Trade and stuff

So lets say your worst enemy comes up to you and says, "I'll sell you this brand new Corvette for $10000." Do you say, "no, I think you're trying to hurt me by selling me things for less than they're worth?" If I'm trying to make an argument against totally free trade, I might carry on the analogy. Now your enemy starts selling you everything you want at pennies on the dollar. The strategy is that eventually you will quit your job because you don't need the money because they are selling you everything cheap. Some time after you quit your job, your enemy will stop selling you all your needs and you will be ruined. That's either diabolical or really stupid on the enemy's part. In this analogy, quitting your job would be like the US closing (and demolishing maybe) factories because China will sell us the stuff cheaper than we can make it. As a nation, we are doing this, so the analogy doesn't extend to saying that you just wouldn't quit because you don't trust your enemy (though that would be the protectionist scheme). The analogy continues then, that some day China will stop selling us stuff and we will be ruined. Maybe I'm just to optimistic, but I don't think we would be ruined. I think things might be shaky for a while, but we would rebuild those factories that we need (possibly using robotics (ala the Japanese) if we no longer have workers willing/wanting to go back to factory work). Even just counting the amount of cheap goods we have gotten from China in the last ten years, if they stopped selling us stuff tomorrow, I think that on balance we would be ahead. We've been able to use that money we saved by buying their cheap goods to invest and increase our standard of living. Maybe (probably) our standard of living would fall if they suddenly stopped selling us stuff, but I don't see that it would fall farther than where it would have been it we never had the opportunity to take their money in the first place. I say "take their money" because that's what it comes down to for me. For the sake or argument, lets say that China does think they are being diabolical and their leaders are manipulating their currency so as to devalue it (not that every other country on earth doesn't try and manipulate their currency to their own advantage), in the end it comes down to them giving us money. Just like if your enemy sells you a new Corvette for ten grand, he basically gave you money. The only way we loose in this is if we really are ruined, if our economy collapses because we can't buy cheap stuff from China. Are we really that unstable? What about South Korea, India, etc., are they all going to stop selling us cheap factory goods at the same time? I tend to agree that China wants to become the "big kid on the block." Or the next solitary superpower if you prefer, I'm still willing to take their money.

You suggested (facetiously i think) that the answer to too many managers is outsourcing (I guess to give the managers people to manage). I don't think that's correct. The answer is fewer managers. Corporate America is a little too good at spawning managers, occasionally they hire another manager to suggest they need to "operate lean" and they fire a bunch of managers right before starting to accumulate them again... The free market isn't the problem there, the problem is that the managers, who are of course in charge, think that more of their own is a good thing.

On then to retraining. I don't suggest that retraining is easy. None the less, if I had to retrain to support a family I would. I think most people would. The fact that most don't suggests that it hasn't (in the majority) been necessary. The fact is that technology is going to continue to advance. If you don't have to retrain because of cheap labor today you'll probably have to because of technology tomorrow. If it isn't cheap labor today it will be robotic labor tomorrow. Photocopiers replaced typing pools. Should we have continued to artificially employ legions of typists just so they wouldn't have to retrain? I too wish no one had to retrain, I'm sure it sucks. I just think that the reality is that people we need to learn new skills as time goes on. Given that retraining is going to be required anyway, I don't think it's a worthy trade-off to sacrifice free trade to save on some retraining that was likely to happen latter regardless. I'm not trying to belittle people's discomfort, I just don't think you can avoid retraining without halting progress.