Killiana1a said:
Agreed 100%. US and European corporations conducting business in China are doing so expressly and purely to avoid paying higher wages, to avoid child labor laws, to avoid 40 hour work weeks, to avoid paying workman's comp, to avoid paying benefits, and to avoid paying any taxes on their goods. What we get are cheaper consumer goods at the cost of tens of millions living wage skilled manufacturing jobs. The trade-off is not fair because everyone suffers except the wealthy. The public sector suffers because that skilled manufacturing tax base has just been moved overseas to places like India, the Philippines, or China. Future generations suffer because their choice after high school is either: 1. Spend tens of thousands in higher education to get a degree which does not guarantee a job with a living wage, 2. Take a low pay service sector job, 3. Join the military, or 4. Start a small business with a 70% chance your small business will fail in 5 years. The remaining workers suffer because they are expected to work the equivalent of 3 jobs. Finally, the retired suffer because their pension is jeopardized with less domestic workers paying into the pension fund. Anyone who argues "comparative advantage" is just rationalizing like a politician who has been caught taking a briefcase full of money from a lobbyist. In my first paragraph, I have already destroyed this argument. If I was the President of the United States, here is how I would handle big business and free trade. If you as a company elect to manufacture overseas, then you have to give me a 5 years of research why the Chinese or Indians are genetically superior in creating a widget. If you do this, then every single foreign made good sold in the US will be hit with a 50% tariff based on the retail price. For example, if you are selling a video game at $60, then you have to pay $30 to the US Government. In turn, the tariff money will be allocated to a new governmental agency called "Made in USA," which will then use the tariff funds as grants to your competitors and any small business needing financial help. Free trade as I see it is called screwing the developed nation worker. |
Don't forget all the millions of people that will be homeless without their living wage jobs in China...
Oh, and an economic collapse. You know they did the thing you suggest - major tariffs for overseas producers - in 1930. It was a major contributor to the depression.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.