Reply #12: I respectfully disagree [View All]

[JackintheGreen]

The barn door is already open. The world is changing, and jingoistic protections on American production won't change anything. I wish it weren't so.

We could, I suppose, pile protections on protections, work to preserve U.S. manufacturing jobs, etc. But we would have to subsidize out the wazoo in order to make it work (see, for instance, the beef industry). We could entirely seal off the U.S. from outside trade and influence, prevent imports, and pay our workers enough to afford goods produced in country, which will of course be more expensive because we will have to pay the makers of those goods enough to keep those jobs in the U.S. in the first place. Or we're back to subsidies to artificially depress prices.

Or we globalize, and I mean really and truly globalize, not just goods (which effs up U.S. manufacture but good) but wages, standards of living, etc. Indian workers are payed less because goods in India cost less. That doesn't mean they don't still get royally screwed, but an Indian in Bangalore doesn't need to earn $300K/year to live very well indeed. An NRI in San Francisco could struggle to get by on the same amount.