Leftists: What We Are Up Against

I have always maintained that the Leftist has an unfair advantage.  THEY get to preach the populist message while we’re left holding the bag for being responsible.

It’s the same dynamic at work that caused me to LOVE spending time with grandma and grandpa.  When i was with them, I got what I wanted.  It was ice cream and chocolate milk.  It was cookies for bedtime and cake for breakfast.  We didn’t have to go to Sunday School but we got to ride in the back of the pick up.

All fun. No responsibility.

Just like Ben and his post on China, slave labor and tariffs.

As predicted, the Leftist walks into the town square, pulls out his soap box, climbs up and begins yelling all kinds of populist nonsense.  Forget that not any bit of its true.  It just sounds good.

Here are some of his “sermons”

China has been manipulating their currency to undercut U.S. products.

Yes, Ben, but what we see is that the United States gets drastically cheaper products as a result.

They allow slave wages for workers…

Yes Ben, but imagine if citizens of the Lost City of Atlantis suddenly emerged and offered to pay you 5 times your current salary.  Gave you an office that included 120 inch flat screen TVs, surround sound, a full breakfast bar and featured free massages.  Further, your work week would go from 60 hours a week down to 30.

Now imagine some Atlantisian Leftist complaining that this “evil corporation” was taking advantage of you by paying only half of what Atlantisians make in working conditions that they considered “deplorable”.  I suspect you’d tell those “do gooders” to mind their own business.  And HOW!

…which is why many U.S. manufacturers have moved their manufacturing jobs there.

Yes Ben.  It is smart to buy commodities at their best value.

They have lax environmental regulations that allow the dumping of toxic materials into landfills, rivers, and into the air.

Yes Ben, but Chinese citizens are forcing new laws every year.  This is what happens when countries move from back water third world shit holes into modern-day economies.

So what do we do to create a level playing field?

Oh no….

The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that will impose tariffs on goods from China

Yup.  Tariffs.  Nothing like government meddling with markets.  Remember the housing bubble?  Heck, remember the Great Depression?

But serious, what’ll happen?

we might pay a little more for electronics, appliances… well, pretty much everything, since nearly everything is made in China any more, but our country will be better off.

If, by better off, Ben means that we will force the cost of goods, those very goods the “poor” rely on to live, to go through the roof, then yes, America will be “better off”.

And Leftists like Ben blame Conservatives for making the lives of the poor worse.  They are passing LAWS to MANDATE that they become worse.  And then, THEN, they blame the rich.

How convenient.

6 responses to “Leftists: What We Are Up Against

  1. Great refutation of ol’ Ben. Your pesky facts will give him fits.

  2. [“China has been manipulating their currency to undercut U.S. products.”

    Yes, Ben, but what we see is that the United States gets drastically cheaper products as a result.]

    A quick story. This past week been doing some work at my house with the help of friends, who while now retired were long time business owners.

    Anyway, Ed went up to Lowe’s to get some switch plates and new outlets and switches – just so it’ll all be new adn pretty. And I gave him $50. And he came back and held up a double outlet fixture and said it cost 81 cents. And he said “that’s wrong. That’s just wrong.”

    And he is right – just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean we’re not paying a price for it.

    • just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean we’re not paying a price for it.

      Hi Moe,

      The folks in China have a certain level of productivity. They are capable of producing a certain economic benefit. Folks in the United States also have a level of productivity. Right now, the people living in the United States are capable of producing much MUCH more valuable “economic products” than the average Chinese farmer. We are full of more skilled and better educated individuals.

      Because of this, the very low value labor SHOULD flow from that group of people capable of “higher level” output. This then frees the very productive American to perform much more valuable work. Thins like inventing new technologies, making better marketing campaigns, innovating the next medical breakthrough.

      As the Chinese peasants build their economy, they will educate their children and grow their “productivity”. And when they do, they will begin to charge more for the work they do. And when it levels off, that work will begin to flow to the next least “productive” worker.

      For the same reason you don’t want licensed nuclear engineers working at a movie theater, you don’t want outlet plates being built by a people who are much more productive.

      Please note, this is not to diminish the value of the human lives of peasants, farmers, theater workers or nuclear engineers. It’s just that some of us produce at different rates than others.

      • You’re entirely right pino. That is exactly the way it works, it is how markets work. It’s probably even basic human nature.

        But we have a responsibility to look after ourselves as a nation. If a company can make a decent profit manufacturing and selling switchplates here in the US, but can make a much bigger profit by doing it in China, is that it? Workers lose jobs, towns lose a tax base, schools lose funds – it goes on and on and when it becomes the norm instead of the exception (as it once was) it has a devastating effect.

        I’m just a civilian consumer, not a contractor and I buy switchplates maybe once a decade. And I – as a civilian – am happy to pay $3.00 instead of 81 cents. And if someone is building my house, I’m okay with paying an additional $50-70 for all the switchplates.

        Somewhere between how it works and what’s right for us, there lies a path we should be pursuing.

      • If a company can make a decent profit manufacturing and selling switchplates here in the US, but can make a much bigger profit by doing it in China, is that it?

        Well, the idea would be that it’s silly to spend the extra $2.19 on faceplates when that money could be spent on a new and emerging technology.

        For example, almost every single part of the iPhone was assembled in China. Of the $600.00 price tag, a grand total of $6.54 went to the nation of China. Fully $360 went to America in the form of engineering, marketing, design and profit to the widows and orphans that own Apple stock.

        THREE HUNDRED SIXTY!

        The iPhone has revolutionized how we communicate. I have GPS in my pocket. I buy DVDs from my phone at a location mapped for me and scanned using a credit card using the camera.

        All because we move and utilize labor according to it’s function.

      • I bow before you sir, with your iphones and your gps and your maps and camera activated credit cards. I still think it’s a miracle that I can buy a book from Amazon.

        That said, you make a good point about high tech industries etc but I’ll repeat, that doesn’t address the local problems. We can’t send everyone back to college and we can’t put everyone on welfare and it IS our problem when monetary and trade policies – or whatever it causes it, dancing elephants, whatever – devastate communities and the means to earn a decent living disappears; it is our problem to solve.

        And yes, emerging technologies and our hi tech world, are the future for a country as developed as ours. But there’s still the time between now and then.

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