>> spend a lot of money on re-educating the workforce and making sure those at the bottom get decent skills.
It is the height of snobbery to move the lesser skilled jobs out of the country and tell everyone they need to be smarter. There will always be a distribution of skills and it is not for the well educated to say "you just need to be like us". All the US needs to do is stop signing 900 page "free trade" agreements and start adjusting import taxes to bring manufacturing back. Call it what you will, but taking care of your own first is not a bad thing.
>There will always be a distribution of skills and it is not for the well educated to say "you just need to be like us".
This is akin to saying, "It's not for the doctor to tell you how to live your life." True enough; but you ignore their advice at your own peril.
That an education is a path to economic stability and mobility is not a matter of opinion. To write this off as snobbery is shooting the messenger.
There will always be a distribution of skills. And that distribution of skills required by the market needs to match the education of the populace. "Smart" is a superlative; "educated in a particular field" is merely an attribute.
Manufacturing is not coming back. We need to move on, and soon.
The real problem is these jobs are never coming back. Why is Wal-Mart the biggest company in the USA? Because the American public wants cheap crap. That's it. No matter what folks say they will pay $2 less for something from China vs. a more expensive product made in the USA.
Until you can convince Americans as a whole that they will have to pay more for goods made in the USA to employ Americans, jobs which were once done in the USA but are now cheaper to be done overseas will never see a return. Trade wars or import taxes won't fix that it will only exacerbate the problem.
It can come back.... by having a trade war with China, by raising the tax on Chinese Imports. I lived in China, a pair of Levis made by factory down a block is 100 bucks(and chinese make way less monthly), but when it export to USA, its 60 a pair.
What happens when tariff is raised and a pair of Levis from China now have to sell 120 bucks a pair? and if you produce that in US, since you dont have tariff, its 60 bucks a pair? what you think factory is going to do?
Trade wars are a horrible idea, won't work and will just harm the overall economy. Nearly every economist agrees that free trade is a net gain for everyone involved. Moving to something like a trade war which defies all rational economic sense is a terrible idea and I hope Trump is not dumb enough to do something that drastic.
every economist also said market was going to crash yesterday. Free trade is a horrible idea, specially when your trade partner dont play on the same rule you play on.
One of the reasons those jeans are $60 is because the labor is cheap. Import tariffs might bring back jobs, but no way you'll be able to pay the workers the wage they're looking for and keep the cost of goods the same.
My question is if the cost of goods will rise enough to make wage gains irrelevant, or if the effect won't be strong enough and we'll see real wage gains.
you didnt see my point, Chinese put heavy tariff on the import to protect their local economy. therefore a pair of jeans thats created locally going to sell more expensive then it is oversea.
when you have a 100 bucks a pair Levis vs 5 bucks a pair of local made jean (which came out of same factory), Chinese are most likely to buy the 5 bucks one, and therefore Chinese govt effectively protect their local business, took job from USA and helped every local economy with American investing dollars.
What makes you think these jobs will ever come back in significant numbers? Even if the companies were forced to come back from overseas there would probably be a significantly smaller labor force because of automation. This problem is only going to get worse so it makes sense to go to a solution that is long term.
So every country should manufacture all their own stuff? Why does that make any sense?
And what happens to the cost of goods once everything is manufactured in the US, paying workers a living wage? In increase in the price of all products hurts the poorer and middle classes the most.
And what happens when more and more automation takes over? Then all the import tariffs in the world will be of no help to the welders and sewers you chose to let stagnate instead of improving their access to education and training.
Education and training for what? This is the question people like you never answer. Welders are already trained--for welding. What are they supposed to do now? Retail sales? You can't support a family on that. And what do you do when the checkout clerks and other low-end jobs get automated away? What are you going to retrain these people for?
It is the height of snobbery to move the lesser skilled jobs out of the country and tell everyone they need to be smarter. There will always be a distribution of skills and it is not for the well educated to say "you just need to be like us". All the US needs to do is stop signing 900 page "free trade" agreements and start adjusting import taxes to bring manufacturing back. Call it what you will, but taking care of your own first is not a bad thing.