JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
- 858
- 498
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This past tuesday the Wall Street Journal had an article by Matthew Slaughter a professor at Dartmouth College that unwittingly points to the crux of America's economic and income inequality problems it is simply America's loss of its abundance of manufacturing jobs over time and America needs to reverse this not try to reverse this but do it, guarantee it, with government laws and policies!
Mr. Slaughter's article is titled "High Trade Jobs Pay Higher Wages". His major points are that multinational corporations in America on average pay their workers higher wages than U.S. businesses that only operate domestically, what a brilliant fellow to discover this reality! This occurence is a result of the international trade these corporations are engaged in per Mr. Slaughter and he opines the U.S. government need only aide this foreign trade activity and this will dramatically improve the wage problem in the country. It's the old if we can only reduce foreign and domestic trade barriers throughout the world this will unleash this export and import bonanza and the jobs and income problems America has will be solved!
Ordinary struggling Americans don't want to hear this garbage. It's full of half truths and faulty logic. Other countries have different cost structures to live than America, their societies are set-up differently their people don't mind living in work camps for months at a time away from their children, these countries have different environmental laws and countless other varying factors which will cause competitive imbalances and realistically can never be fixed! When are you people in Washington going to wake-up and smell the coffee that your free-trade paradigm doesn't work and never will. You need to get it through your thick skulls and keep it there that that the top priority in all trade agreements needs to be that participating countries have as their top priority preserving and creating good jobs for their people and to that end they can use whatever protective measures necessary to protect sixty percent of any of their domestic industry for their domestic manufacturers whether it be tariffs or quotas they use. Politicians in Washington are just kidding themselves if they think they are going to rebuild the middle class in America without returning the steel, furniture, home appliance, etc. manufacturing industries to America's shores on a grand scale! There is no way you can create the number of businesses needed paying the wages needed in America to achieve this goal without going to the manufacturing industries.
Modifying the existing trade agreement matrix built up over the last fifty years to achive this will not be easy but it is the right thing to do for people throughout the world! I tell you one case where it is completely obvious it is right and that is for Southern European Union countries, returning domestic manufacturing is the only way to solve their hopeless job problem! Mr. Slaughter did provide one extremely valuable piece of information in his article that the American people should find shocking and think that Washington politicians should be using this as a wake-up call; this is his comment that " Only 3.5% of the new jobs last year were in higher-wage manufacturing industries" and "About a third of the 2.2 million new jobs in 2013 were in retail, accommodation and food services, two of the lowest-paying industries.". Do these facts give any hope to the American people about preserving the American dream in this country, that is, that if you play by the rules you can get a good job which will give you a good life, I would submit absolutely not!
On one occassion over the last couple months Congressman John Lewis said something which I think will be considered prophetic unless common sense dramatic change like outlined above takes place. Congressman Lewis essentially said many Americans presently are going through real hardship with this abysmal job and wage situation in this country and things cannot continue on this course or there will be a revolution in this country to remedy it! It should not be unthinkable that America could experience its own Arab Spring or its own current Ukraine experience, aren't the Vietnam War protests of the 1960's
proof the country could fall into such discord! All you wealthy Americans out there instead of going to Davos and networking about how to create more wealth should go to Washington and network how to create middle class wealth for ordinary Americans. When this revolution occurrs America could see the masses calling for a tax rate of seventy to seventy five percent on the wealthy in America, America has had such rates before! Common wisdom says that it is sometimes the case to solve problems in their earlier stages than later when solutions are dramatically costlier, I would suggest wealthy and powerful Americans not put this wisdom to the test!
Mr. Slaughter's article is titled "High Trade Jobs Pay Higher Wages". His major points are that multinational corporations in America on average pay their workers higher wages than U.S. businesses that only operate domestically, what a brilliant fellow to discover this reality! This occurence is a result of the international trade these corporations are engaged in per Mr. Slaughter and he opines the U.S. government need only aide this foreign trade activity and this will dramatically improve the wage problem in the country. It's the old if we can only reduce foreign and domestic trade barriers throughout the world this will unleash this export and import bonanza and the jobs and income problems America has will be solved!
Ordinary struggling Americans don't want to hear this garbage. It's full of half truths and faulty logic. Other countries have different cost structures to live than America, their societies are set-up differently their people don't mind living in work camps for months at a time away from their children, these countries have different environmental laws and countless other varying factors which will cause competitive imbalances and realistically can never be fixed! When are you people in Washington going to wake-up and smell the coffee that your free-trade paradigm doesn't work and never will. You need to get it through your thick skulls and keep it there that that the top priority in all trade agreements needs to be that participating countries have as their top priority preserving and creating good jobs for their people and to that end they can use whatever protective measures necessary to protect sixty percent of any of their domestic industry for their domestic manufacturers whether it be tariffs or quotas they use. Politicians in Washington are just kidding themselves if they think they are going to rebuild the middle class in America without returning the steel, furniture, home appliance, etc. manufacturing industries to America's shores on a grand scale! There is no way you can create the number of businesses needed paying the wages needed in America to achieve this goal without going to the manufacturing industries.
Modifying the existing trade agreement matrix built up over the last fifty years to achive this will not be easy but it is the right thing to do for people throughout the world! I tell you one case where it is completely obvious it is right and that is for Southern European Union countries, returning domestic manufacturing is the only way to solve their hopeless job problem! Mr. Slaughter did provide one extremely valuable piece of information in his article that the American people should find shocking and think that Washington politicians should be using this as a wake-up call; this is his comment that " Only 3.5% of the new jobs last year were in higher-wage manufacturing industries" and "About a third of the 2.2 million new jobs in 2013 were in retail, accommodation and food services, two of the lowest-paying industries.". Do these facts give any hope to the American people about preserving the American dream in this country, that is, that if you play by the rules you can get a good job which will give you a good life, I would submit absolutely not!
On one occassion over the last couple months Congressman John Lewis said something which I think will be considered prophetic unless common sense dramatic change like outlined above takes place. Congressman Lewis essentially said many Americans presently are going through real hardship with this abysmal job and wage situation in this country and things cannot continue on this course or there will be a revolution in this country to remedy it! It should not be unthinkable that America could experience its own Arab Spring or its own current Ukraine experience, aren't the Vietnam War protests of the 1960's
proof the country could fall into such discord! All you wealthy Americans out there instead of going to Davos and networking about how to create more wealth should go to Washington and network how to create middle class wealth for ordinary Americans. When this revolution occurrs America could see the masses calling for a tax rate of seventy to seventy five percent on the wealthy in America, America has had such rates before! Common wisdom says that it is sometimes the case to solve problems in their earlier stages than later when solutions are dramatically costlier, I would suggest wealthy and powerful Americans not put this wisdom to the test!
