[Alberta's Child]

The things you describe are an indication of something a lot of these “protectionists” either don’t know or won’t admit. Foreign competition wasn’t the biggest facto in the decline of manufacturing the Rust Belt ... it was the age and obsolescence of the factories and the changes in supply chains for raw materials.

The Bethlehem Steel plant at Sparrows Point in Baltimore employed 30,000 people at its peak. Compare that to the state-of-the-art steel mill in Calvert, Alabama — jointly owned by ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel. That plant can produce something like six times the volume of Sparrows Point at its peak, with a total staff of fewer than 1,700 workers.

[Leaning Right]

> it was the age and obsolescence of the factories and the changes in supply chains for raw materials <

Some truth there. But America no longer makes the basics. TV sets, shoes, tools, clothing...those things are now all made overseas. And the kid in the inner city, he can’t find a decent job to save his life. Something is very wrong with that.