Job outsourcing and the American middle class - political solutions?

[Sufi Marmot]

I'm not an economist so I would like to hear from people who know more about this issue than I do -

What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of using political policy to prevent the outsourcing of American jobs overseas? As far as I can see, Americans are getting screwed by free trade agreements such as NAFTA and WTO, and by corportate outsourcing in general, in terms of losing good middle class blue and white collar jobs. I understand why corporations and the free-trade crowd don't like protectionism, but why is it such a bad thing for the majority of Americans?

Which is more harmful to the American economy: a) somewhat higher prices on consumer goods, reduced exports from foreign retaliation to our tariffs, and slightly lower returns on investments (mutual funds, etc.) or b) the permanent loss of millions of American jobs?

Are there good economic reasons not to punish corporations (with tariffs, loss of tax breaks, and closing of offshore tax loopholes) who ship jobs overseas?

Basically, I guess what I'm asking is: is free trade really the best option for most Americans, and if not, what viable political solutions exist to retain American jobs? I listen to Lou Dobbs crying crocodile tears over these issues but I rarely hear any viable solutions being proposed. I suspect that this is because the only way to really address them significantly is at the political level, since corporations are amoral entities and are certainly not going to alter their behavior without significant external motivation. Why not simply make it so expensive to import manufactured goods from foreign countries that it makes economic sense to produce them domestically? (Yes, I realize such notions make businessmen and executives apoplectic...)

I also hear lots of yapping about the need to create new jobs in new industries - always from people who would survive if they never collected another paycheck. I'd be curious to know what, if any, new industries are likely to support the creation of a lot of new American jobs in the near future (reasonably well-paying jobs, rather than minimum-wage service economy jobs).

I realize that different Democrats have varying opinions on this issue. Some, like Clinton, espouse free trade. Others are more willing to use protectionism. Nevertheless, the evisceration of the American middle class by corporations and their GOP enablers should be a key campaign issue for the Democrats this fall. Which of the Democratic candidates in your opinion has the best economic plan to maintain a healthy American middle class?

-SM, so not an economist...

[Code_Name_D]

1. I'll give it a shot.

I'm not an economist so I would like to hear from people who know more about this issue than I do -

I am not an economist either. But I think I can answer your questions, and maybe give out some ideas how to solve the problem. But first I would like to correct you on one thing. Your confession that you are not an economist seems to imply that only an economist can answer these questions. In fact, issues that you raised here are precisely what a democracy is all about, and are decisions that all of us should have a say in. Chances are that you know more than you think, when it comes to economics. And when it looks like tom-foolery, it probably is.

What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of using political policy to prevent the outsourcing of American jobs overseas? As far as I can see, Americans are getting screwed by free trade agreements such as NAFTA and WTO, and by corportate outsourcing in general, in terms of losing good middle class blue and white collar jobs. I understand why corporations and the free-trade crowd don't like protectionism, but why is it such a bad thing for the majority of Americans?

There seems to be two terms floating around for "protectionism." The standard term means gearing of trade policy to frustrate trade, and protect US corporations from competition from outside companies. Believe it or not, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, assuming that you have a thriving domestic capitalism to count upon that allows local competition. You are simply choosing to relay on domestic industry. But usually this is not the case. Protectionism is all about protecting corporations from outside competition, so protection from domestic competition can be presumed.

But the new definition of "protectionism" seems mean any trade policy that the corporations don't like. And it is now becoming another dirty word that the neo-cons jump on. And political solution is going to have to overcome that kind of fascistic resistance.

As for using political policy to "protect jobs." I would say that the true course of action is to use policy to not benefits or enable the exportation of jobs. This is actually what the "free trade" accords are all about. Free trade isn't really about trade at all, it's about a corporation bypassing duties and tariffs. It doesn’t held Hosea's Sugar Skull shop to sell his sugar skulls to Mexicans here in the US. If you did this, you would find out that the tariffs are very much in place.

To make senses with what is going on here, we have to cover some basics. In economics, there is something called an economy of scale. It reefers to the amount of circulating capital needed to support its population. To give you an example, a community living in rich fertile farmland that could grow its own food, has a relatively low economy of scale as oppose to a community found on a small island that has to import its food. A community found in a warm climate has a lower economy of scale than a community found close to the arctic circle because of the additional heating costs, and the need to burn more calories to stay warm. The result is that the lower economy of scale you are in, the cheaper things are. Like the village in the valley that grows its own food, its apples are going to be cheaper than the apples found on the island because of the added shipping costs.

The continental US has some dramatic shifts in economies of scale. It's highest along the coasts, and lowest in the mid west and south western states. New Mexico has the lowest economy of scale, while California has one of the highest. And it's this way for a lot of reasons.

But when you start traveling outside the US, the differences in economies of scale become even more dramatic. And this is where problems start to surface. Namely, cheep labor. With the widgets being equal one from Brazil build and ship a widget far cheaper than some one from New York, and still make a profit. Because of the economy of scale, his labor is cheaper, his rent is cheaper, and his raw materials are cheaper as well. The Brazilian widgets would undercut the New Yorker, and run him out of businesses.

This is where the trade tariffs come in. A tariff is set specifically for each importing country. In this case, our Brazilian widget. If they are set wisely, than the Brazilian would have to raise the price of his widget to be competitive with the New Yorker, while not impacting the Brazilian's profit margin. And there is its counter, not often talked about, called the export subsidy. That is where the New Yorker's export of widgets is subsidizes. This lets him sell his widgets to Brazil and be competitive there. In theory, the revenues from import tariffs should be used to fund the expenses in exporting subsidies. But of course spit in one hand, and theory in the other.

The function of this is to help isolate the two differing economies of scale. Remember that the difference is natural, and thus not theoretically correctable. But it is also theory that expansive trade will even out the economies. Do note that there are not tariffs or subsidies between New Mexico and California. Part of this is a result of having a common currency. But it's also because they evolved that way, in a state of balance between each other. New Mexico and California have been "free trading" for 100 years now. In theory, given free trade between the US, and Brazil, we should see a similar balance evolve here two.

That is the mentality that free trade hopes to exploit. They even give us the "humanitarian" angel that as we lose our jobs here, things are improving in Brazil, and in time, things will even out.

Of course, they are lying. The whole point of NAFTA, GATT, and the new CAFTA, is to let the US corporations buy pass the US's level tariffs. Before NAFTA, if Ford build a car plant in Brazil, they would effectively have to import these cars into the US, and pay the tariffs. Thus, illuminating the advantage they would see from cheap labor and materials.

But the corporations then argued that this was unfair to them. "Why should we pay to import Americana made cars into the US?" (Yep, they actually made that argument. And Clinton bought it.) The argument was that these tariffs were killing the corporations because it prevented effective coordination with over seas offices. For example, what if an office in Brazil was to shop several boxes of odd office supplies to an office in the US as some one was moving? We don't pay tariffs on this, so why should we pay tariffs on cars build in an American factory in Brazil, to an American warehouse in Kentucky? We are not selling the cars to ourselves as much as we are moving them internally, within the company.

So NAFTA drops all of these tariffs within company to company transactions. It also basically outlaws import, and export duties, as well as any type of export subsidy. The result is something called "the illumination of space and time." That is you can now ship 10,000 over a giant cargo ship, at zero expense. Or fly 50 tuns of Barbie dolls for absolutely nothing. And they will instantaneously arrive at their destination. As a result of both he change in time zones, as well as from speculative trading.) Of course what is happening is that they get to make things in the lower economies of scales, and sell them in the higher economies of scale with huge markups. Markups as high as 400%. Of course, they are not always so expensive. Especially when there is competition floating around. They have shown to be extraordinarily quick in undercutting local competition.

They even draw the shopper into the scheme. You've seen the "show us a lower price, and we will match it" adds from various retailers. This isn't a joke. When you report some one with lower pieces, they will automatically cut the price of that good. And with computer technology, they can do this within seconds, and have a sale ready the next day.

They try to tell us that this is just how competition works. But companies like Wallmart are only agreeable to competition when they are aloud such absence advantages.

I also hear lots of yapping about the need to create new jobs in new industries - always from people who would survive if they never collected another paycheck. I'd be curious to know what, if any, new industries are likely to support the creation of a lot of new American jobs in the near future (reasonably well-paying jobs, rather than minimum-wage service economy jobs).

The supply siders have given us examples of bio-tech, renewable energies, and wireless systems as the new frontiers. Of course, they are full of it. Wireless has already gone into its bust cycle with the collapse of the telecomm sector. Witch is only not just recovering. But even if these new fields were to result with new jobs, why would these new jobs also not be exported like we are now seeing with IT and the medical fields? You could be retraining for another lay off.

The truth is that this is only more self serving rhetoric on the part supply siders. They want to "subsidize" or "invest" in more of these technologies, arguing that this would "create jobs." When in fact what it creates is a market bubble doomed to collapse. These are also examples of a managed economy, something that supply siders say they don't want. But at the end of the day, this argument is nothing more than a "vote for me" sound bite.

I realize that different Democrats have varying opinions on this issue. Some, like Clinton, espouse free trade. Others are more willing to use protectionism. Nevertheless, the evisceration of the American middle class by corporations and their GOP enablers should be a key campaign issue for the Democrats this fall. Which of the Democratic candidates in your opinion has the best economic plan to maintain a healthy American middle class?

It was Clinton to started the jobs retraining programs that I mentioned above. It sounded like a good idea at the time. But we now know that it is a fatally flawed program. Any one who counties to argue for jobs retraining programs, is defecato pro "free trade"

[Sufi Marmot]

2. Thanks for your reply...

Hi - thanks for your long and thoughtful reply. Back in the day I more or less supported Clinton on NAFTA, but I've come to reconsider that opinion - I'm just not convinced that the loss of all those American jobs has been offset in any meaningful way. And like you, I don't see any upcoming consumer industries (except maybe for entertainment/media) that will replace those jobs.

I would be curious to know how the economic benefit corporations get from shipping jobs overseas compares with the negative economic impact on communities when factories are closed. I assume there has to be a considerable negative multiplier effect in communities that lose good paying jobs - like the texile manufacturing communities in North Carolina. If it does exist, I'm surprised that manufacturers and retailers haven't figured it out yet - or maybe loss of consumer spending power hasn't yet offset the gains in profit..

I'm all for job retraining when an industry becomes completely obsolete (like buggy-whip manufacturing...), but it seems stupid for consumer goods that Americans are always going to need (clothes, furniture, houseware, etc.) to be made elsewhere.

I wonder whether some items like clothing couldn't be manufactured locally by collectives or co-ops who would purchase materials, assemble them, and then sell them more or less locally, paying themselves a decent salary from the profits, but with no cut of the profits going to CEO salaries or stock portfolios. I have no idea if the economy of scale would work, but is there any reason we can't produce a decent pair of blue jeans in America for $25-30 with higher labor and production costs offset by the lack of high end salaries for management, overseas shipping, and the need to pay out dividends?


-SM, who should probably start reading Paul Krugman...

Edited to add:

It occurs to me that at some point the American middle class is going to have to make a difficult choice about the economic philosophy which is best for America, and I'm not convinced that most people are aware of it:

a) complete free-market economy with somewhat lower priced consumer goods and higher rates of return on investments/securities (mutual funds/401Ks, etc.), but significant permanent loss of blue and white collar jobs overseas, downward pressure on wages, unhealthy communities (fiscally and otherwise) due to decreased tax revenues and high unemployment.

b) protectionist economy focusing on retaining American jobs by implementing severe financial disincentives for corporations to go overseas. This would mean higher consumer prices and a lower rate of return on investments, but increased public fiscal heath and stronger communities.

Am I off base here?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Another non-economist here

The reason that "free trade" among states works is that the differences in living standards among states are insignificant compared to the differences among countries.

Since no country can produce everything on its own, I'm all for free trade agreements among countries of similar economic status. For example, the Central American proposal would be great--if the United States were not involved. Each country could develop industrial and/or agricultural specialties and provide them to the other countries in the group, in addition to setting up an export consortium.

ASEAN in SE Asia and Mercosur in southern South America are existing examples.

However, a "free trade" agreement between the U.S. and Mexico is an open invitation for U.S. corps to export jobs. And it's nonsense to say that a country can grow rich by becoming a sweatshop for the rest of the world. The important factor is who controls the industries. For the most part, the maquiladoras are not controlled by Mexicans, but by foreign corporations, who pack up and go to China or Vietnam the minute they decide that Mexican labor is too expensive--and this without transferring any technology to Mexico.

On the other hand, Japan and later Taiwan and South Korea successfully industrialized by insisting that local people remain in charge of their nations' economies at all times. Japan imported technology only and refused to allow foreign-owned plants. Taiwan allowed foreign-owned plants on the condition that they train Taiwanese to take over later. South Korea, like all the other East Asian success stories, invested heavily in education and infrastructure, even though the IMF and World Bank are now telling developing countries that these are no-nos.

I would require any company that moved manufacturing overseas to pay the equivalent of two years' wages to each employee eliminated. In case companies maintained a "gap" between closing a stateside plant and opening a foreign plant in an attempt to avoid the law, I would make the law effective for five years. In other words, if Company X closed down a US plant in 2004 and built a foreign plant any time before 2009, the fired employees would still get two years' wages.

A company that can't survive without cheap labor is either poorly managed or greedy. Look at Nike. Its shoes sell for over $100, but basically the same shoes (probably from the same sweatshop) are available at Payless Shoe Source for $30. Nike is just plain greedy. I bet they could make shoes in the U.S. and still sell them for $100+, only the shareholders wouldn't make quite as much. However, a few hundred more American high school graduates would have steady jobs.

[Roy G Biv]

4. From an economist, a look at the Bush steel tariffs.

I'm copying part of this, but you may visit the link if you wish to read all of it:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams043003.asp

The clear beneficiaries of the Bush steel tariffs were steel industry executives, stockholders and the approximately 1,700 steelworker jobs that were saved.

Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don't know whom to blame for their calamity.

According to a study by the Institute for International Economics, saving those 1,700 jobs in the steel industry cost American consumers $800,000 in the form of higher prices for each steelworker job saved. That's just the monetary side of the picture. According to a study commissioned by the Consuming Industries Trade Action Association, higher steel prices have caused at least 4,500 job losses in no fewer than 16 states -- over 19,000 jobs in California, 16,000 in Texas, and 10,000 in Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. In other words, industries that use steel are forced to pay higher prices, the products they produce become less competitive and they must lay off workers.

The average hourly wage of steelworkers ranges between $15 and $20 plus fringe benefits, so we might be talking about an annual wage package averaging $50,000 to $55,000. Here's my question to you: How much sense does it make for American consumers to have to pay $800,000 in higher prices to save a $50,000- to $55,000-a-year job?

It'd make better economic sense for Congress to pass an Aid to Dependent Steelworkers Act, whereby we'd tax ourselves so as to give each of those 1,700 steelworkers, whose jobs were saved, $100,000 year so they might take off and live in a nice beachfront condo in Florida or Bermuda. While less costly to Americans than President Bush's steel tariffs, it has no political future. The handout would make the protectionist policies apparent and hence repulsive to most Americans.

[Yavin4]

5. This Is The Only Way To Achieve True Globalization

From Lydia LeftCoast's Post:

On the other hand, Japan and later Taiwan and South Korea successfully industrialized by insisting that local people remain in charge of their nations' economies at all times. Japan imported technology only and refused to allow foreign-owned plants. Taiwan allowed foreign-owned plants on the condition that they train Taiwanese to take over later. South Korea, like all the other East Asian success stories, invested heavily in education and infrastructure, even though the IMF and World Bank are now telling developing countries that these are no-nos.


Exactly. The main argument for globalization of trade is that it will increase the standard of living for people in Third World nations. Now, did you know that the only Third World nations to move from the Third World to the First World was Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. I argue that they made the move by developing their own industries and created products which were competitive on the global stage. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan not only raised the living standards of these nations, they also improved the quality of products worldwide.

Free trade as it's currently practiced will not raise the living standards of the people in the Third World because as soon as they start making any money, the corporations will just move to a cheaper labor market, as is the case with Mexico which is losing its mfg. sector to China.

[DLCfromGA]

6. As you can tell from my handle...

I am with the free traders on this issue.

The unemployment argument is a red herring... during the height of globalization and growth in the mid-90's, we had record low unemployment, yet jobs in certain sectors (manufacturing being the mian one) were still being lost.

The best engine to preserve and expand the middle class is economic growth, and free trade contributes to that through forcing productivity to go up, keeping prices down, keeping interest rates down, and keeping rates of returns on investments up.

A lot of people see trade as an issue, when the free flow of capital is an even bigger issue.

With 60-70% of Americans owning stock, and many of them depending on that stock for their retirements, corporate bashing and punishing ideas may not be the best idea for the country.

A lot of this stuff is out of the control of current candidates. In the 1970s, due to external shocks, stagflation occured, and we Keynesian policies simply didn't work anymore. We had to move to a low inflation centered monetary policy, open exchange rates, and free capital flows, which has created the conditions we have today. In those conditions, a Clinton-like plan (free trade, free capital flows, balanced budgets, high growth) makes the most sense.

[area51]

7. Shrub's "free trade" & pro-business/anti-people policies

are certainly doing a good job of destroying the middle class in the US. Unemployment is most def. not a red herring; it's what is going to drive people to vote against Shrub. I just love it when ivory tower conservatives come around w/their "free trade is good, screw the unemployed" bullshit. I can't wait until they lose their jobs & learn what it feels like. Retraining? With what fscking money? What about needed health care that people can no longer afford? Not on this nazi administration's table.

[DLCfromGA]

14. True

Good point that retraining and health care are not on the administration's table, which is why we need a new one. I'm all for government universal health care and job retraining, two Clinton ideals...

We DON'T need an administration that stops trade, revokes NAFTA, and is bad for economic growth...

[DoctorMyEyes]

8. 60 - 70%

With 60-70% of Americans owning stock, and many of them depending on that stock for their retirements, corporate bashing and punishing ideas may not be the best idea for the country.


Of the number of Americans who own ANY stock, about 35% of them are invested in mutual funds in an employee sponsored plan. If we still had retirement plans, instead of bullshit 401k we wouldn't even be talking about "average americans" and their "portfolios". (and a value of less than $50,000)

I have no problem with "corporate bashing" - many of them DESERVE to be bashed. Not paying freaking taxes, squeezing workers, ripping off consumers.... Too many corporations are not being good citizens.

In the 70's a CEO earned about 40 times more than his lowest paid laborer. In the 90's that CEO salary increased to about 120% - now it's nearly 500%!

[Sufi Marmot]

12. What growth? Where?

The best engine to preserve and expand the middle class is economic growth, and free trade contributes to that through forcing productivity to go up, keeping prices down, keeping interest rates down, and keeping rates of returns on investments up.

I'm curious as to which industries you see as being growth industries in America in the next decade. Aren't we rapidly approaching the time when due to the disparity in labor costs, employers aren't going to create ANY new jobs in America at all? Whose productivity are we talking about anyway? I'm not convinced that there is an infinite supply of new jobs which can be created ex nihlio due to technological innovation as pre-exisiting jobs are outsourced - isn't that well going to run dry someday?

Also, if American jobs are shipped overseas (including many of those high-tech jobs created in the 90's), both wages and consumer purchasing power decrease accordingly. So is the gain of lower prices and higher rates of investment return really enough to offset those losses? I guess it depends if you have a decent job or not, and/or how much money you have invested. An extra 15% return on stocks/mutual fund investments doesn't mean much to unemployed workers whose 401Ks evaporated.

What about the effect on tax revenues? Do increased tax revenues from higher rates of return on investment offset loss of payroll and sales taxes when jobs are outsourced?

With 60-70% of Americans owning stock, and many of them depending on that stock for their retirements, corporate bashing and punishing ideas may not be the best idea for the country. If Americans should have learned anything over the last decade, it's that they shouldn't depend soley on high-risk securities such as stocks (especially their employer's stock) to finance their retirement.

-SM

[DLCfromGA]

15. There is a lot of growth

Growth industries:

Finance and banking, entertainment, technology, service management, etc., medicine, marketing, etc.

American (manufacturing) jobs are being shipped overseas, but they have been for the past two decades regardless of growth or the party in power.

Technology jobs that are "low creativity" like tech support and pure programming are moving overseas. More managerial tech jobs are staying in the US and growing, as are infrastructure jobs.

[kcwayne]

16. That's not what I am seeing

Along with the loss of manufacturing jobs are the total collapse of entire industries involved in manufacturing. Textiles and furniture making are completely gone from the US, automotive parts and electronics are well down the path to extinction.

As these plants disappear, so do the businesses that were servicing the plants. That includes everything from machine tool repair to catering and laundry services. Indiana has been particularly hard hit by this phenomenon, and are forecasting a paltry 1% GDP growth in the state for 2004. That probably won't happen because all of the automotive parts businesses here are teetering, and as the big 3 move more of their operations into cheap labor countries, the suppliers here will fold.

Finance and banking are moving very large parts of their back office functions overseas. Production of movies is being increasingly moved overseas, resulting in significant job loss in the LA area. (I just heard about an attempted boycott by entertainment workers of "Cold Mountain", because they filmed the Civil War epic in Romania.) The largest DVD manufacturing operation in the world, located in Camarillo (CA) is going to be moved overseas, either South America or Thailand.

The consumer electronics company I do contract work for is in the final stages of moving their engineering to China, they have already moved all of the manufacturing. There is no need to manage processes from the US that are taking place in China, so the management ranks are being decimated along with the rest of the operation. The accounting has been moved to Mexico. The only thing left in the US within 5 years will be executive management and sales teams that work with the Best Buys and WalMarts to move the products through the distribution channel. Since every company I see is doing exactly the same thing, I don't know who WalMart thinks they will be selling to in 5 years, but that is another issue.

Indiana, having lost its manufacturing economy, is trying to re-vitalize itself by creating an environment conducive to the development of life sciences businesses. The presence of Eli Lilly and Roche are the major catalysts behind the effort. It is too early to declare victory or defeat, but it is not off to a roaring start. Their is clearly reluctance on the part of industry players to do anything but give lip service to this initiative. My read on this is that they don't want to commit to expenditures in R&D and infrastructure here while they are planning on moving their drug manufacturing lines to cheap labor countries, and moving R&D to India.

Every business in America is looking to shave cost out of their operations. Every consulting business in America is advising their clients to do this by outsourcing. There is a cheap labor supply, cheap R&D, virtually no liability or litigation costs, no environmental impact costs, and lower taxes. If you are sitting on a board making the decision on where to invest, you are making the decision to invest outside of America. In this environment, there will not only not be no growth, there will be a continuation of the retraction of opportunity in this country.

We aren't just outsourcing jobs and tuning up productivity, we are relocating business on an unprecedented scale. There are no growth industries replacing those that are being lost. In my opinion, we are on a tight spiral to a total collapse of the standard of living in the US.

[kalian]

17. Bullshit...in all areas you mentioned....

Finance and banking....? :eyes:
Entertainment....? Umm...if people continue to LOSE their jobs or
continue to be very concerned about losing their jobs I think they'll
be cutting back on "entertainment".
Technology...? :eyes: Where the hell have you been as of late?
Service management.... Ah yes, "management". Yeah, maybe if they
need managers to keep tabs on all those foreign workers that get to
have jobs...
Marketing... This is a good one. :D Maybe you have a career as a
comedian lined up for you.
Medicine... Ummm...no. Doctors are leaving in droves thanks to the
friggin insurance companies. 44 MILLION americans are without health
insurance...so, tell me, HOW is medicine a "growth industry"? :shrug:

Your comment about technology jobs that are "low creativity" going
over seas is ludicrous. Completely. Why? How come 90% (!!!) of the
SOFTWARE programming jobs are going bye-bye?!

Nough said...

[Landlord]

9. Honestly...

I do not think there is a "political" solution. One half the solution is when we decide to buy only products and services that are "Made in the U.S.A." The other half is that the people providing such goods and services must provide a quality product. When this occurs job outsourcing cease. Recently the Indiana state government canceled an outsourced job to India-APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE. If we wish to keep jobs here we must quit being so D_ _ _ lazy and read labels and buy American. However, during the 1980's I owned a Chrysler, Ford,and GM.
They were all JUNK. My '88 Honda Accord is still with me. My parent's best car was a Toyota, and they are GM retirees. To you UAW bumper sticker holders, if you wish me to be American and buy American, YOU must first be an American and build something WORTH buying by an American. I consider it my duty to buy American when I do buy even when it costs more, however I will not throw away money on shoddy products. If you happen to run across today's Wall St. Journal there is an excellent article by Robert Reich on the loss of manufacturing jobs worldwide and the changing nature of the workforce.

[JPace]

10. "quit being so D_ _ _ lazy and read labels and buy American"

With most families having two parents working
just to make ends meet they must shop according
to price. Fact is they cannot afford to be
loyal to U.S. workers if it means feeding, housing
and clothing their children. They live in the now
because they are in a survival mode just to
keep pace with growing pressures. They are not
reading the Wall Street Journal, probably never
will, nor will they ever be lucky enough to be
represented by a union. They survive period, and
Walmart plus cheap foreign goods means stretching
that limited income to the max.

[Landlord]

11. True

Everything you said is true. Price tops nationality. I believe if you are able you should buy American, providing the quality is comparable.

[ronatchig]

13. Employment contracts

are the answer to a lot of this problem. imho
First outlaw right to work laws.
Then outlaw any product whether domestic or imported which is not produced by labor that has a legally binding contract
demanding,fair wages, safty standards and freedom from life threatening polutants, access to healthcare, etc.
Products produced outside the United States would be required to pay equal wages and benefits(as American wages) Only imports by contracted labor would be allowed.
Any profit above a politiclly agreed to max should be taxed a 100%.
Anyone who does not like the policy should shut down their shop and go home.

[wetbandit2003]

18. Out Sourcing jobs is becomming a real problem.

Off shoring is a real problem that politicians on both sides of the isle dont have the balls to make an issue on because of the strong political power that cooperate america has, By political power, I mean campaign financing, lobbyists and voting. My take on offshoring jobs is this, Give cooperations a kick in the butt for every offshore worker they hire at a lower wage. By this I mean, for every dollar in revue made by off shore labor, you tax it 90%. that means only 10 cents to every dollar is made on offshore labor. Why should we be supporting another countries, employement when we are loosing jobs every day here? Cmon folks, wake up! This is an issue that can be solved qickly.