My thinking on this subject has changed 180 degrees in the last year. The closer I get to this at school, and the more I see in real life the more my thinking is changing.

Anyway, here are my points.

I am very familer with economics and how if one country is good at producing good X and so so on good Y; and another is good at producing good Y and so so on X, if they trade they are better off. etc, etc, etc.

However I have been making some observations as I have traveled around this country and I don't think thats quite true.

Sure China may be better at making steel, and we can get it cheaper to produce cheaper goods. But, BUT, to do so we lose good paying factory jobs. Jobs that are not being replaced. So while the finished product is cheaper in price, it doesn't make up for the lost wages. The steel worker who was making $25 an hour could afford to spend an extra few dollars on a hammer. But the former steel worker who now can only find a job at a piss ant store for $12 an hour, doesn't give a damn that the Chinese hammer is $5 cheaper. He lost half his income that he will never recover.
Sure some of these workers will retrain and get other jobs, thats the argument. But what other jobs? Most of the good paying jobs are being outsourced. I have driven through a number of towns in CT that used to be very well off manufacturing towns. Now you either come from the coastal area and already have money, or you work for $8 an hour. The good jobs are gone, never to return. When we lose Sikorsky all those good paying jobs in my area will be gone forever, Poland will get them.

Now lets look at FL, I spent several days driving around in central FL looking at property, lots of abandon sub divisions. Anyway its all built on nothing. Their are no jobs down their. You are either retired, make your money up north and have a summer home, work for Disney, or your broke. There entire economy is fake, its based on old people in the Villages spending money, and people from up north buying places and taking vacations. Thats not an economy, its a sham that will fall apart when the baby boomers die off.

From what I have seen thats the problem with this "service" economy thats been forming. Its based on nothing, we shuffle money around and sell burgers to eachother. When you make something, like a ship, or steel, or equipment, you create something. You create real wealth, wealth that you can build a country on. Sure you can create wealth by designing a ship and having a Korean ship yard build it, but its all paper. Your not creating good jobs in this country, and those people with good jobs spend money. Why do the Koreans even need you? They could just design the damn thing themselves, flag it and make money with it.

Another downside is the crap thats pawned off on us as a good product. I cannot think of ONE product that used to be US made but is now made in China that got better. Sure they are cheaper, but they are crap! I would happily pay more for a better made American product.

Now don't think I'm against free trade, or for tariffs. I'm not saying anything of the sort. Trade is vital, its foolish to argue that its not. Tariffs in general are a bad idea. Although I would love to see them more on certain goods, because our stuff is heavily taxed/tarriffed in another country. Say our cars in Japan, vs their cars being sold over here. I think the playing field should be level. Either no tariff on the product, but if they insist we will match it.

My point is this, I think the globalization/outsourcing pendulum has swung a bit to far to fast. Everything has its drawbacks, nothing is perfect. I think a lot of what has happend over the past 20 years or so only benifits a certain group of people. The vast majority see little benifit or are hurt by it(both domestic and over seas). You may argue that overall we are better off. I would say some of us are, I certainly am in my little area of the world. But I don't think someone working in Detroit would say that they are better off today, than say their fathers were. Where does it stop? At this rate 80% of the population is going to be working at Walmart/farming serving the 20% that makes money off this.

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