The American Worker should be Protected!

You use a lot of words to say nothing. Multilateralism restricts discretionary policy, reducing the threat imposed by influence costs (particularly important for trade as accountability is more of a problem as costs are shared and often hidden)

 

You use few words to say a lot, but that does not mean it has any quality.

"Influence costs: losses caused by individuals in the firm attempting to influence company decisions for their own private benefit, and the costs the firm incurs trying to prevent this." (Milgrom and Roberts: Bargaining costs, influence activities, and the organization of economic activity, From WikiSummary, the Free Social Science Summary Database) http://wikisum.com/w/Milgrom_and_Ro...es,_and_the_organization_of_economic_activity

Since we are NOT dealing with firms but nations, and the imposts I am suggesting would be across the board on all imports with no discretion for the benefit of corrupt influence by any one firm, but to equalize laws that exist for the General Welfare, therefore, the definition of "influence costs" is not restricted to one economist's bull crap or a bad student's inability to think outside the box of his indoctrination.

Influence costs: losses caused by individuals in the Nation due to government of We the People or Central Authority attempting to influence company decisions for the benefit of the General Welfare, and the costs the Nation incurs trying to prevent worker exploitation, consumer exploitation, environmental damage, and poor health of the nation or world.

"influence costs put a cap on firm expansion." (ibid)

Like when Obamacare taxes the employer with 50 employees if they do not provide health insurance, and Foxy Blond Legs Channels says, "it is a Jobs Killer," or Workers' compensation kicks in at 3 in Georgia; you get resistance to change, a cap on firm expansion, and BBB and Sons Roofing out of Texas with offices in two other states not including Georgia where they were roofing several houses after a storm at the same time and the Better Business Bureau says they have 2 employees.

"Influence costs" would be our minimum wages, regulations, environmental laws, Workers' compensation, and Obamacare; if it is negative discretionary policy to make an equation using Imposts that equalizes influence costs then multilateralism is not reducing the threat imposed by influence costs.

Your multilateralism restricts discretionary policy to have a healthy environment for the General Welfare, increasing the threat imposed by influence costs.

 

Economics studies two issues associated with asymmetric information: agency costs and influence costs (reflecting hidden action and hidden information). With trade we have a classic example of influence costs: damaging protectionism is likely as, whilst trade increases overall utility, there will be destribution effects (and therefore profiteering opportunity). That I have to teach you stuff from first principles is a proper bore!

 

Specialisation is good in some instances, but not in all. An obvious example where specialisation is good is growing coconuts. Coconuts do not grow so well in colder climates, so it makes sense to grow them in warmer climates.

However, the wage specialisation you are referring to is not necessarily good. If there were good jobs for everyone in the higher wage countries, than obviously outsourcing cheaper labor would make sense. But when so many people are unemployed, and when wages for most types of jobs are so low, it just does not make sense. Making workers compete with other third world countries drives down wages. While lower prices may have a direct effect on "growing the economy", the economy may actually shrink if wages are lower, which decreases access to capital. There simply is not as much economic incentive if the capital (particularly land/natural resources) becomes very concentrated into the hands of a few. Why grow food to feed the unemployed when the masses of poor are useless to the owners of the farms? This is exactly what happened during the Depression of the 1930's. Capital was used "inefficiently", because there just was so little incentive to the owners of the capital.

 

You're just coming out with one source of comparative advantage.

This is nonsense. We only need differences in opportunity costs for economic activity to be positively effected through trade.

Drivel! If you're 'competing' with third world countries then there is something wrong. Indeed, new trade theory gave us an understanding of the product lifecycle (and how innovation leads to a dynamic comparative advantage in new product, typically reliant on a higher % of skilled labour)

Drivel! Winners can always compensate loses. Your whole argument is based on ignorance of basic trade analysis

 

What about the american consumer? Why should they have to put up with higher prices when they can get them much cheaper? If something made in america costs 10 USD and the same thing made in china costs 2 then that means the american way of doing it is more 'wasteful'. Besides buying poor people's stuff is helping them help them selves and we all want that don't we? Okay, I don't want to help the (*)(*)(*)(*) communists but you know.

 

It is a message board, you are teaching everyone that views it and had another idea. Is that such a bad thing?

Agency costs: "A type of internal cost that arises from, or must be paid to, an agent acting on behalf of a principal. Agency costs arise because of core problems such as conflicts of interest between shareholders and management. Shareholders wish for management to run the company in a way that increases shareholder value. But management may wish to grow the company in ways that maximize their personal power and wealth that may not be in the best interests of shareholders."

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/agencycosts.asp#ixzz1zNDOlH3M

"Some common examples of the principal-agent relationship include: management (agent) and shareholders (principal), or politicians (agent) and voters (principal).

Agency costs are inevitable within an organization whenever the principals are not completely in charge; the costs can usually be best spent on providing proper material incentives (such as performance bonuses and stock options) and moral incentives for agents to properly execute their duties, thereby aligning the interests of principals (owners) and agents."

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/agencycosts.asp#ixzz1zNDl9AKg

Politicians or government cannot be working for growing their personal power and wealth at the expense of the principle voters.

"What about the american consumer? Why should they have to put up with higher prices when they can get them much cheaper? If something made in america costs 10 USD and the same thing made in china costs 2 then that means the american way of doing it is more 'wasteful'. Besides buying poor people's stuff is helping them help them selves and we all want that don't we?" (Mr. Swedish Guy)

Now disagreeing that something made here is more costly because of our waste, because we have poor too, and Global WARMING; see Rick Perry praying for rain:

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/proclamation/16038/

If there is waste due to our poor having "our minimum wages, regulations, environmental laws, Workers' compensation, and Obamacare," there is waste due to our management's compensation being too high as compared to their Chinese compatriots.

If the goal is to help poor people then we need trade to help them, but at the same time if we cannot give everything to the Chinese there has to be a way to offset the "waste" of our unemployed poor without killing babies and pollution...

If the agency costs "can usually be best spent on providing proper material incentives (such as performance bonuses and stock options)." Then what would be wrong with we make stuff here too, at their costs, and basically pay material incentives; our jobs protected for strategic economic advantage, or whatever would apply, we make it here by paying the same wages the Chinese...get paid, and cover the difference between that and minimum wage with the incentives from redistribution from taxes on the wealthy (agent) who make more than their (management) compatriots in China?

Basically the company here doing the work of the Chinese solar panel manufacturing...pays Chinese wages, the government suppliments it up to minimum wage plus benefits of Obamacare...

That way our people can do the same work, we have low unemployment, retain strategic ability to do the work, should China get hit by an large meteor, and when Chinese poor are no longer as poor, all things being equal.

If they dump and subsidize their goods, and they are cheaper, we retain ability to do the job should they get hit by a meteor or their polution kills them off.

You still get your trade, "destribution effects (and therefore profiteering opportunity)," as there is always going to be some differences in taste too.

We just eliminate the differences in taste with regard to my modified definition of "influence costs" of "regulations, environmental laws, Workers' compensation, and Obamacare..."

Now Rick Scott says the poor do not need Health Care, just eating right and exercise; survival of the fittest NAZI with a natural god's caliper takes care of the rest. {but that is another topic}

The point being that we have costs, that cannot be done away with simply because they do not have them in emerging markets, and it is wasteful and treasonous to do away with our ability to do the work of manufacturing of some things.

 

A simple partial equilibrium approach will inform us that the gains in consumer surplus will outweigh any producer surplus losses. Deadweight loss is generated, demonstrating an increase in economic inefficiency. Of course that also ignores that protectionism, for example, will harm competitiveness and create production inefficiency in itself

 

Capitalism will not work across world boundaries (countries) because one country has no concern for the good of mankind or the environment while the other does. The unconcerned countries allow children and poor people to work endless hours with no protections. Should this be rewarded? Until all countries abide by the same principles, the most caring will be defeated by the uncaring due to the money they save by treating human beings as cattle and the environment as a trash dump. Unless all contries abide by the same standards, only tariffs will level the playing field so the most responsible and caring will recieve the greater benefit instead of the worst. Tariffs will be a cost (tax) incurred by the uncaring for not caring.

 

Completely unrestrained capitalism might have some negative impacts on the environment, I'll give you that. Thus I'm willing to force some evnironmental regulation on trade. and about this sentence "The unconcerned countries allow children and poor people to work endless hours with no protections" remember that these people only have a bad choice and a worse choice, either in a factory for 1 USD per hour with no safety regulations or break your back working as a draft animal on a farm or work as a prostitute. If we simply do not buy these cheap goods that come from such factories we are making both parties worse of. We have to pay more, they will have to change occupation to something worse.

 

agreed, when we find oil we actually let foreign companies own it.. like BP, drill baby drill seems to be foreign companies drill baby drill and then sell us our own oil

 

Sounds like you want a Stalinist economy. Very strange!

 

lets continue right down the road to serfdom woo too

 

Perfectly good point, that is why there has to be a ratio that does not reward too much bad behavior sending our unwashed into being draft animals or prostitutes. We just cannot have unrestrained capitalism and unrestrained free trade without hurting our side.

If we cannot figure a way to use tariffs, and the ratio work out, then we use something else, like I asked before:

"If the agency costs 'can usually be best spent on providing proper material incentives (such as performance bonuses and stock options).' Then what would be wrong with we make stuff here too, at their costs, and basically pay material incentives; our jobs protected for strategic economic advantage, or whatever would apply, we make it here by paying the same wages the Chinese...get paid, and cover the difference between that and minimum wage with the incentives from redistribution from taxes on the wealthy (agent) who make more than their (management) compatriots in China?

We simply cannot get away from our need for a minimum wage and let all manufacturing of some things be done in one regional basket, especially when that basket can never be considered a safe bet.

Some items that are manufactured have no real strategic value, we can survive without them, but when the thing is a necessity we must be able to make a certain ratio of it here in the West in stable baskets so we can ramp up production on a moment's notice.

None of it is so simple that we can just say, "Trade has been shown to increase wages and therefore reduce poverty." Or "The fear of free trade is based on an ignorance of economics, nothing more." {And stop with a period on either one.}

In response to the latter one this was unanswered:

"As the other guy's economy improves, can our economy survive if they have all the high tech factories, better energy production, and common sense?" http://www.politicalforum.com/econo...orker-should-protected-11.html#post1061365975

 

Free trade, globalisation, and international competition is a race to the bottom in terms of the value of labor. We can see what has been the result of globalisation. Finite natural resources (oil, metals, land) have increased in price, while wages (in the Western countries at least) have gone down.

This is just one example of the type of capital drain that can occur when unrestricted free trade is allowed. The country with a trade deficit forfeits the ownership of its natural resources to the country with a trade surplus. This may be good for those individual persons directly involved in the exchange, but obviously it can be a bad thing for everyone else in the country with the trade deficit. Since the owners are now in a different country, all the future profits from this capital will be sent abroad. So I suppose its really a matter of rights and ownership. If you believe the people of a country should have some rights or special entittlements to the natural resources within their country, even if these natural resources are privately owned, then you would be very much against this type of thing.

 

Rubbish! Trade increases productivity and that, in turn, will generate higher wage

 

His statement "free trade, globalisation, and international competition is a race to the bottom in terms of the value of labor," cannot be separated from the two sentences which follow, "we can see what has been the result of globalisation," and "finite natural resources (oil, metals, land) have increased in price, while wages (in the Western countries at least) have gone down."

You have created rubbish from taking a sentence out of context of the paragraph. The admonition in most cases of saying, "learn how to read," historically gets moderator action, so I will refrain from saying it, even though it is appropriate.

Few are arguing that trade does not increase "productivity and that, in turn, will generate higher wage." Obviously if we trade our manufacturing for their manufacturing their productivity and wages increase. If we do not want to lose our ability to manufacture certain items of strategic value we have to increase our productivity with technology and that increases wages for a few; but technology always leaks out, and if they get it, and have the lower cost monkeys that can do the things robots cannot do (such as distinguish between FOD and an bolt) they win both the technology and the race to the top.

The rubbish argument says that we cannot afford the internal trade of Obamacare because we do not have enough doctors. Trade in Obamacare does not though mean that "trade increases productivity and that, in turn, will generate higher wage," as increased doctor productivity may increase their wages but does not increase wages of the worker that is needed to pay them except to what small extent the worker is not out sick. You could claim the trade of taxes on the rich to the doctors increases productivity and wages of the doctors, but then the rich claim that they have less to trickle down to workers.

 

It cannot be taken out of context. It was drivel. The problem is that you fellows are typing witout any knowledge of the economics. It continues to be tiresome. Rather than typing a lot without saying anything, why don't you help to put that right?

 

It was taken out of context.

If a huge segment of monkeys are no longer working, that is a loss our robots would need; for a very long time robots are going to need monkeys that simply know no more than to push and pull, and you can call them "push-pull men" if "monkey" is offensive. The increase in technology productivity has to be sufficient to offset the subsidy of the monkeys; and we must subsidize our monkeys and put them to work. You cannot offset the subsidy of the monkeys by a loss in higher education spending that Bill Gates the other day on C-Span was talking about. And if a huge segment of monkeys are no longer working, but being parasites, that is a loss in revenue for higher education spending.

If we could trust to let all the manufacturing be done by other monkeys there would be no problem, but because the other guy (nation) has potential to be offensive (see China, Oil, and "running out of villages to burn"), and robots cannot do everything, we simply cannot have parasites and not "mostly bags of water" worker monkeys.

 

Nope, it was non-economic drivel

 

You may disagree with the reasoning, and conclusions, but that does not make it rubbish or non-economic drivel anymore than your lame response.

"Free trade, globalisation, and international competition is a race to the bottom in terms of the value of labor. We can see what has been the result of globalisation. Finite natural resources (oil, metals, land) have increased in price, while wages (in the Western countries at least) have gone down." (Anders Hoveland)

"In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended than it did during the recession itself, new research has found."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/us/recession-officially-over-us-incomes-kept-falling.html?_r=1

When I noticed the High School had an Auto Shop, just being curious, I asked the school councilor if my kid could take that when the class he wanted was not available, I was told it was a special program for troubled kids. Pinning the black woman down, reality is that the kid who needs to learn some technical trade, or take Shop in our High School, the kid has to rob a liquor store first.

So wages are going down, or people not making them, which goes to statistics, from schools no longer teaching people who are not going to college for a trade. It is as if educators frown on technical schools, and yet that is where some of the higher paying jobs are for those not going to college; in fact it is not uncommon to find a technician making more than some college graduates.

Even if a lot of manufacturing is being done elsewhere, people here still have to maintain the stuff.

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1483...n-improving-education-for-manufacturing-jobs/

Not everyone is capable of being a computer programmer..., but educators will put a kid in computer lab who cannot even do math like grandpa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y29XL99qM6s

"Chicago's School Mathematics Project, Everyday Mathematics lessons accommodate a wide range of academic abilities and learning styles."
www.everydaymathsuccess.com/pdf/EM_DifferentiatedInstruction.pdf

So if they have a problem, slow or whatever, with using a method that allows them to continue to do calculations, as the numbers are right there ready to use, let's be inefficient and "accommodate a wide range of academic abilities and learning styles" with a lattice method..., and stick them in computer lab too instead of a Shop class.

"High-school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers.' The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?pagewanted=all

Some are out of work because our education system is whacked, putting kids in computer lab who have no business being in one. Instead of accommodating a wide range of academic abilities, let's have drop outs and graduates without skills. Then we have wages going down, statistically, simply because kids are not getting hands on for "a wide range of academic abilities."

 

Again a lot of words to say nothing. The original comment was garbage and your 'assistance' mere noise

 

Old farts still remember broken records.

 

Only because they were class. There is no class in rant and tacit support for that rant

 

If economists cannot come up with more than sound bites and cute terms to end absolute poverty without harm they are not a doctor but a disease.