Obama/Liberals: Out Sourcing is Bad - Page 3 - Politics and Economics

BoredSocial · 07-24-2012, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashington

"Free trade" for the US, mercantilism for China (and everyone else)

Guess which one always wins?

Trade is a prisoners dilemma. It's indisputable that true free trade is a good thing... But if you unilaterally go 'free trade' while everyone else remains mercantilist you get raped.

**tomdemaine** · 07-24-2012, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Outsourcing is bad if you're the country getting outsourced. I'm really tired of people saying 'blah blah blah free trade good blah blah blah' while completely ignoring the fact that we do not have free trade with most of our largest trading partners. There are significant protectionist measures going on in Japan, China, and to a lesser extent Germany and India. Free trade does not mean that we provide free access to our market and they can do whatever the **** they want. True free trade would be American farmers being able to ship their products to the Japanese... And the Chinese paying us for some fraction of what they steal while allowing their people to buy our luxury products and their currency to appreciate to a reasonable level.

We seriously have to be one of the only nations on earth that doesn't aggressively shill for our own industries. We've allowed other nations to gut our industrial base with blatantly unfair trade tactics for the last 30 years under the guise of 'free trade' which has actually been devastatingly one sided.

Hahahaohwow.jpeg. American farmers are your example of getting screwed by free trade? Really!? Has there existed a more subsidised group of people in the history of the world?

Vael · 07-24-2012, 01:14 PM

aren't american farmers protected from the horribly destructive forces of free trade, to the significant detriment of poor food exporting countries?

that said, if the metric we're looking at is economic surplus, which is certainly only part of what we should be looking at (boredsocial was probably talking about other metrics too), then it can make sense not to fully open up trade for big countries. this is true even if everyone else does free trade. trade is a prisoner's dilemma for big countries in this sense.

ikestoys · 07-24-2012, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Outsourcing is bad if you're the country getting outsourced.

Yeah, I REALLY hate being able to get quality products for less!

Huehuecoyotl · 07-24-2012, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomdemaine

Hahahaohwow.jpeg. American farmers are your example of getting screwed by free trade? Really!? Has there existed a more subsidised group of people in the history of the world?

European (French) farmers.

**tomdemaine** · 07-24-2012, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huehuecoyotl

European (French) farmers.

ok, I'll give you that one but it's close

stevepra · 07-24-2012, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomdemaine

When I provide a service for you I am either saving you time or doing something that you are unable to do. You give me money but you value that money less than the effect of the service. I have created wealth by turning time into utility for you and money for me. Why does it matter if the natural resource is a rock from the ground and the product is a shiny ring (which provides utility) or if the natural resource is my time and expertise and the product is your satisfaction (which provides utility).

Ok. So, I'm free to use my time to make more money. And, you use your newfound money to go buy services from Bob. Bob purchases services from Joe, etc. So far, how are we not just shuffling money between us?

Presumably, at some point, one of us is going to need to buy a shirt. Like everything else, that shirt is made in China. $1 of the purchase price goes to guy who made the shirt. We'll call him Hao. Being from a country where the cost of living is so much less, Hao can't afford to buy US products or services. How does that $1 make its way back into the US?

**tomdemaine** · 07-24-2012, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevepra

Ok. So, I'm free to use my time to make more money. And, you use your newfound money to go buy services from Bob. Bob purchases services from Joe, etc. So far, how are we not just shuffling money between us?

Because each time we trade we are creating wealth.

Quote:

Presumably, at some point, one of us is going to need to buy a shirt. Like everything else, that shirt is made in China. $1 of the purchase price goes to guy who made the shirt. We'll call him Hao. Being from a country where the cost of living is so much less, Hao can't afford to buy US products or services. How does that $1 make its way back into the US?

Well for starters if it doesn't ever make it back then America basically got that shirt for free, gratz. Otherwise what you've done is created a bunch of wealth trading services with tom dick and harry and now you're creating more wealth trading with Hao. When you trade for physical products you are intending to use them to gain utility (or gain it from owning them) why is the utility gained from a physical product different from the utility gained from a service?

bobman0330 · 07-24-2012, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashington

"Free trade" for the US, mercantilism for China (and everyone else)

Guess which one always wins?

You know China is poor as ****, right?

neg3sd · 07-24-2012, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashington

Are there lots of unfilled homecare worker jobs?

Are there more unfilled homecare worker jobs than unemployed people? If so, how many more?

Are any special qualifications (other than "being unemployed") required to be a homecare worker?

Did you put any thought at all into this post before you made it?

CNA's costs $25 an hour. 24/7 care is about $5,000 a week. How many seniors can afford that?
There is a huge black market for homecare workers. Mostly filled by immigrants willing to work for housing and a small salary.
Teenagers babysit. Homecare is just babysitting an adult for assisted living.

Yes, I have had experience with homecare. Everyone who have elderly parents better start getting experience.

Cuban B · 07-24-2012, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayTeeMe

I don't know if democrats think outsourcing is "bad" as much as they think it's unpopular with voters.

Maybe they just want to one up the teabaggers and bring back a federal government funded almost entirely from tariffs(protectionism), as "the founders" did it.

Cuban B · 07-24-2012, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Outsourcing is bad if you're the country getting outsourced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ikestoys

Yeah, I REALLY hate being able to get quality products for less!

No but I kind of hate the rapid growth in federal disability claims, food stamps, and unemployment claims, subsidized healthcare, basically all forms of welfare that have been continually on the rise for some time.

Because while i save money with cheaper goods, i also lose money with a society increasingly dependent on government - and this isn't just the welfare class, the actual real industries that are supposedly leading the way in the US also seem increasingly depend on government spending, like military related industries or healthcare related or wall street, ect. And as has been pointed out the idea that all these other countries are just practicing free trade and out competing is kind of laughable.

Quote:

China’s currency manipulation represents the largest protectionist measure maintained by any major economy since the Second World War. China has intervened in the foreign exchange markets by an average of $1 billion a day for the last five years, buying dollars to keep them expensive and selling renminbi to keep them cheap, building a gigantic reserve of $2.5 trillion in the process. Largely as a result, the renminbi is undervalued by at least 20 percent relative to economic fundamentals. The largest trading country in the world is therefore subsidizing all exports by at least 20 percent and imposing an additional tariff of at least 20 percent on all imports.

The problem with protectionism is it actually can work to benefit one country at the expense of others.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

The part that was free was the part where American capital was allowed to go overseas and invest in the countries that were allowed to use unfair trade practices to gut the American industrial base. This just allowed the very wealthy in America to arbitrage artificially low labor rates in the developing world (which would have been cheaper anyway, but we would have been much more competitive) to produce products they could sell here.

This too.

CaliBobby · 07-24-2012, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Outsourcing is bad if you're the country getting outsourced. I'm really tired of people saying 'blah blah blah free trade good blah blah blah' while completely ignoring the fact that we do not have free trade with most of our largest trading partners. There are significant protectionist measures going on in Japan, China, and to a lesser extent Germany and India. Free trade does not mean that we provide free access to our market and they can do whatever the **** they want. True free trade would be American farmers being able to ship their products to the Japanese... And the Chinese paying us for some fraction of what they steal while allowing their people to buy our luxury products and their currency to appreciate to a reasonable level.

We seriously have to be one of the only nations on earth that doesn't aggressively shill for our own industries. We've allowed other nations to gut our industrial base with blatantly unfair trade tactics for the last 30 years under the guise of 'free trade' which has actually been devastatingly one sided.

CaliBobby · 07-24-2012, 03:27 PM

China's currency manipulation is like rakeback for America. Zomg! If only the Chinese would stop propping up our dollar!

Cuban B · 07-24-2012, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliBobby

China's currency manipulation is like a green light for unlimited spending for the federal gov. Zomg! If only the Chinese would stop propping up our dollar!

fyp