[+Donny]

Lew Rockwell wrote a pretty good article on the subject.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1385

[Yojimbo]

I agree with the main point of the article. Leave the free market be. Sure, a lot of manufacturing workers will be left in the dust, but the manufacturing industry is getting to be a thing of the past anyway--for developed countries, at least. If the government wants to spend money on the issue, use it to invest in educating people in service/information jobs. I'm sure the invention of the combustion engine put a lot of carriage drivers out of business, but I'm glad the government didn't try to stifle the automobile industry for the sake of the carriage industry.

[+Donny]

Good points.

Oh, and feel free to post your comments, but don't expect any debate from me, since I am rather tired out from our last debate on this subject.

[MisterAgreeable]

Firstly, I have no idea what any of these people are talking about when they refer to U.S. television manufacturers. Does anyone know of any? Phillips, Magnavox, Panasonic, JVC, Sharp, etc are all Asian. I guess there's RCA, but they're owned by Europeans.

Secondly, the U.S. manufacturing market is rapidly eroding, so the whole effort now seems a bit misguided. I think there is a point where, simply for the sake of national security and national sovereignty, we should start offering tax incentives for some key manufacturing facilities to stay or return. For instance, the CA longshoremen strike brought a few important industries to a near-standstill - I think it would be in America's best interest to curb our reliance on imports for important industries.

But, consumer televisions are not an important industry, so I don't really care what happens to that industry. If foreign corporations want to use the U.S. market as a battleground, I don't care much if it means cheap stuff. Of course the law isn't structured to favor domestically owned corporations, so they have an obligation to prevent dumping under the current law no matter what. I would be much more interested if we had real indication one way or another if these products are really being sold at a loss. I've read of companies causing all sorts of shenanigans with the commerce department, just to be a nuisance to their competitors, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of those cases.

Otherwise, this article looks like it could have been written in the 1970s. It's almost quaint to think of people speculating about the death of U.S. manufacturing. It's a battlefield long since abandoned.

A shame he didn't talk about an issue that actually mattered. Given that people claim we're moving to a new-fangled "information economy," I think it's a lot more relevant to talk about the jobs relevant to that field which are being lost.

[Yojimbo]

Programming and technical jobs are rapidly being lost to India and China...my brother who works as a manager for an analyst firm hires Indians (sometimes guys he meets while playing online games) because they go for 1/5 the price of an American programmer.

[Art]

As I recall, there is no longer even one true american television company. There used to be several, and they used to be considered top of the line. Zenith is a good example of that.

As for foreign cars... Most Japanese "import" cars are assembled in North America, with a great deal of those being assembled in the United States. Toyota builds a great deal of their vehicles right here in Northern California. This is a good policy for Japanese car makers because they save a ton of money on import taxes. So, that means American jobs from Japanese companies. There are definitely two sides to this.

On the other hand, yes, there are a lot of jobs going overseas because they are cheaper. Personally, if I were to own a business, I would prefer to keep the greater part of my operations within the US. They would be so much easier to manage and supervise that way. But in the end, many of these businesses need the financial break in order to stay afloat.

[JerryLove]

Or you just loose to the cheaper guy that moved his service and engineering dept. overseas... Companies like Intel, AMD, IBM, Dell, AOL have been steadily gettting rid of American workers for Indian counterparts...

Ironically, the Japanese worker makes more than the US worker; so tarrifs on Japanese products make no sense, since there is no inherent disadvantage from which US workers operate; in my field, however, $8,000 per year is not a viable (nor even minimum wage) job here in the states; but it is what my Indian counterpart may make.

[Yojimbo]

In related news, apparently Bush is going to take the dive and repeal the steel tariffs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer

That's one brave non-war related issue this administration has made. Better that they didn't have to make it at all.

[+Donny]

Good. That is one thing I can be happy Bush did so far. Hopefully I will see a few more to add to the rather short list.