Protecting People and Jobs

The alternative is to simply make U.S. products worth people's while so they'll willingly buy them in place of imported goods and despite their increased price.Jon

This really deals with two different things:

• The market for labor, and
• The market for goods

If the U.S. wants to make its labor market more appealing, it can do things like educate its citizens and provide them with essential skill sets that will make them worth the extra wages. If the U.S. wants to make its products more appealing, it can improve their quality and work toward innovating solutions to serious global problems such as ways to generate energy with minimal pollution output.These things aren't conceptually difficult. But in practicality they pose quite the challenge. People like Phat will resist with a fiery passion learning new skills or taking on jobs manufacturing products they are unfamiliar with. They'll beller on and on about how it is unfair and suggest nonsense 'solutions' for their competition like "nuking them is a viable option" (Whine & Cheese, # 5).Implementation of these solutions will face opposition at every turn and corner.It will not be easy; but it will be worth it. These aren't solutions, and their only outcome can be a slew of international relations nightmares.Jon

Then we educate them more. These things cannot be helped. Resources aren't evenly distributed in the world. We can't have all the resources, but that only means we have to try that much harder to increase the global value of the resources we do have. Because the quality differences clearly aren't large enough to warrant the extra price. It only means we have to try that much harder to produce quality products that are actually worth their price. Not at all. I mentioned one type of person who absolutely despises the notion of the U.S. competing with other nations on the ridiculous grounds that it isn't 'fair'. Do not think Phat's mentality is unique to Phat; because it is not. Who will want American products if we put up barriers to importing from other nations? A nation cannot import more than it exports and expect no ill from it.Jon

The companies will choose inputs that maximize profits. This does not always mean cheaper labor. Why does it have to come with a similarly large increase in cost? Republicans are people too. With that, there's no incentive for a company to have any of its operations in the U.S.Jon

Why do people need to be able to buy iPads, TVs, and computers? LOL. I have regularly said that education needs to be provided free through the college level if not beyond. And they're free to find a foreign college that is more reasonably affordable because it isn't buckling under the weight of an excessively out of control 'sporting' budget. And we are free to make our universities appealing to prospective students. Minimum wage needs to be gotten rid of. LOL. Do you have any suggestions for helping protect American workers from foreign competition? You seem to think unions are good because they make sure you get paid more despite your lack of education, but what does that do to make the American workforce more competitive?How is a high-paid, uneducated workforce attractive to anyone wanting to start a business?Jon

You're only focusing on inputs, though. Profit is an equation that subtracts the selling price from the production cost, meaning there are two ways of increasing profit: decreasing production cost and/or increasing selling price. The one thing that doesn't have to increase cost is quality of labor. And that will affect the cost of almost all of the inputs.JonEdited by Jon, : No reason given.

And those laborers will get exactly what they ask for then: unemployment. Which is why I've already mentioned that there is considerable pressure on the workforce to make itself more valuable. If the workers don't want to do that, then they are permitted to sit at home unemployed pretending they are too good for any of the jobs out there. Again, not if the increased cost is accompanied by a worth-while increase in quality.Jon

You're missing the point Tangle's trying to make: If the U.S. creates laws that favor keeping manufacturing in the U.S. and restricts imports from manufacturers that don't follow U.S. regulations, then the rest of the world will be encouraged to impose similar restrictions on the import of U.S.-made goods as retaliation measures.Your proposal is isolationist, and that is not a workable position for a country in this day and age.Jon

Compared to some countries they already are. This is a problem beyond the scope of a few tax laws to fix. It's solution will only come from world-wide education and the knowledge that there are better ways to survive than bent over the corporate world's kitchen table.Jon

Then the workers will get what jobs they want: none. LOL. Which is demonstrably untrue. Consumers continue to favor imported goods over home-made ones, even as they get laid off. LOL. You do that.JonEdited by Jon, : No reason given.