Quote:The real problem has to do with each and every one of us. We have become a consumer based society rather than production base
d. As an example, just take a look at vehicles. There is not one single American Made vehicle in this country today (other than vintage artifacts). Sure there are vehicles ASSEMBLED here, though not as many as there used to be. Parts are made elsewhere from components produced elsewhere. Really, we couldn't function without trade with other countries.
Now think about how higher tariffs would affect our economy. That smart phone that you carry around would double in price. The laptop, computer monitor, television that you use either at home or at work would cost more. The appliances that you use in your home would be more expensive. Cars, and the tools necessary to maintain and/or repair them would go up in price.
Companies can't produce those kinds of things here because of labor unions, the demand for higher wages and the "penalty" of their "carbon footprint".
One thing that Donald Trump pointed out in a recent debate defending his hiring of foreign workers caught my attention. At his hotel in South Florida, he said that "people didn't want those jobs because they were seasonal". Of course, they were lower paying jobs such as maids, food service, bar service, etc. That might actually be true, but what happened to the high school student earning money to pay for college? What about the single mother or a struggling family trying to make ends meet? I'm sure they would fill the jobs.
Reality is the cost of hiring these people. He would have had to pay worker's compensation insurance, taxes, etc. It was cheaper for him to hire foreign workers rather than hire those Americans that he supposedly supports.
The real problem is the fact that Americans follow trends whether they need the product or not...People pay $400-$600 for a phone that they will not use 90% of the features it has simply because "it's cool", it's new and expensive...the other part of this is that Americans are the "show offs" of the world...By this I mean One person buys a $400 phone he doesn't need, and then has to show all his friends which makes friends run out and buy a new phone too...If Americans would stop paying ridiculous prices for [BLEEP] they don't actually need, the price would come down...
Everything would in fact go up like you stated, but like I said, if people would stop paying such ridiculous prices for such items, the Chinese would have no choice other than drop their prices as they depend on their exported goods as mainstream revenue...
What we need to do, is figure out why everything costs so much to make in the US...We know the cost of labor is higher here...Why is that? Because companies invest in high tech manufacturing machines who must be staffed by watchers who are paid a high wage such as the auto workers? Look at the health care industry...Their state of the art MRI, CT scan machines, ultra sound machines, XRAY machines et.al cost millions of dollars to design, purchase and install, so they charge thousands of dollars every time they use them which in turn drives up health care costs...CEOs get millions of dollars in bonuses so the companies have to raise prices to keep payroll where the execs want it to be, while keeping regular workers at lower wages, cut benefits, and hire more part time workers than full time workers...
There are a multitude of reasons why things cost so much to build, manufacture, and produce...One house built in a new subdivision costs $300,000 to build, but on the other side of town the same house with same builder, same labor, and same materials only costs $185,000
A couple of years ago, a gallon of milk jumped to just a few pennies below $5 a gallon here even though the dairy they bought it from is just 7 miles from the store and did not raise their prices...There are basically only 2 grocery stores in my area...People here got pissed off and slowed down on their milk consumption to the point of grocery stores having such an excess of milk they couldn't return to the vendors, that they were having to pour a ton of milk down the drain and the price dropped back down...
