Chapter 12
Raise Tariffs
Protection and more revenue
Why are we talking about free trade and jobs and tariffs and things that normal Americans do not typically care about? You would not be reading this book if you were not interested in what happens to America. Our leaders have mishandled our country and they continue to do so. It is time this stops and America comes back in a way that restores our former greatness as an industrial power. The more we all know about the options to handle the devastating economic effects of offshoring, the better our chances are to get the right solution in place. One of the best solutions is to relax free trade and raise tariffs. It worked before and it will work again.
America first!
Many economists, who are interested more in how businesses can succeed, than in how the people can succeed, do not like the idea of protectionism and an America-first policy. They think free trade is the best approach for American corporations and surely they are right. I have stopped caring about what is good for American corporations as they care nothing about what is good for we the people. This chapter is about what is good for Americans, not what is good for corporations. How about leaving the jobs in America for starters! Corporations already have it too good and that is what I hope to help change.
The Reason for the RRR plan in the first place is because American corporations, who are fictional citizens by law, are very poor American citizens. For their greed and profit, they have turned their fictional backs on the reason for their success—the American people. They fictionally spit on Americans every day but it sure feels real. They have chosen to forget about America and Americans and so in our America-first platform, we suggest that all Americans do the same for corporations that were once American.
The notion of reduced redistribution and reduced progressivism is explored in the next chapter. In Chapter 14, we go through the dangers of progressivism and all the other isms that can change our America into something we want nothing to do with. Why the leaders of both parties are pro-corporate free-trade and pro illegal and pro massive legal immigration is a position that does not help the American people and does not help jobs. So, before you vote for anybody in 2012, make sure they are for America-first and if they are incumbents, make sure their voting record reflects it.
An America-first platform on redistribution demands that we applaud all charitable acts but it also demands that the government should not be a charity. Americans are out of work and becoming more broke as the government encourages people not to work. This government strategy is out of synch with a real recovery strategy. Only those who really need help should receive it.
Those out of work should receive unemployment compensation to keep them going. Their employers paid into it on their behalf. Those who have reached the proper age should be able to collect Medicare and Social Security since they paid for it. Everybody else who is not helpless should work to toughen themselves up for the many jobs that will be coming back to America by our adoption of the RRR plan.
I know you care about America or you would not be reading this book. You know that if you and I do not care what happens to America; America is done? It is through! We are the only ones who can and must stop the continual demise of our country at our government leaders’ hands, at corporate leaders’ hands, and at union leaders’ hands. The solution, is in our hands. It is imperative that our hands are lifted to form the universal hand stop sign so that nobody and nothing can continue to work against America.
Who can stop the bad guys? It is you. It is me. It is your kids. It is my kids. It is our neighbors. It is our fellow bus riders. It is the person in line with us at the Post Office and anybody else who loves America. Whatever we do, we should not let progressives talk us into giving up our freedoms and our God to worship the state, corporations, or unions.
That is our first concern. Once we get past that, then we can all take on corporations without taking on capitalism as we move back to a mercantilist approach for the next twenty or more years. For this chapter, corporations are the entities in play. However, the state, and unions also will play a big role in the overall solution to the jobs problem. We cannot afford a situation in which we know what to do and our politicians are too worried about themselves to move forward. Additionally, we cannot afford a jobs package in which unions become an obstacle for a real solution.
Corporations are tough to fight and we are well aware that through their lobbyists, they have bought off our representatives. Yet, for some strange reason, we continue to elect these traitors. Let’s say “no more to that,” for when we do not pay attention, we always get the government we deserve.
There is hope as long as you can spend some time for America. There is always hope if we think of America as a good place and from our motley backgrounds, we can do exceptional things. There will always be bad people but it is time that we learn to identify who they are and no longer place them in positions of trust.
Tariffs have many purposes
You may recall as we discussed the Wilson years, in Chapter 11, that the nefarious United States Income Tax and the IRS were not here just 100 years ago. In fact, the income tax would never have been passed if it were not that there was pressure by the Democrats to stop protecting American businesses. In the pre-roaring twenty-years, businesses were mostly run by Republicans so there was a political connotation to the passage of the 16th amendment.
Would you have ever thought that the Democrats, my party, would want an income tax to plague all the people—even those who make just a few bucks? Woodrow Wilson was a big-time progressive in the nature of Barack H. Obama. He brought in the income tax and ever since that day, the government has been in the handout and redistribution business. In these tough economic times, most Americans are hoping that the new American Dream is something a lot more substantive than just a “handout.”
Progressives were defamed back after the turn of the 20th century but they recently have begun feeling safe to come out in public again. The leaders of the Democratic Party, like communist leaders, do not necessarily reflect the views of the people in the Party. So, again the leaders are talking about “progressive ideas.”
These are not “advanced ideas.” They are the same socialist / communist ideas that carry the barebones label, “progressive.” When you heard Barack Obama tell Joe the plumber that as President he would like to redistribute income, you probably thought you heard it wrong. Obama now admits, he is a progressive and he loves the notion of taking from those who earn it and giving it to those who have sat on their duffs and not earned a dime.
In this earlier era, Wilson and the Democrats were progressives and they loved the notion of the income tax so that they could give the bucks to the people who did not have a buck because even if it was because they chose not to work? Is this really a great and noble notion?
For Catholics and Protestants, it is not. You may recall that stealing is against the seventh commandment. Even government is not permitted by God to confiscate the property of the people. People may give willingly as in church and charity but confiscation and the Constitution are not synonyms.
As sure as corporations have no soul, governments also have no soul and thus in both of these fictional entities, evil spreads rapidly when there is money involved. Taking more and more bucks from the people became easy once the income tax was permitted. Even before the US entered World War I, the income tax, just several years old, was bringing in more revenue to the government than any other source—including the tariffs.
Parkinson’s Rule
Parkinson’s rule, which describes the notion of humanness in the workplace, is as follows: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Kelly’s spending rule is a corollary to Parkinson’s as follows: “Spending expands so as to fill the difference between no spending and the maximum amount in the treasury.” Obama’s rule is not at all similar. It is as follows: “Spend other people’s money as long as nobody is telling you not to spend it and when they do tell you not to spend, simply ignore them.”
The 16th Amendment came first
The irony of the income tax is that our government in 1909 came to the people and asked us to permit our trustworthy government to be able to levy a tax on income. The Democratic Party had been begging for this for many years and in many ways. They felt tariffs, which had made the US a formidable power after less than 100 years of existence, were regressive. Since they were consumption taxes, they were believed by the Democrats to impose a heavier burden on the poor who consume a higher proportion of their income than do the rich. As a point of note, I think this is claptrap.
So, the progressives defamed tariffs as a regressive tax, and they clearly do not like regressive because it is backward and theoretically just the opposite of progressive. The worst part of the term “regressive tax,” is the word regressive itself which is simply an ugly sounding word meaning the opposite of progressive. Yet, a regressive tax is a tax that is imposed equally and that means fairly, on every taxpayer. Regression means that every proponent of the tax will pay the same percentage as the next guy. It keeps voters a bit more honest.
Americans do not need free-trade
Once a trader, a manufacturer, or a seller of any kind is inside the United States, not on the outside looking in, they have access to the richest free trade zone on the planet with well over a quarter of the world’s purchases being made here each year. Though China and Russia may be larger geographically, they are smaller economically. One could readily conclude as fact that Americans would prosper more than any other people in a tariff-only tax system. And, in fact, until Wilson and the Federal Income Tax, we were doing just that and we were doing just fine. Everybody wants to do business in America, including faux American corporations who build their products elsewhere.
Everybody, rich and poor, benefited from the tariffs that kept America prosperous until the 1920’s. Tariffs incent American industry to expand. Additionally, more workers are needed when industry expands, and so there are more jobs available and the people earn real incomes. All of the work is done in America so there are lots of jobs for Americans.
By voting for the 16th amendment, the people actually asked our honest and truthful government to take more and more of our daily toil. Yet, it is fascinating at how trusting Americans are of Americans if it is for the apparent common good. So, the 16th Amendment was placed in front of the people. The patriotic and trusting people of this country voted for as it appeared like a good idea, since their representatives at the time advised them to do so.
The irony at the time is that Republicans were always looking for barriers against free trade. As the producers of goods, the Republicans wanted protection so that their products from the mills, the farms and the factories—those made by Americans, were priced better than those coming in from foreign lands. High tariffs on imported goods assured this. Because of the tariff protections, by 1910, America had become the most industrialized nation on the face of the earth.
Protectionism is anathema to the notion of free trade and of course free trade is in vogue with all of the globalists, a number of whom have been and one who continues to be president(s) of the United States. For countries that need help like the US right now, the infant-industry argument is a valid economic justification for trade protectionism. The basic argument is that budding industries most often do not enjoy the economies of scale that their more established competitors from other countries may have. Thus, they need to be nurtured and protected until they can attain similar cost advantages that a business obtains due to expansion.
The US again needs to be protected but this time it is from its own industries. Today the corporations that run the industries no longer choose to stay and build their products in the home country. In many ways domestic corporations who build their products overseas have given up on America and when they ship products back to America, companies that build in America need protection from them.
The argument to protect new businesses was brought forth as far back as 1790 by Alexander Hamilton, the 1st US Secretary of the Treasury. Obviously, protectionism worked for the United States until the Income Tax assured politicians of revenue without taxing neighbor countries.
England, the major US competitor of old, the mother ship that had, by its successful trading practices convinced American Presidents to employ mercantilism to build US industry, eventually got lost in the grand notion of free trade. After all, at the time, in the days leading up to the revolution, England literally ruled the world and America was looking for a way to become large and successful as England had always been.
Unfortunately for England, by the time the US had determined that the mercantilist strategy as deployed by England, was the best approach to expand the infant industries in America, the British had chosen a different course. Since they were so powerful, the British decided to be fairer. One of England’s swings like a pendulum found it so consumed in the notion of free trade, rather than the mercantilism that had kept it strong for hundreds of years, resulted in its losing its zip as a country. In the process, of espousing free trade, England denigrated to less than half of its former GDP. The moral of the story is that free trade is not good for the country that owns the game. Free trade is not good for the country that is giving up the business. It does help all the other countries
At the end of what I would like to call unintentional “downsizing by dumbness,” Germany was in the process of picking apart England in World War I. England would have been a German isle if a former colony (the United States) had not emulated the great Brits in the practice of mercantilism. Nobody on earth had the industrial might of the US at the beginning of World War I, and to the best of my knowledge nobody has yet to eclipse us, though the piranha are circling.
The US was not involved in the war until 1917 but England was almost finished when President Wilson answered the call for help. If it were not for the resources of the US, England would have fallen to Bismarck and become a German nation. Ironically, Germany had gained its power using the same style of mercantilism which had enabled England to rule the world. England had forgotten what had made it successful just as the US has today. The US at the time of World War I had been a practitioner of the creed of mercantilism from the late 1700’s. During WWI, the US was even better at it than the Germans. The free trading British would have been goners had they not been such great teachers.
In the 1980—2012 era, the free-traders are now a mix of Republicans and Democrats going back from Ronald Reagan forwards. So we have Bush / Clinton Bush / Bush / almost Clinton – whoops, that last one is for sure Obama. During the Reagan years, but growing rapidly afterwards, American businesses for profit reasons, decided it was OK to separate from America and Americans. Reagan was convinced that the US was so powerful that free trade could not hurt us. He also thought globalization was a good idea because it brought in small countries that would always be left out in the past.
Reagan did not foresee the issues that came with knocking down the trade barriers and tariffs leaving America unprotected from within. Reagan certainly knew the evils in government but he had yet to meet the real face of evil until he embraced corporatism as if it would remain loyal to America in a global trade environment.
Obama, just as those presidents from the mid 1970’s on, loves globalism. However, Obama pretends to hate all corporations while he aligns himself with specific corporations. For example, some Obama friends include: GE, Honeywell International, Intel, Dow Chemical, Boeing, Coca Cola, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and of course GM and Chrysler. These allegiances help Obama in getting reelected and they have helped him grow the government to an unprecedented size.
I am convinced that this President does not wish to know what will succeed in moving the economy forward and creating real private sector jobs. Rather than being prepared to succeed, Obama has his team ready for mop up operations. As soon as his regulations, policies, edicts, and executive orders overwhelm American business and the public at large, and all of this triggers a market response that says, “We’re done;” we probably will be done. Obama has enough patience to get us all through just one more election cycle, after which he will figure out how to own the whole game by executive fiat.
If I wake up three decades from now still alive, I will recall hearing of this globalist ideology in this way: “It seemed to be everywhere. No matter who you were, you could not escape it. If you were a national politician, you were either destroyed by it or it is why you prospered. The idea had certainly captured the attention of both national parties. These progressives were products of the same universities that had elected Roosevelt and the New Dealers.” No matter how prevalent globalist thinking may be today, it is the wrong approach for the sovereign nation of the United States of America.
Democrats claimed not to be progressives or socialists or Marxists at the time of Roosevelt, because they had received a big haircut after the Wilson days. But, in their hearts, they all knew that the ideology at the top of the Party had not changed. The regular people, like my dad, did not know about their big plans. He was a regular guy as were most Democrats. He was a pretty tough guy as were most Democrats. Perhaps because of guys like my dad and your dad and a lot of other pretty tough dads, it took progressives to the turn of the millennium to actually begin to show themselves brazenly in public again.
Many Americans grew up as nothing and then learned how to be something. We were assisted by the great principles of this country. Whether our parents were Democrat, Republican, Green or Libertarian, we continue to be eternally grateful to an America that not only permits us to dream but helps us achieve the dream. Americans are not accustomed to being slammed back to the pavement earth as a proletariat or a peasant but unless we change direction, the end of the middle class is on the horizon and it will be a precursor to the end of the United States.
I never had a thought growing up that I was poor because I grew up in America. While I was poor, there was never a handout that came our way as my dad worked for a living. I think that is why I felt American and not like a person who was helped by Americans. Either way, like many baby boomers, I am most grateful.
Poor leadership can be replaced
Let us go back to why we are here in this book about recovery using the RRR plan, and why we are in this chapter. The potential for the American dream is being limited by our poor leadership. America has been neutered by our representatives and a President who cannot seem to grasp the full meaning of our great heritage.
Our economy is in the toilet and our industry captains caused it by deciding to be the captains of ships sailing towards distant waters. I am here to tell you all today that it is OK to complain and if any of our industry captains decide to turn their vessels on us and punish us by the curse of “deprivation of product,” we will punish them by a major deprivation of market.
Let’s deprive faux American corporations of our market
If the great “American” corporations whose products are built overseas by non-Americans in the Otherlands or other well known places, will not ship iPods or iPads or Blackberry’s or BMW’s, or Wolverine pull-on flat bottom boots, or Barbie Dolls, or Xbox 360’s, or Dell PC’s to the USA, then the people of the USA can invite their competition into the US to build these items and any other item for us. We can all say good-by to faux American corporations.
Isn’t it time we all got a pair? They tell me women ask this of other women today and perhaps it is a perfectly valid and no longer inappropriate question. Should the United States be the little guy in the world or should we regain our domination through obvious strength, not Obama diplomacy. Ask the Soviet Union how they came to the decision to break-up if you think Reagan-level strength is not necessary to solve real problems. That was the last time the US was strong in deed and in perception.
Does it not make you wonder why Apple, as wonderful as the late Steve Jobs was, and IBM, a company that would never turn its back on America unless it was necessary, and Microsoft, whose Bill Gates would give you a billion as long as he got two back, and of course HP, who learned that being the biggest in revenue no matter who gets hurts is worth giving up the company credo, “The HP Way!”—one and all—they have abandoned America.
None of these companies give a rat’s mcduff about America. They all moved out and our government promised not to tell us! Our government promised not to defend us in any way. Our government, not another government, permitted the fruits of American ingenuity to be manufactured overseas by non-Americans.
Moreover, many other of our other “finest” corporations packed their bags and on departure provided a muted middle finger solute to America and Americans as they chose to gain profits overseas.
They believed in American exceptionalism. They just chose to end it in their day.
So, we ask ourselves, why in the days in which they could have lobbied the Congress and the President for protectionism, did corporations not do so? Could it be that corporations felt they had opportunities elsewhere and were better off pretending that they were forced to leave the United States, the country in which they had been originally chartered?
Corporate deceit with government help
Why did corporate America, with its privileged access to the greatest market on earth, our United States, go along with sharing that market with its manufacturing rivals from all over the world? One who studies psychology would suggest corporations, thriving in America at the time would have been insane to upset the market. So, they did not. It was like they had a deal with the devil and the devil would not tell. Was the devil of the day, the US government?
Why did they agree to take their share overseas? Why did they choose to strip America of the royalty on the corporations’ very existences, which Americans had nourished and assured from inception? Why would American corporations go ahead and turn the profit on that hard-fought innovation that had occurred in America from our sweat labor, over to foreigners who had contributed nothing?
Surely, the corporations, in their wake, left nothing for America but their paltry unemployment compensation insurance. In fact, I have such little regard for these faux American entities that I would bet that more than likely the nasty corporations contested unemployment for their laid-off workers. I would not be surprised if they forced their former loyal workers through a nasty appeal process from a reluctant government that appeared to believe the blessed corporation and not the newly impoverished employee.
If I were a lawyer, and I thank God often that I am not, I would conclude with just a sense of reasonable logic that the government and corporations were in cahoots, and everybody else had gained. Only the American people lost!
The key point here is that even if the government renounced the notion of protectionism, which is a country’s means of becoming a mercantilist nation, rather than a fully capitalistic organism, the answer lies in the trade-off corporate America got for giving up American workers. Tough as it is to accept; that is what they did.
How about a profit motive? The U.S. corporate market was already well established in America. It was not going away any anytime soon. Corporate America could very easily risk sharing that market if, in return, it could shift its own production out of the United States to countries where the wages were low and regulations were light. Bingo! The world was at the beck and call of those American corporations that had consciously decided to not stay American at heart.
IBM became a champion for offshoring
I worked for IBM for 23 years of a promised 30-year career. The beauty of IBM was that though it chose an inglorious way to rid itself of people, who in any other system would have simply been laid off with nothing, once an employee accepted the deal, the deal itself was a good deal. Hard as it is to believe I was not on the first list of those who were deemed expendable. You see, I had this thing about speaking my mind to management and so I was surprised that after round one, I was still with the company.
In 1993, IBM was looking for body counts to reduce its expenditures and they tapped the lowest ranked employees for discharge. Others were offered the opportunity to get the package even if not selected by management. Eventually I agreed to a sweeter deal than the first offer that I had seen. As a Senior Systems Engineer, I was able to sneak out with the best package IBM had ever offered to the “field force.” I thank God and I thank IBM to this day. Those who were more unaware than I—who chose not to leave with the package offered to us all, did not fare as well as I as time went by.
Management actually honored me by telling me, at 43 years old that the company had many uses for me and would prefer that I not take the optional package. They did not force me to stay with IBM, however, and I credit them with that. I got out and I love IBM to this day because the company was as good as it could have been under the economic circumstances of the times. Many companies today are not as nice, Perhaps IBM today, though I cannot offer commentary either way is not that way anymore. I hope IBM is still OK! Yet, I do not delude myself. The only real driver for corporations is corporate profits, even within IBM. I do still own my IBM stock.
I believe IBM would have liked to have remained as good a company as it could possibly be. Many global corporations over the years, including IBM have been very successful being US based with major foreign operating units. IBM did what it did to its “leftover” employees because it had to, not because it ever wanted to be Mr. Bad. I knew I had to get out. I would suspect that companies that were not IBM that actually would bring out a “Mr. Bad” image at the drop of a hat had no problem taking every single job that was possible overseas!
Many of us who know what a gracious company IBM was even when it was almost decimated in the early 1990’s by chairman John Akers’ gross incompetence recoil just thinking how bad it would have been working for a man with a ruthless creed like Jack Welch.
Welch was GE’s CEO from 1981 to 2001. Whereas IBM’s both Thomas Watsons’ (Senior and Junior) pined for employee loyalty, GE’s Welch showed his disregard for employee loyalty when he opined: "Ideally you'd have every plant you own on a barge" By that, he meant a readiness to seek out at a moment's notice the lowest possible wages and most pliable governments (weak regulations, low taxes, hostile to unions, etc.) anywhere on the globe.
Trump says 25% tariff
I am writing this book in the USA and I surely do not think that it would be better if I wrote this in China. Most Chinese I know or have met are fine people and are almost all exceptionally bright. But, China, the country is not a place for me. It is at odds with the USA in many ways, including trade, and our government should do something about it. Trade tariffs are appropriate as long as they are not excessive.
Donald Trump says 25% on china and OPEC nations is a good tariff rate. Maybe he is right. Trump in his own way is for the reindustrialization of America and a return to mercantilism. He also advocates a 20 percent tax on all domestic companies that outsource their jobs overseas. I think it should be higher but I think Donald Trump and I are on the same page.
There are a lot of issues for American corporations to deal with in relations with the Chinese. The US government with its wimpy Congress must think that Chinese trade is OK the way it is, even though Chinese products dominate the landscape in America.
American corporations might not be as pleased with the Chinese government as they once were as the Chinese now demand that our corporations give it all up to make a buck in China. American corporations are concerned about themselves—not about China or America. The Chinese demand they give up their secrets to gain China’s business. But, American companies are not suicidal. They are profit oriented.
In the US intellectual property is protected, and corporations would be willing to bet that they would still be able to sell to China's growing markets. If not, just like Google, they need to be ready to pack it up and let the Chinese wonder what their next move will be.
Is capitalism or mercantilism right for the USA?
There is this notion today that capitalism is not doing it for Americans. This deal suggests that those Americans who should be top tier employees, who have either been fired or laid off and are nonetheless unemployed right now, are simply victims of capitalism. Maybe that is true but that says that capitalism, when it hurts the home country, such as when the corporations choose to offshore, needs to be reevaluated.
Let’s take a look at the proof that pure capitalism as a market philosophy, including the elitist notion of free trade, has not helped average Americans at all.
If we could hire “The COUNT” from Sesame Street, he would be able to quickly add it up. Eight million jobs have been lost in manufacturing over the last 30 years while 5 million white collar jobs have been lost at the same time. While capitalism became more pure and government continued to think that the notion of global capitalism was more important than American capitalism, the result was ordinary Americans were not COUNTED by the COUNT.
Somehow, American legislators and in many cases regular Americans who felt they would be employed forever, no matter what the circumstances might be, thought the “pig” would never stop producing pork. Well that is until they too began to lose their jobs; then from their eyes, they finally recognized that the “pig” had died. Then, many more American jobs also died. Many had already bit the offshore dust but the government had never complained because the tax revenue sources were still producing. With a 1.65 trillion dollar deficit and climbing, it is time to complain. It was actually time twenty years ago.
Government always appears to be more concerned about the effects of its policies on jobs than it actually is. Nobody expects a government lament, and unfortunately, there is none. But, there could have been some action before it got this bad. Where were they?
Government offshores jobs
Back to the future! Government is so immune to how the people feel about offshoring that agencies in 40 states as well as Washington, DC today are using foreign workers instead of American workers. One of our governments’ favorite positions to offshore is the help desk to handle customer service for food stamp inquiries. How ironic that they take away American jobs in the public sector to help people on welfare.
Surely we should penalize companies that forget they are America-based and we should deny them government contracts. What should we do about governments that choose to use foreign workers in foreign countries rather than Americans?
A 2003 NetworkWorldFusion article quotes industry consultant Jack Heacock, who wonders whether the U.S. should impose tariffs on overseas call centers, "to better balance the playing field and the U.S. economy and information privacy." Stop thinking about it! Of course we should!
Free trade—a worldwide wealth distribution scheme
It began in the Wilson days but the notion of free trade was always a worldwide wealth distribution scheme. The English gave up world domination for free trade. Was that really fair? Was it worth it? The dissolution of tariff protection has forced US workers to compete against employees in other countries, who will work for a small percentage of what Americans need to survive. American businesses that offshore jobs love the fact that the overseas societies have little or no regulations and there are no unions with which to grapple.
When I first thought of this large body of information available for the topic of the reindustrializing America, just as with the other sets of 3-R’s, I was looking more at a solution methodology, rather than the solution. On the way to the solution involving the reindustrialization of America, we must do at least one other thing that starts with R. There is no choice. We must Raise tariffs on American corporations and if that is not enough, then all foreign corporations must pay a tariff. I like to call this: “tariff induced re-industrialization.” You can bet American companies will be back if they are put in a position in which to sell their goods in America, they will pay a nice sized tariff.
Essential and non-essential industries
Offshoring of jobs did not happen overnight. Essential industries, along with their jobs, have been off-shored, while the non-essential industries have stayed home. By not producing the essentials of course, America is made vulnerable.
After World War II, the English began its own watch-making industry. Prior to the war, the English and other European countries were happy letting the skilled Swiss watchmakers provide their time pieces. During the war, they learned that the skills of the watchmaker were needed for perfecting armaments. England paid more attention to assure vital industries were supported in the country after the war. America needs to do the same thing now. Can you see a bunker buster bomb being assembled in Iran? I know it sounds silly so use another country and it is just as silly. Now, if the US were building the bombs, surely we would put a GPS in them and assure the bombs would not detonate anywhere within the 50 states. Do you see how non-silly it is to suppose that any country might add a little more technology to the mix?
So if a diverse industrial base is necessary for defense, why has the President and Congress permitted so much of America's industrial base to be exported overseas? Should the US not take an inventory of its vital industries and its craft skills to assure that like the English, we are never left short of what is needed to survive and conquer. Then when we know what industries must be built, let’s get the job done.
We all know why corporations offshore. They see it as helping their bottom line. Even though finished goods as well as raw materials must be shipped at considerable expense across vast oceans to find their way to America's store shelves, corporations believe that it beats paying the high price of American labor to make products here. The biggest expense for many businesses is labor. They find cheap labor overseas and they can make what they want with no red tape. When they have to pay a nice tariff to sell their products, the game will be tilted more in America’s favor.
Do American corporations have a beef?
Scott Hodges, president of the Tax Foundation, a think tank in Washington D.C. thinks corporations have more than labor as a beef: "By keeping our corporate tax rate so high, we're creating an economic Berlin Wall around the United States."
Hodges also suggests readjusting American attitudes towards work. Though not as popular as blaming the government, Hodge thinks that unions add a drag on productivity since the corporations must go through the unions to motivate the employees. They don’t have to do this overseas.
He also cites all the government mandates and regulations that have made America an unattractive place to do business. But even if government did all the right things to bring industry home, there would still be another formidable roadblock from Hodges’ perspective. That roadblock according to Hodge, even if the union issue were settled, another problem for business is the individual potential employee.
Hodges suggests that that the American laborer more and more resembles his European brother; he expects high pay and generous benefits for very little work. And now America has entered a new stage of European-style unemployment. So the American worker must ask himself what he is willing to give up so that he can have the dignity and security of a job. It is tough to want to give up nice unemployment benefits for example to take a job when the job does not pay as much. In fact, if an American would do that, he or she would be thought of as a fool by his peers. Yet, we all know that everybody cannot be on unemployment indefinitely.
Nobody is really working on the problem
Even if the American worker were willing to give up higher wages for a job, the current administration in Washington is unwilling to give up its plans for the perfect workplace. There are no real plans to end federal mandates or relax regulations or slash corporate tax rates. There is a lot of lip service.
Here we are with real problems and we have nobody but politicians working on them. It is no wonder that things are still not right! The thinking from the White House indicates just the opposite. Though things are not right, rather than making them right, this President wants to talk people into believing all is well. He is the master spin artist.
Moreover, for the President of the United States, and the Congress, ideology comes before practicality and as long as we are stuck with such leaders, America will be the poor house. Look how stubbornly the ideologues cling to Obamacare as a solution when they know it has already exacerbated the problem for businesses that still have an option to leave America. It is yet another reason to pack up the jobs and leave. When faced with that reality, our President digs in on the idea of repealing Obamacare. Obama recently said: "We're not going back. I refuse to go back."
So the reindustrialization of America, the shift to mercantilism and tariffs, along with regaining the jobs, remains on the distant horizon. It is not even a flicker on the teleprompter of this Administration’s agenda. Vice President Biden recently said: "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession." What a goof! Why not VP Biden? Have you given your brain the year off?
Biden is probably correct but only if the government, which he influences, refuses to do what it must to attract business and make it profitable for US corporations to create their products in the United States rather than someplace else. Even still there is hope if Americans show Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama the way home at the end of their first term. What's acceptable for government isn't necessarily good for the individual.
The only way America can be great while being post-industrial is if we can again become the brains of the world's economy and a major production force. To do this, our industry must first be successful in our own economy. We have a lot of smart people in this country and when we bring our educational institutions up to the level they should be—America will again be a fountain of ideas and inventions. But we have no monopoly on brains.
Indeed, due to our lousy K-12 public education industry, we now have experts telling us that American workers are not knowledgeable enough and we must import brains from other countries. Add to that our long-idled workforce, which is losing its skills. Once we regain the will to be the best, we will again be the best in the world in all we do.
It's appalling to discover the things that we find often by accident. For example, the berets for one of our elite military units were contracted to be manufactured abroad.
John N. Hall, a programmer/analyst from Kansas City with a nice American sized brain; writing for American Thinker in July 2010 sums this all up perfectly: “When China contracts to build our Nimitz-class aircraft carriers for us, it'll be a good time to learn Mandarin. The longer America postpones her reindustrialization, the weaker she'll become. A nation of burger flippers cannot stand.”
Amen!
The bottom line is to bring on the tariffs so that American corporations find it far less expensive to produce in America than to import from their plants overseas. Prosperity is within reach.