MADE in CHINA

[Firestorm]

It's hardly a recent phenomenon. Read Adam Smith. It's been done for centuries. What will really kill us is all the cap and trade nonsense. Then it will be cheaper to produce EVERYTHING somewhere else.

[tonestack]

We could eliminate every tax on production, including all of the taxes on work, and it would still be cheaper to produce goods offshore. Companies are going to engage in labor arbitrage as along as they can take advantage of the difference in cost of living between western and emerging economies.

[Firestorm]

I guess that's the "invisible hand" in action. Ironic, isn't it, that we used to import the labor. Now we just export the work.

[tonestack]

While the horse is mostly already out of the barn, one thing that we could do is shutdown the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). There is nothing private about this Cold War relic. OPIC underwrites corporate foreign investment with taxpayer dollars.

[Firestorm]

While the horse is mostly already out of the barn, one thing that we could do is shutdown the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). There is nothing private about this Cold War relic. OPIC underwrites corporate foreign investment with taxpayer dollars.

... plus every other tax-payer funded invasion of the private sector: Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Commerce ...

[tonestack]

You've mistaken me for a laissez-faire free marketer. I am not against government intervention. I am against lopsided government intervention (in either direction).

[Firestorm]

Well, I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. So, I take it you're something of an economic agnostic?

[tonestack]

I am first and foremost a citizen of a democratic republic that has a market-based economy. In a perfect world, I would like to see the U.S. to return to being a non-corporate citizenship country. The way in which corporate citizenship was backdoored into the 14th amendment should make all Americans take pause, as our founding fathers were very clear about not granting citizenship to corporations.

[Firestorm]

Don't get me started on the 14th Amendment. The subsequent interpretation of what was supposed to be a simple guarantee of liberty for the newly emancipated has led to an awful lot of mischief. As you say, not what the Framers intended at all!