Given the pace of the world economy, you can't just say "oh, they fucked up, it's their problem." How the hell could you expect, say, a US Steel worker who signed on in 1950 when he was 20, and was fired when the industry went belly-up in this country in 1980 at age 50, too early to retire, too late to retrain, and so "oh well, you should have been clairvoyant enough to see this coming 30 years ago."

Now in this case, it's hard to blame companies that tried their best and failed, but it's much easier to blame companies that just leave behind workers to line their own pockets.

Well that's why I said the free retraining, but it's not the function of companies to provide for that.

As I said, I believe the problem is unfairly low wages in the rest of the world, not corporate greed.

Corporate social responsibility doesn't exist and it's inefficient FOR it to exist. Minimum living standards and ensuring everyone is educated enough and well enough to be able to work are best taken on by the government here. I'm a pragmatist and expecting companies to, for example, care about the environment is stupid.

See, i disagree. I feel that in the long-term we should instill a sense of ethics and responsibility in business, but instead we glorify wealth and greed and plunder as things good in themselves. In the short term, we need to punish those who break these bounds, and in the long-term make a society where we won't need to punish these people because we assume that they're acting in the best interests of everyone, not just their pocketbook.

Free retraining is something that's being talked about, but of course that's going to add to government outlays, not subtract from them, at least in the short term, and that's all the shrieking budget hawks seem to care about.

I respect that view. You have faith in humanity.

In designing policy I assume that everyone from the unemployed up to President will act in their own self-interest and hide and lie as much as they can get away with. I believe the only solution is harsh fairness, transparency, and rigid separation of roles between government and corporations.

Yeah, just cutting things at random is short-sighted. That kind of person should be focusing on government waste, of which there is tens of billions, rather than programmes which actually do what they say they'll do (Social Security keeping people in a house and food, NPR, Planned Parenthood etc). I mean, the military has hardly defended the US at all from terrorism and its actions cause antagonism and mistrust around the world, but those fiscal conservatives never bring up defence contracts as an obvious target.

A lot of the jobs that are "outsourced" were never jobs in the first place. Like the 300,000 people who make Apple products in China. They never made them here. America lost no jobs because of Apple. In fact, Apple's products create all kinds of jobs here in the US.

The only thing McCain said right in 2008 was that the lost manufacturing jobs are gone forever. He's right. We don't necessarily need to bring them back we need to adapt to new markets and train people for new careers. That is something people should do themselves.

Face it we can blame outsourcing all we want. It hasn't worked in the IT industry. I'm in huge demand as a software engineer because India just doesn't cut it. I've been involved with manufacturing in China and it failed and two Indian outsourcing efforts for software and they failed. It doesn't work. China won't be on top forever. All the things people say about China and outsourcing now were said about Japan in the 70s. Chinese labor is already unionizing and demanding more money. Things are getting more expensive there. The world will just move on.

BTW, the reason companies open jobs overseas is because they don't have to pay payroll taxes on those people. And with our huge corporate taxes (highest in the world since Japan lowered theirs) companies can make a corporate presence in another country and pay lower taxes to house workers there. So rather than punish them for sending jobs overseas why don't we stop punishing them for keeping jobs here.

I do not believe Mr. Smith lives in the United States.   As it is now, the United States has gone too much into debt, and the bills have come due.  End result is that the reducing the debt will suck off any benefit of stimulus, and won't happen until the debt gets down.  Factor in decline in standard of living due to globalization, and you are seeing there being a LOT that is bogging things down.  The upper end continues to recover fine, but everyone else is stuck.

It isn't just the federal debt that has issues, but all debt that is a problem.

Ben Stein says budget cuts also have to happen.  He is just pointing out that those alone won't be enough and more revenue is needed.

Congradulations.  You've just forced all companies to move overeseas... along with all the jobs.  SInce nobody is going to want a job that's both expensive and unflexable.

Even all the good jobs like software now go elsewhere.  Pretty much everything not expressily a service job for the country.

Now I know what your thinking... "Put huge excisie taxes on corporations who move!".

Now... the stockholders simply remove all funding from these companies, invest in similar comapanies overseas, likely caused by the same people who make deals overseas and subsidiaries.

Even in a best case legislation way I can't even conceive at the moment you pretty much gurantee no new companies open in the US ever again.

It's the epitome of well meaning legislation with huge negative unintended consequences.

The VAT as a replacement for corporate tax would be the better replacement, bringing in more revenue by catching all overseas companies that do business in America without imposing more of a burden on the ones that are here (maybe slightly more, as the VAT would be calculated to roughly bring in the same revenue as the current corporate rate, but without loopholes), and that excess revenue could work to help retraining programs for victims of outsourcing.

Oh a VAT would work fine.  Since it's basically saying "You will pay for the priveledge of using our consumer base no matter where you are."

The rest of it though... just are awful ideas that would boomerang so fast it'd make your head spin.

As I recall,  a democratic senator did the numbers once and said something like a 5% VAT corporate VAT could replace revenue, completely fund Obamacare or a better healthcare system and help pay down the debt.

It's crazy to have free trade, and then only charge those who create jobs in your country taxes.

Right now all the loopholes are a huge problem.  Which I imagine is why Mitt Romney says he wants to get rid of them anwyay.

Right now all the tax loopholes benefit a few companies, while tons more pay the uncompetitive 32% corporate tax rate or close too it.

New buisnesses that don't file as individuals pretty much have no choice.

It's another reason why new buisnesses get bought out instead of grow.

That's still raising effective taxes and the effect is going to be like a similar to inflation of that percentage. Not that I disagree with raising taxes but VAT isn't going to be magic.