Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="presidentcarter" data-source="post: 1314838" data-attributes="member: 5609">I agree with you but I&#039;m not entirely on board with a few assumptions. Calculating that Nikes or an iPhone would cost the same here is basically a back-yourself-in to whatever conclusion you&#039;d like to have exercise aka mental masturbation at this point. Ignoring material and labors costs which are the obvious ones, factor in 401k matching that&#039;ll be expected, exponentially higher litigation costs (wrongful termination, slip n fall, etc.), increased insurance costs related to operating any plants, the list goes on for costs they&#039;ll incur that the Chinese or whomever else don&#039;t expect or have at a much lower price. What assumptions were in the model you preach to, and who ran the model, and what assumptions did the econometric model leave out (there&#039;s always a few)? Basic tenet in free market economics is if you can have it made elsewhere for less, do it. You&#039;ll reap greater &quot;utils&quot; in the end; however, I&#039;m not in full agreement with that because it ignores the fact that we have nations with different founding principles (so you can call free market economics globalist economics in that sense). Have you looked at operating margins across the board for manufacturing companies? &quot;A couple percent more&quot; would kill profitability for many of them. So less competition = higher prices = lower standard of living (see below). That&#039;s right, get back used to a 55&quot; tv instead of that shiny new 70&quot; for a while. So if you differ from other nations on ethical or moral grounds as well as from a national security stance, moving the production home is the answer. Which is why I am for it. But what most people don&#039;t realize is that we need to change some basic fundamentals of our economic and society in order for that to happen smoothly. We all also need to be prepared to take a hit on standard of living for this transition to happen. It sounds like in your analysis it&#039;s an apples to apples shift and we have nothing to lose. But in reality we will sacrifice somewhat significantly in many cases - at least for a while until we dial in the perfect goods-to-service ratio in our economic output (never been done before). It should be done, but it&#039;s a hell of a lot more involved than just building some factories and turning the power on.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="presidentcarter, post: 1314838, member: 5609"] I agree with you but I'm not entirely on board with a few assumptions. Calculating that Nikes or an iPhone would cost the same here is basically a back-yourself-in to whatever conclusion you'd like to have exercise aka mental masturbation at this point. Ignoring material and labors costs which are the obvious ones, factor in 401k matching that'll be expected, exponentially higher litigation costs (wrongful termination, slip n fall, etc.), increased insurance costs related to operating any plants, the list goes on for costs they'll incur that the Chinese or whomever else don't expect or have at a much lower price. What assumptions were in the model you preach to, and who ran the model, and what assumptions did the econometric model leave out (there's always a few)? Basic tenet in free market economics is if you can have it made elsewhere for less, do it. You'll reap greater "utils" in the end; however, I'm not in full agreement with that because it ignores the fact that we have nations with different founding principles (so you can call free market economics globalist economics in that sense). Have you looked at operating margins across the board for manufacturing companies? "A couple percent more" would kill profitability for many of them. So less competition = higher prices = lower standard of living (see below). That's right, get back used to a 55" tv instead of that shiny new 70" for a while. So if you differ from other nations on ethical or moral grounds as well as from a national security stance, moving the production home is the answer. Which is why I am for it. But what most people don't realize is that we need to change some basic fundamentals of our economic and society in order for that to happen smoothly. We all also need to be prepared to take a hit on standard of living for this transition to happen. It sounds like in your analysis it's an apples to apples shift and we have nothing to lose. But in reality we will sacrifice somewhat significantly in many cases - at least for a while until we dial in the perfect goods-to-service ratio in our economic output (never been done before). It should be done, but it's a hell of a lot more involved than just building some factories and turning the power on. [/QUOTE]

Verification