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I am being very serious.So you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
Labor is by far the largest operating expense of any business. That is precisely why manufacturers move overseas. It has virtually nothing to do with taxes.
Cheap labor is precisely what gives them their edge.
So no, I am not kidding.
So lets remove taxes AND the largest operating expense AND American Workers.
-Jail all employers that knowingly hire illegal aliens.
-End all Republican worker visa programs.
-Base Federal tax for corporations at 30% of revenue.
-Raise minimum wage to $23.50/hr. Based on where minimum wage should be using 1970-2020 rise in food, shelter, and transportation.
-Eliminate all business subsidies (deductions/write-offs/write-downs) except for employee expenses which are deducted dollar-for-dollar on all city, state, and Federal taxes and fees with the Feds refunding city, State, and fees.
-Companies with unlimited employees; employee expenses above the deduction are subsidized at 100% with funds usually give back to the States.
-Adjust Social Security and private/public retirement and pension payments using 1970-2020 price structure.
-Remove the FICA limit.
-Back down ALL costs, prices, fees, to January 1, 2009 levels and hold them for 15 years which will eliminate inflation.
-Recall ALL off-shore investments tax free, and disallow any further off-shore investments.
-Make inversion illegal.
My plan would reduce business costs for employees and taxes to 30%. That's a 15%-30% drop.
My plan would put BILLIONS into the economy daily.
My plan would put the $100 trillion plus currently owned by corporate America back into the economy.
My plan would end all welfare.
My plan would significantly increase social security and pension payments.
Instant depression. Good job!
We have more wealth than ever and really low unemployment. We could afford to pay everyone really well, but instead the rich are winning bigly. The result is a slow economy. The tax cuts for the rich didn’t fix that.The war on unions has gotten us slow growth and growing inequality. That fight has been a loser for the country.The car companies failed because the execs made bad choices. They were making cars people didn’t want. The economy was much stronger with strong unions. Now we have weak growth and growing inequality.Stagnant wages?
If I agree to mow your lawn for $30, do you pay me more money every single mow? Next year if I demanded $60, would you pay it?
Why do you think that simply existing, means you should be paid more?
You want to earn more money? Great. Me too. Here's how you do that... do work that has more value.
You learn a skill or trade, or be willing to work more hours, or something that increases your value.
Having a Union may increase your pay in the short term, but in the long run, you end up destroying your own jobs. The value of your work, does not increase, because the Union or Government said so.
That's why Chrysler and GM failed, and tens of thousands lost their jobs, and Honda and Toyota did not, and tens of thousands kept their jobs.
That's why Hostess under the Union went bankrupt, and Hostess as a non-union is now profitable.
False, by any measure. GM was still the number one car manufacturer, even during the worst part of the recession. How can you claim GM was making cars people didn't want, when GMs cars were consistently outselling all the competition?
Here is the reality. The average cost of Big auto union labor, is dramatically more expensive than the cost of labor at non-union shops. The result of that, is while they produce more cars that more people want, and dramatically out sell the competition, because the cost of labor is so high, they really don't produce much profit from it.
That lack of profit, resulted in bankruptcy.
The Unions bankrupted GM and Chrysler. Ford was only spared because Ford had already gotten concessions from the Auto Unions before the crash.
Any idea that unions created 'equality' is a myth. The rich have always been rich. And the poor have always been poor. There was never a time, where the rich lived like the middle class, because of Unions.
Further, even to this day, we live in the most wealthy country in the world. Two people working minimum wage at McDonald's, places them in the top 1% of wage earners in the world.
And lastly, while you can claim that mindless BS until the end of time... you can't back that with any real empirical evidence.
Tell all the Union people at Hostess who all lost their jobs, and were replaced with non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Union people at GM and Chrysler, who all lost their jobs, and were in many cases replaced with non-union people, that Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Steel workers that lost their jobs, and many were replaced by non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
We had a steel mill here in Ohio reopen, after being closed from a Union strike years ago. Now it's opening non-union.
The people who claim the Unions did anything good, typically have to go back in time about 100 years, to point to any good thing the Union did.
Today, the Unions are only there to screw over the public, and screw over the tax payers, and screw over their own members.
So you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.So you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.Apple sells so many iphones they could make them here and in china the same way foreign autos are built in AmericaSo you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.
We have more wealth than ever and really low unemployment. We could afford to pay everyone really well, but instead the rich are winning bigly. The result is a slow economy. The tax cuts for the rich didn’t fix that.The war on unions has gotten us slow growth and growing inequality. That fight has been a loser for the country.The car companies failed because the execs made bad choices. They were making cars people didn’t want. The economy was much stronger with strong unions. Now we have weak growth and growing inequality.If I agree to mow your lawn for $30, do you pay me more money every single mow? Next year if I demanded $60, would you pay it?
Why do you think that simply existing, means you should be paid more?
You want to earn more money? Great. Me too. Here's how you do that... do work that has more value.
You learn a skill or trade, or be willing to work more hours, or something that increases your value.
Having a Union may increase your pay in the short term, but in the long run, you end up destroying your own jobs. The value of your work, does not increase, because the Union or Government said so.
That's why Chrysler and GM failed, and tens of thousands lost their jobs, and Honda and Toyota did not, and tens of thousands kept their jobs.
That's why Hostess under the Union went bankrupt, and Hostess as a non-union is now profitable.
False, by any measure. GM was still the number one car manufacturer, even during the worst part of the recession. How can you claim GM was making cars people didn't want, when GMs cars were consistently outselling all the competition?
Here is the reality. The average cost of Big auto union labor, is dramatically more expensive than the cost of labor at non-union shops. The result of that, is while they produce more cars that more people want, and dramatically out sell the competition, because the cost of labor is so high, they really don't produce much profit from it.
That lack of profit, resulted in bankruptcy.
The Unions bankrupted GM and Chrysler. Ford was only spared because Ford had already gotten concessions from the Auto Unions before the crash.
Any idea that unions created 'equality' is a myth. The rich have always been rich. And the poor have always been poor. There was never a time, where the rich lived like the middle class, because of Unions.
Further, even to this day, we live in the most wealthy country in the world. Two people working minimum wage at McDonald's, places them in the top 1% of wage earners in the world.
And lastly, while you can claim that mindless BS until the end of time... you can't back that with any real empirical evidence.
Tell all the Union people at Hostess who all lost their jobs, and were replaced with non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Union people at GM and Chrysler, who all lost their jobs, and were in many cases replaced with non-union people, that Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Steel workers that lost their jobs, and many were replaced by non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
We had a steel mill here in Ohio reopen, after being closed from a Union strike years ago. Now it's opening non-union.
The people who claim the Unions did anything good, typically have to go back in time about 100 years, to point to any good thing the Union did.
Today, the Unions are only there to screw over the public, and screw over the tax payers, and screw over their own members.
It matters a great dealWe consume millions of masks every yearDuring the era of Mutual Assured Destruction, the federal government established bomb shelters in every city and most towns. Usually under the post office.What amount of "planning" did you expect, could prevent this?
These were stocked with food and water.
Most of that food ended up rotting, but it was still prudent to do that kind of preparation.
In the era of swine flu, SARS, MERS, and Ebola it is prudent to stock up on masks and other medical supplies.
Ironically, that example you gave, is almost exactly the kind of example I would have pointed to, as to why trying to prepare is pointless.
Even when most of those bomb shelters were built, they are ridiculous. A town of 2,000, with a bomb shelter built for 380? Enough water in the shelter that in a matter of 10 years, was no longer safe to drink? An air filtration system that barely functioned when new, had questionable value against any contamination, and was covered in mold in a matter of I believe I read 8 years?
And for what? By the time Hawaii had their false alarm, no one even remembered that such a place existed, or that it was stocked with anything.
How many billions of dollars in current money, was spent building such places, to have all of it be tossed in the trash? Or worse, not tossed in the trash, and now are used by urban decay explorers to make youtube videos, poking fun at the past.
Again for what?
If we had stocked up on medical supplies ten years ago, not one of those medical supplies would be good today. Would you want to be on the receiving end, getting a mask that could be more dangerous to you, than not having one at all? Mold grows on nearly anything. Even the smallest pin-hole puncture in a bag of masks can result in toxic mold growing inside the mask fibers.
You want that?
No, I don't think keeping millions of masks stored in FEMA warehouses, is a brilliant idea. Quite frankly, given how the FEMA trailers had formaldehyde problems, I don't think government being involved in this at all, is all that smart.
It's amazing how many millions of times, government screws stuff up, and we still end up with people wanting government more involved. How many times does it take, before we stop looking to government for solutions?
if those masks are made in America we dont have to depend on china
Not really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
The waltons made billions. Unions are in deep decline, where is the promised prosperity?We have more wealth than ever and really low unemployment. We could afford to pay everyone really well, but instead the rich are winning bigly. The result is a slow economy. The tax cuts for the rich didn’t fix that.The war on unions has gotten us slow growth and growing inequality. That fight has been a loser for the country.The car companies failed because the execs made bad choices. They were making cars people didn’t want. The economy was much stronger with strong unions. Now we have weak growth and growing inequality.
False, by any measure. GM was still the number one car manufacturer, even during the worst part of the recession. How can you claim GM was making cars people didn't want, when GMs cars were consistently outselling all the competition?
Here is the reality. The average cost of Big auto union labor, is dramatically more expensive than the cost of labor at non-union shops. The result of that, is while they produce more cars that more people want, and dramatically out sell the competition, because the cost of labor is so high, they really don't produce much profit from it.
That lack of profit, resulted in bankruptcy.
The Unions bankrupted GM and Chrysler. Ford was only spared because Ford had already gotten concessions from the Auto Unions before the crash.
Any idea that unions created 'equality' is a myth. The rich have always been rich. And the poor have always been poor. There was never a time, where the rich lived like the middle class, because of Unions.
Further, even to this day, we live in the most wealthy country in the world. Two people working minimum wage at McDonald's, places them in the top 1% of wage earners in the world.
And lastly, while you can claim that mindless BS until the end of time... you can't back that with any real empirical evidence.
Tell all the Union people at Hostess who all lost their jobs, and were replaced with non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Union people at GM and Chrysler, who all lost their jobs, and were in many cases replaced with non-union people, that Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Steel workers that lost their jobs, and many were replaced by non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
We had a steel mill here in Ohio reopen, after being closed from a Union strike years ago. Now it's opening non-union.
The people who claim the Unions did anything good, typically have to go back in time about 100 years, to point to any good thing the Union did.
Today, the Unions are only there to screw over the public, and screw over the tax payers, and screw over their own members.
That's not true either.
The CEO of Walmart made $22 Million.
He if split that money up with the employees, it would give all the 2.2 M employees about $10 for the year. That's a raise of 0.5 Cents an hour.
Problem is, you can't take $22 Million, because most of that is stock. Can you pay a low-wage worker in stock they can't sell? No. Only $6.5 Million is in cash.
That means the total pay out to employees would be about $3 a year, or 0.0014 cents an hour raise.
This same basic math is true of nearly every company that hires low wage workers. Wendy's, McDonald's, and so on, you can do the math for all of them, and it all comes out to less than a penny per hour raise, if you confiscated the CEO wage, and distributed it to the employees.
And here's the other side.... you take the money from the CEOs and give it to the employees, then you end up with terrible CEOs. Bad CEOs can easily destroy the entire company. Enron, Lehman, WorldCom, and the list goes on.
You take that CEO pay, and give it to the employees, and you won't have to worry about low wages anymore, because there will be no wages. Everyone will be unemployed when the company closes.
This mythology that everyone could make a good living if not for the rich people... so ridiculous, so stupid. No support for this fabricated belief system at all.
It depends. . . should we have a military?So you think socialism works then?Venezuela's problems have nothing to do with that.
Venezuela's problems have to do with that fact that the entire globalist ruling elite has banned them from buying and selling on the world market.
It is like siege warfare. Their nation is under siege, because the global elites don't approve of who their population voted for. Only a few nations have agree to trade with them.
Plus, they do not have a very diversified economy. Their entire GDP is based on the export of one resource.
IN SHORT, you are making a false equivalency fallacy.
Do you really want to compare Venezuela with the USA and expect to be taken seriously?
Goobers, that is something that the folks you often argue with always do to you, when you are arguing for the policies you support.
That doesn't answer the question. Do you think government should decide how society invests its wealth?
Try saying something relevant to the conversation.
I think only a few people at Apple know how much more it would costSo you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.So you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.Apple sells so many iphones they could make them here and in china the same way foreign autos are built in AmericaSo you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.
That is technically true. The problem is, building them here, would double the price. No matter how good the iPhone is relative to android phones, at some price level, everyone will just go Android.
Let us even suggest that you eliminate all other phones, so the iPhone is the only option, and you can only buy from a Union shop in the US.
The iPhone would end up a luxury item, and everyone would simply make do without. Since the sales would be so small, Apple would simply not make them domestically, and the rich elites would just pay the tariff.
Either way, you are not going to Union US employees building iPhones. The math doesn't work. It will never happen.
You people seem to think that if we force people to buy domestically, that people will just cough up the money and pay the price. No they won't.
I'm not sure why this is a hard concept. If government mandated that oil changes cost $100... would you still pay someone to do your oil change? No, you'd do yourself. Or have a backyard mechanic do it for you.
You would never just cough up the $100... because I have no choice.
Just like fast food joints. If you jack up the minimum wage, and people have to pay $15 for a cheap burger, because the minimum wage is high.... people are not going to keep going to McDonald's for a cheap burger that costs $15. They will just find other ways to eat, and all those highly paid burger flippers will be unemployed.
At the very very very best possible outcome of your plan......
Apple makes an automated facilities that employs 3 guys to press the start button, and the iPhones are built by automation.
And you still won't have thousands of Union employees making iPhones. So no matter which way you go with this, there will never be union employees making iPhones by hand in the US. It will never happen. Never.
If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealWe consume millions of masks every yearDuring the era of Mutual Assured Destruction, the federal government established bomb shelters in every city and most towns. Usually under the post office.
These were stocked with food and water.
Most of that food ended up rotting, but it was still prudent to do that kind of preparation.
In the era of swine flu, SARS, MERS, and Ebola it is prudent to stock up on masks and other medical supplies.
Ironically, that example you gave, is almost exactly the kind of example I would have pointed to, as to why trying to prepare is pointless.
Even when most of those bomb shelters were built, they are ridiculous. A town of 2,000, with a bomb shelter built for 380? Enough water in the shelter that in a matter of 10 years, was no longer safe to drink? An air filtration system that barely functioned when new, had questionable value against any contamination, and was covered in mold in a matter of I believe I read 8 years?
And for what? By the time Hawaii had their false alarm, no one even remembered that such a place existed, or that it was stocked with anything.
How many billions of dollars in current money, was spent building such places, to have all of it be tossed in the trash? Or worse, not tossed in the trash, and now are used by urban decay explorers to make youtube videos, poking fun at the past.
Again for what?
If we had stocked up on medical supplies ten years ago, not one of those medical supplies would be good today. Would you want to be on the receiving end, getting a mask that could be more dangerous to you, than not having one at all? Mold grows on nearly anything. Even the smallest pin-hole puncture in a bag of masks can result in toxic mold growing inside the mask fibers.
You want that?
No, I don't think keeping millions of masks stored in FEMA warehouses, is a brilliant idea. Quite frankly, given how the FEMA trailers had formaldehyde problems, I don't think government being involved in this at all, is all that smart.
It's amazing how many millions of times, government screws stuff up, and we still end up with people wanting government more involved. How many times does it take, before we stop looking to government for solutions?
if those masks are made in America we dont have to depend on china
Not really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
The waltons made billions. Unions are in deep decline, where is the promised prosperity?We have more wealth than ever and really low unemployment. We could afford to pay everyone really well, but instead the rich are winning bigly. The result is a slow economy. The tax cuts for the rich didn’t fix that.The war on unions has gotten us slow growth and growing inequality. That fight has been a loser for the country.False, by any measure. GM was still the number one car manufacturer, even during the worst part of the recession. How can you claim GM was making cars people didn't want, when GMs cars were consistently outselling all the competition?
Here is the reality. The average cost of Big auto union labor, is dramatically more expensive than the cost of labor at non-union shops. The result of that, is while they produce more cars that more people want, and dramatically out sell the competition, because the cost of labor is so high, they really don't produce much profit from it.
That lack of profit, resulted in bankruptcy.
The Unions bankrupted GM and Chrysler. Ford was only spared because Ford had already gotten concessions from the Auto Unions before the crash.
Any idea that unions created 'equality' is a myth. The rich have always been rich. And the poor have always been poor. There was never a time, where the rich lived like the middle class, because of Unions.
Further, even to this day, we live in the most wealthy country in the world. Two people working minimum wage at McDonald's, places them in the top 1% of wage earners in the world.
And lastly, while you can claim that mindless BS until the end of time... you can't back that with any real empirical evidence.
Tell all the Union people at Hostess who all lost their jobs, and were replaced with non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Union people at GM and Chrysler, who all lost their jobs, and were in many cases replaced with non-union people, that Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Steel workers that lost their jobs, and many were replaced by non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
We had a steel mill here in Ohio reopen, after being closed from a Union strike years ago. Now it's opening non-union.
The people who claim the Unions did anything good, typically have to go back in time about 100 years, to point to any good thing the Union did.
Today, the Unions are only there to screw over the public, and screw over the tax payers, and screw over their own members.
That's not true either.
The CEO of Walmart made $22 Million.
He if split that money up with the employees, it would give all the 2.2 M employees about $10 for the year. That's a raise of 0.5 Cents an hour.
Problem is, you can't take $22 Million, because most of that is stock. Can you pay a low-wage worker in stock they can't sell? No. Only $6.5 Million is in cash.
That means the total pay out to employees would be about $3 a year, or 0.0014 cents an hour raise.
This same basic math is true of nearly every company that hires low wage workers. Wendy's, McDonald's, and so on, you can do the math for all of them, and it all comes out to less than a penny per hour raise, if you confiscated the CEO wage, and distributed it to the employees.
And here's the other side.... you take the money from the CEOs and give it to the employees, then you end up with terrible CEOs. Bad CEOs can easily destroy the entire company. Enron, Lehman, WorldCom, and the list goes on.
You take that CEO pay, and give it to the employees, and you won't have to worry about low wages anymore, because there will be no wages. Everyone will be unemployed when the company closes.
This mythology that everyone could make a good living if not for the rich people... so ridiculous, so stupid. No support for this fabricated belief system at all.
If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealWe consume millions of masks every yearIronically, that example you gave, is almost exactly the kind of example I would have pointed to, as to why trying to prepare is pointless.
Even when most of those bomb shelters were built, they are ridiculous. A town of 2,000, with a bomb shelter built for 380? Enough water in the shelter that in a matter of 10 years, was no longer safe to drink? An air filtration system that barely functioned when new, had questionable value against any contamination, and was covered in mold in a matter of I believe I read 8 years?
And for what? By the time Hawaii had their false alarm, no one even remembered that such a place existed, or that it was stocked with anything.
How many billions of dollars in current money, was spent building such places, to have all of it be tossed in the trash? Or worse, not tossed in the trash, and now are used by urban decay explorers to make youtube videos, poking fun at the past.
Again for what?
If we had stocked up on medical supplies ten years ago, not one of those medical supplies would be good today. Would you want to be on the receiving end, getting a mask that could be more dangerous to you, than not having one at all? Mold grows on nearly anything. Even the smallest pin-hole puncture in a bag of masks can result in toxic mold growing inside the mask fibers.
You want that?
No, I don't think keeping millions of masks stored in FEMA warehouses, is a brilliant idea. Quite frankly, given how the FEMA trailers had formaldehyde problems, I don't think government being involved in this at all, is all that smart.
It's amazing how many millions of times, government screws stuff up, and we still end up with people wanting government more involved. How many times does it take, before we stop looking to government for solutions?
if those masks are made in America we dont have to depend on china
Not really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
That’ll be the day when china buys anything from the US if they can make it there
no masks would be on their way to china
and we have not even touched on the issue of Made In China drugs that are vital for the health of US citizens
I think only a few people at Apple know how much more it would costSo you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.So you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.Apple sells so many iphones they could make them here and in china the same way foreign autos are built in AmericaSo you want our government to allow Apple to treat American factory workers like slaves, and have them live in company barracks with suicide nets, and pay them peanuts like they can do in China?
Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.
That is technically true. The problem is, building them here, would double the price. No matter how good the iPhone is relative to android phones, at some price level, everyone will just go Android.
Let us even suggest that you eliminate all other phones, so the iPhone is the only option, and you can only buy from a Union shop in the US.
The iPhone would end up a luxury item, and everyone would simply make do without. Since the sales would be so small, Apple would simply not make them domestically, and the rich elites would just pay the tariff.
Either way, you are not going to Union US employees building iPhones. The math doesn't work. It will never happen.
You people seem to think that if we force people to buy domestically, that people will just cough up the money and pay the price. No they won't.
I'm not sure why this is a hard concept. If government mandated that oil changes cost $100... would you still pay someone to do your oil change? No, you'd do yourself. Or have a backyard mechanic do it for you.
You would never just cough up the $100... because I have no choice.
Just like fast food joints. If you jack up the minimum wage, and people have to pay $15 for a cheap burger, because the minimum wage is high.... people are not going to keep going to McDonald's for a cheap burger that costs $15. They will just find other ways to eat, and all those highly paid burger flippers will be unemployed.
At the very very very best possible outcome of your plan......
Apple makes an automated facilities that employs 3 guys to press the start button, and the iPhones are built by automation.
And you still won't have thousands of Union employees making iPhones. So no matter which way you go with this, there will never be union employees making iPhones by hand in the US. It will never happen. Never.
and they arent saying
there would be higher wages, healthcare and government mandated regulation costs over china
but double the price?
who knows?
there is however a huge ripple affect that will help many Americans instead of the chinese
If they moved the plant to the US, then they would be supplying China from the US, as well as the rest of the world.If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealWe consume millions of masks every year
if those masks are made in America we dont have to depend on china
Not really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
That’ll be the day when china buys anything from the US if they can make it there
no masks would be on their way to china
and we have not even touched on the issue of Made In China drugs that are vital for the health of US citizens
Sure they would.
Look, most massive international suppliers, only have one manufacturing plant. They don't need to plants, to make the same thing. That doesn't even make sense in most cases.
You pointed out that Auto companies have manufacturing plants inside, and outside the country. True. But they don't have two plants, making identical products.
The simply don't. They would never have two different plants, making the exact same product. Even when you see two Ford plants for example that are both making a Ford Fiesta.... they are not making the same Fiesta. Some plants are making commercial version, with van style panels. Others are making ones for motor sports. Others are making a version the fits the requirements and regulations of a specific country or group of countries. (right-hand steering, instead of left-hand steering for example).
A face mask is not going to have any of those requirements.
There is no reason to build a second manufacturing plant inside the US, just for facemasks.
If they moved the plant to the US, then they would be supplying China from the US, as well as the rest of the world.
And yes, China buys stuff from the US all the time. China is constantly buying products from the US.
United States Exports By Country
China is our third largest customer of US goods.
This has been well documented for years. I don't know why you would even think to argue otherwise.
If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealWe consume millions of masks every year
if those masks are made in America we dont have to depend on china
Not really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
That’ll be the day when china buys anything from the US if they can make it there
no masks would be on their way to china
and we have not even touched on the issue of Made In China drugs that are vital for the health of US citizens
Sure they would.
Look, most massive international suppliers, only have one manufacturing plant. They don't need to plants, to make the same thing. That doesn't even make sense in most cases.
You pointed out that Auto companies have manufacturing plants inside, and outside the country. True. But they don't have two plants, making identical products.
The simply don't. They would never have two different plants, making the exact same product. Even when you see two Ford plants for example that are both making a Ford Fiesta.... they are not making the same Fiesta. Some plants are making commercial version, with van style panels. Others are making ones for motor sports. Others are making a version the fits the requirements and regulations of a specific country or group of countries. (right-hand steering, instead of left-hand steering for example).
A face mask is not going to have any of those requirements.
There is no reason to build a second manufacturing plant inside the US, just for facemasks.
If they moved the plant to the US, then they would be supplying China from the US, as well as the rest of the world.
And yes, China buys stuff from the US all the time. China is constantly buying products from the US.
United States Exports By Country
China is our third largest customer of US goods.
This has been well documented for years. I don't know why you would even think to argue otherwise.
It does when more Americans have better jobs and we are more secureI think only a few people at Apple know how much more it would costSeems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.Seems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.Apple sells so many iphones they could make them here and in china the same way foreign autos are built in AmericaSeems like a strawman...not a serious question.
So here is a non-serious answer...
I'd prefer that Apple made phones here and paid a UAW wage...and protected that wage through tarriffs if necessary.
That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.
That is technically true. The problem is, building them here, would double the price. No matter how good the iPhone is relative to android phones, at some price level, everyone will just go Android.
Let us even suggest that you eliminate all other phones, so the iPhone is the only option, and you can only buy from a Union shop in the US.
The iPhone would end up a luxury item, and everyone would simply make do without. Since the sales would be so small, Apple would simply not make them domestically, and the rich elites would just pay the tariff.
Either way, you are not going to Union US employees building iPhones. The math doesn't work. It will never happen.
You people seem to think that if we force people to buy domestically, that people will just cough up the money and pay the price. No they won't.
I'm not sure why this is a hard concept. If government mandated that oil changes cost $100... would you still pay someone to do your oil change? No, you'd do yourself. Or have a backyard mechanic do it for you.
You would never just cough up the $100... because I have no choice.
Just like fast food joints. If you jack up the minimum wage, and people have to pay $15 for a cheap burger, because the minimum wage is high.... people are not going to keep going to McDonald's for a cheap burger that costs $15. They will just find other ways to eat, and all those highly paid burger flippers will be unemployed.
At the very very very best possible outcome of your plan......
Apple makes an automated facilities that employs 3 guys to press the start button, and the iPhones are built by automation.
And you still won't have thousands of Union employees making iPhones. So no matter which way you go with this, there will never be union employees making iPhones by hand in the US. It will never happen. Never.
and they arent saying
there would be higher wages, healthcare and government mandated regulation costs over china
but double the price?
who knows?
there is however a huge ripple affect that will help many Americans instead of the chinese
Higher prices do not help Americans.
If the price of everything goes up, because of a lack of trade... the standard of living must by necessity go down.
Protectionist anti-trade policies will help a very small select few Americans, at the expense of the entire rest of society.
If you doubt that.... why do we enact protectionism against other countries as punishment?
By your logic, putting in sanctions against Russia, should have resulted in Russia having an economic boom. Instead, the standard of living declined, as trade dried up, and Russians found the economy tanking.
Protectionism, never works to the benefit of those who engage in it.
According to your reference china buys $120 bil from us and we buy about $600 bil from themIf the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealWe consume millions of masks every year
if those masks are made in America we dont have to depend on china
Not really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
That’ll be the day when china buys anything from the US if they can make it there
no masks would be on their way to china
and we have not even touched on the issue of Made In China drugs that are vital for the health of US citizens
Sure they would.
Look, most massive international suppliers, only have one manufacturing plant. They don't need to plants, to make the same thing. That doesn't even make sense in most cases.
You pointed out that Auto companies have manufacturing plants inside, and outside the country. True. But they don't have two plants, making identical products.
The simply don't. They would never have two different plants, making the exact same product. Even when you see two Ford plants for example that are both making a Ford Fiesta.... they are not making the same Fiesta. Some plants are making commercial version, with van style panels. Others are making ones for motor sports. Others are making a version the fits the requirements and regulations of a specific country or group of countries. (right-hand steering, instead of left-hand steering for example).
A face mask is not going to have any of those requirements.
There is no reason to build a second manufacturing plant inside the US, just for facemasks.
If they moved the plant to the US, then they would be supplying China from the US, as well as the rest of the world.
And yes, China buys stuff from the US all the time. China is constantly buying products from the US.
United States Exports By Country
China is our third largest customer of US goods.
This has been well documented for years. I don't know why you would even think to argue otherwise.
According to your reference china buys $120 bil from us and we buy about $600 bil from themIf the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealNot really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
That’ll be the day when china buys anything from the US if they can make it there
no masks would be on their way to china
and we have not even touched on the issue of Made In China drugs that are vital for the health of US citizens
Sure they would.
Look, most massive international suppliers, only have one manufacturing plant. They don't need to plants, to make the same thing. That doesn't even make sense in most cases.
You pointed out that Auto companies have manufacturing plants inside, and outside the country. True. But they don't have two plants, making identical products.
The simply don't. They would never have two different plants, making the exact same product. Even when you see two Ford plants for example that are both making a Ford Fiesta.... they are not making the same Fiesta. Some plants are making commercial version, with van style panels. Others are making ones for motor sports. Others are making a version the fits the requirements and regulations of a specific country or group of countries. (right-hand steering, instead of left-hand steering for example).
A face mask is not going to have any of those requirements.
There is no reason to build a second manufacturing plant inside the US, just for facemasks.
If they moved the plant to the US, then they would be supplying China from the US, as well as the rest of the world.
And yes, China buys stuff from the US all the time. China is constantly buying products from the US.
United States Exports By Country
China is our third largest customer of US goods.
This has been well documented for years. I don't know why you would even think to argue otherwise.
that is not healthy for America
If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealNot really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
That’ll be the day when china buys anything from the US if they can make it there
no masks would be on their way to china
and we have not even touched on the issue of Made In China drugs that are vital for the health of US citizens
Sure they would.
Look, most massive international suppliers, only have one manufacturing plant. They don't need to plants, to make the same thing. That doesn't even make sense in most cases.
You pointed out that Auto companies have manufacturing plants inside, and outside the country. True. But they don't have two plants, making identical products.
The simply don't. They would never have two different plants, making the exact same product. Even when you see two Ford plants for example that are both making a Ford Fiesta.... they are not making the same Fiesta. Some plants are making commercial version, with van style panels. Others are making ones for motor sports. Others are making a version the fits the requirements and regulations of a specific country or group of countries. (right-hand steering, instead of left-hand steering for example).
A face mask is not going to have any of those requirements.
There is no reason to build a second manufacturing plant inside the US, just for facemasks.
If they moved the plant to the US, then they would be supplying China from the US, as well as the rest of the world.
And yes, China buys stuff from the US all the time. China is constantly buying products from the US.
United States Exports By Country
China is our third largest customer of US goods.
This has been well documented for years. I don't know why you would even think to argue otherwise.It does when more Americans have better jobs and we are more secureI think only a few people at Apple know how much more it would costThat isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.Apple sells so many iphones they could make them here and in china the same way foreign autos are built in AmericaThat isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.
That is technically true. The problem is, building them here, would double the price. No matter how good the iPhone is relative to android phones, at some price level, everyone will just go Android.
Let us even suggest that you eliminate all other phones, so the iPhone is the only option, and you can only buy from a Union shop in the US.
The iPhone would end up a luxury item, and everyone would simply make do without. Since the sales would be so small, Apple would simply not make them domestically, and the rich elites would just pay the tariff.
Either way, you are not going to Union US employees building iPhones. The math doesn't work. It will never happen.
You people seem to think that if we force people to buy domestically, that people will just cough up the money and pay the price. No they won't.
I'm not sure why this is a hard concept. If government mandated that oil changes cost $100... would you still pay someone to do your oil change? No, you'd do yourself. Or have a backyard mechanic do it for you.
You would never just cough up the $100... because I have no choice.
Just like fast food joints. If you jack up the minimum wage, and people have to pay $15 for a cheap burger, because the minimum wage is high.... people are not going to keep going to McDonald's for a cheap burger that costs $15. They will just find other ways to eat, and all those highly paid burger flippers will be unemployed.
At the very very very best possible outcome of your plan......
Apple makes an automated facilities that employs 3 guys to press the start button, and the iPhones are built by automation.
And you still won't have thousands of Union employees making iPhones. So no matter which way you go with this, there will never be union employees making iPhones by hand in the US. It will never happen. Never.
and they arent saying
there would be higher wages, healthcare and government mandated regulation costs over china
but double the price?
who knows?
there is however a huge ripple affect that will help many Americans instead of the chinese
Higher prices do not help Americans.
If the price of everything goes up, because of a lack of trade... the standard of living must by necessity go down.
Protectionist anti-trade policies will help a very small select few Americans, at the expense of the entire rest of society.
If you doubt that.... why do we enact protectionism against other countries as punishment?
By your logic, putting in sanctions against Russia, should have resulted in Russia having an economic boom. Instead, the standard of living declined, as trade dried up, and Russians found the economy tanking.
Protectionism, never works to the benefit of those who engage in it.
if china were japan and this was 1941 we would lose the war
Wage growth is really slow. That's a fact. Not interested in all your imaginary examples. Workers share little of the profits now.The waltons made billions. Unions are in deep decline, where is the promised prosperity?We have more wealth than ever and really low unemployment. We could afford to pay everyone really well, but instead the rich are winning bigly. The result is a slow economy. The tax cuts for the rich didn’t fix that.The war on unions has gotten us slow growth and growing inequality. That fight has been a loser for the country.
Any idea that unions created 'equality' is a myth. The rich have always been rich. And the poor have always been poor. There was never a time, where the rich lived like the middle class, because of Unions.
Further, even to this day, we live in the most wealthy country in the world. Two people working minimum wage at McDonald's, places them in the top 1% of wage earners in the world.
And lastly, while you can claim that mindless BS until the end of time... you can't back that with any real empirical evidence.
Tell all the Union people at Hostess who all lost their jobs, and were replaced with non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Union people at GM and Chrysler, who all lost their jobs, and were in many cases replaced with non-union people, that Unions made their lives better.
Tell all the Steel workers that lost their jobs, and many were replaced by non-union people, that the Unions made their lives better.
We had a steel mill here in Ohio reopen, after being closed from a Union strike years ago. Now it's opening non-union.
The people who claim the Unions did anything good, typically have to go back in time about 100 years, to point to any good thing the Union did.
Today, the Unions are only there to screw over the public, and screw over the tax payers, and screw over their own members.
That's not true either.
The CEO of Walmart made $22 Million.
He if split that money up with the employees, it would give all the 2.2 M employees about $10 for the year. That's a raise of 0.5 Cents an hour.
Problem is, you can't take $22 Million, because most of that is stock. Can you pay a low-wage worker in stock they can't sell? No. Only $6.5 Million is in cash.
That means the total pay out to employees would be about $3 a year, or 0.0014 cents an hour raise.
This same basic math is true of nearly every company that hires low wage workers. Wendy's, McDonald's, and so on, you can do the math for all of them, and it all comes out to less than a penny per hour raise, if you confiscated the CEO wage, and distributed it to the employees.
And here's the other side.... you take the money from the CEOs and give it to the employees, then you end up with terrible CEOs. Bad CEOs can easily destroy the entire company. Enron, Lehman, WorldCom, and the list goes on.
You take that CEO pay, and give it to the employees, and you won't have to worry about low wages anymore, because there will be no wages. Everyone will be unemployed when the company closes.
This mythology that everyone could make a good living if not for the rich people... so ridiculous, so stupid. No support for this fabricated belief system at all.
Where is it? 0.o
Dude look around. Things are better in this country, than at any time in the past.
More people, can make more money, in this country, than any other country in the world. I just had last year, a guy come here from Bangladesh. Worked his ass off for 5 years, and landed a job, 3 months vacation, paid for his moving costs, base pay $120,000 a year.
Now if a guy from a far away country, who still needs to ask what English words mean, can land that kind of a job by working hard.... why can't any born bred American? And without a Union.
I had a guy working with me years ago, started doing flooring on the weekends. In a matter of months, he was making more on the weekend doing flooring, than he was at a his full time job. Pretty soon, Wendy's contacted this guy, and asked him to do their corporate stores.
A janitor secretly amassed an $8 million fortune and left most of it to his library and hospital
This Janitor end up with $8 Million dollars by the time he retired.
Prosperity is all over the place. All over. I could point to dozens of examples.
The guy I worked for before, started the business in his basement, and built it to a multi-million dollar company, and sold it.
Open your eyes man. There is wealth all over this country for anyone who is willing to work for it.
Working for it, doesn't mean going to work for 40-hours, and clocking at on the minute, and spinning your tires out of the parking lot, so you can watch a football game, or the latest fad TV show.
Working for it, means finding work that has more value, or learning a skill that has more value, or working your way up in whatever company you are in.
Let me give you an example. Had a guy working at the auto part store. He was good at his job. But he didn't just come in, and do his job, and leave.
He request more hours whenever possible. Came in on weekends. Stayed late when asked. He moved to different positions within the store. He was unloading trucks, stocking shelves, cleaning floors, and running the cash registers.
Then he asked to join the company training program. He got in as a manager in training. Then he went to be assistant store manager. Then he was promoted to being store manager at a new store.
He moved up. He found more valuable work to do, that paid more money. Now he's averaging just under $100,000 a year (base pay plus store-profit sharing bonus). Again, no union involved.
Anyone can move up in this country. There is wealth everywhere.
If a drunk guy, working at a bar, can start whittling duck callers, and end up a multi-millionaire with his own TV show... anyone can.
That's not what happens. Trump did his steel tariffs and now we have massive layoffs. The rest of his tariffs slowed manufacturing.If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealNot really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
That’ll be the day when china buys anything from the US if they can make it there
no masks would be on their way to china
and we have not even touched on the issue of Made In China drugs that are vital for the health of US citizens
Sure they would.
Look, most massive international suppliers, only have one manufacturing plant. They don't need to plants, to make the same thing. That doesn't even make sense in most cases.
You pointed out that Auto companies have manufacturing plants inside, and outside the country. True. But they don't have two plants, making identical products.
The simply don't. They would never have two different plants, making the exact same product. Even when you see two Ford plants for example that are both making a Ford Fiesta.... they are not making the same Fiesta. Some plants are making commercial version, with van style panels. Others are making ones for motor sports. Others are making a version the fits the requirements and regulations of a specific country or group of countries. (right-hand steering, instead of left-hand steering for example).
A face mask is not going to have any of those requirements.
There is no reason to build a second manufacturing plant inside the US, just for facemasks.
If they moved the plant to the US, then they would be supplying China from the US, as well as the rest of the world.
And yes, China buys stuff from the US all the time. China is constantly buying products from the US.
United States Exports By Country
China is our third largest customer of US goods.
This has been well documented for years. I don't know why you would even think to argue otherwise.It does when more Americans have better jobs and we are more secureI think only a few people at Apple know how much more it would costThat isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.That isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.Apple sells so many iphones they could make them here and in china the same way foreign autos are built in AmericaThat isn't going to happen either way.
An Apple iPhone 11 is $1,000. People are simply not going to pay $2,000, so that some Union fat-cat can sit at his desk sleeping. Not going to happen. Ever.
The iPhone 11, would simply end up being sold in the rest of the world, while Americans would end up using either older iPhones, or Android phones.
More than half of all iPhone sales are outside the US. More than half.
Apple is not going to move operations to the US, and lose half the market. Not going to happen.
That is technically true. The problem is, building them here, would double the price. No matter how good the iPhone is relative to android phones, at some price level, everyone will just go Android.
Let us even suggest that you eliminate all other phones, so the iPhone is the only option, and you can only buy from a Union shop in the US.
The iPhone would end up a luxury item, and everyone would simply make do without. Since the sales would be so small, Apple would simply not make them domestically, and the rich elites would just pay the tariff.
Either way, you are not going to Union US employees building iPhones. The math doesn't work. It will never happen.
You people seem to think that if we force people to buy domestically, that people will just cough up the money and pay the price. No they won't.
I'm not sure why this is a hard concept. If government mandated that oil changes cost $100... would you still pay someone to do your oil change? No, you'd do yourself. Or have a backyard mechanic do it for you.
You would never just cough up the $100... because I have no choice.
Just like fast food joints. If you jack up the minimum wage, and people have to pay $15 for a cheap burger, because the minimum wage is high.... people are not going to keep going to McDonald's for a cheap burger that costs $15. They will just find other ways to eat, and all those highly paid burger flippers will be unemployed.
At the very very very best possible outcome of your plan......
Apple makes an automated facilities that employs 3 guys to press the start button, and the iPhones are built by automation.
And you still won't have thousands of Union employees making iPhones. So no matter which way you go with this, there will never be union employees making iPhones by hand in the US. It will never happen. Never.
and they arent saying
there would be higher wages, healthcare and government mandated regulation costs over china
but double the price?
who knows?
there is however a huge ripple affect that will help many Americans instead of the chinese
Higher prices do not help Americans.
If the price of everything goes up, because of a lack of trade... the standard of living must by necessity go down.
Protectionist anti-trade policies will help a very small select few Americans, at the expense of the entire rest of society.
If you doubt that.... why do we enact protectionism against other countries as punishment?
By your logic, putting in sanctions against Russia, should have resulted in Russia having an economic boom. Instead, the standard of living declined, as trade dried up, and Russians found the economy tanking.
Protectionism, never works to the benefit of those who engage in it.
if china were japan and this was 1941 we would lose the war
Why? They send us $600 billion in actual product and for that we only send them $120 billion in product. Sounds like a good trade to me.According to your reference china buys $120 bil from us and we buy about $600 bil from themIf the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.It matters a great dealNot really relevant to the discussion. It doesn't matter where the masks are made. Wherever they are made, they only have enough staff and machines to produce masks to meet the typical demand of a normal year.
They don't have a half dozen multi-million dollar machines laying around, just waiting to be switched on in case of a world wide pandemic.
It takes time, months, likely half a year, to buy new machines, setup those new machines, hire staff and train them on the new machines, and then start supplying additional masks.
if production is as inelastic as you claim and the masks are made in china which country gets the increased production when the shit hits the fan?
china of course
But that would be true here as well.
Remember the outbreak hit China first. So mask demand spiked there to start with. If the production was here in the US, those masks would be loaded on a boat, and heading for China right now.
By the time the demand hit the US, all existing stock would already be on the ocean waters between here and China.
It's a global market. That's how it is.
That’ll be the day when china buys anything from the US if they can make it there
no masks would be on their way to china
and we have not even touched on the issue of Made In China drugs that are vital for the health of US citizens
Sure they would.
Look, most massive international suppliers, only have one manufacturing plant. They don't need to plants, to make the same thing. That doesn't even make sense in most cases.
You pointed out that Auto companies have manufacturing plants inside, and outside the country. True. But they don't have two plants, making identical products.
The simply don't. They would never have two different plants, making the exact same product. Even when you see two Ford plants for example that are both making a Ford Fiesta.... they are not making the same Fiesta. Some plants are making commercial version, with van style panels. Others are making ones for motor sports. Others are making a version the fits the requirements and regulations of a specific country or group of countries. (right-hand steering, instead of left-hand steering for example).
A face mask is not going to have any of those requirements.
There is no reason to build a second manufacturing plant inside the US, just for facemasks.
If they moved the plant to the US, then they would be supplying China from the US, as well as the rest of the world.
And yes, China buys stuff from the US all the time. China is constantly buying products from the US.
United States Exports By Country
China is our third largest customer of US goods.
This has been well documented for years. I don't know why you would even think to argue otherwise.
that is not healthy for America
