"jim rozen" wrote in message
...
In article , Tom Gardner says...

... I'm still concerned who is going to buy my industrial products
when industry is gone or who is going to buy ANYTHING with a
burger-flipping
income, or who is going to be able to afford burgers?

Ok, I seem to have found one person who agrees with me,
that if the better paying technical and manufacturing jobs
go overseas, and the wages are depressed here (as harold
suspects they will) then this might have some effect
on the overall market for goods and services in the US.

In other words, laid-off folks don't buy much of anything.

Jim

I'm having a bit of a struggle coming to terms with your statement above.
Isn't that exactly what I've been saying right along? What I've proposed
is folks coming to terms with their inflated incomes and settling for pay in
keeping with its value. That, in turn, keeps them on the job, albeit at a
lower income, because the savings to the corporation that may have been
realized by jumping to China, for example, no longer exists. We keep jobs
home, inflation is not a problem (not out of control), and perhaps prices at
the store even decline to some degree. Not many of us prefer no money
as opposed to less money. I think rational people would accept a pay cut
instead of a pink slip.

We can not solve this problem with legislation or tariffs. As long as we
insist that we are worth more than the rest of the world, the exodus will
never end, not until there's nothing left that can leave. The foreign
countries will see to it. They want the work. Only equilibrium, by any
means, will stop the flow. It's like drugs. Until the profit is removed
from drugs, they will persist, and stronger than our ability to resist them.

Harold