(03-30-2016 04:08 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 01:52 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  I have no problem importing Heineken, Fiat, Mercedes, Lindt, Guiness, Daihatsu, Sony, Suzuki, etc. Free trade of goods.

But we should not be importing Carrier, Maytag, GE, Westinghouse, Frigidaire, etc. then we freely traded our manufacturing base...not our goods.

How do you do that without making Carrier, Maytag, et al, noncompetitive with Sony, Suzuki, et al? And if they are noncompetitive, how do they stay in business? And if they fail, what have you accomplished?

If Sony, Suzuki, are building products with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules then if you lose...you lose.

If they aren't, then you put a tarriff on them to level the playing field.

Competition in trade based on efficiency and productivity is ok....not on who has the cheapest exploited labor in the cheapest polluting factory though.

As an aside...tarriffs are terrible when you use them to protect your less efficient and unproductive industry from more efficient and productive competitors.

Tarriffs are legitimate when used to protect your industry from competitors who game the system, manipulate currencies, dump products, exploit workers, etc.

(03-30-2016 04:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:08 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 01:52 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  I have no problem importing Heineken, Fiat, Mercedes, Lindt, Guiness, Daihatsu, Sony, Suzuki, etc. Free trade of goods.

But we should not be importing Carrier, Maytag, GE, Westinghouse, Frigidaire, etc. then we freely traded our manufacturing base...not our goods.

How do you do that without making Carrier, Maytag, et al, noncompetitive with Sony, Suzuki, et al? And if they are noncompetitive, how do they stay in business? And if they fail, what have you accomplished?

If Sony, Suzuki, are building products with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules then if you lose...you lose.

If they aren't, then you put a tarriff on them to level the playing field.

Competition in trade based on efficiency and productivity is ok....not on who has the cheapest exploited labor in the cheapest polluting factory though.

So your solution is to make it to where they have jobs but can't afford to buy anything because the stuff they want to buy is far more expensive.

Hey.....if it makes sense to you then good on ya. Sounds convoluted to me.

(03-30-2016 04:39 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:08 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 01:52 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  I have no problem importing Heineken, Fiat, Mercedes, Lindt, Guiness, Daihatsu, Sony, Suzuki, etc. Free trade of goods.

But we should not be importing Carrier, Maytag, GE, Westinghouse, Frigidaire, etc. then we freely traded our manufacturing base...not our goods.

How do you do that without making Carrier, Maytag, et al, noncompetitive with Sony, Suzuki, et al? And if they are noncompetitive, how do they stay in business? And if they fail, what have you accomplished?

If Sony, Suzuki, are building products with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules then if you lose...you lose.

If they aren't, then you put a tarriff on them to level the playing field.

Competition in trade based on efficiency and productivity is ok....not on who has the cheapest exploited labor in the cheapest polluting factory though.

So your solution is to make it to where they have jobs but can't afford to buy anything because the stuff they want to buy is far more expensive.

Hey.....if it makes sense to you then good on ya. Sounds convoluted to me.

If you want everything dirt cheap, do slave labor. If that's the most important thing to you.

Bottom line though is that the current system is not working for a large swath of the populace...and they are starting to vote with that knowledge.

(03-30-2016 05:08 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:39 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:08 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 01:52 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  I have no problem importing Heineken, Fiat, Mercedes, Lindt, Guiness, Daihatsu, Sony, Suzuki, etc. Free trade of goods.

But we should not be importing Carrier, Maytag, GE, Westinghouse, Frigidaire, etc. then we freely traded our manufacturing base...not our goods.

How do you do that without making Carrier, Maytag, et al, noncompetitive with Sony, Suzuki, et al? And if they are noncompetitive, how do they stay in business? And if they fail, what have you accomplished?

If Sony, Suzuki, are building products with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules then if you lose...you lose.

If they aren't, then you put a tarriff on them to level the playing field.

Competition in trade based on efficiency and productivity is ok....not on who has the cheapest exploited labor in the cheapest polluting factory though.

So your solution is to make it to where they have jobs but can't afford to buy anything because the stuff they want to buy is far more expensive.

Hey.....if it makes sense to you then good on ya. Sounds convoluted to me.

If you want everything dirt cheap, do slave labor. If that's the most important thing to you.

Bottom line though is that the current system is not working for a large swath of the populace...and they are starting to vote with that knowledge.

And your solution isn't going to work either. You can't force other nations to pay at the same rate as us, you can't force them to have the same environmental or safety regulations, and you can't force them to have the same healthcare requirements. You can tax and tariff all you want, but the ultimate cost is paid by the consumer by way of higher prices. In turn most of these countries are going to add the same tax and tariff to goods from the US hurting other industries and costing somebody else their job.

(03-30-2016 05:19 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:08 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:39 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:08 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  How do you do that without making Carrier, Maytag, et al, noncompetitive with Sony, Suzuki, et al? And if they are noncompetitive, how do they stay in business? And if they fail, what have you accomplished?

If Sony, Suzuki, are building products with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules then if you lose...you lose.

If they aren't, then you put a tarriff on them to level the playing field.

Competition in trade based on efficiency and productivity is ok....not on who has the cheapest exploited labor in the cheapest polluting factory though.

So your solution is to make it to where they have jobs but can't afford to buy anything because the stuff they want to buy is far more expensive.

Hey.....if it makes sense to you then good on ya. Sounds convoluted to me.

If you want everything dirt cheap, do slave labor. If that's the most important thing to you.

Bottom line though is that the current system is not working for a large swath of the populace...and they are starting to vote with that knowledge.

And your solution isn't going to work either. You can't force other nations to pay at the same rate as us, you can't force them to have the same environmental or safety regulations, and you can't force them to have the same healthcare requirements. You can tax and tariff all you want, but the ultimate cost is paid by the consumer by way of higher prices. In turn most of these countries are going to add the same tax and tariff to goods from the US hurting other industries and costing somebody else their job.

Nobody is forcing another nation to do anything....you just don't get preferred trade status in our market if you don't have the same cost structures as we do.

The primary point is not to punish other nations, it is to stop our corporations from moving jobs overseas just to avoid our cost structure and standard of living and then import the goods to sell back into our market at a larger profit. The tarriff takes away the incentive for OUR corporations to game the system this way. The incentive against producing domestically is removed.

If Carrier wants to build a plant in Mexico to serve the Mexican market to avoid Mexican tarriffs and can get cheap labor there....good on them. Go for it. Hope they sell a million. Just like Japanese companies build plants here to make cars to sell in our market.

But exploiting lower cost structures in a poverty-ridden country with fewer regulations is not a production efficiency and should not be favored over our own domestic production.

Free trade is not supposed to be a race to the bottom. Too many for whom free trade is a near religion....get pissed when confronted with that.

(03-30-2016 05:42 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:19 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:08 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:39 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  If Sony, Suzuki, are building products with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules then if you lose...you lose.

If they aren't, then you put a tarriff on them to level the playing field.

Competition in trade based on efficiency and productivity is ok....not on who has the cheapest exploited labor in the cheapest polluting factory though.

So your solution is to make it to where they have jobs but can't afford to buy anything because the stuff they want to buy is far more expensive.

Hey.....if it makes sense to you then good on ya. Sounds convoluted to me.

If you want everything dirt cheap, do slave labor. If that's the most important thing to you.

Bottom line though is that the current system is not working for a large swath of the populace...and they are starting to vote with that knowledge.

And your solution isn't going to work either. You can't force other nations to pay at the same rate as us, you can't force them to have the same environmental or safety regulations, and you can't force them to have the same healthcare requirements. You can tax and tariff all you want, but the ultimate cost is paid by the consumer by way of higher prices. In turn most of these countries are going to add the same tax and tariff to goods from the US hurting other industries and costing somebody else their job.

Nobody is forcing another nation to do anything....you just don't get preferred trade status in our market if you don't have the same cost structures as we do.

The primary point is not to punish other nations, it is to stop our corporations from moving jobs overseas just to avoid our cost structure and standard of living and then import the goods to sell back into our market at a larger profit. The tarriff takes away the incentive for OUR corporations to game the system this way. The incentive against producing domestically is removed.

If Carrier wants to build a plant in Mexico to serve the Mexican market to avoid Mexican tarriffs and can get cheap labor there....good on them. Go for it. Hope they sell a million. Just like Japanese companies build plants here to make cars to sell in our market.

But exploiting lower cost structures in a poverty-ridden country with fewer regulations is not a production efficiency and should not be favored over our own domestic production.

Free trade is not supposed to be a race to the bottom. Too many for whom free trade is a near religion....get pissed when confronted with that.

So you want to force corporations who exist for the sole reason to make a profit to make less of a profit? Maybe instead of punishing the corporations for doing the exact thing they are supposed to be doing we should look at why we are forcing them to move out of the US to begin with.

(03-30-2016 04:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:08 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 01:52 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  I have no problem importing Heineken, Fiat, Mercedes, Lindt, Guiness, Daihatsu, Sony, Suzuki, etc. Free trade of goods.
But we should not be importing Carrier, Maytag, GE, Westinghouse, Frigidaire, etc. then we freely traded our manufacturing base...not our goods.

How do you do that without making Carrier, Maytag, et al, noncompetitive with Sony, Suzuki, et al? And if they are noncompetitive, how do they stay in business? And if they fail, what have you accomplished?

If Sony, Suzuki, are building products with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules then if you lose...you lose.
If they aren't, then you put a tarriff on them to level the playing field.
Competition in trade based on efficiency and productivity is ok....not on who has the cheapest exploited labor in the cheapest polluting factory though.

Because of our lack of a consumption tax and our corporate tax rate, we are not competitive with those people who are making products "with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules." We have to be about 20% cheaper to compete with them.

Several problems if you try to level the playing field with a tariff. One, the only place you can level it with a tariff is the US domestic market. You still have the 20% differential everywhere else. That means companies that build stuff here can't compete in the global marketplace. A US tariff doesn't help them anywhere else. Two, we are probably going to violate treaties and agreements that we've signed. We've been beaten up by the WTO and predecessor tribunals in the past for breaking international law in this regard. Three, they can retaliate with tariffs against US companies that are able to export there. And not only them, but anybody who gets pissed off by our violation of international law can do the same. Four, what we've now done is make those items more expensive here, which drives up our cost of living, translating ultimately into higher wages which price even more of our products off the world market.

This is the point you are missing. It's not just countries with cheap exploited labor and polluting factories that we can't compete with. We have a negative balance of trade with Europe. They have similar wages, more benefits, and thanks to the EU some frankly absurd regulatory hoops to jump through. But they beat us with a consumption tax and lower corporate tax rates.

The problem is not that we can't compete with China. The problem is that we can't compete with Germany. If we could, a lot of this would sort itself out relatively quickly and favorably.

(03-30-2016 05:52 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:42 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:19 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:08 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:39 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  So your solution is to make it to where they have jobs but can't afford to buy anything because the stuff they want to buy is far more expensive.

Hey.....if it makes sense to you then good on ya. Sounds convoluted to me.

If you want everything dirt cheap, do slave labor. If that's the most important thing to you.

Bottom line though is that the current system is not working for a large swath of the populace...and they are starting to vote with that knowledge.

And your solution isn't going to work either. You can't force other nations to pay at the same rate as us, you can't force them to have the same environmental or safety regulations, and you can't force them to have the same healthcare requirements. You can tax and tariff all you want, but the ultimate cost is paid by the consumer by way of higher prices. In turn most of these countries are going to add the same tax and tariff to goods from the US hurting other industries and costing somebody else their job.

Nobody is forcing another nation to do anything....you just don't get preferred trade status in our market if you don't have the same cost structures as we do.

The primary point is not to punish other nations, it is to stop our corporations from moving jobs overseas just to avoid our cost structure and standard of living and then import the goods to sell back into our market at a larger profit. The tarriff takes away the incentive for OUR corporations to game the system this way. The incentive against producing domestically is removed.

If Carrier wants to build a plant in Mexico to serve the Mexican market to avoid Mexican tarriffs and can get cheap labor there....good on them. Go for it. Hope they sell a million. Just like Japanese companies build plants here to make cars to sell in our market.

But exploiting lower cost structures in a poverty-ridden country with fewer regulations is not a production efficiency and should not be favored over our own domestic production.

Free trade is not supposed to be a race to the bottom. Too many for whom free trade is a near religion....get pissed when confronted with that.

So you want to force corporations who exist for the sole reason to make a profit to make less of a profit? Maybe instead of punishing the corporations for doing the exact thing they are supposed to be doing we should look at why we are forcing them to move out of the US to begin with.

If our corporations were allowed to bribe....they could be more profitable. We don't allow it.

Some of our corporations could be pretty profitable if they could trade sensitive stuff with Iran and North Korea. We don't allow it.

Cost reduction and additional marginal profits for corporations don't trump business ethics...and they don't trump national security (at least not usually).

The idea that corporate cost reductions DO trump our standard of living, our workers, and the health of our economy is a debatable point I guess. But a lot of voters are starting to think that they don't. Voters in the Democratic Party....and voters in the Republican Party.

Cost reductions and marginal profits for US corporations are not the raison d'etre of the United States of America. A shockingly revolutionary thought I know.

Your main problem is that you are essentially arguing for the status quo in regard to free trade. That's fine, but the status quo is obviously not working for a large number of Americans.

(03-30-2016 05:42 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  Nobody is forcing another nation to do anything....you just don't get preferred trade status in our market if you don't have the same cost structures as we do.
The primary point is not to punish other nations, it is to stop our corporations from moving jobs overseas just to avoid our cost structure and standard of living and then import the goods to sell back into our market at a larger profit. The tarriff takes away the incentive for OUR corporations to game the system this way. The incentive against producing domestically is removed.
If Carrier wants to build a plant in Mexico to serve the Mexican market to avoid Mexican tarriffs and can get cheap labor there....good on them. Go for it. Hope they sell a million. Just like Japanese companies build plants here to make cars to sell in our market.
But exploiting lower cost structures in a poverty-ridden country with fewer regulations is not a production efficiency and should not be favored over our own domestic production.
Free trade is not supposed to be a race to the bottom. Too many for whom free trade is a near religion....get pissed when confronted with that.

So, do you give preferred trade status to countries that have consumption taxes and 20% corporate tax rates? If you do, then US companies are still at a huge disadvantage. If you don't, then there's nobody we can trade with. Which way do you go?

Free trade doesn't have to be a race to the bottom, because it isn't. The EU all have free trade, and which ones are running a race to the bottom? OK, maybe Greece, and Spain and Portugal, but free trade isn't the problem there.

See, here's what's going on. There are a lot of people who don't want to do what's necessary to make US companies competitive, because it sone't fit their socialist redistributionist world view. They don't want to talk about things like consumption taxes and lower corporate tax rates, because those things don't suit their mantra. So they have to deflect the discussion to China, because they can get a lot of people pissed off and emotional, and thereby take them away from the facts. And I'm sorry, but you're falling for it.

(03-30-2016 06:08 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:52 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:42 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:19 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:08 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  If you want everything dirt cheap, do slave labor. If that's the most important thing to you.

Bottom line though is that the current system is not working for a large swath of the populace...and they are starting to vote with that knowledge.

And your solution isn't going to work either. You can't force other nations to pay at the same rate as us, you can't force them to have the same environmental or safety regulations, and you can't force them to have the same healthcare requirements. You can tax and tariff all you want, but the ultimate cost is paid by the consumer by way of higher prices. In turn most of these countries are going to add the same tax and tariff to goods from the US hurting other industries and costing somebody else their job.

Nobody is forcing another nation to do anything....you just don't get preferred trade status in our market if you don't have the same cost structures as we do.

The primary point is not to punish other nations, it is to stop our corporations from moving jobs overseas just to avoid our cost structure and standard of living and then import the goods to sell back into our market at a larger profit. The tarriff takes away the incentive for OUR corporations to game the system this way. The incentive against producing domestically is removed.

If Carrier wants to build a plant in Mexico to serve the Mexican market to avoid Mexican tarriffs and can get cheap labor there....good on them. Go for it. Hope they sell a million. Just like Japanese companies build plants here to make cars to sell in our market.

But exploiting lower cost structures in a poverty-ridden country with fewer regulations is not a production efficiency and should not be favored over our own domestic production.

Free trade is not supposed to be a race to the bottom. Too many for whom free trade is a near religion....get pissed when confronted with that.

So you want to force corporations who exist for the sole reason to make a profit to make less of a profit? Maybe instead of punishing the corporations for doing the exact thing they are supposed to be doing we should look at why we are forcing them to move out of the US to begin with.

If our corporations were allowed to bribe....they could be more profitable. We don't allow it.

Some of our corporations could be pretty profitable if they could trade sensitive stuff with Iran and North Korea. We don't allow it.

Cost reduction and additional marginal profits for corporations don't trump business ethics...and they don't trump national security (at least not usually).

The idea that corporate cost reductions DO trump our standard of living, our workers, and the health of our economy is a debatable point I guess. But a lot of voters are starting to think that they don't. Voters in the Democratic Party....and voters in the Republican Party.

Cost reductions and marginal profits for US corporations are not the raison d'etre of the United States of America. A shockingly revolutionary thought I know.

Your main problem is that you are essentially arguing for the status quo in regard to free trade. That's fine, but the status quo is obviously not working for a large number of Americans.

I'm not advocating on the status quo, what I am advocating for is the fact that you aren't going to tax and tariff the problem away. If anything what you propose is going to cause even more problems for our economy between pricing the little guy out of the market altogether and forcing tons of corporations into bankruptcy when you destroy our export market.

As I said maybe instead of punishing corporations from doing the exact thing they are designed to do....make as much profit as they legally can....by moving overseas and taking their jobs with them we should find out why they left in the first place and fix that. But I guess you can't get that warm and fuzzy feeling that some people get when they bash corporations if you do that.

(03-30-2016 06:02 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:24 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:08 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 01:52 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  I have no problem importing Heineken, Fiat, Mercedes, Lindt, Guiness, Daihatsu, Sony, Suzuki, etc. Free trade of goods.
But we should not be importing Carrier, Maytag, GE, Westinghouse, Frigidaire, etc. then we freely traded our manufacturing base...not our goods.

How do you do that without making Carrier, Maytag, et al, noncompetitive with Sony, Suzuki, et al? And if they are noncompetitive, how do they stay in business? And if they fail, what have you accomplished?

If Sony, Suzuki, are building products with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules then if you lose...you lose.
If they aren't, then you put a tarriff on them to level the playing field.
Competition in trade based on efficiency and productivity is ok....not on who has the cheapest exploited labor in the cheapest polluting factory though.

Because of our lack of a consumption tax and our corporate tax rate, we are not competitive with those people who are making products "with 40 hour a week adult workers with similar payscales, health benefits, safety, and environmental rules." We have to be about 20% cheaper to compete with them.

Several problems if you try to level the playing field with a tariff. One, the only place you can level it with a tariff is the US domestic market. You still have the 20% differential everywhere else. That means companies that build stuff here can't compete in the global marketplace. A US tariff doesn't help them anywhere else. Two, we are probably going to violate treaties and agreements that we've signed. We've been beaten up by the WTO and predecessor tribunals in the past for breaking international law in this regard. Three, they can retaliate with tariffs against US companies that are able to export there. And not only them, but anybody who gets pissed off by our violation of international law can do the same. Four, what we've now done is make those items more expensive here, which drives up our cost of living, translating ultimately into higher wages which price even more of our products off the world market.

This is the point you are missing. It's not just countries with cheap exploited labor and polluting factories that we can't compete with. We have a negative balance of trade with Europe. They have similar wages, more benefits, and thanks to the EU some frankly absurd regulatory hoops to jump through. But they beat us with a consumption tax and lower corporate tax rates.

The problem is not that we can't compete with China. The problem is that we can't compete with Germany. If we could, a lot of this would sort itself out relatively quickly and favorably.

Again, I don't necessarily disagree with most of your points (especially that first paragraph).

On the tariffs you are correct about the differential elsewhere. But the US domestic market is a good place to start. On the treaties...they are bad treaties that are more concerned with things other than fair trade so...I don't care about those. I'm also of the opinion that US regulators should be making decisions about our fate and NOT some international body like the WTO. And yes, other countries can put tariffs on our goods, but a trade war with the US isn't going to be that appealing....it may be just easier for them to start working on competing fairly instead.

And yes, if you go to Wal-Mart and buy some tennis shoes they might just cost a bit more. Sucks I know. Perhaps Nike will reduce the outrageous markup a tiny bit to help you out. Maybe not.

Our discussion doesn't really matter, what does is what the voters think. Perhaps cheap goods are more important to them than jobs. But they seem to be getting kinda twitchy.

(03-30-2016 06:21 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 06:08 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:52 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:42 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 05:19 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  And your solution isn't going to work either. You can't force other nations to pay at the same rate as us, you can't force them to have the same environmental or safety regulations, and you can't force them to have the same healthcare requirements. You can tax and tariff all you want, but the ultimate cost is paid by the consumer by way of higher prices. In turn most of these countries are going to add the same tax and tariff to goods from the US hurting other industries and costing somebody else their job.

Nobody is forcing another nation to do anything....you just don't get preferred trade status in our market if you don't have the same cost structures as we do.

The primary point is not to punish other nations, it is to stop our corporations from moving jobs overseas just to avoid our cost structure and standard of living and then import the goods to sell back into our market at a larger profit. The tarriff takes away the incentive for OUR corporations to game the system this way. The incentive against producing domestically is removed.

If Carrier wants to build a plant in Mexico to serve the Mexican market to avoid Mexican tarriffs and can get cheap labor there....good on them. Go for it. Hope they sell a million. Just like Japanese companies build plants here to make cars to sell in our market.

But exploiting lower cost structures in a poverty-ridden country with fewer regulations is not a production efficiency and should not be favored over our own domestic production.

Free trade is not supposed to be a race to the bottom. Too many for whom free trade is a near religion....get pissed when confronted with that.

So you want to force corporations who exist for the sole reason to make a profit to make less of a profit? Maybe instead of punishing the corporations for doing the exact thing they are supposed to be doing we should look at why we are forcing them to move out of the US to begin with.

If our corporations were allowed to bribe....they could be more profitable. We don't allow it.

Some of our corporations could be pretty profitable if they could trade sensitive stuff with Iran and North Korea. We don't allow it.

Cost reduction and additional marginal profits for corporations don't trump business ethics...and they don't trump national security (at least not usually).

The idea that corporate cost reductions DO trump our standard of living, our workers, and the health of our economy is a debatable point I guess. But a lot of voters are starting to think that they don't. Voters in the Democratic Party....and voters in the Republican Party.

Cost reductions and marginal profits for US corporations are not the raison d'etre of the United States of America. A shockingly revolutionary thought I know.

Your main problem is that you are essentially arguing for the status quo in regard to free trade. That's fine, but the status quo is obviously not working for a large number of Americans.

I'm not advocating on the status quo, what I am advocating for is the fact that you aren't going to tax and tariff the problem away. If anything what you propose is going to cause even more problems for our economy between pricing the little guy out of the market altogether and forcing tons of corporations into bankruptcy when you destroy our export market.

As I said maybe instead of punishing corporations from doing the exact thing they are designed to do....make as much profit as they legally can....by moving overseas and taking their jobs with them we should find out why they left in the first place and fix that. But I guess you can't get that warm and fuzzy feeling that some people get when they bash corporations if you do that.

Find out why they left? The reason they left is obvious. They can move to places with a low standard of living, low wages, lax labor laws, lax environmental laws, lax product safety laws, low taxes, and produce cheaper and then import and pocket the difference. That is why they leave and do not produce domestically.

Producing stuff at the cheapest possible price and selling it at the highest possible price may be the primary purpose of corporations...and that's all well and good....but it is not the primary purpose of the United States of America.

This idea has been promulgated that the purpose of the United States is to help Apple and McDonald's have the best possible balance sheet. But...they don't vote....so that's probably wrong.

There is a balance here. Fair trade is a good thing.

Two questions to help frame the discussion.

If China is the problem, why do we have trade deficits with Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Poland, and Finland (those are the only ones I checked, there are many more)?

Do you really think we can build a middle class sewing up Nikes?

Why do we have a negative balance of trade with Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden (the list keeps growing)?

(03-30-2016 06:46 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Do you really think we can build a middle class sewing up Nikes?

We are a lot more likely to build up a middle class sewing Nikes than we are with them sitting around on food stamps or hanging around on street corners with nothing to do.

(03-30-2016 06:37 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  Find out why they left? The reason they left is obvious. They can move to places with a low standard of living, low wages, lax labor laws, lax environmental laws, lax product safety laws, low taxes, and produce cheaper and then import and pocket the difference. That is why they leave and do not produce domestically.

What about the ones that leave to go to places that don't have "a low standard of living, low wages, lax labor laws, lax environmental laws, lax product safety laws, low taxes"? What about the ones that don't move at all, but simply add facilities in countries that don't have those things, instead of expanding here? How do you explain those?

And what is particularly important is that the jobs that go to those places with those low standards of living and the other things you allege are the jobs sewing up Nikes that don't and won't ever pay middle class wages? The high-paying jobs that will sustain a middle class are going largely to places that have comparable living standards and regulations.

Quote:This idea has been promulgated that the purpose of the United States is to help Apple and McDonald's have the best possible balance sheet.

False. Complete mischaracterization of the argument. I haven't seen anyone arguing anything remotely like the purpose of the US is to help Apple and McDonald's have the best possible balance sheets. But the purposes of Apple and McDonald's are to help Apple and McDonald's have the best possible balance sheets and income statements. And US policy must consider that. If we want Apple and McDonald's to do business in the US, we must make the US a good place for them to do business. If we don't, then why should they stay here?

(03-30-2016 06:57 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 06:46 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Do you really think we can build a middle class sewing up Nikes?

We are a lot more likely to build up a middle class sewing Nikes than we are with them sitting around on food stamps or hanging around on street corners with nothing to do.

Are we? Really?

Maybe a 1% chance versus a 0% chance, but that's about it. Highly unlikely, at best, in either case.

And if China is the problem, why do we have negative trade balances with all those countries that I listed (and i could have listed a lot more, those are just the only ones I checked)?

(03-30-2016 07:00 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 06:37 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  Find out why they left? The reason they left is obvious. They can move to places with a low standard of living, low wages, lax labor laws, lax environmental laws, lax product safety laws, low taxes, and produce cheaper and then import and pocket the difference. That is why they leave and do not produce domestically.

What about the ones that leave to go to places that don't have "a low standard of living, low wages, lax labor laws, lax environmental laws, lax product safety laws, low taxes"? What about the ones that don't move at all, but simply add facilities in countries that don't have those things, instead of expanding here? How do you explain those?

And what is particularly important is that the jobs that go to those places with those low standards of living and the other things you allege are the jobs sewing up Nikes that don't and won't ever pay middle class wages? The high-paying jobs that will sustain a middle class are going largely to places that have comparable living standards and regulations.

Quote:This idea has been promulgated that the purpose of the United States is to help Apple and McDonald's have the best possible balance sheet.

False. Complete mischaracterization of the argument. I haven't seen anyone arguing anything remotely like the purpose of the US is to help Apple and McDonald's have the best possible balance sheets. But the purposes of Apple and McDonald's are to help Apple and McDonald's have the best possible balance sheets and income statements. And US policy must consider that. If we want Apple and McDonald's to do business in the US, we must make the US a good place for them to do business. If we don't, then why should they stay here?

1) If Carrier adds facilities in Mexico under that cost structure to sell air conditioners in Mexico...more power to them. But if they add facilities to take advantage of the price structure for manufactured goods in the US while avoiding the cost structure of the US labor market.....no thank you.

2) I have no problem with US trade policy considering that. I do have a problem with the idea that it is the primary function of US trade policy...and the rest of the effects on the economy be damned as long as corporate cost savings are in play.

(03-30-2016 07:13 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  1) If Carrier adds facilities in Mexico under that cost structure to sell air conditioners in Mexico...more power to them. But if they add facilities to take advantage of the price structure for manufactured goods in the US while avoiding the cost structure of the US labor market.....no thank you.

I'm pretty sure Carrier wants to sell air conditioners all over the world--Mexico, Brazil, India, South Africa, Russia, China, Philippines, Australia, you name it. I actually seem to recall reading that one of the factors in their decision was that Mexico has free trade agreements with more countries than does any other country. And the US is not a competitive place to manufacture for the global market. So would you be happy if they had one plant in the US to make just for the US market, and another in Mexico to make for the rest of the world? And what incentive does Carrier have in that situation to shut down the US plant and make all air conditioners in Mexico? Suppose we slap a tariff on them. How do you defend that before the WTO? Should we withdraw from the WTO? So should we become North Korea or 18th century Japan? Where do you want to go with this? There are limits on what we can do, you know that, right?

Quote:2) I have no problem with US trade policy considering that. I do have a problem with the idea that it is the primary function of US trade policy...and the rest of the effects on the economy be damned as long as corporate cost savings are in play.

WTF gives you the idea that is the primary fiction of US trade policy? I've seen zero indication of that.

We get bad trade deals because are negotiating from a position of weakness and that gives us no leverage. The two things I am proposing--a consumption tax and competitive corporate tax rates--change that and give us the leverage that a market the size of ours should command.