Idea : Everything sold in the US MUST be made here...simple?

[cthrumatrix]

We have all witnessed the effects of job outsourcing, cheap labor and corporate greed in this country. This must change.

Can we have a political candidate or a "demand by the people" that : "everything sold in a country -- must be MADE in that country"? Perhaps with the exception being the need to continue natural resources importation. We could have the law phased in over a numer of years. I think it would provide a "boom" across the world.

* every company would have to manf good in the country they wish to sell in.

* Manufacturing, distribution and more would return to the US and evey country around the world.

* The need for skilled and unskilled labor would sky rocket.

* Wages would be "demand driven".

Sure products would cost more until competitve pressures came to the market...but people would be working and making money.

What do you think?

[Cleita]

1. Even 60% would do the trick. As it is, I really have a hard time

finding 10% of goods made in the USA. Even the Alaskan cod I bought in the market recently was labeled a product of China.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Just a gut feeling (since I'm no expert on these issues)

but I would think that the investment required just to regain the infrastructure necessary to do this would completely bankrupt the nation (and by bankrupt I mean it would be incontrovertible and the straw that broke the camel's back). We'd need to re-import the machinery just to be able to begin making a lot of the basics, let alone the advanced electronics which go into everything today.

[Cleita]

4. There is still a lot of infrastructure here for a start, not to mention

an educated workforce.

[PsN2Wind]

20. Plenty of money to send the machinery East

but none to bring it back?

[BlooInBloo]

3. LOLOLOL

[madokie]

5. I would go for a mandatory percentage being made in USA

[Cleita]

10. You can go about this in these ways.

Demand that 60% of items stocked in big box retail stores be domestically made. This will force manufacturers who are outsourcing to make 60% of their goods domestically. Also, insist that any so-called American company like let's say IBM must hire 60% of their workforce in the USA. Other than that they will be considered foreign importers and should pay a heft tariff on those imported goods. This should make outsourcing less profitable. I think this could turn things around.

[Kiouni]

6. Sounds kind of like a band-aid.

I don't think that this will really fix the problem. The problem is worker exploitation in third world countries and the use of sweat shops and in some cases slavery. if we work harder to fix the human rights violations then we will be fixing the outsourcing problem too. If everyone is paid decently and treated fairly then it wouldn't really matter were our products came from.

[RB TexLa]

7. I can purchase something I want from anyone I want

Talk about destroying freedom.

[tuvor]

8. Countries that now supply the USA with finished goods...

...would curtail exporting any raw materials if they were in such a position. And countries supporting a significant portion of US debt might not be too happy, either.

Those are my first two guesses.

[Quantess]

9. Trade is good. How about we do more exporting?

We have a lot of exportable products, such as agriculture, raw materials.

[doc03]

23. Wasn't that the definition of a third world country a while back?

The rich countries exploit the poor countries for their natural resources and then manufacture finished value added products for consumption. Or were you just being sarcastic.

[Quantess]

25. No, I was absolutely not being sarcastic!

Trade balance is absolutely good for the US economy!
You tell me in convincing terms how US export of goods isn't anything less than excellent for our country.

[doc03]

29. Trade Balance?????

Wealth is created when you take raw material and make a value added finished product from it, that is what created the middle class in America. Countries that produce value added products create wealth and a middle class society. Look at any country that exports their raw materials and agricultural products and you find the very few extremely rich and mass poverty with no middle class. The US middle class was created back in the 50's and 60's when we had a manufacturing economy and we did just fine without the so called free trade BS. The US couldn't even compete in farm products if not for cheap illeagal labor.

[JDPriestly]

26. Because corporations/businesses that produce agricultural products

and raw materials generally do not pay much. They hire sharecroppers and high school dropouts to do most of the work that can't be done by machinery. Agricultural products and raw materials aren't as profitable as manufactured goods.

Most Americans live in urban areas, and the agricultural and raw material sectors don't hire large numbers of city dwellers. Besides we are importing more and more cheap agricultural products and raw materials.

Sooner or later we will move away from the folly of free trade or be ruined. There ia nothing free about free trade. It is costing us our way of life, our national identity and our values. We cannot allow unlimited underpriced imports into our country and remain a self-reliant, independent people.

[Quantess]

27. True, not everyone will profit from US exports. But, so?

Some US farmers, some US exporters of raw materials, of etc, will find a new market in export. Or at least, they should. There is a market for it.

[Quantess]

28. and, there is such a thing as the Trade Deficit. (EOM)

[partylessinOhio]

11. It's too late - there are a least six more free trade deals being signed

by *. This was reported tonight - may have been on Lou Dobbs.

We are screwed.

We are declining because we have lost manufacturing and resultant jobs.

This junk made in China falls apart. * signed deals with Korea and others are "in the pipeline."

* has given Amerika away.

[ret5hd]

12. Read THIS and get back to me...

http://theanchorhouse.com/2006/10/10/rare-earth-may-be-chinas-checkmate/

here's a google cache copy:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:979fKgeWyagJ:theanchorhouse.com/2006/10/10/rare-earth-may-be-chinas-checkmate/+%22rare+earth%22+china+97%25&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6

edit again: change the smiley to a colon and the number 9

or better:
http://tinyurl.com/yyqgk4

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. I'd start by having the federal government setting a preferential option for

U.S.-made goods. The feds would have to buy U.S.-made goods unless there was NO U.S. manufacturer of whatever it is they wanted to buy. Being made by a U.S. company overseas would not count; but a product made in the U.S. by a foreign company WOULD count. The important thing would be the number of U.S. jobs created.

[Cleita]

19. You can't really not allow imports. There are those who want

their French perfume, Italian shoes and other goods manufactured overseas. But you can stop a lot of it coming in that is competing with our domestic goods and causing a trade deficit.

[Deja Q]

14. And the products being imported pretty much rubbish too.

They tell us to work hard for the money we earn. So what happens? We spend it on items that seem to fail long before they ought to, and there's nary a proper warranty to be had.

Can't blame US workers for that.

Well, maybe Ford, but all decisions in a company are made from the top down - that's the reason execs give for demanding their high salaries.

Or so we used to be told.

:shrug:

[nick303]

15. I think this is a horrible idea

See: comparative advantage

[Hippo_Tron]

16. That's an incredibly stupid idea

Read about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff

[Cleita]

17. Something has to be done. Laissez-faire, let the market place

decide, economics isn't working. In never has. Governments have always had to legislate businesses to effect fair trade.

[Hippo_Tron]

21. I agree that government has to intervene in the economy...

But putting a halt to trade is a stupid idea. I guarantee you that the computer you are using right now would cost twice as much and be half as fast if it were produced in the United States.

If we were to stop protecting the sugar industry, the government pay the salaries for life of every sugar worker whose job would be outsourced and it would be only a minor fraction of the amount that the nation would save on sugar.

The government needs to intervene to produce a workforce that has skills and accept the fact that unskilled blue collar workers just aren't employable in this country anymore. It certainly doesn't help that our public education system is in shambles.

[A Simple Game]

18. We have always had this problem.

America has been the innovators of processes and or products from steel to computers. That was what we did, start a process or product, refine it, perfect it, and then lose the jobs it created to cheaper labor. The time lapse from development to losing the manufacturing to cheaper labor has shortened significantly from the days of steel and auto dominance to that of computer dominance.

Until recently we have always had new processes or products to fill the gap of the lost jobs, even with the shorter turnaround. This ended when Reagan canceled the incentives and research that President Carter had put into place for the development of renewable, green, and alternate energies. These should have been in place to fill the gap of many industrial jobs lost in the last twenty years. When Reagan canceled the incentives and research money, he cost us the future jobs that went with them.

We have not gained and probably have gone backwards in the last six years under the * administration. We are now in a hole that will take us twenty years of progress to get out of.

In other words we don’t need our old jobs back; we need innovation and research into new processes and products. With global warming still threatening us, Carter’s visions of alternate and renewable energy could still be the driving force to our salvation.

Just one more way Holy Ron shafted the working people of this country.

[TahitiNut]

22. Do we still have "duty-free" stores? Why?

Do we still have to declare the goods we're bringing back from an overseas trip? Why?

:evilgrin: (Sometimes, it's interesting to ask questions like these.)

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Solon]

30. Talk about a reversal! Toyotas and Hondas could still be sold here...

But GM and Ford, I think NOT! At least most of their trucks and SUVs. That's kinda funny, in a way.