Al-USA

Obama's 'Buy American' Plan May Meet China's Export-Led Growth in 2009

huangthomas wrote:
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Manufacturing industries which have competitive advantage in the world market will survive by themselves with little support. Industries which require constant government subsidies to survive have no place in the United States except for those essential to national security
"
With all due respect, there can be no competitive advantage when China, and other major exporters deliberately keep their currency depressed to undercut USA manufacturers.

Also, labor in most countries is at the whim of capital, much more so than in the USA, with no or trivial safely nets for the working people to speak of, in most cases. In a more level playing field, your competitive advantage argument might make sense, but, as is apparent just from the few facts I mentioned above, a level playing field is pure fiction and will remain so for the near future, at least.

Up to now, the capitalist elites have gotten away with undercutting labor at every step of the economy, first with shipping high paying mfn jobs overseas, and more recently, shipping service jobs, like high-tech, as well. This has resulted in no increase in real wages, after inflation, for "joe sixpack" and we end up where we are today: the beginning of the collapse of "joe sixpack" consumer and the dismantling of the export oriented economic global model...

Look up the plunges in mfn activily in Japan, China, and Germany, the facts are clear; please spare us the old "competitive advantage" argument first put forth 30 years ago, during the early 1980's, when the great dismantling of labor unions began... Working people in the USA need "protection", since NO other country in the world is, as of yet, willing to be the consuming engine of the planet.