Last night Obama said he wanted to protect American jobs, penalize companies for “shipping jobs overseas”, and give money to companies who hired American. This is all protectionism and its BAD for the economy.
Sure he can give 100 sob stories about someone losing their job and how their 8 kids can’t afford to eat and mother can’t afford prescription drugs. So get a new job.
The bottom line is simple:
Competition makes everyone stronger. Legislation that limits competition makes everyone weaker.
A US company should be able to hire the best worker for the job. If that adult worker is overseas, so be it. If they work for 5cents a day, so be it. That US company will make a ton of money and be able to hire more US sales reps, or US tech consultants, or buy more US marketing–all of which will create more jobs and higher paying jobs in the US.
Protectionist policies sound great in emotional speeches, but they are extremely short-sighted.
Force that company to pay union wages of $20/hr (instead of say $1/hr in Mexico) and that company now has $19/hr LESS to work with. Contrary to liberal rhetoric, that $19/hr wouldn’t just go into the CEO’s pocket (it would be shareholders anyway), but it would most likely go towards hiring someone else to improve the product, improve sales, expand production, etc etc.
Why would a CEO care about doing these things? Aren’t they just selfish? Why do they care about creating job?
Its because THEY ARE SELFISH and their COMPETITION will blow them away if they simply pocket the profit.
They MUST reinvest the saved money to keep up with the competition. They MUST hire more people, expand the business and grow their business if it is to survive.
Unless of course, the government supports protectionism and endlessly bails out failing companies, then they have nothing to worry about. Then they really can just pocket the profits and let the company lag behind.
Protectionism is NOT the American way. It is the opposite of how we became a great economic powerhouse. It is horrible for the economy and I pray the American voters realize this in their vote for President in a few days.
