How do we stop the bleeding?

[JagMagMan]

America is losing jobs to foreign countries at an ever increasing rate! That is the problem, What exactly is the solution?
First of all, both parties have to share blame, as they have both approved of NAFTA and other international economic policies.
Two of the major reasons for job losses are labor costs, and environmental laws!
These are both sensitive and tricky issues!
We like our high wages, and we like our environment clean!
Somehow, we will have to get labor costs balanced! Thats not easy and won't happen overnight.
On the environment, we have to get international standards up to ours and also be reasonable with our laws too! I know that we need to be good stewards of our environment, but some of the overboard laws are squeezing out our jobs!


The third thing I see, after labor and environmental costs, is tarriffs! I know that we actually do live in a "global economy" now, but no politician seems to be willing to raise import taxes to keep others from dumping their cheap products here in America!
This seems to be the only short term solution we have until wages and environmental costs start balancing out!

Any ideas? Seems that NO politicians have a clue as what to do about this, nor do they have the guts to stop foreign dumping!

[badshotbob]

Won't be an end all solution, but for starters, BUY AMERICAN!!!! How many trillions of dollars are lost to our enemies in the East just to drive to work? I can hear it now: "Toyotas are made here, Hondas are made here...." blah blah freaking blah. Bahhh!!!! Where the hell do you think most of the money is going to? Many people think that we have around a 40-50 billion dollar trade defecit with China. Ok fine. What about the other 400 billion in US debt held in the form of plastic in your pocket due to the fine far East products that run our lives? That's just a start.

We have to realize the bigger picture (haven't I said this before? Where's my hat). This economy isn't going to get better, ever. Why? You said it Jag - "world economy". Well, ask yourselves - what is our biggest export? CASH. We can only sustain this pace for so long before it all starts folding in on us. So yes, we need some big time help from our white house.

[JagMagMan]

I know it is only a temporary fix, but we've got to tax the imports hard! That is the only way many people will buy American!
First it was electronics, steel and cars! Now its not just oil imports, we are importing the finished products of gasoline and chemicals too!
The Chinese are even putting the Cajun crawfish farmers out of business!

Just for example, I was looking at some Carhartt overalls, they were over 20$ higher than a Russian import, that looked just like the Carhartt!
With their cheap labor, they can make it and ship it half way around the world, and STILL sell 20$ cheaper than ours!
The only way to stop this is to tax them so they can't dump their stuff here!

[PAhunter86]

Won't be an end all solution, but for starters, BUY AMERICAN!!!! How many trillions of dollars are lost to our enemies in the East just to drive to work? I can hear it now: "Toyotas are made here, Hondas are made here...." blah blah freaking blah. Bahhh!!!! Where the hell do you think most of the money is going to?

Yeah, all that money goes right back to the executives in ***an. And from what I know, Toyotas are made over in ***an, but assembled here. Good post Bob

[driftrider]

You bring up the use of tarriffs as a solution to this problem, but tarriffs are very much a double-edged sword. If we place huge tarriffs on imports from foreign countries if may cause Ameircan consumers to buy the now cheaper American made products, which is just hunky-dorey, until those foreign countries get pissed off and reciprocate with their own tarriffs on the goods we export to them. That causes foreign consumers to not buy our products, which causes Americans to lose jobs. And tarriffs are far more expensive to impose and enforce than the revenue they generate, meaning that the net cost of funding a tarriff comes out of the pockets of American taxpayers.

From a consumer standpoint, we can't afford to severely restrict imports without seriously downgrading our quality of life. We consume far more than we could ever possibly produce ourselves. We've had a trade deficit for decades, meaning we import far more than we export. To impose tarriffs big enough to protect some American manufacturing interests would be shooting the American consumer in the foot.

There is no simple solution that'll fix this problem. We are beginning to suffer from an unprecedented wave of structural unemployment. As manufacturing technology becomes more sophisticated the simpler mass-production products can be produced by machines, operated by unskilled laborers in foreign countries for far less than U.S. minimum wage, and many times less than what the average Joe Worker insists on being paid. If the U.S. companies don't move their manufacturing ops to where labor is cheaper, someone else will (either a U.S. competitor or a foreign interest) and that would put the U.S. company out of business so American jobs would be lost either way. Also, the savings from moving overseas is so great that almost no tarriff could offset the reduction in production costs, meaning that moving overseas is economically benefitial despite the tarriffs imposed to stop it. So there is often no economic reason for a company not to move operations overseas.

It's our own fault really. For a very long time we were at the pinnicle of worldwide manufacturing. No one else could produce what we could, in the quantities we could, at the the quality we could. So the American workers, driven and backed by their unions, were in a position to demand pay rates and benefits far beyond those paid by the rest of the worlds companies, and the companies had really little choice but to pay up because they couldn't reasonably move elsewhere. They were backed into a corner because they NEEDED the skilled U.S. workers, and therefore had to pay for them. But in the last several years we've made manufacturing technology better and better, and at the same time simpler and easier to operate. Meanwhile, the quality and ability of foreign labor has slowly snuck up our own from behind, meaning that they can use our machines to make the products we want as fast and as well as we can.

We have made our own semi-skilled and unskilled workforce obsolete, and there is little that can be done about it. Many lowerer level manufacturing jobs are disappearing, and they aren't coming back. That's the harsh reality of it. We are moving toward a service-oriented workforce. The only options for these obsolete workers is to either take jobs in service fields, retrain themselves with job skills that make them worthwhile to the current economic environment, or follow their jobs overseas and be willing to take an enormous paycut. I fear that the days of $20+/hour semi-skilled assembly line jobs are grinding to a halt in the U.S. It's up to the U.S. workers to work harder to put themselves back on the top of the heap again. We live in a truly global economy, and there is nothing that we can do to stop it from being that way without destroying or economy in the process.

But despite the grim reality of the current economic conditions, we are still Americans. If we are true to form it won't be long before we work or way back to the top of the global heap. Interference by our own government is probably the only thing that could stand in the way of us retaking our place at the top. That's why economic freedom is so critical. History has proven time and again that Americans, left to our own devices, are innovative and driven enough to improve our situation despite the obstacles in our path. The governmental regulation and "assistance" in business will only serve to sabotage those efforts.

Mike

[Dave590]

I'm going to Atlanta in the morning, so I won't be around to defend myself for about a week,,,but I just HAVE to throw this in the mix before I go.

There is a reason that the United states is the buyer and not the seller of all these goods that we like to complain about.

The United States is the biggest buyer of goods in the planet...The reason is...we make more money, as a whole, than any other place on the planet.

We have more disposable income than anyone else, and as a result, we buy more STUFF than anyone else.

That is the way of things.

Those that have more,,,buy more.

The whole economic scare tactics is just that...a scare tactic.

We buy more because we have more...Thats it in a nutshell.

The poorest of the poor have more here in the United States, than the Middle class in almost every other country in the world has. The "poor" here have more than some other countries "Rich" class have.

In stead of complaining about how bad the trade deficit is, we should be rejoicing in how good we have it to be buying so much stuff from other countries.

It's all in your perspective.

[JagMagMan]

Mike and Dave, I do agree with a lot of what you both are saying!
Tariffs could only be a short term fix.
There needs to be changes made! I don't presume to know the answers, labor costs, and environmental issues are only parts of the problem!

Dave, you are also right that not only are companies relocating, we are losing jobs to technology! While companies could eventually come back to America, the jobs lost to technology are gone forever!
We are also, in a "serve yourself" era too!
Starting with self serve gas, we have grown to ATM's and many other self services that have taken away jobs permanently too!
One way to get ourselves going is to retrain for other jobs, but those jobs will have to exist for people to do them!
You are also right, in the fact that we are a blessed nation! We can, and do consume more than others. Our economy will have to start recognizing that fact and not be overly alarmed at trade deficits!
However, we are really losing manufacturing jobs too, and if that continues, we will eventually not be able to be the consumers that we currently are!
Hopefully, as labor costs go, other countries will come up closer to our standards, than we go DOWN to their standards! If that does not happen, eventually these companies that are relocating will not have any buyers for their products, no matter how cheap they are!
I don't know the answer! I have many more questions, than I have answers for!

[Carpicon]

Somebody please explain what NAFTA has to do with us buying stuff from the Russians, ***anese, and the Koreans, and what NAFTA has to do with jobs being shipped to India and China.

This oughta be good.

[JagMagMan]

ORIGINAL: Carpicon

Somebody please explain what NAFTA has to do with us buying stuff from the Russians, ***anese, and the Koreans, and what NAFTA has to do with jobs being shipped to India and China.

This oughta be good.

NAFTA has nothing to do with these countries!
NAFTA does have to do with the loss of, and potential for major job losses, due to the fact that Mexico is right on our border!
Cheap labor!
Poor environmental laws!
Very low shipping costs, because they don't even have to ship over-seas to us! They just truck it across the border!
For these reasons, Mexico and NAFTA can potentially give us as much or more problems than these other big exporting countries!

[Tazman]

The poorest of the poor have more here in the United States, than the Middle class in almost every other country in the world has. The "poor" here have more than some other countries "Rich" class have.

In stead of complaining about how bad the trade deficit is, we should be rejoicing in how good we have it to be buying so much stuff from other countries.

It's all in your perspective.

Dave you have said a mouthful in just a few words.

I lived in Izmir Turkey from 1959-1961, I was just a kid, but the difference between the way Turks live and we live is shocking! There is virtually no middle class to speak of, what would be classified as middle class there has less than the vast majority of Americans living in poverty!

The poor in most parts of the world would love to have running water, indoor plumbing, electricity, even a roof over there head. We as Americans are spoiled rotten. Until you have seen first hand how the majority of the people outside of the US live, you can not appreciate how good we have it!

I am not saying we should be complacent, we shouldn't be, but in reality the government and its policies will have little if any real effect on our economy. The American economy has evolved and will continue to do so, as it does it will have its ups and its downs, what we all need to be aware of is our lowest downs would be paradise to the rest of the world!