Also, in this day and age, I wonder how many things that are ONLY American can be found. How many big ticket items are 100% American… not supplied at all by a foreign company, not owned in full or part by one, not beholden to foreign regulation or investment… seriously? Are there too many companies that are 100% American anymore?

But is there any value to importing things like Bottled Water? If the elites want to drink Evian let they pay through the nose ..

Yes, the UAW driven labor costs are an issue, but they’re far from the only issue in the auto sector. Beginning with the safety and emissions standards of the late ’60s, each American maker had to find his own solutions because of our Anti-trust laws and either avoid the patents of his competitors or buy/license from his competitor. The Europeans and the Japanese formed industry consortiums and used common solutions. Americans, who pioneered fuel injection for mass market automobiles in the ’50s were reduced to using licenced European technology in the ’80s. All of our environmental regulatory costs are built into an American car. All of our statutory labor standards costs are built into an American car. And, probably worst of all, all of the costs of our various levels of government are built into an American car because of our tax system.

In an other industry, I’m sure Louisiana-Pacific and Weyerhauser would like to use trees from the American West where they once had a vast timber infrastructure to use trees from both private and public lands. In the West, most likely the lumber in your newer home came from Canada, not the US. Now Canada is NOT a low-wage, low-standards country, yet the entire timber industry in the American West has been essentially destroyed by US environmental law. The say international borders are imaginary lines on maps, but I’ll guarantee you the border between Washington and British Columbia is visible as you fly over it; that border is where the logging stops.

Free trade is a delusion. On the basis of our tax system alone, American industry and the American worker is dramatically disadvantaged in competing with any Country that relies primarily on some sort of VAT to finance government operations rather than corporate and personal income taxes and property taxes. In the aftermath of WWII when we were the only manufacturing power in the World for almost two decades, it made some sense to let the rest of the world pay for our government in the price of our exported goods. We have not been a net exporting nation in a very long time now, yet we still try to act like we’re one.

I’ll accept the notion that the American worker should be a better smarter more skillful worker to support his standard of living versus the Third World labor, but it is more than the cost of his labor that is stacked against him and the government is itself responsible for most of that stacked deck. Crazy tax laws and government policy drove the housing and credit crisis. Those investment houses, banks, and insurance companies have all sorts of built in inefficiencies and Godawful labor costs, but nobody demanded that those guys sit down at the table and puke up wage concessions before they got their bailout. At least the UAW guy makes something real. What the Hell is a deriviative?

In any event, any time this subject comes up, all the focus is on American wage costs and usually on union wages in the heavier industries. It isn’t just the labor costs that disadvantage American steel, heavy equipment, locomotives, ships, cars, or airplanes. We put the cost of our whole system of government and standard of living into everything we make and try to sell, and when something goes wrong with that system, business and alltogether too many Republicans and conservatives put all the blame on the most reliable consumer of the produce of that system.

Japan’s economy has been in a quagmire for at least a decade. Good example of what your advice would bring.

Lets start at the top

1. “people simply prefer to patronize firms that are close to their own geographic culture” really means people shop where they live. Thanks for that clever insight. Just because one makes a purchase locally (because one is forced to due to ones inability to teleport instantaneously to the location featuring the ‘best’ price, quality, ect.) it does not follow that that purchase ‘helped’ the location as you would define it. Example. I buy apples at my local supermarket. It does not follow that these apples were purchased from a local farm.

2. As the comment title says: what Homo Economus really means is rational. You may be shocked to know this, but because you even used the term homo economus I just assumed you knew. Many ‘people theories’, or ‘behaviour theories’ use the assumption that we are homo economus, or in english, rational. It actually, in my opinion, does humanity a disservice to assume we are not rational. I may infer from your disagreement with the the idea we are rational that you place to much weight on emotions. They have their place, but for the purpose of this discussion they are really marginal. People look for the best ‘deals’ when making purchases, not necessarily where the product was made.

3. “We are a country; not merely a market. It is unwise to rely too heavily “on the kindness of strangers” for all our material / industrial / energy needs”
That sound Jacobinish to me (10 points for FR reference). Most freedom loving right thinking people have the view that government should exist for limited purposes. One of those purposes is the securitization of markets (in english, to guard the market and trade routes). The world is ‘merely’ a market, and that realization has ‘merely’ lifted hundreds of millions, maybe even over a billion people out of poverty around the world. We are all strangers. The butcher at your local market does not know you, yet he prepares your meat. He does not do this because he is a nice man. He does this so you will pay him. Because we do not force the butcher to ‘buy local’ the butcher is able to get meat at the best price point, quality level, ect. available to him and you are able to get your supper at a ‘market’ , or in english, reasonable, rate.

4. China has slave labour. Its really a fuedal society, nice sky scrapers as so much window dressing. It undercuts the labour costs of all its competitors (remember, unlike Pej says, the world really is flat ie: global, and hence China undercuts labour worldwide, depressing price but thats a whole ‘nother topic) and grows its economy through manipulation. You should thank Fortune that you are not in China. Japan, as has been pointed out, is no candle in the darkness. It offers lessons for us, sure, but lessons in what not to do.

Does go against the idea of a free market.

It’s not my duty as an American to support a business that’s running itself straight into the ground. If I want to buy foreign, I’m going to do it.

If American companies want more people to buy American, then I have a bit of radical thinking for them to chew on: they should make their products better than their foreign competitor’s products.

BTW, it’s George Bush. And next time you go on a frothing-mouth rant against the Bush administration, can you try to stay on topic? Thank you.

Pandering to American workers is better than pandering to Beijing or Taiwan .

Master the skill of using it.

You clearly haven’t the foggiest understanding of actual economics. The way you say ‘homo economicus’ is just so amusing in the way you sling it around as though it were some hugely discrediting weapon.

Who’s Jorge?

I agree totally. I like free and fair trade but there can be no fair trade with China where labor costs are so low.

The Reply To This buttons are our little IQ test. You fail.

I normally would have just gacked you for the Jorge Arbusto nonsense – we’ve found it, ah, diagnostic – but Neil was apparently bored enough to let you unspool a little more.

Blam.

At least Neil knows how to use <— that button.

what is and is not idiotic and whether we want to import idiodic items anyway.

I would say this about bottled water. What people are buying is more the portable container than the water.

As for “equal ground”, the price of the goods bargained between a willing buyer and seller handles that issue and when Americans can get goods cheaper abroad, it leaves us with more money left over that can be invested in other products and services here at home.

more later on the substance of the article

The Free Market is a conservative principle because I have the right NOT to buy crappy products from American businesspeople that don’t have a clue how to run a business the right way.

If American businesses want Americans to buy their products, they should try making them with an iota of quality.

This is taxpayer money we are talking about here. This is just a way to spend that money even less efficiently than government would normally use it. It is just another subsidy for inefficient businesses that can’t compete in an open market. They should be buying whatever materials offer the best value.

Evian adds nothing to the US Economy .

Evian is distributed and sold by Americans. It even generates tax revenue. Most importantly, allowing imports gives us the ability to sell our exports to markets that would be closed otherwise. That’s just off the top of my head.

Perhaps its time for some protectionism.

You might want to do a search for Smoot-Hawley. Some people thought 1930 was a good time for some protectionism as well.

Huh. I guess we should really rethink everything we were told.

-nt

If GWB had set a goal of ‘saving jobs’ the media would have mocked him without mercy.

Proper grammar saves lives.

Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.

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