Originally Posted by
Koyote
Absent from most of these discussions is the question of whether it is even
desirable to move many of these manufacturing jobs back to the US. While there are market inefficiencies and distortions (including some tariffs) in the international trade system, manufacturing and trade largely follows
comparative advantage -- a concept we've understood for over 200 years. To put it as simply as possible,
the US is a rich country, in part, because we let other countries produce many of the goods (and increasingly services) that require less-skilled workers and less-sophisticated capital equipment, so that we can fully take advantage of our relatively highly-skilled workers and more sophisticated capital by producing more highly-valued items -- and hence to produce more income. In other words, our international trade system makes the US (and our trading partners) ALL better off, even if we do run trade deficits with some of our partners; the corollary is that bringing many of those manufacturing jobs to the US will make us all worse off. (Not that the current policies will bring those jobs back - they won't. But they will cause prices to rise and incomes to fall and thus make us all worse off.)
1. The issue is that those in the USA who are
not relatively high-skilled workers using most sophisticated capital equipment to produce more highly-valued goods or services are increasingly left behind.
Originally Posted by
mschwett
somebody appears to actually understand the situation. it's unfortunate that nobody in charge either does or cares.
2. No one is willing to admit that #1 is inevitable to a certain extent. Add those who are willing to foment dissatisfaction for political gains, plus those who are willing to make political decisions that make everyone worse off such that they are comparatively less worse off, and we are where we are at.