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.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Again by flexing military muscle. Do you really think that's going to work in today's world?
Trump's plan, so much as he has a plan, appears to be that he's going to rip up all existing trade agreements on day one of his administration and have new ones in place by day two. And that he will bring back all those jobs back to America while creating a trade balance in the bargain. And none of you sees any flaws in that?
Absolutely. And the interesting thing is, in Panama, in Japan, 99% of the time for the Brits, we never had to fire a shot. Absolutely it works.
Few actual British colonial settlements in China. Of course, you know that an know it works.
Of course, and that's largely my point.
Our manufacturing future is in high value, technologically driven, innovative processes. Not the low skill, labor intensive commodity production factories that were the staple of the economy for many years. Those jobs are gone and not coming back.
The issue we have to face is that modern manufacturing requires a lot fewer, but more highly skilled, workers.
American manufacturing output has continued to grow and is now at it's highest level ever, but manufacturing employment has been in a long decline as we've made great leaps in productivity.
We can and will kick ass in manufacturing, but only if we face reality and provide the training and skills workers need to compete today.
Trying to bring commodity production back to the US by imposing tariffs is a losers game.
Yes, I do as a matter of fact, because I actually worked there in 1990. Starting in 1987-88, GM and Ford began their first efforts at moving their parts operations down to mexico. They already had operations set up in Canada, but the labor rates south of the border were too enticing to continue there. By 1994, GM spun off most of their parts operations, and focused on being a commercial bank that just happened to build cars. Throughoit the 1990’s the big three divested just about all of their non-core business units, loading them up with debt, and selling them to unsuspecting buyers.
The final straw was the GM “china pricing” mandate made to the tier suppliers. This was a combination of the chinese setting the price for parts, and GM forcing suppliers to open parallel operations in china, or get dumped. Seeing as how these suppliers also supplied other US automakers, ALL of them had no real choice; either cave in and offshore, or go belly-up.
25+ years later, and thanks to those technology transfers and capital infusions, china is now eating our lunch, and has the ability to go toe to toe with the US, and possibly win.
Only? If they were the only source of revenue, why did they never hit 100% in the table, and why were they only 25% in 1865 or so? Looks like we had other sources of revenue and the tariff's importance dropped over the decades, as I said.
Not much into numbers are you?
Gunboat diplomacy in 2017. They live in a dreamworld. The good thing is Trump is just playing to their simple-minded populist beliefs. If he wins, there will be no gunboats going up any river to force trade.
No. We would have those 90 million Americans working, building the robots and maintaining the robots. Our youth would be doing that instead of serving burgers and coffee.
Time for Trump
Land sales declined very sharply after 1870. Not much into reality or generalizations are you.
Give it up.
I think you forgot which side you're on. If land sales declined, wouldn't that raise the percentage of revenue collected by tariffs?
Remember, your position is that tariffs sustained their importance, my position is tariffs lost their importance over the decades with respect to revenue.
lol
And that to me is even worse than the loss of machinery.
The machines are not all that hard to build if you have the blueprints, a decent transportation infrastructure, and enough people who at least have a fair idea how to build and maintain them. (experience beats ‘book smarts’ a lot in that particular field) To destroy our manufacturing capacity in, say, the 1950’s you’d have had to literally level us back to the stone age.
But if you have a massive lack of qualified personnel as America does now...you are in a sore spot indeed if the imports suddenly go away. To reword an old saying “Machines may not make more skilled workers, but skilled workers can always make you more machines.”
A more substantive answer would have been helpful.
You forgot that he intends to ensure manufacturers make it America, and bring production back. Some of his tariffs are to be used against Ford for going to Mexico....
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