That's deja vu. Every time I suggest that this country needs to be proactive in keeping the fruits of American productivity in America, you tell me that it can't be done. Now you're suggesting that economic progress is an anomaly, and we may as well consider ourselves lucky we ever had it. Sorry, but I don't subscribe to that kind of fatalism. It's easy for someone to intellectualize away everything that matters, boil it down to a blip in the radar, if the scope is zoomed back far enough. The last thing we need now is to fold our arms and say it's all up to the global markets. Bullshit. How lazy is that? If we're going to go down, let's go down swinging, not spread-eagled waiting to get rammed. But who says we have to go down? Only if we keep doing nothing about safeguarding American economic interests is that a certainty.
Economic progress and the American employment rate aren't one and the same. Not even close. All I'm saying here is that the system of interaction between commerce and markets which define who gets what on an global level is continuing to change and evolve, just as it has constantly been doing since the first prehistoric man walked over to the next village and offered what he had for what someone else had. And, just like before if you're in a situation where the tide is changing and you stand to lose out, you can either adapt or you can try to stop the current and drown.
The thing is that the short range doesn't really matter, only the long range. The rest of the world has jumped on board the philosophy behind free trade, trading blocks, and globalization, and America stands to lose a lot because of it. No one is disputing that, but I wonder why you think I'm just saying you might as well roll over and die? What I'm saying is that America is no longer in a position where it can dictate world economic trends, and as such it can no longer hope to legislate it's population into wealth.
There are many ways of combating the problem at hand, but what you suggest as a solution is old fashioned, out dated, and a dangerous thing to do to your children. It's also somewhat of a scapegoat mentality. People aren't defaulting on their mortgages because they've lost their jobs to more competitive foreign workers or because their industry has been made obsolete due to free trade, people are defaulting on their mortgages because a.) they failed to see that the bear market had to turn at some point and b.) the extremely dangerous American credit mentality combined with ill devised (sprinkled with a little bit of corruption) sub-prime lending practices. This was in no way unforeseen but no one did anything to stop it on any level because you were all happy buying things you couldn't afford, the sellers were pumped to sell it, and the lenders were ecstatic to finance it. Why think about the long term effects of anything when you can be ignorant today and hope you aren't around when the shit hits the fan?
America could very well experience vast economic growth and increases in employment in the future under a banner of free trade and globalization, but Americans aren't known for making sacrifices for the future and that would be a necessity. Close your borders now and you might save a few resource extraction jobs, penalize companies for outsourcing telemarketing and CS centers and you might save a few thousand of those jobs, but you stand to lose a lot more as your industrial sectors and consumer good export industry diminishes and stagnates.
I don't know why you think any of this means it's all up to the global market and the American government is powerless. You are very much in control of your own fate, but you have to do what it takes to stay competitive. Companies exporting jobs? Don't risk scaring them away by penalizing, entice them to stay through tax cuts and subsidiaries. Reduce your dependency on foreign owned resources, regulate foreign ownership within your industries, boost education, promote future growth in industries where jobs either can't be shipped over seas or it wouldn't be cost-effective to do so, try to correct some of the vast disparity between the lowest and highest paid, regulate the financiers more strictly, and so on and so forth. Reducing gov't spending in unnecessary areas (military) would go a long way towards funding the neccesary changes to stay competitive and ensure continuing American growth and prosperity in the future. Or you can continue to point your finger at the Mexicans for stealing your jobs and the Canadians for invading your market space and bend further over while your government officials pretend to solve these problems whilst turning a blind eye to corruption in hopes of a cushy job in the private sector after their tenure is up. Then, 20 years down the road when you're wondering why food all of a sudden takes up 40% of your paycheck, rent is skyrocketing, jobs are once again either scarce or extremely low paying, resource extraction companies are charging monopolistic prices, and your industrial markets are dying find another scapegoat. No, it's probably better to just demand that the government adapts it's industrial/commerical policy now, suck it up, admit that for the time being not every American has the born right of owning a car and a house, and plan out the future rather then trying to cling on to a past that can no longer exist.
Much of the problem is that China controls the value of its currency and keeps it artificially low. This drives down the price of its goods.
Very true and a lot of countries have done this in the past. The other major factor is that China's heavily centralized government is exactly what it takes for a developing country to reach 'first world' status. High accountability for corruption and illegal activity, cheap factors of production, a strong public sector and 'safety net', as well as the ability to take control of a situation, pick a market, and become competitive in it because of new technology in production equipment and cheap transportation. China is going to be a very big problem for every other heavily industrialized country in a few decades.
