BigJake,
As far as trade goes, I think it's relevant to point out that we, as a nation, are really not competing on even ground with many oyther countries. For years now, our govt has been straddleing our industries with scores or regulatory nonsense that make it financially unviable to remain in the US, and doing business in the US has become far less profitable.
For example, my roommate works for a refrigerant producing company. One day a young kid who was probably not even 20yrs old came in and asked the owner for an application, which he gave to him and instructed him to fill it out, give it to the secretary, and that he would call him back in a day or two to schedule an interview if everything checked out. The kid asked if he could fill it out at home and just bring it back, and the owner refused and told him again to fill it out right then and there. The kid then asked why he could not fill it out and bring it back, at which point the owner said "You can't read, can you"? The kid jumped up, started cursing at him and stormed off.
It turned out the kid contacted the EEOC and filed suit against the owner for discrimination because of his illiteracy, never mind the fact that a lot of those barrels of chemicals have labels on the outside which give detailed and specific instructions as to how they must be handled and stored. You could have BIG problems if they are stored improperly. Long story short, the owner had to pay this punk 3 months of unemployment, even though he had never been employed and hadn't even filled out 1 letter on an application.
Foreign competition isn't what's killing our industries, it's govt interference. Why would a company want to bother with garbage like this, teamsters, affirmative action, OSHA, EPA? Why would they want to pay the highest corporate taxes of any industrialized nation? Why would they want to contend with frivilous lawsuits because of idiot judges?
I could go on for hours about the ways that businesses are incentivized to leave the country, and also the ways that NAFTA is not free trade but actually govt managed trade set to favor certain corporate interests at everyone's expense. Jake, get the govt to take the handcuffs off our industry and let the rest of the world worry about our production.
I, now, have to bring up points that I forgot to mention
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Jake, do you think that the fact that we have 20yr olds, like the one who didn't apply at my rommates company, who cannot read has anything to do with our industrial issues? We're advancing from the industrial age into the information age, yet our govt run schools cannot even prepare our nation's children for the agrarian age.
Do you think that having scores of people on various welfare doles, at taxpayer expense, not only drains money from our pockets (and our company's pockets), but also inflates the cost of goods and services because they're more scarce due to less people working?