A juvenile argument at best. Buying local in a small town does have an impact. Why drive 4 towns over to the Big Box Store to buy what we can at the general store? The sales tax stays in our county. The rent at the general store is paid to a local landowner, the property taxes fund our schools and town services, the wages are paid to locals and the income taxes being it us, the produce is even grown to some extent on a local farm. The Big Box Store 4 towns over pays rent to a Wall Street owned development company that gets tax breaks at every level and buys produce and parts from overseas. Until our tariff systems are linked to wages paid and worker/consumer safety standards in the production nation buying local (town, county, state, country) is the fiscally responsible thing to do.
How's it juvenile? Since the argument falls apart if the BBS & GS aren't in the same locale, we should assume Don meant stores in close proximity, so taxes and wages stay local. Your point about rent stands only if local landowner buys local, and even if they do exclusively, places they shop don't. Produce may be grown local, but think about the entire process: fertilizer, boxes to carry produce, tractors, etc aren't local.If you buy a hammer locally more $ might stay local, but was it locally produced? If it's shipped in, you've essentially only increased hammer prices. If we only buy from each other, prices will be high bc we won't be able to fully exploit the division of labor and specialization coming from trading with a wide group. Widely followed, buy local increases prices and decreases variety, voluntarily making us poorer. That's not to say it doesn't make sense to buy local because the products are better, or as an act of charity. Can you clarify your last sentence, please.
The US imports goods from every industrialized nation and some not so industrialized nations. For example Irish, Italian, Canadian and US workers are paid a similar wage. Factory safety standards in these countries are comparable. Product safety standards are comparable. Goods we import from Ireland, Italy or Canada should enjoy lower import tariffs than manufactured goods from Mexico, Bangladesh of China which pay fractional wages,have little or no workplace safety standards or product safety standards. Nations that do not have manufacturing sectors that measure up should pay more import tariff to level the playing field.
That measure up to what? Some arbitrary standard? Before I address the implications of such tariffs: even if the America of the future is a manufacturing power automation will replace the unskilled jobs with knowledge positions. We should be more focused on creating new industry not saving ones that can be more productive elsewhere. There are two challenges to imposing tariffs first being that Congress has sole authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations and they likely won't support such tariffs, secondly, it's incompatible under to WTO agreements and the WTO would award those countries the right to impose retaliatory tariffs on US exports in the amount of damages caused by the tariffs. Who does this harm most? The poor, in our country and abroad. Further, a 2009 survey by the AEA found that 83% of PhD economists agree that we should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade entirely.
OSHA standards, EPA standards, and the FTC's bureau of consumer protection. If we're going to pay for all this alphabet soup let's make it useful. So eliminate all tariffs, and what will we do for jobs? Retail and service industry cannot support us all. Creating jobs for the sake of jobs helps nobody (NYS toll takers). What new industry can we create that would not be outsourced? What new product can we manufacture that will not be stolen and produced cheaper elsewhere? We cannot strive to be leaders in tech and environmental protection while buying products of child labor and mass pollution.
We impose higher standards willingly, with the full knowledge that other nations don't have to meet our standards. New industry will be created. People thought the industrial revolution would lead to mass unemployment, farmers lost their jobs, factory workers lost their jobs, but look at the state of the job market today, almost 95% of those active in the labor market have jobs. Once other nations become more developed and their standards of living rise, the playing field will be more even, and it's more equitable than punishing them for being less developed. Your pollution point stands, but child labor is absolutely not an issue because the alternative for most children in developing nations are working in agriculture or starving.
I live in the rust belt. I can find thousands daily that need blue collar work. My job is to keep factories running and at colpliant with minimum standards. Many people in these factories are not qualified for medical, academic or government employment. There is no reason not to push for retention of manufacturing jobs in the US.
The problem is that blue collar work has at least the chance of being automated out of existence to some degree. 40 years from now the working world will be a vastly different place where the most unskilled positions may be considered skilled by today's standards. Allow me to play devils advocate for a moment, I don't actually believe what I'm going to say, but one reason not to push for retention of manufacturing jobs in America is that by helping the x% of people working manufacturing jobs, let's say 10% of the workforce, it artificially inflates prices at the expense of the other 90%. It's effectively a government subsidy for those that aren't qualified to do other things, and hurts a majority of the population, the working poor most specifically. Another reason is that manufacturing jobs are a dying breed, innovation will reduce the number even further than it already has. Once again, just playing devils advocate.
Yes, but people build, install, maintain and monitor the robots. ISO standards, LEED standards and EPA guidelines need to be honored by our trade partners. The Erin Brockovich movie is an example of good gone wrong. Most US tanneries exceeded pollution outputs by almost double allowable limits. These tanneries closed and the leather industry in Pakistan boomed. They pollute at more than ten times our allowable standards. (There is a process for tanning leather using the cow's brain and no caustic chemicals that works just as well but takes longer.) We only moved and increased that pollution to another part of the world. We all breathe the same air and drink the same water. Would it not be beneficial to force the Pakistanis to reduce the pollution through higher tariffs and give our safer methods a chance?
Yes. Perhaps with a bit of revenge thrown in for good measure. Revengeance, for lack of a better word.
I shall dub my campaign... "Metal Fur Floofy: Revengeance"
I shall dub my campaign... "Metal Fur Floofy: Revengeance"