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The more accurate way to say it is: A subset of Americans gets screwed, but not by trade, they got screwed mostly by automation. And they are still getting screwed because automation is not going away.
The rest of America was doing quite well under Obama and would have been better under Hillary.
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Wrong, the whole country is getting screwed with this so called free trade, especially with the aggressive mercantilist East Asian countries with their hidden trade barriers and undervalued currencies. I realize some of you only care about how your mutual and stock portfolio is doing but as an American citizen you are still being screwed by the so called free trade, even if indirectly.
Its not just blue collar factory jobs that were lost to "free trade". It was the white collar back office personal also. It was all the businesses that used to be part of the supply chain for the factories and their workers as well. It was all the small businesses surrounding the factories, the mom and pop restaurants, stores and service providers who sold to the workers. Its the local, county and state governments who lost sales and tax revenue. And it the Federal government that loses as well.
Yes, you are right, many jobs are being lost to automation. But other countries like Japan, South Korea, Germany and China are not throwing away their blue collar industries and letting them get looted by other countries. That is because even an automated factory still provides some good paying jobs, still provides tax revenue to the local, regional and national governments and still contributes to the local and national economy.
This is something that is understood by the government of almost every other major nation in the World. Except for our government which for decades has been dominated by people who allowed other countries to take advantage of us so we can continue to play World Policeman and take their marching order from the 1% who only care about themselves.
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Wrong, the whole country is getting screwed with this so called free trade, especially with the aggressive mercantilist East Asian countries with their hidden trade barriers and undervalued currencies. I realize some of you only care about how your mutual and stock portfolio is doing but as an American citizen you are still being screwed by the so called free trade, even if indirectly.
Its not just blue collar factory jobs that were lost to "free trade". It was the white collar back office personal also. It was all the businesses that used to be part of the supply chain for the factories and their workers as well. It was all the small businesses surrounding the factories, the mom and pop restaurants, stores and service providers who sold to the workers. Its the local, county and state governments who lost sales and tax revenue. And it the Federal government that loses as well.
Yes, you are right, many jobs are being lost to automation. But other countries like Japan, South Korea, Germany and China are not throwing away their blue collar industries and letting them get looted by other countries. That is because even an automated factory still provides some good paying jobs, still provides tax revenue to the local, regional and national governments and still contributes to the local and national economy.
This is something that is understood by the government of almost every other major nation in the World. Except for our government which for decades has been dominated by people who allowed other countries to take advantage of us so we can continue to play World Policeman and take their marching order from the 1% who only care about themselves.
Well said.
I'm so tired of hearing the "but automation" BS line. It's a cop out. I've been in the automotive manufacturing business for close to 30 years. In that time I haven't met one single person that lost their job due to automation. The people I know that lost their jobs lost them because the job no longer existed anymore..it was offshored. Now , that being said, the worker has to adapt with the changes though in order to stay employed. My dad that retired 14 years ago from Chrysler with something like 40 years in started out as a spot welder on the line, which eventually became automated, he because a welder repairman, granted , it did take work on his part to make the jump into skilled trades.
Another thing, most of the countries we've offshored manufacturing work to, have newer and more advanced technologies yet, in those countries middle classes are developing when there was none. How is this, if it is all automated ? Look at the look at the Tool,Die and Mold trade in China. They currently estimate there are a million people involved in the industry, and still can't keep up. They estimate they are in a shortage of close to 500k people to keep up in the up coming years. They call it the "mother of industry" and the 2015 revenue was RMB 174 Billion... Yeah, we gave all that away, thanks to the short sightedness of our corporations and politicians. And this is just one industry....
I truly believe Industry is what creates wealth, and not individual wealth but wealth as a nation.
What could be worse than a $13 trillion cumulative trade deficit with the rest of the world? I'm old enough to remember when everything was made in the USA. How did we ever survive that period?............
No one is old enough to remember when everything was made in the USA because that never happened.
There has to be a trade deficit with the rest of the world because the US produces 25% of world GDP. Your "every country should stand alone" world no longer exists and hasn't since agrarian tribes existed world wide.
First the nitwits complain about population wealth imbalance, then they campaign for it on a world wide basis.
NeverTrumpers never did make any sense.
The trouble with import certificates is that other countries would simply introduce them in relation to US Goods, and by limiting cheap imports you then the price of certain goods would rise hitting the consumer and causing a rise in inflation.
As for employment, a lot of jobs are usually unfilled because they are low paid, and it is unlkely that you would find American workers willing to work as cheaply in relation to the manufacturer of low grade goods.
Import Cerificates are on essense just protectionism by another name, and would inevitable cause a downturn in trade and higher prices, although other countries could still maintain free trade without the US and could simply charge the US for trade using their own Import Certificates on US goods and even services. This would cause real problems for the US in an increasingly global economy.
Brave New World, you may, (or may not) understand the consequences of tariffs, but Import Certificates ain't tariffs and their consequences greatly differ. Regardless upon other nation's response to USA adoption of the Import Certificate policy, USA's GDP and numbers of jobs will increase. Import Certificate policy is substantially more market and less government driven.
... But the problem is that the average US citizen does not have a genius IQ and the temperament to be a semiconductor physicist, protein chemist, mechanical engineer, personal injury lawyer, etc.
Throwing more money at the educational establishment (the "duopoly's" solution) will not solve the problem.
Wells, to the extent that our states' education and training systems are inferior, their products, (i.e. their students will be inferior. Your statement is nonsensical bigotry. You did correctly state just more spending is notthe solution. Our state governments, local school boards, and we parents have failed to do our jobs.
I don't know if the numbers of our unfilled jobs are in the millions, but our inability to fill them are due to the failures of our nation's education and training systems. The states have the jurisdiction and the power to improve them. They're failing to do so.
The extent USA's education and training systems' improvements, would be reflected by no lesser improvement of our economic and social well-being.
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Brave New World, if your family's income is directly or indirectly dependent upon potatoes, potatoes are important to you. The government should not be judging what's a high or low-value product, or if another nation's wage scales which (include that nation's government provided benefits) are high or low-wage scales.
I'm a proponent of an Import Certificate policy that favors USA products. Other than that, it does not choose among products, or enterprises, or industries, or among foreign nations; but its intolerant of USA importing more products than we export. Trade deficits indicate our nation has purchased more products then we have produced and that drags upon our nations numbers of jobs.
The economic differences between imported and domestic produced products occur entirely during the production and delivery to the USA. After a vehicle reaches the USA, the repairman gets paid in the same manner, regardless of where the vehicle was produced. But if the factory ain't here, the assemblers, the accountants, the engineers, those maintaining and upgrading the assembly line mechanisms. The electricians, carpenters, plumbers are all working to keep the foreign factory working. Your low-value high-value product concept is nonsense. Let the markets determine what's made here and what we import, but don't tolerate annual trade deficits.
You say that USA's trade deficit's only 3% of our GDP? If it's 3% of our GDP, it's costing us a great deal more than 3% of USA entire numbers of jobs and payrolls.
The biggest problem with threatening other countries the way we are is that we are encouraging other countries to find other solutions that don't involve the US. Once a deal is struck, our businesses and farmers don't automatically get back the buyers they lost because a trade deal was reached.
If you don't think China is looking to set up a supply line for grains that eliminates their dependency on the US, you aren't paying attention. Same goes with banking and other businesses.
The belligerency we are showing other countries is going to hurt us long term as will the debt we are incurring from the tax cuts. It is the reason I am not excited about a temporary bump in GDP. Our long term game just gets worse and worse
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