Immigration Impact on America

Need to simplify and focus this one :

Some posters are for "Free Trade".

Free Trade implies "Fair Trade" and everybody likes Fair Trade.

Our trade negotiators allow China to levy a 25% tariff on US cars while the US levies a 2.5% tariff on Chinese car imports. (One of many tariff examples)

Is this Fair?

Our trade deficit with China is at $150 billion.

From 1989 to 2003 the US has lost 1.5 million jobs to China.

Don't trust me?

Read the US government's data: http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive/2005/Jan/11-238754.html

The US National Debt is at $7.7 trillion and rising at $2.22 billion per day.

The supporters of unregulated offshoring are welcome to state how deficit spending at these rates can be financed.....................
......... as long as they are specific so that we can have a productive meeting.
 
The US National Debt is at $7.7 trillion and rising at $2.22 billion per day.
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The national debt is rising like that because the government, like every administration since FDR, has been deficit spending like a teenager with Daddy's credit card. The government has been buying stuff with IOUs, which the American taxpayer will have to repay.

I fail to see how that has anything to do with private business outsourcing so they can stay competitive with cheap foreign competition.

Our trade negotiators allow China to levy a 25% tariff on US cars while the US levies a 2.5% tariff on Chinese car imports.
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Eh? How many people you know drive a Chinese car? I didn't realize that market saturation with cheap Chicom econoboxes has sapped business away from American car manufacturers.

And there's the whole tariff thing again, too. As long as people prefer $5 flip-flops made in Hong Kong over $25 flip-flops made in Milwaukee, the trade balance is going to swing their way. But I really don't feel like regurgitating the applicable economic priciples again. I guess we ought to just nuke the dastardly Chicoms off the face of the earth, so they don't supply WallyWorld with cheap consumer goods anymore.
 
When you are ready to stop buying item X at WalMart for $9.99, and you go and voluntarily buy a similar item of lesser quality for $19.99 at All-American hardware down the street instead, and do so for every consumer good you buy, then you have a leg to stand on when you denounce outsourcing American businesses as "greedy".
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to which there has been no serious reply.
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i refuse to shop at walmart. pretty soon it will be the only store left.
 
i refuse to shop at walmart. pretty soon it will be the only store left.
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And you are not alone.

On April 22, 2004 the residents of Inglewood, CA., a predominantly black and lower income community, voted down a referendum that would have allowed Walmart to build a store in their city.

They stated that they were not willing to sacrifice the local small businesses that have employed them and their families over the years.

Everything starts with education and it appears that the folks in Inglewood have started something.


The national debt is rising....................I fail to see how that has anything to do with private business outsourcing
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Could it be those outsourced widgets from Ohio and now transformed into imports from China that are causing some of that $2.22 billion daily debt?

Let's ask the school kids in Inglewood, I bet they know.
 
Marko Kloos
The only alternative to us "allowing" business to operate on market terms is to institute laws that let the government tell them who they can and cannot do business with. You are saying that loyalty to our country requires us to use force in oder to tell business owners that they can hire person A, but they cannot hire person B, or do business with person C?
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Market terms - or pure capitalism - has no moral restraint, and no conscience. Neither has it any loyalty to any particular country or people, or ideology other than it's own ends.

Of course our government regulates who, what and how corporations do business outside of our borders; our government draws it's authority and mandates in this regard from the Constitution. It has a duty to the citizens - the people - of the United States to do so. In not doing so, they are indeed disloyal.

It has a duty to promote the general welfare of the people of the United States, and that is why the words appear in the Constitution; not as some suppose, to allow the government to steal money from those who work to give to those who do not, and other socialist causes.

Assume I run a business, and I have a choice of contractors to supply me with part X. Company A is based in the US, and offers part X for $20. Company B is based in China, and offers part X for $10. If I use Company A, my product will cost twice as much as the same product made by the competition from Canada. Nobody will buy my product, and I will go out of business in six months.
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That is what tariffs are for, and they are also what are supposed to be paying a good portion of the running costs of our government as opposed to stealing it in the ongoing form of "income" taxes. Our government should not be allowing the import of cheap goods into this country without tariffs. As such the minimum market any manufacturer can expect is whatever share they can get of the domestic market. If they are making a much better mousetrap, there are plenty of people who will actually pay more for it. Mechanical Swiss watches are a good historical example that still stands today.

You are only going to go out of business if you; can not make a product that will sell, you can not sell, you can not run or manage a business - or your own government sells you out to something erroneously referred to as "free trade" and an agenda called globalism.

So now you come along and tell me that I have a patriotic duty to go out of business? I should somehow sacrifice myself to the collective, just because the owner of Company A has an American passport, and the owner of Company B does not? You think that we ought to have laws that prevent me from doing business with Company B?
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Our government has a duty to it's own citizens and own nation first - above all else. That is the overall imperative. The collective we are being sacrificed to is the collective made up of global corporations and their managers who hold public office in various countries, whose loyalties are to themselves, and their homeland is "anywhere we dam well please" - by consent or conquest.

That's not freedom or capitalism, that's unbridled socialism, and a nationalistic version thereof to boot.
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The word "capitalism" does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, nor the Constitution, and for good reasons which I have already mentioned. Those who worship at the feet of "capitalism" are going to find out that it is the antithesis of liberty and just government.

And I, personally, am not going to be a slave on their global plantation.
 
bergwerk,

Could it be those outsourced widgets from Ohio and now transformed into imports from China that are causing some of that $2.22 billion daily debt?
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Um.

"National Debt" and "Trade Deficit" are two completely different and wholly unrelated things.



Sigh. That's the problem with Populism... It feels so right. Then again, so do a lot of other "-isms" that are concerned with feelings. :(
 
LAK said:
Market terms - or pure capitalism - has no moral restraint, and no conscience. Neither has it any loyalty to any particular country or people, or ideology other than it's own ends.
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That's because capitalism, unlike socialism, communism, fascism, populism, and lots of other -isms, is a description of how things work, and not a social ideology. Saying capitalism has no conscience is like complaining that Pi would be more elegant if it equalled a nice, round "3". It "has no loyalty" in much the same way that Uranium will traitorously allow itself to be made into bombs by anybody who cares to use it, and not just the folks that discovered it. Capitalism has no ideology, because it's not one. Saying that "a good is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it" is as un-ideological as stating "2+2=4". You might as well complain that mathematics has no ideology.
 
First off i respect eveyone on this board.. your views and your ideas... and if i did not live in southern california i would prob agree with you marko and you too sensop.

But when you deal with this issue face to face seeing it destroy your neighborhood, the place you grow up its pretty tough. Where the hospital you were born is going to close because there is not enought money to support the massive illegal surge for free medical treatment. Now the church i have been going to for over 25 years now only offers one mass in english.. the other five in spanish. All the street billboards in certain areas are now in spanish. Now the schools offer more ESL classes than they do elective classes. Seeing the flux of illegals swell to the point where theres not enough Home Depots for them to stand arround. Im not talking about a few guys looking for work.. im talking about Hundreds of them. To be bilingual is not even considered an option anymore to get a job here it is almost a must. When this issue is shoved down your throat and you can not go one single day without it affecting you in a negative way.. ...
Sure, why not.. if not for that i guess i might be able to agree and preach the Ideological good fight... but until im forced to move from my home im gonna stay here and fight Tangible fight.
 
And still no answer as to how we as consumers protect ourselves from products made by companies with only their profit margins in mind; no consideration for the health and/or safety of the consumer and no corrective oversight other than natural market forces. Would you trust your life to a firearm that was cheaply made and had a high failure rate? What about your brakes? Do you realize how many thousands of people died as a result of 'patent medicines', tainted beef, spoiled canned goods? Is that what you're advocating?

Capitalism is amoral...that is to say, it has no moral basis in terms of right and wrong from a humanistic point of view. It is neither moral nor immoral. It is purely profit driven.
 
Tamara,

Right, and hence it must be subject to controls.

Merely saying it is "how things work" implies that it

a) is normal as it currently works

b) has always been that way

c) is autonomous and outside of any particular sovereign interest and control of national government and it's people.

There are seemingly a great many people that see "capitalism" as a sort of ideology. Carried along this way it leads to a form of corporate-government, which is where we are currently headed. On a global scale.
 
"National Debt" and "Trade Deficit" are two completely different and wholly unrelated things.
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Hint: review "Balance of Payments" and the "Three Accounts" and the need for the "Current Account" to balance out to zero.

Why?

Because when the US imports more than it exports, hence Trade Deficit, the result is a current account deficit which must be financed by international borrowing resulting into more National Debt.


While we sure moved from orginial post still very interesting
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Correct about the former and not so about the latter since we are treated to responses consisting of "Talking Points" recitations.
 
There are seemingly a great many people that see "capitalism" as a sort of ideology. Carried along this way it leads to a form of corporate-government, which is where we are currently headed.
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LAK,

I have never written out a check to a business that I did not write voluntarily, free of coercion, and in exchange for a value I wanted.

I have never written out a tax check for any level of government that I did not write unwillingly, under threat of force, and without receiving a value I wanted in return.

Corporations have no way to rule me, since they do not claim the right to kill me if I don't do what they say. The same does not hold true for governments. One system is moral, because it does not involve coercion. The other is immoral, because it does.
 
One of the reasons that you feel good about the 'exchange for the value I wanted' is because of governmental regulation that insures, by that same coercion you rail against, that the corporations sells you a product that is as advertised, is safe, is pure, is not poisoned, etc. On their own, businesses would not concern themselves with such things. Their business is profits, not your health, welfare and safety.
 
bergwerk,

Hint: review "Balance of Payments" and the "Three Accounts" and the need for the "Current Account" to balance out to zero.
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A "Hint" is definitely needed, here, since the National Debt of the U.S. Government and the Trade Deficit of the agglomeration of citizens and business entities collectively referred to as "The United States Of America" are not even kept in the same book. We could buy a Million Bazillion dollars worth of shower flip-flops from China next year, and not sell the Heathen Chinee so much as one lousy can of Coca Cola, and it wouldn't affect the Governmental Deficit (defined as the Tax Income Less The Public Services Outpayment) in any but the most indirect fashion. Populism does, however, have an annoying tendency to confuse "Public" and "Private", like so many other "-isms".

I'm still waiting to hear the plan to tax those Nasty Corporations in a direct fashion; one that won't have any impact on their customers or employees (To wit: You and I.) How is I.N.C., Inc. supposed to come up with that thousand dollars in a fashion that doesn't involve raising prices or cutting payroll?

Why do Populists believe that, once two or more people are involved, a wierd alchemy occurs where simple laws of Supply and Demand and Input vs. Output no longer apply? If the Government decreed that you needed to pay $1000 more in taxes next year, you'd realize that you need to either earn $1000 more, or slash $1000 in expenditures out of your blue jeans & movie tickets budget. When the Government or a company is supposed to come up with a thousand more dollars, however, they're supposed to just wave a magic wand, without slashing services or increasing prices. Bizarre, really...
 
gburner,

And still no answer as to how we as consumers protect ourselves from products made by companies with only their profit margins in mind; no consideration for the health and/or safety of the consumer and no corrective oversight other than natural market forces.
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Nobody here (at least that I've seen) has called for the de-criminalization of Fraud or Poisoning.

johnbt,

Do you advocate doing away with the anti-monopoly laws for instance?
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Why, yes, actually. We have laws aplenty against coercion, bribery, and racketeering. We don't need laws against success.





all,

I'm frankly surprised that nobody's yet shouted out "America will not be crucified on a cross of cheap WWB!" Where's the WJB of our modern era? :confused: ;)
 
"you either believe in the capitalist system or you don't".

This statement, I believe, requires that one accept 'the capitalist system' whole cloth. To do so, it seems, would mean acceptance without any governmental interference, regardless how 'beneficial' that interference promises to be. Laws affecting business are, by definition, interfering with business. Is that what is being endorsed here and, if so, how do you protect consumers within the bounds of that system?
 
Is that what is being endorsed here and, if so, how do you protect consumers within the bounds of that system?
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You do that by making sure that if MegaMart defrauds me by selling me unsafe or defective wares, I have proper access to the courts in order to seek redress. I also have the option to not do business with MegaMart on the basis of their track record of selling inferior wares.

(Hint: I have managed to avoid buying scores of crappy products by reading consumer reviews on Amazon.com for the wares which I was considering to buy. At no point did I ever crack open a government publication, and at no point did the .gov have to get involved and play nanny for me.)

You do not do it by forcing me to employ and fund fifty thousand bureaucrats who sit in their offices in D.C. all day and crank out endless rules and regulations concerning the size of lemons my neighborhood grocer is allowed to sell to me.
 
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but .gov 'plays nanny' in nearly every purchase that you and I make. Whether its mandating the type of material that your car's seat covers are made from or the percentage of allowable rodent parts in your lunchmeat or the required listing of ingredients on the jar of peanut butter in your cabinet, .gov has got its sticky fingers all over your purchases (and yes, there are federal guidelines for the sizing bulk items like eggs, lemons, melons, etc.). Because it has been allowed to intrude in business, the price of business has gone up but the overall safety of Americans has gone up as well. If not for this interference, Humongomart and their supplier
Acme Shoddyproducts wouldn't care a fig for your trouble. Without laws regulating business practices (also a function of .gov) you wouldn't have any recourse. All businesses would cut the same corners to make bigger profits so your choices would be limited by the market place, not expanded.
 
"What's amoral is the notion that anyone has the right to use government force to advance their notions of fairness and proper economic transactions." - Marko Kloos

Amen to that! I grew up in coal country in the 50's and there were still many harsh and bitter stories told of private industry colluding with government forces & police to keep the miners from unionizing or striking. Their methods included beatings and murder.
 
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