Brent P wrote:
In article . com, wrote:
Brent P wrote:
In article om, wrote:
Of course there is another aspect of this that you completely overlook.
And that is the great benefit of people being able to buy that car for
$7000. All the folks who complain about jobs lost to lower cost
labor completely ignore the fact that everyone is also receiving a huge
positive benefit from this. This is especially true of lower income
families. If they had to pay 2X for everything they buy at Walmart and
everywhere else, it's not clear that they would be any better off.
Lower income people in the USA cannot compete with near slave wages. It
cuts them out of the job market. It's doing them no favors what-so-ever.
Unemployment is near historic lows, GDP is growing at 3.5%, inflation
and interest rates are both low, real estate is at record highs, and
more Americans own homes today than ever before. No reasonable person
and certainly no economist, would call that a collapsing economy.
I didn't call it a collasping economy. I called it an economy of short
term thinking. That is unless you think that 9 trillion in debt and
several times that in future liabilities is something you can shrug off.
Then there is the clever calculations that produce some of those figures
you quote.
So, it's better to rely on personal opinion, than to look at decades of
real economic data that is readily available? It's not clear what
exact "$9 trillion in debt you are referring to." If it's the US govt
debt, an absolute number doesn't mean much by itself. Ask grandpa what
he paid for his first house. Does that mean everyone who pays 10X that
for a house today is doing something wrong? If you look at govt debt
as a percentage of GDP, today it's about the same as it was in the mid
90's and also about the same as it was in the mid 50's. During WWII,
it was twice as high. We survived that, didn't we?
As for low cost products doing low income people no good, that is
absolutely false.
In the long term it doesn't. For the short term, get the crap now sure.
But in the long term no. Unless they are always supposed to be poor.
Of course it benefits them in the long term, by low income people being
able to conitnue to buy good cheaply. That continues on.
Look at who shops at Kmart, Walmart, etc. Those
products would cost much more if it were not for foreign low cost labor
producing them.
Funny how I can find even in those stores, in corners and places made in
USA goods that cost no more and even less much of the time.
And do you think you'd find them at those prices if you eliminated
foreign competition? The US companies that have low prices are
responding to other suppliers in the market place. Remove them, and
prices go up. And the fact that you can find US made goods that are
competitive shows that the US is competitve, which shoots the slave
labor argument, especially with the US at full employment.
These low cost products are of tremendous benefit to
everyone, including the low income. As someone earlier pointed out,
China is planning a $7000 entry level car. Do you think that is of no
benefit to low income families here in the USA? You're so biased only
looking for negatives that you can't see the forest for the trees.
I don't think you understand the long term game.
I don't think you understand economics, the great benefit of free
trade, and the huge problems that get caused when you try to have govt
correct perceived imperfections in free markets. Free markets aren't
perfect. Sometimes they are even brutal. But they are far better to
solutions of protectionism, that result in govt management of the
economy and trade wars.
China is playing a long term game while the US is playing a short term one.
According to you, because you focus only on the negatives. There are
many US companies that lead the world today today in many areas. Would
you rather have MSFT, INTC, Boeing, etc, or a country with unskilled
laborers making shirts?
Guess who benefits
from this in the long term? China will be the super power and the US will
in many respects be third worlded. Or do you think it is a good thing to
have people in the USA compete for jobs with china?
What works is a free economy. And in that scenario, each country
makes products that fit their workforce and capabilities. Everyone
made your argument 40 years ago, when Japan was the boogey man. Then
is was supposed to be Taiwan that was going to ruin us all. Then
Korea. Funny how we are still here and by any reasonable
interpretation of actual economic statistics, we're doing quite well.
If we're failing anywhere, it's because we have a segment of the
population that doesn't get educated, doesn't even finish high school.
The solution to that is to work on that problem, not try to compete in
making shirts or baskets on the theory that the solution is to have
more no skills jobs to compete with foreign low cost labor.
Meanwhile, if manufacturing were kept in the USA and illegals weren't
undercutting the wages by flooding the job market with bodies, the demand
for labor would allow these people to find work at a decent wage and
afford to buy the products they are building as well or better than the
products from china etc.
So, now they make twice as much. Now they get pushed into higher tax
brackets, which the liberals think is a good thing. So, they pay
higher taxes. Then they pay 2X for a hammer, shirt, TV, etc. It's
not at all clear to me that they are much better off. Plus, if you
look at the countries that have tried to protect themselves from the
real world economy, they are doing far worse than those that encourage
free trade. What kind of cars do you think you would be getting from
Detroit today, if we had cut off car imports the last 25 years?
You'd be getting a real piece of crap, because it was world competition
that forced them to start building a much better product.
Nice set of strawmen you write.
Just simple economic fact.