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[Truean]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57462085-92/google-shows-apple-we-made-ours-in-the-u.s.a/

We.... Need. This. (Things being made in the U.S.).

[kaijyuu]

I'm no political scientist... is there such a thing as labor tariffs?

[Sheb]

What do you mean by labor tariff? You can't import labor, so I'd say no.

[kaijyuu]

Well the general idea of tariffs is to give an advantage to local products. Just wondering if tariffs could be applied to the labor used to produce the product; if it were made in the USA, it'd be cheaper, otherwise they'd face a tax.

/shrug

[Sheb]

So, a standard tariff?

The problem with tariff is that other country tend to retaliate by imposing tariffs of their own, and what you ain on importe you loose on exports.

[Leafsnail]

And mutual protectionism can often end up bad for everyone.

[Pnx]

What do you mean by labor tariff? You can't import labor, so I'd say no.

My father's company disagrees, I mean it's the entire reason we're in this country.

[alway]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57462085-92/google-shows-apple-we-made-ours-in-the-u.s.a/

We.... Need. This. (Things being made in the U.S.).

Doesn't matter really. Even without outsourcing, a very large majority of these jobs would be gone very shortly anyway due to increasing automation.

[Heron TSG]

Someone has to design the machines to do that, and moreover someone has to build the machines that assemble products. (Or at least build the machine that builds the machines!)

[kaijyuu]

Which is how many lost jobs, still? Not every assembly line worker is going to be replaced by an engineer at a 1:1 ratio.


To solve the technology problem we need to cut into the profit gain made by automation. Probably shorter work weeks. Less individual hours = more workers.

[Descan]

That's a stop-gap at best.

[kaijyuu]

The alternative is to accept that people will be jobless and outright give them necessities. Obviously, I'm all for that, but I don't see it happening right now.

[Sirus]

The alternative is to accept that people will be jobless and outright give them necessities. Obviously, I'm all for that, but I don't see it happening right now.

Or we go full Imperium of Man and accomplish everything through sheer brute-force manual labor.

[alway]

Which is how many lost jobs, still? Not every assembly line worker is going to be replaced by an engineer at a 1:1 ratio.

More than that, they are in entirely different sectors of the economy and, more importantly, different strata of the US's social hierarchy. Which means for those unskilled or demi-skilled laborers who used to be manufacturing products, the jobs are gone and can not come back.

[Bauglir]

That's a stop-gap at best.

You have to keep paying them the same amount. In absolute terms, not per-hour. This only works, obviously, if it happens all across the board or it starts with a big enough player that they can weather the opportunity costs long enough to cripple the opposition by attracting the majority of the competent labor pool, and neither option is going to happen. Unfortunately, you don't get to be rich by writing a lot of checks - so if you're already a major chunk of the supply side of the market, you're not the sort of business to make this sort of change.