There is nothing more ironic than the jingoist segment of the population who are also ravenous Walmart shoppers.
It seems like such a no brainer for a political movement/party to run on a platform of restoring Americas manufacturing base.
I think people forget how many second order jobs are lost with the withered manufacturing base. Transportation, IT, HR, restaurants that people eat at on lunch breaks... I can't even enumerate how many second order jobs large scale manufacturing creates...
I regularly go out of my way to pay for American made stuff, so I can say I put my money where my mouth is. Same with shopping locally - farmers markets with local producers etc.
I don't know when well ever snap out of this way of life --- spend less to have more and the quality of life around you declines. Personally I wish my kid had less toys but they're so cheap that grandma and grandpa ship em by the boxful.
I know this is getting downmodded, but hes somewhat right.
"Chindia" is draining our economy, by "draining our economy", I mean its destroying the people who actually do the work.
For every job that is sent overseas, not only does it result in someone, an actual real person, losing their job, but a form of slave labor in a foreign country "hires" the replacement.
If I was President, honestly, I would push for a 0.5% tariff on all goods and services from countries that are not considered first world countries.
I may be unable to improve the conditions of slave laborers in foreign countries (especially China and India due to massively corrupt governments that are doing everything possible to widen the gap between the poor and the rich instead of closing it), but I don't have to support doing business with those who make this possible.
0.5% would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in recaptured revenue, which could be instead spent on trying to preserve jobs in the US instead of exporting them, but it would also be low enough that the consumer would not bear the brunt of this.
>If I was President, honestly, I would push for a 0.5% tariff on all goods and services from countries that are not considered first world countries.
An alternate statement of that idea (which I'm not sure I agree with either), is a tariff on goods and service in the amounts required to bring the hourly foreign labor costs up to the US federal minimum wage with no exemptions.
I was actually considering something similar. Instead, define "first world country" as a county who's median yearly pay is at least half of hours, recognizes basic human rights, recognizes democratic voting, and doesn't punish their population for speaking out against the government or any government sponsored religion (such as the Muslim religion in various middle eastern countries), and also recognizes the rights of women.
As in, fellow countries that believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Attempting to tariff any harder can have extremely adverse effects. The rich wish to remain rich at all costs.
So apparently the real "exorbitant privilegue" is not being able to print the world's (soon to be ex) reserve currency, but being a poor country (Chindia) with billions of people willing to work their way out. Interesting thought.
It seems to me that for most jobs it isn't true that it's being done by slave labor. I know in China, factory jobs pay much more than the average job (2x-3x more). In India, call center workers are considered one of the upper rungs of society - they are thrilled to do it. This can hardly be called slave labor...
2-3x more than 5-10 cents an hour is still slave labor.
Call centers may be well paying jobs in India, but I still view it as kicking an entire society while its down.
In a way, its no different than back before the civil war, white plantation owners would have slaves work inside of the house, ie, a "house negro". The parallels between the two are rather scary.
Its almost like the Civil War was lost in the sense that all we did was export slavery to a country where its legal and accepted.
The comparison would be more apt if abolishing slavery just meant that you couldn't employ black people on plantations. But those people were given rights to work for a wage, buy property with their earnings, or run businesses. What you have right now is that people in the developing world voluntarily entering employment contracts because they are the best available so far. Simply ending those contracts does not do any service. If those contracts are not "fair", we have to ask why that is. Perhaps it is because of protectionist policies in the developed and developing world?
Your argument is not really convincing, because you have neglected to consider that wages paid in foreign markets have quite different purchasing power from the amount that they would have here. Furthermore, the element of coercion is absent.
