Comments on: Workers’ malaise foreshadows wider social issues

By: robb1

robb1 — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:41:08 +0000

We need a better fiscal environment to compete with cheap foreign labor.

- tax outsourcing
- reduce corporate tax for small business
- enact import tariffs for subsidized manufactured goods (most that comes from Asia) or start subsidizing our manufacturing like China does for theirs.

By: AdamSmith

AdamSmith — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 17:05:53 +0000

@tmc
Here’s the Wikipedia entry for tariffs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff

Interestly, a tariff is one of the easiest and most effective ways to collect a tax in large amounts. It requires very little bureaucracy.

We Americans have nobody to blame for our predicament but ourselves. We are profligate consumers, and the Chinese are hard workers and investors.

But if we keep going as is, without a tariff on imported goods, we are digging our own grave.

We need to reinstitute the American Tariff that Alexander Hamilton first created, and continued thoughout the entire trajectory of America to the leading manufacturing, commercial and scientific position in the world.

It was the American corporations who lobbied to eliminate the American Tariff, so that they could increase profits by taking advantage of cheap labor overseas. American corporations sold out the American worker. And they continue to do so. It’s the American international corporations that lobby most strenuously against any American Tariff.

Look at the years in the Wikipedia entry. It is in 1970, when America drastically reduced its protective tariff that America began to lose its manufacturing momentum.

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff

By: bbb47615

bbb47615 — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:23:47 +0000

Hear!! Hear!! Well said, carefully crafted.
Boldly put. Stinging yes, something that neede to be touted in my opinion. I am a regular reader of Reuter
‘s. This piece stirred emotions that were stagnated by the continual reports from the ” main media round table ” of today’s media pool. Cheers !!

By: tmc

tmc — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:58:50 +0000

@AdamSmith
Are you proposing a tariff on education? On cheap international labor? Currency holdings and manipulation? You are ranting about 21st century globalization issues, yet proposing a very specific 20th century economic tool to “fix” it.

By: newpairodimes

newpairodimes — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:45:53 +0000

5280hi, Please check the history of the repeal of Glass–Steagall. You will find this to be a very, very bi-partisan affair. Free your mind brother, or you will become captive to it.

By: contrarianview

contrarianview — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:43:51 +0000

@greenacres
Limited ideas for limited minds.

By: rikfre

rikfre — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:11:18 +0000

great article. one key issue that was glossed over is the pay-for-play system initiated by Newt Gingrich in the early 90′s. this has aggravated the downward trend for the middle class by allowing Lobbyists to completely take over the way elections are run. this encouraged candidates to start”campaigning” two years before an election! that is why they need millions for election/re-election. where will they get the funds from? I wonder. The troubles of this country are quite deep! where will real leadership come from? or,are we in an Idiocracy already.

By: reuterskostas

reuterskostas — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 11:12:16 +0000

I believe people have lost their “reference points”. And mean their “faith” to their job, their money in the bank, the leadership of the government, globalization etc
This is not a US phaenomenon, it is almost global. If in US there is a conflict between the two parties, in Europe there are 25 or so governments trying to protect their own “corner”. European Union is at the “make it or break it point”. Either they will decide to issue the eurobonds and engage themselves in a common fiscal policy and a common treasury, or they will disolve the Euozone and will return to the 80′s. In both EU and US, middle-class is shrinking and aging, which means that the society is loosing its main pilar.
In Middle East echoes a cry for freedom and justice and the eyes are towards a secular-islamic state with capitalism flavor. But the largest impediment to growth there is poor education.
In Asia, the development of the middle-class has lost its steam and asset bubbles are kept artificially under control in a fine balance to maintain growth.
All in all, the world is changing, and it does so fast.
kostis

By: AndyAE

AndyAE — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 10:57:50 +0000

“Rather than try to unwind globalization and technological progress, the challenge for the US is to adapt its labor force and its economy to these realities.”

This is simply not possible with our current president. The only tool in his toolbox is government action. He seems incapable of doing what it would take to make our businesses competitive. He is a one trick pony out of tricks.

By: intrigod

intrigod — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 02:03:32 +0000

Since the advent of the personal computer, American productivity has gone up like a parabolic curve. But for the first time in American history, wages were withheld from the workers who made such production and profits possible. Companies were then flush with cash. Ceo’s made insane bonuses. Where did they get the cash? From the withheld wages. Companies then bought each other. so on and so forth. Now the companies are flush with cash but are killing the goose that made this all possible. So much for the general welfare. If the workers have no money to spend where will the funds come from to stimulate the economy. It looks like a sick joke to everyone involved, black, white, brown, yellow, and red. We have all been made a nation of slaves.