The American Workers should be Protected

[Anders Hoveland]

The American worker cannot and should not have to compete with impoverished third world laborers willing to work for survival level wages!

 

I have no problem with free trade with another country, but only when it has similar living standards and environmental protection laws.

 

I know Reaver is going to jump into this thread and complain that protectionism prevents the economy from expanding and would start trade wars. What will really prevent the economy from expanding is if the wages of the American worker decline even more. Yes, trade with China is lowering prices of many consumer goods, but it is driving down wages much more.

 

American exports to China are insignificant when compared to imports. The USA would have far more to gain than to lose in a trade war with China. Trade with Mexico is somewhat different. I do not like it, for several good reasons, but it is far better than more unemployed Mexicans illegally entering the USA to work, so one cannot begin to argue against trade with Mexico until the problem of illegal immigration into the USA has been delt with.

 

The USA is a huge country with enough natural resources and a huge, specialized, labor force, and diversified industries. It could get along completely fine without any trade with outside world, with the possible exception of its insatiable addiction to petroleum. Lack of free trade certainly is not, and would not be, a real cause of lower living standards.

 

I think that anything sold in the U.S. should observe the same minimum wage for any employee growing, making, or distributing that item as we have in the U.S. All facilities making said items should also have to meet our own environmental codes. If said legislation were enacted we would not be buying in stupid things that we can easily produce here at a slightly higher cost, only things that we are not able to produce here or not able to produce as efficiently.

[imatfaal]

1. WTF is Reaver - perhaps Reiver on the politics forum?

2. I think perhaps Reaver/Reiver has a better grasp on the modern global economy.

3. Would you be willing to accept that form of trade barrier in the quoted section (BTW who is the quote from?) in reverse?

4. Is this economic argument really based on a dislike of foreigners and desired to keep immigrants out of the USA regardless of economic benefit or cost?

Edited January 27, 2012 by imatfaal

[Moontanman]

I have to admit some understanding at least of what this guy is talking about, I worked for 25 years for the DuPont corporation, I worked closely with engineers to develop new products new technology and new processes. We were always told to never discuss our work with anyone due to industrial espionage and that we needed to keep our technology secret to protect us from foreign competition. Some fo the stuff I helped develop was so secret the areas were walled off by huge curtains so only certain people had access to them.

 

Once we perfected a great many unique technologies and products that had a high sales potential and wide spread uses DuPont immediately turned around and started up polyester sites in India and China, and sold our plant to a Mexican company. Most people lost their jobs and all of us were left with that greasy anus feeling.

 

Now I commonly see the products i helped develop flooding in from other countries where people work for peanuts and most of the people I worked with spent their lives learning to do things that are no longer needed here but emulated everywhere labor is cheap and ten people can be hired to do the job one of us struggled to do. It ruined my health and left me with that greasy feeling for life... Why did they do it? cheap labor and tax breaks offered by our government.... yeah... that greasy feeling never quite goes away.... and yes, the products i see are often very inferior imitations of what we developed...

[CaptainPanic]

If you can't compete, you go bust. That's capitalistm. Deal with it.

 

Anyway, I still believe that the US has no problem with high production costs. Instead, it has a problem with overhead costs. There are a lot of businesses in the USA that I consider overhead. I've written a blog post on it 2 years ago, but it's still relevant.

[Moontanman]

If you can't compete, you go bust. That's capitalistm. Deal with it.

 

I agree but in my case that is not what happened, the DuPont company did not go bust and neither did it's Dacron polyester market, until is started up polyester plants in other countries on the cheap under under different names with the help of our government...

 

Anyway, I still believe that the US has no problem with high production costs. Instead, it has a problem with overhead costs. There are a lot of businesses in the USA that I consider overhead. I've written a blog post on it 2 years ago, but it's still relevant.

 

At Dupont, it was always far too many chiefs and not enough Indians....

[Phi for All]

The American worker cannot and should not have to compete with impoverished third world laborers willing to work for survival level wages!

I think competing with anyone based on labor costs is a losing strategy for the US. We need markets where our strengths can only be poorly copied, where we set the benchmark for precision, design and skill.

 

Third world laborers have a different frame of reference than the US worker. They aren't impoverished by their own standards, they just need less money for "stuff" than the average US worker.

 

Rather than try to argue that the American worker is somehow deserving of special consideration when it comes to global economics, and call for a nationalist movement, I'd rather see us clean up our own house. We need regulations that require a company that accesses the protection of a US corporate charter to have at least 51% of their personnel be US citizens. We need corporations that are taking advantage of privileges provided by taxpayer funding to start paying their fair share of those taxes. At the very least, if we're going to use taxpayer dollars anyway, we should offer an incentive to companies that employ more US workers.

[CaptainPanic]

I agree but in my case that is not what happened, the DuPont company did not go bust and neither did it's Dacron polyester market, until is started up polyester plants in other countries on the cheap under under different names with the help of our government...

 

At Dupont, it was always far too many chiefs and not enough Indians....

Yes, the companies seem to thrive in a capitalist world.

 

But I was talking about workers, and perhaps a country or society. A person also has an income, also has expenses. With a little fantasy, you can see yourself as a company too. And your production costs are too expensive, and Chinese and Indian employees simply out-compete you. They do the same job for less money.

 

The question is then: why can they do that? Don't they have to eat, don't they have a roof over their heads? For a part, their basic needs are indeed cheaper. But not so much. The main reason is that in their society, they do not have much overhead. There are no large districts of financial institutions. No armies of businessmen who push money around without producing anything tangible.

 

A single company will do a reorganization when it's in financial trouble, and it will definitely look at the overhead costs. A country or society as a whole never seems to do that. Many skyscrapers in Manhattan, or London or Paris belong to companies that do not even produce anything. They just move money around.

 

It's true that in India and China there are financial institutions too, but the ratio between those and the 'real' industry is quite different than in the US and Europe.

 

So, you can protect your American workers with a trade barrier. Or, you can make your economy lean again by removing some of its overhead.

[Phi for All]

The question is then: why can they do that? Don't they have to eat, don't they have a roof over their heads? For a part, their basic needs are indeed cheaper. But not so much. The main reason is that in their society, they do not have much overhead.

This reminds me of a description in the book The Millionaire Next Door. These researchers had found that the majority of US millionaires are extremely down-to-earth, low-key, thrifty people who shop for their clothes at Sears and own a reliable ten-year-old car and clip coupons and happen to have several million dollars in liquid assets. These people minimize their monthly costs, pay cash for discounts and no interest, pay off credit cards every month, and generally have a lifestyle that's a couple of notches lower than what most people with their income normally choose. They don't live a millionaire's lifestyle; they live like you and me and just rarely have to worry about having enough money.

[zapatos]

The American worker cannot and should not have to compete with impoverished third world laborers willing to work for survival level wages!

I would love it if more things were made by third world laborers willing to work for survival level wages. Then I can spend less money and retire earlier.

 

I have no problem with free trade with another country, but only when it has similar living standards and environmental protection laws.

 

 

Awfully big of you to have them give up their advantage over you without you giving up anything. But if you are going to take away their advantages, why don't you give up some too? How about giving up the advantage over third world countries you have in infrastructure, transportation, communications, automation, etc.