in an effort to quiet opposition to the “HUGE SUCKING SOUND” of jobs leaving this country.
Sorry for the length and the rant, but I'm pissed that Americans have been treated this way. Politicians stuffing their pockets with corporate campaign cash in exchange for grossly lopsided trade deals that stuff the pockets of greedy crony capitalist and power hungry government elites. I love capitalism, but this is not your father's capitalism. It is a perversion of it and American workers have been gut kicked time and again.
Time for change.
That is how empires go broke and disappear.
You need to reread your tariff history.
“What exactly are we going to produce with a 63% increase in manufacturing capacity, and who is going to buy it? “
Goods at least as cheap, and people who have jobs buy goods with their own money, as opposed to borrowed money or money transferred to them by the government.
I don't know how long a sustained conflict with a Russia or China could be maintained. I would like to err on the side of a strong industrial base unlike the more traitorous among us.
“That is how empires go broke and disappear. “
Precisely how the situation stands now.
Go Trump!
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