(09-17-2011 10:56 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Keep on believing that Mr. Professor. Let me just say that if you can't be competetive and make a profit paying an American worker $8/hour then, get your ass overseas and ban that crap from being shipped here.

Well, nobody can be competitive paying US workers $20/hour (good luck finding anyone who'll work for $8) and paying the highest corporate taxes in the world and dealing with the highest regulatory and litigation risks in the world. So if you plan to build jobs here, you'd better do something about something.

I would favor first, lowering the taxes, and second, streamlining the legal and regulatory processes to provide more certainty and less delay (note this does NOT mean lowering standards or changing the substance, just changing procedures; there is no reason why EPA takes years to issue a drilling permit when Norway can do it in two months while maintaining stricter standards, nor any reason why Europe can approve a new drug in 3 years while FDA takes ten).

With those two things, plus improvements in education and infrastructure to boost productivity, we can compete, even with significant wage differentials. Without those things, we have no choice but the race to the bottom that you claim not to want.

Without one or the other, we're dead.

(09-17-2011 11:09 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(09-17-2011 10:56 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Keep on believing that Mr. Professor. Let me just say that if you can't be competetive and make a profit paying an American worker $8/hour then, get your ass overseas and ban that crap from being shipped here.

Well, nobody can be competitive paying US workers $20/hour (good luck finding anyone who'll work for $8) and paying the highest corporate taxes in the world and dealing with the highest regulatory and litigation risks in the world. So if you plan to build jobs here, you'd better do something about something.

I would favor first, lowering the taxes, and second, streamlining the legal and regulatory processes to provide more certainty and less delay (note this does NOT mean lowering standards or changing the substance, just changing procedures; there is no reason why EPA takes years to issue a drilling permit when Norway can do it in two months while maintaining stricter standards, nor any reason why Europe can approve a new drug in 3 years while FDA takes ten).

With those two things, plus improvements in education and infrastructure to boost productivity, we can compete, even with significant wage differentials. Without those things, we have no choice but the race to the bottom that you claim not to want.

Without one or the other, we're dead.

You should go look at the want ads in the local paper for warehouse work. Most are in the $8-9 range(even in the Chicago area) and I am quite sure they get enough people to fill any vacancies they have. Though, most of it is from staffing firms so they can keep their costs down. I know this from experience so don't even question me on this.

(09-17-2011 11:19 PM)RobertN Wrote:  You should go look at the want ads in the local paper for warehouse work. Most are in the $8-9 range(even in the Chicago area) and I am quite sure they get enough people to fill any vacancies they have. Though, most of it is from staffing firms so they can keep their costs down. I know this from experience so don't even question me on this.

I don't doubt you at all. But if all we are going to have is warehouse jobs, storing stuff made elsewhere, we're not going to have not much of an economy, are we?

We need to be making stuff here. And those jobs where you actually make something pay $20 or more. And we're not losing those jobs to China--at least not all of them. We're losing lots of them to places that pay as much as we do. So pay is obviously not the reason we are losing them.

We have higher wages, and/or higher taxes, and/or higher legal and regulatory risks than the places we're losing jobs to. We can't keep having them and not lose jobs. So which ones are you willing to give up? I've already given you mine.

(09-17-2011 10:56 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Let me just say that if you can't be competetive and make a profit paying an American worker $8/hour then, get your ass overseas and ban that crap from being shipped here.

OK, so I go overseas. How do you have an economy and maintain your standard of living?

One solution is to equalize tariffs. China has an average tariff of 22%. Ours is 3%.

(09-17-2011 11:41 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  One solution is to equalize tariffs. China has an average tariff of 22%. Ours is 3%.

Tom, for once you and I agree. Don't mistake that for me being gay.

(09-17-2011 11:41 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  One solution is to equalize tariffs. China has an average tariff of 22%. Ours is 3%.

Abso-freaking-lutely...

Both parties are bought and paid for by foreign governments and transnational corporations. A tariff would make our good more competitive on our local market, give us leverage to negotiate with them, and add revenue.

(09-19-2011 10:48 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(09-17-2011 11:41 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  One solution is to equalize tariffs. China has an average tariff of 22%. Ours is 3%.

Abso-freaking-lutely...

Both parties are bought and paid for by foreign governments and transnational corporations. A tariff would make our good more competitive on our local market, give us leverage to negotiate with them, and add revenue.

Organized labor is no longer relevant and they know it. With the current tax structure and regulatory burden we will keep hemorrhaging jobs over seas until total economic collapse. Its going to happen. The wheels have been put in motion and there is next to nothing we can do to stop it. An entire nation of consumers who manufacture nothing can't even sustain an employment rate of 90%. Unemployment will go higher. Not to sound all doomsdayish but...I think its readily apparent.

(09-19-2011 10:48 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(09-17-2011 11:41 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  One solution is to equalize tariffs. China has an average tariff of 22%. Ours is 3%.

Abso-freaking-lutely...
Both parties are bought and paid for by foreign governments and transnational corporations. A tariff would make our good more competitive on our local market, give us leverage to negotiate with them, and add revenue.

We can't close the gap with China with tariffs. That's the bad news. The good news is that we don't have to.

We don't want the jobs that go to China. If sewing up Nikes is our economic future, then we are in extremely deep doo-doo from which we will never recover. What we want are the higher tech, upscale, good-paying jobs that never come here because they go to Western Europe or Japan.

One thing that helps a LOT with that, and actually works sort of like a tariff, is a consumption tax. Let's say we have a 15% value-added tax (VAT). EVERY import gets charged the 15%. Even more important, every EXPORT gets the 15% rebated. If you read things about how other countries are subsidizing their exports, when you dig down you will find that what they are talking about most of the time is VAT rebates. We could be doing that right now if we had a consumption tax. We are the only developed country in the world that does not have one, and most developing countries do too. A 15% VAT does not narrow the gap with China enough to matter. But it can reverse the gap with places like Germany that pay their workers comparably with what we pay. And that's enough, that's all we really need, to be just fine.

Just a reminder that your place of business needs to post the new NLRA poster regarding workers' right to form a union by November 14 or face massive fines.

(09-19-2011 05:00 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(09-19-2011 10:48 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(09-17-2011 11:41 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  One solution is to equalize tariffs. China has an average tariff of 22%. Ours is 3%.

Abso-freaking-lutely...
Both parties are bought and paid for by foreign governments and transnational corporations. A tariff would make our good more competitive on our local market, give us leverage to negotiate with them, and add revenue.

We can't close the gap with China with tariffs. That's the bad news. The good news is that we don't have to.

We don't want the jobs that go to China. If sewing up Nikes is our economic future, then we are in extremely deep doo-doo from which we will never recover. What we want are the higher tech, upscale, good-paying jobs that never come here because they go to Western Europe or Japan.

One thing that helps a LOT with that, and actually works sort of like a tariff, is a consumption tax. Let's say we have a 15% value-added tax (VAT). EVERY import gets charged the 15%. Even more important, every EXPORT gets the 15% rebated. If you read things about how other countries are subsidizing their exports, when you dig down you will find that what they are talking about most of the time is VAT rebates. We could be doing that right now if we had a consumption tax. We are the only developed country in the world that does not have one, and most developing countries do too. A 15% VAT does not narrow the gap with China enough to matter. But it can reverse the gap with places like Germany that pay their workers comparably with what we pay. And that's enough, that's all we really need, to be just fine.

Yes, yes, thats what we said about service jobs. Guess what? THey have been outsourced(or insourced). The same is going to happen with the tech jobs. THey will be outsourced to some other country too. You have to have a balance of service, manufacturing and tech.