On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 01:13:39PM -0700, Paul G. Allen wrote: > Lan Barnes wrote: > > > > > > >>Personally, I'm against > >>tariffs and protectionism... they're artificial restraints on free trade > >>that the market will attempt to route around. And they invite > >>retaliation. Trade wars are bad for a meshed global economy. > >> > > > > > >Perfect agreement. > > > > > > So, John, Lan, and anyone else, what is the answer to competing with > manufacturing markets that basically have forced and child labor? What do > we do to compete when we (the US, other countries as well) have laws that > prevent certain unfair or downright immoral business and labor practices > where foreign countries (such as China) do not? Such countries are able to > undercut our labor rates by such an extent that there is absolutely no way > to compete. (NOTE: I've seen numerous hearings and investigations into many > corporations - Nike and Wal Mart to name just two - that have shown these > practices to be very wide spread.) >
Why, we force domestic child labor etc, of course. We've already had "welfare reform," "bankruptcy reform," and "tax reform," all of which pushed us closer to third world economy status. Why should child/slave labor laws be exempt from reform? > How do we keep manufacturing jobs in this country when it's so damn cheap > to mfg. elsewhere? People in general don't care how it's made or who gets > exploited to make it as long as they have cheap goods to buy, not realizing > that such practices just reduce the amount of jobs and income in our own > economy. > I don't know why everyone lionizes those "good manufacturing jobs" so much. Before the unions extorted a fair share of the productive wealth out of the manufacturing companies, those jobs were the shits ... or do we have such a lousy collective sense of history that we've forgotten the muckrakers like Upton Sinclair, investigative journalists like Ida Tarbell, the Pullman strike, or armed Pinkerton men whacking pregnant strikers in the belly with ax handles? Those were the worst jobs in the world before the unions[0], and will be again if current political trends are allowed to continue. [0] Curiously, Henry Ford, by no means a person considered a friend of unions or a soft touch, actually paid a good wage to his workers on principle ... the principle that he wanted his work force to be able to afford being his customers as well. But the history of his descendants in that interesting family-owned company has ample examples of how they lacked their granddaddy's perception. -- Lan Barnes Linux Guy, SCM Specialist Tcl/Tk Enthusiast It's expensive, but worth every penny. I'd like to have several explosions. He loved explosions. - Anita Thompson, widow of Hunter S. Thompson, on having his ashes shot from a cannon -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
