Capitalism is not sending jobs and money overseas - Trump

[ETcallhome]

otherwise, the problem is not tax or revenue policy, but giving too much power to poiticians to decide who gets taxed, and who gets tariffed. And what gets taxed. And 90% of those revenue favors are in the corporate tax code. Add to that tarrifs and that about takes care of the other 10%. I can think of no sensible war, but a trade war is about as stupid as it gets. And the way to win a trade war is to make yourself immune from one.

 

[fhl]

FHL makes a powerful case. He's right, but I wonder if that's the end of the story. Is economic efficiency the only thing we care about? Where are we as a country when we turn into the UK, a hollowed-out country of people on welfare with a few super rich bankers and everyone else working as waiters and bartenders?

Foreign countries force us to sell our heart disease remedy at cost or they will invalidate the patents. We have to buy their cancer medicine at exhorbitant prices. We end up financing pharma R&D for the entire world on the backs of the US consumer and taxpayers.

US companies that want to sell into china typically have to set up a plant there and transfer their trade secrets to chinese partners. Of course, a lot of the proprietary data and know how, the stuff the academicians assure us will replace metal bending, is just stolen or counterfeited anyway.

We have the largest consumer market and can dictate terms to other countries. Instead we have foolishly embraced the WTO and other global trade regimes, where foreign bureaucrats dictate terms to us. That is exactly what Trump is talking about.

I am sympathetic to the notion that in some cases we're getting screwed. Like the fact that Americans have to bear the brunt of the drug r and d that the rest of the world gets a free ride on. What a crap sandwich we get on that one.

But i'm also not really convinced that when the pols start negotiating on behalf of the American people that we can expect some kind of optimal results. It's said often that if we would only threaten other countries, then they would come around and play fair. But i think it's just as likely that we wind up with situations like the Ford Ranger, where Americans no longer can buy their favorite midsize truck and have to buy what the pols want us to instead.
The negotiators of trade deals have a lot of motivations when they put these deals together and the American people getting the best deal may not be at the top of the list.

 

[Ricter]

And the way to win a trade war is to make yourself immune from one.

Part of the mission of the WTO.

 

[Frederick Foresight]

AP Photo/David Goldman:

Sorry, wrong finger.

 

[CaptainObvious]

No, i'm not. Those are a tiny minority of the jobs that are lost. Computer operated machinery operators are not unskilled and they make decent money and as far as i know, there are always jobs available for them as long as the economy is growing. They are always in demand.

I'm talking about the vast majority of line jobs at a car plant that do nothing but slap one piece of metal onto another piece of metal. They can learn to do it in about a day or two. And those jobs are worth nothing more than min wage no matter how long people have become conditioned to believe they should make a good living and full retirement plan off of them. They priced themselves out of the mkt and they want the gov't to write a law to force consumers to come to them.

I did that stuff at an Allis Chalmers union plant during a summer in college. There was nothing to it. If car companies have gone full robotic and those metal bending jobs are no longer part of the picture, then that would mean that there are only a small percentage of jobs left to do that are highly skilled.
So either we're forcing consumers to get screwed so that a very small number of robot technicians can have a job, or if we're talking about thousands and thousands of jobs, like they typically mention, then most of them are just line jobs that are unskilled labor. They can't have it both ways.

I'm a consumer. I am not a manufacturing worker. I'm not going to just stand by and keep my mouth shut while the gov't tries to redistribute money out of my pocket into someone elses.

You're right, kind of. The problem is if the guy putting the truck together can't afford to buy the truck, that's a problem. Henry Ford figured that out and made himself a ton of money.
Here's the issue as I see it. All of these semi-skilled jobs are being replaced with technology or offshore workers. Okay, what do you do with all those people? Re-train? Re-train for what? Everybody isn't capable of being an engineer, and while that would be a great field for some to pursue, there aren't enough really high skilled positions to accommodate the entire workforce. It's a problem, it's been a growing problem since the 70's, and there isn't anyone that has come up with the fix.
Trickle down is a fantasy. It's as much of a fantasy as democrats creating foreign policy based upon how they wish things were. If there are no jobs for the average Joe, and the Board Boyz aren't willing to carry some dead weight on their payroll, and you're going to charge 35K for a f'n Chevy, and 250K for a f'n 3 bedroom home, something has got to give. What's giving is the complete and total separation of the actual economy and a market that is supposed to reflect that economy. You end up with what we have. A very few making boatloads of money while the masses fall further and further behind. People aren't going to just lay down and die. And then people wonder why the Bern has such an appealing message to those folks. It ain't real hard to figure out.

 

[ETcallhome]

Part of the mission of the WTO.

How so?

 

[Ricter]

You're right, kind of. The problem is if the guy putting the truck together can't afford to buy the truck, that's a problem. Henry Ford figured that out and made himself a ton of money.
Here's the issue as I see it. All of these semi-skilled jobs are being replaced with technology or offshore workers. Okay, what do you do with all those people? Re-train? Re-train for what? Everybody isn't capable of being an engineer, and while that would be a great field for some to pursue, there aren't enough really high skilled positions to accommodate the entire workforce. It's a problem, it's been a growing problem since the 70's, and there isn't anyone that has come up with the fix.
Trickle down is a fantasy. It's as much of a fantasy as democrats creating foreign policy based upon how they wish things were. If there are no jobs for the average Joe, and the Board Boyz aren't willing to carry some dead weight on their payroll, and you're going to charge 35K for a f'n Chevy, and 250K for a f'n 3 bedroom home, something has got to give. What's giving is the complete and total separation of the actual economy and a market that is supposed to reflect that economy. You end up with what we have. A very few making boatloads of money while the masses fall further and further behind. People aren't going to just lay down and die. And then people wonder why the Bern has such an appealing message to those folks. It ain't real hard to figure out.

Mods, the Captain's account has been hacked!

 

[Ricter]

How so?

It provides a forum and method for nations to resolve their trade differences under mediation, so they don't have to battle with escalating tariffs, which hurt not just those countries, but everyone else who does business with them.

 

[CaptainObvious]

Mods, the Captain's account has been hacked!

LOl Hey, I've been very consistent on my support for the working class over the years, and my contempt for the Boardroom crowd.

 

[Frederick Foresight]

You're right, kind of. The problem is if the guy putting the truck together can't afford to buy the truck, that's a problem. Henry Ford figured that out and made himself a ton of money.
Here's the issue as I see it. All of these semi-skilled jobs are being replaced with technology or offshore workers. Okay, what do you do with all those people? Re-train? Re-train for what? Everybody isn't capable of being an engineer, and while that would be a great field for some to pursue, there aren't enough really high skilled positions to accommodate the entire workforce. It's a problem, it's been a growing problem since the 70's, and there isn't anyone that has come up with the fix.
Trickle down is a fantasy. It's as much of a fantasy as democrats creating foreign policy based upon how they wish things were. If there are no jobs for the average Joe, and the Board Boyz aren't willing to carry some dead weight on their payroll, and you're going to charge 35K for a f'n Chevy, and 250K for a f'n 3 bedroom home, something has got to give. What's giving is the complete and total separation of the actual economy and a market that is supposed to reflect that economy. You end up with what we have. A very few making boatloads of money while the masses fall further and further behind. People aren't going to just lay down and die. And then people wonder why the Bern has such an appealing message to those folks. It ain't real hard to figure out.

It doesn't help that trade deals tend to focus on capital and intellectual property, while labor ends up holding the bag. And so goes the race to the bottom. Meanwhile, Trump has declared that wages are too high.