It's all about jobs you say?. Then we must place tariffs on foreign goods

[Boxerfan]

It's pretty damn simple...


The economy is now a global one you say?. We would be cutting our throats & driving away business to offshore headquarters?. Fine & don't let the door hit ya on the way out.

Ya see you can't deal/argue with greed. It's omnipresent & immortal. Some people are just born that way. I call them Republicans.

When you can always find someone-somewhere-to work cheaper than the next guy. When the old world borders of sea travel & isolationism are long gone. Well it is all too easy for the greedy corporates to look around the globe & source the lowest common denominator.

It is just a quantum leap easier nowadays. Hence tariffs are vital to our economy.

Let me explain why to the dense & greedy. Some people don't think like you. They don't see value in paper management. They are visceral people. Maybe brilliant-but just as likely not. But they have damn good skills that are begging now for a outlet. These people used to build our nation & drove the economy.The backbone as it were of the middle class.

And it didn't take a damn degree to get a job. Just a apprentice type period where you came up to skill or not.

And we thrived. When allowed to not worry about impending doom all the damn time the mind is allowed to be creative. Thats right I said allowed. You gotta be dense not to realize people perform poorly under stress. And right now there is more stress on the American worker than ever before, Fear may be a better term frankly.

So please President Obama...This a case of removing a cancer from America.

The greed is systemic & a key motivating factor for decisions by almost every corporation-by its very design. You Mr. president are a big picture guy. Long term thinker. And-I trust you.

Do the right thing-the HARD thing....Bring back strict tariffs on goods we need to manufacture here at home!. Give large tax incentives for the transition to get people on board. Raw material plants & the entire industry has been sold away. So a long hard slog it will be.

But it has to be done-it is that or die as a nation. We can't invent or borrow our way out of this-we have to build.The hope & new trade that brings will enhance general markets. Start with infrastructure-there is more than enough to start with there.

As the factories come on line-people will spend!. They have been programed to for heavens sake!.And when they spend it will get batter for all the layers of employment-I mean those that actually create something.

And the creative juices will flow. I guarantee it. The creative minds out there are mostly on survival mode.

We Americans can do anything we set our minds to. A better mousetrap or solar factory-whatever. Just give US a freaking chance!

That's all I'm asking-what a nation of BUILDERS-not destroyers-thats what we are asking for!


A chance....

[MercutioATC]

1. Combine that with tax incentives for domestic hiring and you've got a winner.

It's not rocket science.

The fact that it's not been done illustrates how far they're into big business' pockets.

[Salviati]

2. People can bitch and moan about fairness and openness as much as they want...

But the system isn't fair as long as goods and capital can flow freely across borders, but labor cannot. If people want a fair system that allows "free trade" between nations, then they should also allow unrestricted immigration between those two nations. Somehow, I don't think that policy would be quite as popular.

[pampango]

8. Actually progressives in Europe have made that work quite well through the EU which has

mutual open borders between its 27 member countries so that goods and people move freely.

It's quite popular in Europe except for some right wing parties, but you're right it's not likely to catch on here. Many of our progressives don't look at benefits of open borders in the same way that European progressives do.

[anigbrowl]

22. I agree with you

A flexible market for both goods and labor is what makes the internal US economy strong (historically, even though it's got problems at present) and it's also working well in Europe. By contrast, in many command economies workers needed a permit to travel away from their town or county to work somewhere else.

[Johonny]

3. I think Obama campaign on a good idea

"free" trade isn't really free. The goods coming into the US are build at standards way below what is required in the US. Particularly related to labor rules, OSHA rules, EPA rules... I can understand people being against blanket tariffs, but I can't understand being against fees that account for unAmerican standards used to make the goods sent to the US. All to often Republicans argue to reduce OUR standards in order to compete better. I find that suggestion vile.

[Romulox]

7. Obama straight up lied about modifying NAFTA. He was caught red handed.

Since he's been President, his major trade proposal has been to enter into additional "free trade" agreements. :hi:

[AngryAmish]

4. Mr. Smoot, may I introduce you to Mr. Hawley?

[Boxerfan]

9. What he said...Smoot Hawley. I'd forgotten the name

It's not like we didn't know all this years ago...

I'm afraid I'm old enough to really see what they mean by history repeating itself.
But Deja Vu etu?.

I was partially disabled a while back. I was freed temporarily from worrying about the monthly paycheck. Not a large settlement mind you-but it was the 1st time in decades I felt creative.

Since I have learned to explore my metalworking & design skills. I have enough work now to help pay some bills. But as a auto mechanic I would have never started designing/building small parts on the side. I needed freedom to create-a very precious commodity nowadays.


Frankly my disability turned out to be a blessing. But I don't think othes should have to go quit that far to get some breathing room.

I remember an America where working hard was a promise you would succeed. That promise was broken-on purpose-by Reagan & the Grover Norquists of the world.

[pampango]

10. Both republicans, of course, along with Pres. Hoover who signed their legislation. FDR campaigned

against it in 1932, got around it as president by negotiating trade agreements with other countries to get around the tariffs, and, along with Truman, set up the international trade organizations to promote international trade after WWII.

[Romulox]

14. If one must follows FDR's lead lest he repeat the blunders of history, then Obama is failing

on many other counts! :hi:

[pampango]

20. Perhaps so, but he does seem to be following FDR's lead on trade anyway.

We'll never know if FDR would have let thousands of banks fail from 1929 to 1932. That was Hoover's policy. Once FDR was inaugurated his policy was to stabilize the banking system and create confidence in its stability. He closed all banks that weren't already closed for a few days, then allowed 3/4 to open with about 4000 small banks closed and merged into large banks, something the big banks of the day probably didn't complain about.

FDR used deficit spending by the federal government, at least until 1937, to provide a stimulus to the economy. That also reversed the Hoover policy of balancing the budget above all else.

"Generally speaking, the overall aim of the New Deal was essentially conservative. The New Deal sought to save capitalism and the fundamental institutions of American society from the disaster of the Great Depression. Within that framework, however, significant differences between New Deal programs existed. The "first" New Deal (1933-35) tended toward a continuation of "trickle down" policies, albeit better-funded and executed more creatively. Even in the early first New Deal, exceptional programs pointed toward the "second" New Deal's tendency toward "Keynesian" economic policies of revitalizing a mass-consumption based economy by revitalizing the masses ability to consume."

http://iws.ccccd.edu/kwilkison/Online1302home/20th%20Century/DepressionNewDeal.html

I am sure you're right, though, that in many instances Obama has not and will not follow in FDR's footsteps.

[endless october]

5. i don't have a problem with tariffs.

tariff the shit out of manufacturers in countries that treat their workers like slaves.

[Romulox]

6. Noooo! It is morally wrong to protect American jobs for some reason

Moreover, despite the demonstrably disastrous effects of so-called "free trade", any other course of action would result in the end of humanity as we know it (please don't ask me to back up this naked assertion!)

[dmallind]

11. We export $1.3T annually - 3rd biggest. What do you think will happen to that?

[Kansas Wyatt]

12. Raw material or finished product?

I think you know where this is leading.

[dmallind]

16. Bits of both really.

We tend to lead the world in the supply of some commodities and also some of the big technical expensive things. We make aeroplanes much more competitively than T shirts for obvious reasons. Anybody can with little barrier to entry and not much technical expertise start making T shirts, and most of them will do it cheaper than we can. But we export a whole lot of goods across the gamut. For example I just made an industry change into a niche manufacturer of widgets (latches and such) with a large export market.

[Kansas Wyatt]

17. How much raw material do we export, compared to finished product?

That is the bottom line.

[dmallind]

19. Where ARE you going with this?

Are you trying to say that only raw material has value, and that putting things together is not economically valuable? Or are tyou trying to say that we can isolate ourselves and not worry about retaliation because we have enough raw materials to be manufactured here?

[Kansas Wyatt]

24. I'm saying that I am sick of seeing...

Foreign manufactured items as the only choice we have. It's not only on the retail market, it has moved up the chain into parts made for construction. I'm in the electrical trade, and we have had to work with parts/shit made in China and India now, which only adds hours to a job, because of their inferior quality.

Since the United States has CONCEDED so much manufacturing away, exactly what in the Hell do we manufacture here anymore and export, that we DID NOT before we started importing so much?

[pampango]

21. In 2008, 75% manufactured goods, 11% agricultural goods, 10% fuel and mining products.

Breakdown in economy's total exports 2008
By main commodity group (ITS)
Agricultural products......................... 10.9%
Fuels and mining products......................9.8%
Manufactures..........................................74.8%

http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=E&Country=E27,CN,US,DE

[anigbrowl]

23. relatively little, actually

American manufacturing is not dead, but we manufacture export much more business machinery and so forth than consumer goods. So it's true you see fewer American-made products on retail shelves than you used to.

[Deja Q]

25. Whose product? Do the entity in question make only one, hence the singular term "product"?

"Finished products" is more accurate...

[Romulox]

13. We import almost a Trillion more than we export. That's not sustainable in any event. nt

[Iggo]

15. 'Member last week when it was all about health care?

Yeah. Good times.

[AngryOldDem]

18. Bingo.

You have to create a climate for growth to happen. Otherwise, it's like asking a man with no legs to get up and walk.