Rebuttals to Lou Dobbs et al.

Random quotes from CNN, C-SPAN, etc. on trade, globalism, exporting jobs, outsourcing, etc.

What's not America? that somone is now paid less than they were before? Why is that not America? What's unAmerican about someone's income going down when their value goes down? What's unAmerican about being paid what you're worth? about being paid less when your value becomes less?

The above quote shows a typical crybaby protectionist mentality that says the workers' income must never go down, regardless of the fact that their market value goes down. Well, such crybabyism is NOT American. True Americanism is that you're paid your real value, and if that value goes down, then your income rightly goes down also. And it is your personal responsibility to keep your value high if you expect to continue being paid a high income.

And your value is determined by the changing market conditions and by the law of supply and demand. Which means if you become more replaceable, then your value goes down. Your value in the marketplace is inversely proportional to your replaceability. And those workers being replaced by cheap labor are becoming less valuable as their replaceability goes up. That's a fact of life which the crybaby protectionists and their spokespersons, like Lou Dobbs, keep ignoring in their constant railing against free trade.

The Dobbsians and Buchaninistas fundamentally don't believe in competitive market capitalism, which says that when your value goes down your income must also go down. YOU HAVE NO PERMANENT ENTITLEMENT to a particular income level just because at one time you succeeded in attaining to that level. You must continue earning that level of income to be entitled to it.

This attitude will only hurt this company that requires the financial services. Hartford saves money by outsourcing some of its work. This savings can then be passed partly on to its customers. When you do business with a company, you want its prices to be as low as possible, and its service to be provided as efficiently as possible. If a company can improve its service by outsourcing some of its work, then its customers benefit from that outsourcing.

Why should your company pay higher than necessary prices in order to discourage the seller from outsourcing? Is this a patriotic sacrifice you are making? What is patriotic about protecting those who are uncompetitive? How do you benefit America by protecting its uncompetitive workers? by helping to keep them in uncompetitive jobs and helping them to be paid more than they are worth in the marketplace? What is patriotic about insuring that some U.S. workers will continue to be overpaid, i.e., paid more than their market value?

What is patriotic about boycotting a company that is fostering competition by favoring those suppliers who are lower-priced? What is unpatriotic about paying lower prices, about reducing costs? What is it about the crybaby protectionists that they insist on higher prices and higher costs? Why can't they understand that it is their responsibility to serve consumers, and not the consumers' responsibility to subsidize them? Why do they seem to want to gain their income through pity rather than through earning it? Being paid more than you are worth is a form of welfare in disguise, a handout paid out of pity.

Yes, the uncompetitive do suffer. It hurts an uncompetitive business when it goes under. BUT THAT'S THE MARKET! THAT'S COMPETITIVE CAPITALISM! Didn't these people ever take a course in economics? IT'S SUPPOSED to hurt when you're uncompetitive and fail to serve the consumers as well. Uncompetitive workers and businesses have been losing jobs and business for centuries. That's the way it's supposed to work. This is the incentive system, the carrot-and-stick method of getting the producers to improve their service to consumers, which is their primary function in the economic system.

There would be something wrong if the uncompetitive were NOT losing jobs and hurting. LET THEM BECOME COMPETITIVE!!! That's the answer for them. Whining to Congress is not the answer.

This is such a silly crybaby argument. "If you don't pay me enough, then I won't be able to buy your products!!! Whaaaaaa!" Is this why a company pays its workers? to enable those workers to then buy the company's products? What garbage! If this is the reason to pay workers, then why not just pay everyone? Why not round up all the homeless and pay them too? They can spend money just as well as the workers can. No, the reason to pay workers is not to put spending money into their pockets!!!! The reason to pay them is TO GET THE WORK DONE and get it done most efficiently at the least cost.

It is not the duty or the function of a business to create consumers for its products. Creating consumers for products is not a social need. THERE IS NO NEED TO CREATE CONSUMERS or to create demand for anything. The only need is to serve consumers, to meet existing demand, not to create some additional demand that wouldn't be there otherwise.

It doesn't matter whether there is demand for something. There is no need to cause any increase in demand. Demand just exists. Demand is neither a good or a bad thing. If demand decreases it is not a bad thing. And if it increases that is not a good thing. It doesn't matter whether it increases or decreases. All that matters is satisfying the existing demand. If the demand increases, then there is a need for the production to increase in order to meet that demand. But there is no need to increase demand in order to accommodate some supply/production going on. If that production cannot find consumers for it, then THAT PRODUCTION SHOULD DECREASE OR STOP.

It is a perversion to claim that we need more demand. If this degenerate notion continues to win acceptance, it will destroy the work ethic and the basis for civilization and progress and everything that humans have worked for and built for thousands of years.

This is an example of the degeneracy that will destroy our economy. People should be paid more because their college cost was high? NO! NO NO NO!!! People should be paid what they are worth in the competitive marketplace, based on the law of supply and demand. All else is perverse!

Having a piece of paper from an expensive prestigious college does NOT make you more valuable! Did you learn something valuable or not? something you can now offer which has value in the marketplace? That's the only question that matters. If you're paid for anything other than this concrete value, it is ill-gotten gain!

How come that foreigner making the $10 per hour (or even less) is able to do that same job without the expensive college education? How is that? Why can that foreigner do the same work for less? Even without the fancy diploma? What's out of line here? It's that overpriced college diploma and the "education" you got there that turns out not to be worth what you paid for it. What's phony is the pretense, the arrogance of that college, and those overpaid instructors who didn't prepare you to compete in the world economy.

Yes, "the math doesn't add up" and the way to correct it is to quit wasting money on a so-called "education" that isn't worth it. That low-paid foreigner is actually doing us a favor, because he shows us that our colleges and our grade schools are failing when they turn out an inferior product at such a bloated price tag to the customer, to the student, or to the taxpayers. Fix those schools and make them EARN that price we pay them.

What is the purpose of going to the moon or to Mars? Is it to promote research, to learn more about the universe, to eventually expand and colonize outer space? Or is it to provide babysitting slots for uncompetitive crybabies whose only value is that they were born in America? If the former, then we should get the best product for our money, no matter where we have to spend it. We should want the best space program possible and at the lowest cost to taxpayers. That will mean a certain amount of outsourcing. The space program should not be a makework jobs and corporate welfare program for uncompetitive Americans, as the above viewer comment suggests.

The pain that uncompetitive companies/workers suffer is always done for the higher goal of better service to consumers. If you think that higher purpose is not worth the sacrifice, then you are against competitive capitalism and you are in favor of makework. If work and production does not exist in order to serve consumers, then what does it exist for? to provide babysitting slots to keep troublemakers off the streets?

It doesn't matter whether new jobs are created to replace the previous ones lost. The function of jobs in the economy is to get needed work done that won't get done otherwise. Their purpose is not to replace previous unneeded jobs that disappeared. In some cases the correct response is not to have new jobs to replace the lost ones, but rather for the wage level to come down to a low-enough level so that they are worth it to the employers and are justified in the competitive economy.

One dirty little secret in the U.S. economy is the simple fact that many U.S. workers are overpaid. It's politically incorrect to say this, but it's a fact, and it's time to start telling the crybabies of America this fact and for them to grow up, instead of for demagogues like Lou Dobbs to keep telling them that they are worth $20 an hour when an Indonesian can do the same job for 50 cents an hour. Do we believe in competitive capitalism or don't we? If you do, then you believe that it is supply-and-demand that determines worth and not your gut emotions or your pity for the uncompetitive U.S. worker.

Opening up foreign markets is fine, but the real reason this law is bad is that it cheats the taxpayers, who will be forced to pay higher prices for the services to be performed. Outsourcing saves money, and this means less cost to taxpayers when we're talking about government contracts. Why shouldn't taxpayers be entitled to the best deal that can be found? Why should U.S. taxpayers have to subsidize uncompetitive U.S. producers? because the latter are crybabies who will throw a tantrum? Why don't they grow up and become competitive? Why don't they be good Americans and make themselves an asset to the country instead of a liability that requires makework and corporate welfare at taxpayers' expense?

And bad for the taxpayers and citizens who need government services and could benefit from the increased efficiency gained from outsourcing. What is the purpose of a government program? Is it to provide citizens with a needed service at the lowest cost? Or is it a jobs program to provide needed employment out of pity to uncompetitive Americans who are throwing a tantrum and need to be kept out of mischief? If you think the latter, then you are against any outsourcing of government jobs and want to keep them at home.

This is a description of helpless American crybabies who can't do anything for themselves and are demanding that the government hurry up and do something to provide them with "jobs" in order to put a stop to their whining, and the only need being filled by the "jobs" they receive is not to get needed work done but simply to put a stop to their whining and their tantrum. Except for this, there is no need.

This obsession with pandering to the uncompetitive and pitying them replaces the need for work to be done and for something to be accomplished for the benefit of consumers/citizens. The quote "In the long run, we're all dead," simply means "Nevermind what's good for the whole economy or what's good for consumers or what is the real purpose of doing work -- just pander to my craving for instant gratification, i.e., my need for an income, whether I earn it or not, just listen to my whining and pacify me now, by any means, and forget who has to pay the price for it or who has to sacrifice or how much waste is caused and how much harm is inflicted on others in order to appease me." This same logic could also be used to refute anything on the environmental agenda: Why worry about the future of the planet, the air, the water? -- let's just plunder it all away now -- after all, in the long run we're all dead anyway.

And suppose some jobs are never replaced. What does that prove? that the original job should not have been eliminated? How do we know that every job that was ever eliminated was actually replaced? We don't know that. It could be that in some cases the elimination of a particular job meant that the total number of jobs was actually reduced as a result. Instead of 107,598,236 total jobs in the economy, the number is reduced to 107,598,235 jobs.

And so therefore it was wrong for that job to have been eliminated? Why? Where is it etched in stone that every job eliminated has to be replaced by a new job? Maybe that worker, or some worker somewhere, should get out of the labor force and instead start a business. Why do we assume blindly that the only solution to a lost job is a new job to replace it? Isn't it possible that we have too many wage-earners in the economy? Who says that the number of wage-earners has to remain at a certain fixed level?

So throwing a tantrum and demanding an immediate replacement job for the one eliminated is nothing but an irrational emotional outburst from a short-sighted crybaby, or from a damagogue like Lou Dobbs who panders to such crybabies. It is not a demand for an improved economy or a more efficient economy which will make the maximum number of people better off. What makes the greatest number better off is a competitive economy, where the market forces are allowed to operate and competition is maximized. And we don't maximize competition by giving any reward to workers or companies for being uncompetitive. Rather, we let them suffer the consequences of being uncompetitive and let them take responsibility to improve themselves.

The phrase "as they always have" is dubious, because we don't know that every job lost always had a replacement. If all this means is that new jobs are always popping up anyway, and these same new jobs will pop up whether old jobs are being replaced or not, then the meaning must be that job elimination is a relatively slow process compared to new job creation. But what if the job elimination speeds up, due to increased automation and increased cheap labor supply? If the elimination process is independent of the job creation process, then why couldn't the elimination outpace the creation and the total number of jobs decreases?

Free marketeers like Greenspan feel pressured to pander to laid-off workers by making promises to them that there is some automatic guaranteed replacement of an old job by a new one, even an inevitable cause-and-effect connectedness between the old one and the new one which is sure to be created by the new efficiencies and cost savings.

Maybe it is time to stop this pandering and just tell the crybabies to take responsibility to improve themselves. They must take action and not just wait passively for the inevitable new "job" to fall into their lap as Greenspan and other panderers promise them, thus laying themselves open to retaliation from Dobbs and other demagogues who challenge them to prove that the new jobs are really forthcoming. It is easy to challenge the over-optimistic promises from Greenspan and other free-traders.

Maybe it is time to finally stop the jobolotry and admit that the proper function of the economy is not to provide "jobs" to people but to create wealth. If "jobs" become less necessary for the production of the wealth, then they might actually decrease in number. Just as demand for certain products or services may decrease, so also the demand for wage-labor may decrease with changing times.

The basic question to ask is: What work needs to be done that is being neglected in this country?

Currently (2004) there is a shortage of math and science teachers. Most of the laid-off engineers and computer geeks could serve to fill this need.

But beyond this there is a need for infrastructure work in this country that is being greatly neglected. There is also a need for more research in a vast number of specialized fields, and the country needs to put a much greater investment into research. Along with an increase in government research grants, there needs to be a better monitoring process to examine each research project to assure that the tax dollars are being properly spent. That monitoring process should involve citizens who are not otherwise a part of the government or of special interest groups connected with the research.

Much more could be said about where the real needs are that are being neglected. If all the real needs were addressed, the existing supply of U.S. labor to fill these needs would fall short, and we would welcome outsourcing and cheap labor as a way to free up more workers to meet the needs. Feeling sorry for select victims or victim groups, such as laid-off workers, and pandering to them through parasite programs at the expense of taxpayers (or at the expense of consumers through protectionist and anticompetitive policies) diminishes the legitimate function of government to satisfy the broad needs of all the citizenry. All consumers benefit from cost savings and maximum competition among producers and workers, including outsourcing that reduces costs.

What is inevitable is that maximum competition benefits consumers. Reduce the competition, protect the uncompetitive and you reduce the production of wealth and benefit to consumers. The use of cheap labor reduces the cost of production, which benefits consumers. Just as automation reduces the cost of production and benefits consumers. Competition is not inevitable. We can prevent companies from outsourcing and relocating factories and cause them to be less competitive and reduce the production of wealth and reduce the general living standard. Just as we could enact laws prohibiting companies from replacing workers with robots and computers.

When free-traders argue that globalization is inevitable, they mean that if global competition is prevented, it can only have the inevitable result of making consumers generally worse off. However, it is true that a few of the most uncompetitive companies and workers might benefit at the expense of consumers in a protectionist program that rewards the uncompetitive and penalizes the competitive.

So if you are among the most uncompetitive in the economy, perhaps you could gain at the expense of everyone else by getting the government to "protect" your job or company and increase your income at everyone else's expense. But it can work only if you get special protection for your job or business which is not extended to other jobs and businesses. E.g., make it illegal for your own job to be outsourced, but still allow other workers' jobs (or other job categories) to be outsourced.

If the "protection" is extended equally to ALL workers and businesses, then the total wealth produced decreases, because of higher production cost, and everyone loses. (The protection of any select group is possible only if all the others -- those not protected -- pay for it.) So your best strategy to "protect" your job is to maneuver to make sure that only your own job/business gains protection, while all the others do not. Perhaps you can design a plan which fools other producers into believing that they will gain from you being protected, and if you lie to them, and they're stupid, you might persuade them to support you, even though it is really against their interest for you to be protected. As consumers, everyone benefits from the other guy having to compete and not being protected.

Relocating factories and outsourcing benefit consumers. All that is being "sold off" is that which is less competitive. The most competitive jobs and companies benefit from the outsourcing and globalizing and take advantage of it to make themselves more productive and more valuable to consumers. The benefit of outsourcing and relocating is not only short-term profits to the company, but also long-term improvement of production which in turn gives long-term benefit to consumers.

But protecting the jobs of uncompetitive workers, thus causing costs to be higher than necessary, hurts consumers. Not replacing uncompetitive workers out of pity for them forces consumers in effect to subsidize those workers, thus making consumers subservient to them and reversing the proper relation between producer and consumer: The consumer is king, and the producer/worker is the servant to the consumer.

Serving consumers is not "selling off" anyone's future except perhaps those who are the least competitive and do not improve themselves to make themselves more valuable to consumers. In a competitive economy, it can be said that the least competitive in a sense are "selling off" their own future. It is their own doing (or undoing).

No, the above clichés will not raise the standard of living anywhere. Globalizing the rights of labor and the environmental standards and the human rights will only reduce the production of wealth and reduce everyone's living standard. All those who spew the above slogans admit, when they are pressed, that it is not practical to make all the standards uniform to all countries. The wage levels and working conditions cannot be made uniform or equal to those of the U.S., and neither can the standards for the environment and human rights.

No matter what changes these countries may be pressured into doing, they will either be trivial and innocuous, and thus will never appease the U.S. labor unions and environmentalists, or they will end up putting millions of workers out of a job and shutting down thousands of businesses because they cannot meet the standards imposed. The vast majority of employers in India or Indonesia or Thailand or China cannot pay a wage or provide conditions that U.S. labor demands and they would have to shut down rather than comply with such demands. The multinational corporations are not the major employers in any of these countries. The major employers are small mom-and-pop stores and farms which cannot survive except under severe conditions similar to those of the European peasants during the Middle Ages.

Granting workers the right to organize and demand higher wages is not going to raise their living standard, because the employers do not have the means to meet those demands. It isn't a lack of organizing that keeps the workers down, but rather a simple lack of wealth and means to pay them and meet their demands. What is needed is increased production of wealth. This is happening very gradually in some poor countries and is slowly raising the living standard. China is probably the best example.

The above has already happened gradually in Taiwan and S. Korea and Hong Kong. As the living standard slowly increased in those places, it became possible for labor unions to form and for workers to increase their demands. It was not necessary for other countries to make demands on those governments. What was necessary was for the U.S. and other developed countries to do trade with them, which slowly produced economic benefits for both the developed countries and the poor countries. What's good for U.S. consumers is also good for workers in poor countries. Everyone benefits.

What is not good is to impose unrealistic demands on those countries and threaten to stop trading with them unless they appease U.S. labor unions, who will never be satisfied. U.S. labor whines about the low wages in Mexico, and yet the labor conditions in India and Bangladesh and Indonesia are several times worse than in Mexico. Obviously U.S. labor cares nothing about the plight of poor foreign workers, but only about reducing its foreign competition and protecting its turf.

If U.S. labor could have its way, it would shut down all the foreign companies and let millions of people there starve or be reduced to subsistence farming (or prostitution and begging), rather than allow them to "steal" away their U.S. consumer market, which they consider to be their property, like a herd of cattle to be fenced in and prevented from going astray to the foreign producers.

The same principle applies to the environmental standards. Even if some poor countries could be pressured into raising their standards slightly, it would never be enough to satisfy U.S. labor and environmentalists. A cleaner environment is costly and requires a certain amount of sacrifice. Those countries need to make their own tough choices, and what is appropriate for the U.S. may not be practical for them. It is foolish to speak of imposing uniform global standards onto all countries.

As poor countries improve and raise their living standard, they will slowly be able to afford the cost of a cleaner environment. But threatening to cut off trade unless they comply with our demands will interfere with the process of creating wealth and will hold down the living standard in those countries and slow down their progress toward higher environmental standards.

Of course, Howard Dean is a typical demagogue who says to his audience whatever makes them feel good, and what the crybabies in his audience want to hear is that somehow we can crack down on the outsourcing and flight of factories and mills to poor countries, and so all Americans will be entitled to a $30-an-hour factory job with full benefits and fat pension and job security, etc. etc. -- the American Dream, which every native-born red-blooded American is entitled to as a birthright.

Dean is truthful to say that the cost of production goes up under his proposed reforms, but he is wrong to think this is good. Consumers benefit from lower cost of production, including lower labor cost. Higher production cost means less wealth produced and lower standard of living overall. It should not require a rocket science degree to figure this out. But of course the idiots Dean panders to don't want to hear the bad news that U.S. workers have to compete and earn their way if they are going to prosper.

Why not 20 million? The only reason he doesn't promise an astronomical number is that he knows there is a limit to the bone-headedness of the idiots he is pandering to and that some line must be drawn on the number of jobs he promises.

Why can't there be just one honest politician -- just one, out of all the hundreds, running for any office -- why can't there be just one who will tell the truth, that there really is no need to "create" jobs, but only to create wealth and get needed work done? Why must they all pander? Even the ones who want more free trade rather than less still have to be dishonest and promise millions of jobs in order to win votes from mindless idiots.

What perverse "social consciousness" is it that says it's wrong to want to save money and reduce costs? Why are the buyers somehow immoral or lacking a social consciousness because they want to save money? Are they supposed to pay the workers/producers out of pity for them? What is virtuous about higher costs and paying higher prices? What is wrong with buyers choosing what is in their interest? Maybe producers/workers who rely on pity from buyers are the ones who lack a social consciousness.

Perhaps the ones who have no social consciousness are the crybabies that demagogues like Kucinich have to pander to. Those workers/producers who think they're entitled to have their incomes propped up, even though their value in the marketplace has gone down -- are they not like beggars, parasitic scum with no sense of what is good for society generally? Aren't they the ones lacking a social consciousness, demanding that consumers subsidize them, in effect bail them out?

And the demagogues like Kucinich and Lou Dobbs who pander to these uncompetitive crybabies -- these panderers and demagogues who tell the rabble what they want to hear in order to increase their popularity polls and ratings -- these demagogues are the ones lacking a social consciousness, because instead of saying to to the restless natives what they need to hear and telling them to take responsibility for themselves, they encourage scapegoating and encourage solutions which actually make more Americans worse off, because all us of are consumers and are hurt by higher prices, and it is not the responsibility of consumers, many of whom are poor, to make sacrifices in order to keep uncompetitive workers in their inefficient "jobs".

A social consciousness for a worker/producer is a competitive consciousness which knows it must serve consumers in order to earn its income, which means making consumers better off, not worse off, by its existence in the marketplace. But taking away cheap imports from consumers and making them pay higher prices makes them worse off, not better. Many of those consumers are poor people who are worse off than the uncompetitive worker whose job they have to subsidize with higher prices.

Why is there no social consciousness on the part of these uncompetitive workers who impose higher prices onto millions of consumers and run whining to the politicians to protect them against the competition which forces them to improve themselves and become more competitive and earn their way? Why shouldn't they have to earn their way in the competitive marketplace?

What about when the corporations get robots and computers wherever they can get them, in order to eliminate jobs? Is that also a "race to the bottom"? What's the difference? Why is it a "race to the bottom" when companies replace workers with cheap labor in order to save on labor costs, but not when they replace them with robots and computers, which also eliminate jobs and save on labor cost?

The phrase "race to the bottom" is a crybaby term used by those who are uncompetitive and unsuccessful in the marketplace because their competitors do better than they do. If they don't want to go "to the bottom" then maybe they should get their head out of their butt and make themselves more valuable in the marketplace, so they can earn the higher income they want, instead of imagining it is an entitlement. The attitude that they are entitled to it without having to perform better and compete is precisely what is causing their "race to the bottom". But for those who do perform and compete and succeed, the "race" goes upward, not downward.

The only plants we've lost were those which were uncompetitive. And a plant which is relocated abroad but is still owned by a U.S. company is not "lost". And none of the above industries are in "severe trouble". The fact that jobs were eliminated or outsourced has made those companies healthier and has benefitted U.S. consumers. An industry that is serving consumers is not in "severe trouble". What is a business supposed to do if not serve consumers?

Fine, and the way to challenge this structure is to eliminate all tariffs and trade barriers, including any form of corporate welfare or subsidy to companies. When all the trade barriers are lifted, then there will be no more need for those trade rules.

Which, if we take this seriously and literally, means we will end all trade with poor countries, which means U.S. consumers will have a reduced standard of living along with a lower standard of living in those poor countries -- everyone loses. Congratulations, Kucinich! for offering a program that would make virtually everyone worse off, except for a small handfull of uncompetitive U.S. workers/businesses who will stand to benefit at the expense of the vast majority of us.

Any notion that all that cheap foreign production which would be lost will be replaced by domestic production is idiotic. The extremely higher labor cost means that a great percentage of that production would be permanently lost, and the law of suppy and demand inevitably will drive up prices to U.S. consumers and reduce their standard of living.

The way to fix them is to eliminate all remaining trade barriers, unilaterally if necessary, and make the agreements unnecessary, because the U.S. market will finally be totally open. Which it is not now.

And such opening the U.S. market completely will then eliminate those compromises on environmental standards which the developed countries don't want to make. The only reasons those pressures on developed countries exist is that they are demanding uniformity of standards for all countries. Once we stop demanding uniformity of labor and environmental and human rights standards for all countries, and instead just let each country set its own pace for change/reform, we can eliminate any demand by those countries on us to lower our standards. We can keep our high standards and they can choose lower standards according to what is in their interest. Each country can be left free to set its own standards. There is no reason why standards have to be the same in order for developed countries to trade with poor countries and for both to be made better off because of the trade.

Okay, let's hear their questions, and then give the tough answers to them. And are the people of Celina mature and responsible enough to hear the tough answers, or will they just run away and whine to the politicians?

Struggling is a part of life. It is a part of the competitive free market system. Anyone who guarantees you freedom from having to struggle in order to improve your lot is a liar and a damagogue and a charlatan.

Welcome to the club! Millions of people don't have health insurance. And the truth is that health insurance is so expensive that maybe it's not even worth it. Did you ever consider that possibility? Oh, how horrirying! No health insurance! Eeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaauuuccccchhh! A hundred years ago our ancestors didn't have health insurance, and yet the world is still here and the earth is still spinning on its axis. How did they possibly survive without "health insurance"? Isn't it time to stop making a religion out of "health insurance"?

Really? So long with a steady income! How fortunate you are! Surely during all those 38 years you must have saved up $100,000, or at least $50,000 and can now invest in a business venture or can pay for job retraining or have many other good opportunities available to you that many others do not have because they could never find steady employment. Surely you now have a bright future (unless you're among the inferior scum who waste their money on lottery tickets and booze and run up credit card debt buying things you don't need.)

So, what tough question do you have for the lawmakers? What demand do you want to make on them which the taxpayers or consumers will have to pay for because you're such a poor victim that we should all have pity on?

What needs to happen first is that scapegoaters like this one need to get their facts straight: There is NO PREFERRED trade status with China. China has the same trade status with the U.S. that virtually every other country in the world has. Over the years there has been a tiny fraction of countries that were denied normal trade status with the U.S. To single out China is a pure emotionalistic and scapegoating impulse.

By this logic, one would have to believe that if only China did not exist, then the U.S. economy would be healthier, that somehow, because of China's behavior the U.S. has been made worse off. This is a lie. The fact that China is a workaholic society today which offers cheap labor and cheap products does not mean it makes other countries worse off.

China's cheap labor makes other countries better off, and eventually China is likely to change, gradually, as the living standard there improves and Chinese consumers begin to demand a better life, a cleaner environment, more human rights, etc. But reducing trade with China will not make any of the improvements happen. Right now we benefit, and U.S. workers and companies are forced to struggle harder in the competitive marketplace in the race to serve consumers. It is a win-win for everyone, but yes, the least competitive don't do so well. Especially the ones who only whine instead of trying to improve.

This analogy with children says a lot about the mentality of some laid-off workers who lose out to foreign cheap labor. They feel "left behind" just as a helpless child who needs parents and schools and teachers to provide them support.

Is this what the citizens of Celina are? helpless children? whining crybabies who expect someone from the outside to come in and rescue them out of pity, because they're so immature that they have no self-discipline and can't assume responsibility for their lives? Are they a hopeless lot without some bailout from the government? They should be ashamed that a leader of their community compares them to helpless immature children in need of a handout at the expense of others.

Not as much as the factory jobs used to pay. But the truth is that those factory jobs are no longer worth as much as they were before. Now those factory jobs may even have less value than the call center jobs, and if kept in the U.S. the wage level would possibly have to be even less than the call center jobs. We should stop deluding ourselves that factory jobs are inherently "high-value" jobs that forever must pay higher wages, or "value-added" jobs with some special mystic quality that automatically translates into higher wages. The truth is that the market is telling us otherwise, i.e., the value of those jobs is now decreasing. And it is the market -- the law of supply and demand -- that dictates the value of a job -- or of anything that has value in the market.

So here is the tough question the people of Celina want to put to the lawmakers: Why are you encouraging companies to "export jobs" at the expense of American workers?

And here is the tough answer for the people of Celina, if they can bear to hear it: It's because those workers were overpaid, they weren't worth what the company had to pay them, and this was cheating U.S. consumers, who are entitled to the best products/services at the lowest competitive prices; and this is done at the expense of those uncompetitive American workers because they are not entitled to be paid more than they are worth, and if they want to keep that job they must be willing to accept compensation low enough to be competitive, because that's what is best for consumers.

And, the bottom line -- Those companies exist in order to serve the consumers, not to provide "jobs" to uncompetitive crybabies.

That's the answer, citizens of Celina, and all other communities who lose out in the competition. You can either grow up and face the music, or you can keep on whining. But don't pretend you don't know the answer. Don't keep asking your phony "tough question" to the lawmakers, when you now know the harsh realities perfectly well and have no legitimate complaint. There's plenty of people who are worse off than you and who are not whining but are struggling to survive. And you are not entitled to impose solutions to your problem that would put more burdens onto those others who also have their own problems.

WE ALL BENEFIT FROM THE TOUGH COMPETITION of the marketplace! If you reduce that competition, you hurt all of us. If you gain from reducing that competition, you are doing it by leeching off the rest of us! by being a parasite!

More to come here, more protectionist arguments from TV demagogues and politicians who deny being protectionists.

Want to rebut anything here or give your own arguments against free trade? Click here.