Chicago Wal-Mart Update
Chicago Sun-Times editorial:
The time for a South Side Wal-Mart has come. Unemployment in the Chicago region hovers above 11 percent, with higher rates among blacks. Even Mayor Daley, who hasn't pushed hard for Wal-Mart for fear of alienating the unions, is publicly going to bat for the superstore. It's now up to Ald. Edward M. Burke to make it happen.
An ordinance to allow for a long-awaited Chatham Wal-Mart Supercenter, which sells groceries, has languished for months in the City Council Finance Committee, which Burke chairs. This is just the latest delay in a five-year battle by Ald. Howard Brookins to get a Wal-Mart at a former industrial site at 83rd and Stewart.
Burke, an unabashed union supporter, has said Wal-Mart is welcome in Chicago, so long as it hammers out a "living wage" compromise with union leaders.
In a perfect world, we'd like a living wage agreement, too. Too bad that's not the world we live in. We live in a world where South Siders need fresh groceries, where South Siders need the amenities available at Wal-Mart, where South Siders need jobs.
And the jobs don't exactly pay the slave wages Wal-Mart opponents suggest. At Chicago's only Wal-Mart, in Austin, the average hourly wage, excluding managers, is $11.30.That Wal-Mart created 400 permanent jobs and, since opening three years ago, $16.3 million in sales tax revenue.
Who is Ald. Burke to say no to Chicagoans who want these jobs? The Chatham Wal-Mart proposal deserves a vote in City Council, and Burke now holds the key. His committee should move quickly to hold hearings on the proposed Wal-Mart and then move forward with a vote.
Each day that passes is one extra day without jobs and groceries for deserving South Siders. The time for a South Side Wal-Mart has not only come -- it's also way past due.
34 Comments:
Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Time to change America's trade policies, or else we will come to a point where our economy will attempt to be based on a work, buy, live in Walmart model, which just won't work. I'd expect better from a professor of economics in Flint, Michigan. You should be very well versed in the long term consequences of unrestrained globalism.
info-
ah yes, i was just remembering how the smoot-hawley tarrifs ended the depression and saved america.
oh wait, no they didn't. they deepened the depression and made everyone worse off.
you need to read your ricardo and get grasp of comparative advantage. this will show you why the mercantilist strategy you seem to support failed and will always fail.
supporting one group (like auto workers) whose own intransigence through excessive compensation demands etc has caused them to fail at the expense of the rest of the society is just wrongheaded special interest politics.
shall we also ban the auto plants in south carolina because they take jobs from michigan because workers there will work for lower wages?
First, the teachers unions deny them an education:
Detroit -- Impassioned parents demanded jail time for educators and district officials Saturday following the release of test scores that showed fourth- and eighth-graders had the worst math scores in the nation.
City students took the National Assessment of Educational Progress test this year, and 69 percent of fourth-graders scored below the basic level in math and 77 percent of eighth-graders scored below basic.
The Detroit scores on the progress test were the lowest in its 40-year history. The sample of students included 900 of Detroit's 6,000 fourth-graders and 1,000 of the district's 6,000 eighth-graders.
Sharlonda Buckman, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, called for jailing and civil lawsuits against anyone in the city's educational system that is not doing his or her share to help properly educate children.
"Somebody needs to go to jail," she said in a tearful address to 500 parents gathered Saturday for the organization's annual breakfast forum. "Somebody needs to pay for this. Somebody needs to go to jail, and it shouldn't be the kids."
Detroit News
Then, the labor unions deny them a job:
The City Council yesterday rejected a major development plan at the Kingsbridge Armory in The Bronx ...
"This is a game-changer for the way development proceeds in New York," said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which played a major role in opposing the revamp of the armory into a mall.
Local residents, Bronx politicians and community groups primarily opposed the project for a shopping mall at the 575,000-square-foot vacant armory because Bloomberg and developer The Related Companies refused to agree to a living-wage agreement.
"What happened here today at the City Council is historic. What happened here today, it is huge in that for the very first time in a long time, we've seen how the interests of the people have prevailed over corporate America ...
New York Post
And the left claims it's simply the "consequences of unrestrained globalism". Pathetic. Unions have metastasized into a cancer that eats at the very fabric of the country. Time for a little Hope and Change.
Jeez, I wonder why better teachers don't want to work in Detroit. Maybe parents that do not send their children to school prepared to learn are a huge part of that problem.
Maybe Detoiters should trying staging another riot and see what they have left after the next one.
You should be very well versed in the long term consequences of unrestrained globalism.
A Dartmouth Business school study found that companies that outsource the most are the companies that create the most employment in America:
The Case for Free Trade
Jeez, I wonder why better teachers don't want to work in Detroit.
Better teachers? Really, better teachers will not work in the inner city? Maybe it's time for a voucher program. Of course, the unions will do everything in their power to shut it down, even if it beneifts the kids.
A U.S. Education Department study released yesterday found that District students who were given vouchers to attend private schools outperformed public school peers on reading tests, findings likely to reignite debate over the fate of the controversial program.
The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, the first federal initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, was created by a Republican-led Congress in 2004 to help students from low-income families. Congress has cut off federal funding after the 2009-10 school year unless lawmakers vote to reauthorize it.
Overall, the study found that students who used the vouchers received reading scores that placed them nearly four months ahead of peers who remained in public school. However, as a group, students who had been in the lowest-performing public schools did not show those gains. There was no difference in math performance between the groups.
Washington Post
What the WaPo piece doesn't say is the vouchers cost just a quarter of what each student gets through a public school monopoly. So even if the worst case is no educational benefit, the cost of education would drop by 75%.
Current per pupil spending in DC is over $28,000.00, voucher recipients receive approx. $6,000.00.
theblogprof
i have long had the sense that fears over the disappearance of high paying manufacturing jobs are all based upon using the wrong baseline for comparison.
manufacturing jobs have traditionally been low wage jobs. look at english mills and pre WW 2 america.
post the second world war, the US had the only major industrial base that had not just been destroyed. this created a unique confluence of very tight manufacturing supply and enormous demand as the rest of the world rebuilt.
high demand for a low supply item yields high prices.
so the late 40's through the 60's were a very unusual time. a manufacturing worker could ear enough as a single breadwinner to buy a house and cars and raise a family.
but this couldn't last. the rest of the world rebuilt it's industrial capability and all their plants were new. they had scads of willing workers. this eroded american dominance and created a competitive situation again.
by the 70's, manufacturing was back to a more normal world equilibrium.
our failure to understand that the 40's-60's were a windfall, not a norm, has led to all these problems.
it's the equivalent of taking 1999 capital gains as the new baseline for normal.
those fantastic manufacturing jobs were always going to be temporary. nothing could have kept them. trying to bring them back is like trying to extend Indian summer. wish all you want, but winter's still coming.
Wal-Mart is America's biggest beneficiary of China's managed trade.
Here is THE WAL-MART EFFECT/It's Chinese Imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U.S. Jobs. Looks like we have our own private Smmoot Hawley effective enterprise.
I support globalism (unlike infocyde's comment) because the theoretical benefits for the world's citizens is boundless. But the reality is the U.S. cannot cope with the faux free trade situation with mercantilit China. It is time for a reset.
Anonymous 1:08,
What do unions have to do with poor results in education? In our county, the highest rated school districts are located in the suburbs and unionized.
While I am sure that resistance to change is a part of the problem, and large organizations have a problem with that, it would seem the major culprit is not unions. I think we have to ask how urban and suburban school districts differ from one another to get at the root cause of the problem.
I don't mean to disparage the hard working teachers in Detroit, but I believe most teachers prefer to teach kids and not raise them.
Ohhh! I know how suburban and urban schools differ! $
walt-
all the best schools in the country are private.
virtually none of them are unionized.
most charter schools are getting better results as well, and those are non union.
morganovich,
Well argued. You make a very persuasive case both for basic economics of comparative advantage and the anamoly of the period from 1940-1960.
Another element seldom examined is differences in productivity. China and India are starting from way behind with enormous room for productivity gains. Germany & Japan were in a similar position after WWII with productivity gains translating into phenominal economic growth. U.S. has the highest productivity in the world so catching up is not that easy.
An illustration of the differences was watching the excavation of a multi-storey building in Guandong province in 2002....all work was done manually with the earth being carried by basket. The Chinese are rightfully proud of the achievements that they have made to evolve from a dirt poor third world country and they have lots of problems...pollution, corruption, social unrest, lack of political freedom, # of executions, etc.
It seems all too easy to villify other nations...before China, it was Japan without examining the underlying economic, and historical factors or considering that globalization can create greater opportunities for everyone rather than being a zero sum game.
Few people actually consider that China was the world's leading economy 150 years ago when the U.S. was just the new kid on the block. History is interesting but it isn't all black hats & white hats.
morganovich, How are you measuring best? A lot of the best schools in this area are in the adjoining county, and they are academically highly selective. That's like only letting seven footers on your basketball team and bragging you can beat the other schools. I will stand pat with my belief that the best indicator of a student’s success, union or nonunion, can be measured by the parents’ educational level as the prime motivational factor.
I agree with your assessment of the manufacturing situation in the U.S. today and its history. The Japanese/Chinese/Koreans are not the problem.
More political football being played by Bentonville's finest.
The problem is that they can't really pull a Jonquiere or what they did in Colorado. If they want in, they're going to have to back down from their dirty pool.
Wal-Mart's tactics and strategy make Daley look saintly.
You should be very well versed in the long term consequences of unrestrained globalism.
A Dartmouth Business school study found that companies that outsource the most are the companies that create the most employment in America:
If outsourcing of your kind is so good, answer these questions directly and honestly:
Why is outsourcing/offshoring implemented in a consistently dishonest manner?
Secondly, do you really fear US citizens who actually can fight back at the PR game?
Finally, why are you secretive about offshoring/outsourcing if it is good enough for you to proclaim its benefits loudly and proudly?
Answer those questions, otherwise I'll chalk you up as to someone who merely wants to sell out our country.
What do unions have to do with poor results in education?
Everything.
Here's a story about the success of "English only" education in California after voters defeated the teachers unions and racist political groups who hoped to keep latino kids locked into a cultural ghetto in order to advance their own political agendas:
The Bilingual Ban That Worked, City Journal
Here's another about the success of charter schools in closing the education gap between urban and suburban kids:
The Stanford University study -- which compared kids who won seats in charter-school lotteries with kids who lost and subsequently enrolled at traditional public schools -- was the most comprehensive look at the city's charter schools to date.
It found that students who win spots in charter schools outgain those who don't by 5 points in math and 3.6 points in reading on state tests in every year from fourth to eighth grades.
The cumulative difference means students who attend charter schools from kindergarten through eighth grade can close about 86 percent of the achievement gap in math with students in a high-performing, suburban district like Scarsdale.
They can close the achievement gap in reading by about 66 percent.
Landing a seat in a charter high school also raises the likelihood that students will graduate with a Regents diploma by 7 percent for each year they spend at the school, the study found.
"The results suggest that the charter schools are starting with the most disadvantaged students in New York City, and they're able to close the achievement gap very considerably," said Stanford economics professor Caroline Hoxby, who wrote the report.
The study compared the achievement of about 21,000 kids in city charter schools with that of about 19,000 kids who applied to but couldn't attend charter schools because of a lack of seats.
The apples-to-apples comparison allowed researchers to conclude that charter schools weren't getting better results by skimming the best students -- as some critics have charged.
New York Post
Here's another about how unions make it almost impossible to fire bad teachers:
The Rubber Room, New Yorker
And another on drop out rates in Chicago public schools:
CBS Chicago
America's public school system has become captive to the teachers unions and left-wing interest groups who see in our kids only the potential for economic gain and political indictrination.
I find it interesting that the same people who argue for a "public option" in health care, because the insurance companies need "competition", do everything in their power to enforce a unionized monopoly on education.
Time to get the leftists away from our kids.
I will stand pat with my belief that the best indicator of a student’s success, union or nonunion, can be measured by the parents’ educational level as the prime motivational factor.
As the post on the charter school study and this article - posted by Dr. Perry previously - show, that is not always the case. Unions have made it nearly impossible to try new approaches to education.
Why is outsourcing/offshoring implemented in a consistently dishonest manner?
What are you talking about, there have been countless articles, studies and debate about outsourcing. No one is hiding. If there is any dishonesty it's on the part of the left who routinely demagogue this issue and misrepresent outsourcings effects on the economy.
Secondly, do you really fear US citizens who actually can fight back at the PR game?
What I feel is more a mixture of pity and contempt. Fight back all you want, it's the left that turns to censorship and shouting down their opponents. Certainty in the facts gives me confidence.
Finally, why are you secretive about offshoring/outsourcing if it is good enough for you to proclaim its benefits loudly and proudly?
You need to read a little more broadly - Daily Kos, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Huffington Post - these people are idiots.
Answer those questions, otherwise I'll chalk you up as to someone who merely wants to sell out our country.
Selling out the country is what you and your lefty brethren do best, I would never think of trying to compete with you there.
it has certainly been shown that parents attitudes toward education are one of the if not the most important determinant of child success.
i'm not arguing that.
what i am arguing is that for $12,600 per student ($250k for a class of 20) we are getting very little performance from our teachers.
teachers unions time and time again fight any sort of "merit pay" or voucher systems that let parents decide which schools should ge more money.
finland provides an instructive example. they had some of the worst schools in europe. in a few years, they were near the top. they spent NO additional money on it.
what did they do? the disbanded the national organizations, put all the power in the hands of local principals, and let them teach what they wanted and hire and fire who they wanted. freed from the insane dictate of unions and school boards, the schools thrived.
it's amazing what happens when you let good teachers teach and toss the ones that can't out.
i was at a bad public school for 2 years (after having been at a good one). let me tell you, it's a world of difference. it may be a coincidence that my elementary school was non union and my jr high was, but i doubt it. that said, neither was remotely in the league of the private schools i then attended.
to look at a US example, look at programs like the harlem success academy. they fire more teachers annually than the whole rest of the NYC public schools combined - and they are getting results.
teachers, aided by their unions, have been sheltered from having their performance assessed for much too long. it's time to both induce more experimentation to see what works and who can teach and who is dead wood. it's clear the system we have isn't performing as it should.
we spend more per pupil than just about anyone in the world. the fact that we are getting poor results should lead us to ask "why?" and to try something new.
If you have to fire a lot of people, something is wrong with your hiring or support processes. You can't fire your way to success with employees any better than you can scrap your way to quality on a production line. Bigger trash cans do not solve problems.
Where are these principals coming from that will be doing all the teacher firing? The teacher ranks? Do you suppose all the principals used to be top-notch teachers? Don't bet on it.
Walt G.
I believe that unions are a pox on our culture, but you are correct when you say:
I don't mean to disparage the hard working teachers in Detroit, but I believe most teachers prefer to teach kids and not raise them.
I despise the teachers' unions, but we are wrong to blame them for the underperformance of inner-city schoolchildren.
Now, if you want to get into a discussion of how those same unions are happy to accept more and more money that cannot possibly solve the problem, then we've got an argument.
morganovich,
have to agree that continuing to throw money at the problem while expecting a different result is insane.
Teachers need the same oversight as every other profession ie. engineering, architecture, medicine. That anyone can look at the drop out and failure rates in places like Detroit and say it's all the students' fault is bizarre. It's like the designer of the Titanic blaiming the iceberg...come on...
Walt,
The teachers' unions have not endeared themselves to the public. Most of us have experienced bad teaching first hand both as students and as parents. We have also noticed what happens when you make a complaint...oh, nothing.
No one has answered yet why unionized teachers have such great success teaching students in the suburbs if unions are “the” problem. In our county, Genesee, the top school districts for student achievement, union and non union, are Goodrich and Grand Blanc, which are both unionized. This is not an anomaly in the Midwest. I think any study needs to separate urban and suburban school districts to be valid.
walt-
as someone who has been a turnaround specialist at small companies - let me assure you - you CAN fire your way to success.
in many situations, it is the only way to fix an organization.
if you have a bunch of ineffective, overpaid employees who are not results focused and won't get with the program, you toss them and get some that will. your assembly line metaphor is dead wrong. if you scrap poor products, quality at the end of the line goes up. if you scrap the workers who are making the mistakes and replace them with competent ones, so much the better.
this is not "everyone gets a prize day". these are the people who are teaching our children. they need to be effective.
organizations institutionalize certain operating norms and performance expectations over time. to change this "organizational DNA" you may need to rip parts out.
the problem with the current school system is teachers are paid and retained just by seniority. you literally can not fire them for not doing their job. NYC in notorious for this. this let's dead wood pile up until it's most of the system.
how would you recommend dealing with teachers who can't teach and school administrators who can't administrate?
there are an enormous number of excellent teachers out there willing to work. i went to one of the top private high schools in the country. they were turning willing teachers away in droves (and still do) despite the fact that they pay less than public schools. (yes, this is really true)
their willingness to work much harder for less money is clearly indicative of the fact that they value really being able to teach. give them that ability at public schools, and they'll show up in droves to get the higher salaries and gold plated benefits.
QT,
After seeing the "complaints" made by parents toward coaches and officials at local high school sports events this year, I'm not sure I would want my livelihood in their hands :)
walt-
your suburbs question is the wrong way of looking at it. suburban students are going to outperform no matter what. they have better parental support and better funding.
the better comparison is to look at 2 schools in the same area and with the same demographics one of which is union and one of which isn't.
this is what happened to me. my elementary school was non union, had young, engaged teachers and a flexible, innovative curriculum, and yielded great results. the same kids then went to the JR high and high schools (union, un-innovative, full of old retreads) and saw their performance relative to the rest of the state drop.
one example does not prove a case, but i've heard lots of stories like this and knew a lot of excellent teachers who took pay cuts to go to private schools so they could actually teach.
morganovich,
I believe you, but that depends on having competent people doing the firing. Too often, though, the same people who did the hiring does the firing and just repeat their mistakes with new people.
So the question is now something about how unions are bad because they have control of the government?
With that in mind:
What of Wal-Mart's support of those that do it the other way around, where the government constructs a "company union"? Are they any less corrupt or inefficient in China?
Same thing would apply should there be a union in a Third World country and a "anti-union" multinational supports it.
Anonymous said at 12/17/2009 3:05 PM...
What are you talking about, there have been countless articles, studies and debate about outsourcing.
You didn't answer my questions. You just assumed that my opposition to the practice had a particular political belief attached to it. It does not.
What about that study that Tambe did but pulled due to the numbers pointing against offshoring? I don't know about the left/right leaning of it, but there were some pro-offshoring folk that were angered by the numbers.
I'll say again, answer (without going into a rant about my supposed political beliefs) the questions. You brought the topic up, I merely provided a rebuttal to your offshoring advocacy.
morganovich said...
as someone who has been a turnaround specialist at small companies - let me assure you - you CAN fire your way to success.
But at some point, you're bound to cut the good with the bad.
I'd also wonder if you've used selective enforcement of policy to get rid of people that had some sort of legal protection on them (e.g. age, race, union activity). There's nothing like finding some sort of obscure violation to get rid of any legal trouble.
I believe there's a more accurate term for your kind, "practitioner of dirty pool".
shall we also ban the auto plants in south carolina because they take jobs from michigan because workers there will work for lower wages?
No, but you can certainly take away any advantage the South has. But then it'd make the folks in Asia, Europe and Latin America nervous. But it would put a fitting end to the "The South shall rise again" idea.
You just assumed that my opposition to the practice had a particular political belief attached to it.
Hey, if it walks like a duck ...
I merely provided a rebuttal to your offshoring advocacy.
I don't advocate "offshoring", I advocate freedom. Freedom to invest and do business where you chose. It's important to remember that every American that works for a foreign firm, and there are millions, is the beneficiary of outsourcing. Your assumption that outsourcing is a zero sum game is just wrong.
You argue that outsourcing negatively impacts US workers, resulting in higher unemployment and lower wages. How do you feel about illegal immigration? Doesn't it have essentially the same negative impacts? If so, why is the SEIU accepting illegals as members, supporting open borders and amnesty?
Here's a VIDEO of the VP of SEIU bragging about his union's membership being largely comprised of illegals.
As someone who once worked in the trades, I can tell you that this goes on all the time. Union officials routinely hire illegals, requiring them to kick back part of their pay, while members go without work. Wake up.
seth-
your arguments don't make any sense.
"you're bound to cut the good with the bad"?
what are you talking about? i'm not talking about firing everyone, only those who are not doing their jobs well. oracle fires the bottom 10% of their sales force every year. as a result, their sales force is fiercely motivated and very, very productive. in enterprise software sales it's a great place to be from. if you can make it there, everyone wants you.
if a company in restructuring has a weak head of sales, you replace him with someone who's strong. this benefits the whole rest of the company. it's positive sum.
"dirty pool"? what on earth are you talking about? if you think that making companies work and grow again after they have been run into the ground is dirty pool, then i have some serious questions about both your business sense and your economic philosophy.
i'm thrilled that you once watched the movie "wall st" and are still worked up with populist fervor over it, but you obviously have no idea what i used to do. we built companies, created jobs and created wealth. if that means a few lazy/incompetent folks have to go find new jobs, so be it. that's a competitive market for you.
do you find the concept of perform or lose your job so outrageous?
"No, but you can certainly take away any advantage the South has. But then it'd make the folks in Asia, Europe and Latin America nervous. But it would put a fitting end to the "The South shall rise again" idea."
this doesn't even make sense. i have no idea what you are proposing. why would we want to "take away any advantage the south has"? you seem to be arguing that we should hurt them to benefit michigan.
are you saying we should stop non union southern workers from accepting lower wages and less gold plated benefits packages so that michigan stays competitive? are you talking about banning right to work states? can you really think hamstringing an industry like that and preventing it from adapting is doing workers a long term favor? all such a plan would do is protect a chosen few jobs for a while while slowly driving the companies out of business.
Well as usual the Keynesian TARDs at the Economic Policy Institute get it wrong again: 'Here is THE WAL-MART EFFECT/It's Chinese Imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U.S. Jobs.'...
Apparently the shoppers freely making choices to first shop at Walmart and second to knowningly buy Chinese made goods are the reasons Walmart carries what they carry and this has the EPI grasping for a clue...
do you find the concept of perform or lose your job so outrageous?
No.
What I do find outrageous is the use of selective enforcement of policy to terminate without regards to performance(where a legal maneuvering gets around an illegal reason). That is "dirty pool".
No, I didn't watch Wall Street. Reality is much stranger than what Mr. Moore does to it.
How do you feel about illegal immigration? Doesn't it have essentially the same negative impacts?
When I see something in that regard, I say something, even if I get chastised for it. It would be inconsistent to allow illegals in and then talk about abuses related to outsourcing/offshoring.
I see it as the predecessor to the modern uses of the H1-b program. While illegal, it is used by those whom ally themselves with either major party.
I see your SEIU, and raise you one Katrina(where the illegals were bussed in) and all the illegals you can find in a "destination state" called Ohio.
I do not consider it xenophobic to ask individuals in professions known for illegal immigrants about their citizenship status. I have no trouble proving mine legitimately; the problem is with the illegals and their handlers.
With this said:
Yes, I consider illegal immigration and offshoring to have very similar impacts towards US citizens.
I don't advocate "offshoring", I advocate freedom. Freedom to invest and do business where you choose. It's important to remember that every American that works for a foreign firm, and there are millions, is the beneficiary of outsourcing. Your assumption that outsourcing is a zero sum game is just wrong.
The problem happens when your decisions are revealed in a dishonest way. See Hyatt for a domestic example of this happening. See the unwillingness to talk about outsourcing/offshoring unless it is about an unstoppable action.
As for your continued attempt to pin things on one side of a political spectrum, explain Carly Fiorina with regards to her position on offshoring. That is, her being of the right, yet a devout supporter to offshoring.
On offshoring and freedom:
You advocate offshoring as a part of what you call freedom. Do you also support the (inseparable) deception in outsourcing with the same side of your mouth?
On the benefits:
As for any benefits, not everyone has the luxury of being able to wait out 50 years when it actually starts bringing visible, beneficial, honest returns towards the US and *all* its citizens.
Apparently the shoppers freely making choices to first shop at Walmart and second to knowningly buy Chinese made goods are the reasons Walmart carries what they carry and this has the EPI grasping for a clue...
I'd not use knowingly, since that might imply them actually knowing the entire process of why and how those products are (shoddily) made.
A more accurate word in this case would be "unwittingly".
"I'd not use knowingly, since that might imply them actually knowing the entire process of why and how those products are (shoddily) made"...
Wrong again sethstorm, adults have to take responsibility for their actions, all their actions...
The whole smoot-hawley tarrif act causing the great depression has already been proved fantasy. Try again morganovich. BTW, the Merchantalistic stratagies used by China and the emerging economies of the world seem to be working quiet well for them. Because we listen to idiots like you, our economy flounders as other countries rip us off right and left. Also quit putting words in my mouth. I said nothing about (assumed Toyota) plants outside of Detroit. Would I would like to see is the remove of the Tariff Japan has on U.S. auto imports. What was the ceiling again? 5000 Cars? If that is your version of free trade, it is doomed to fail.
Anonymous, I live about 20 miles from Detroit. And no, I'm not a leftie. I'm just someone with the ability to reason. You take two headlines and bother to not dig any deeper. The issues are much more complex than that. Unions are an issue, who claimed I wasn't against those? But the outsourcing of the economy that has destroyed Detroit hasn't helped either. But don't worry, that same outsourcing will one day catch up with your job.
Ahh, a Dartmouth business study, the same group of elites that are rapidly taking the nation from a Super Power to a second rate bannana republic, I'll put them on the top of the list of credible sources as opposed to my own eyes and ears as I watch the millions of jobs get sucked out over seas.
School vouchers, great idea, not opposed to them. It would be nice if our citizens had jobs when they finished their education though. Isn't the unemployment rate for college grads like 50% right now?
morganovich, winter is indeed coming, but on your bankrupt ideals that say we can hap hazzardly compete with countries who routinely steal our technology, don't pay any copyright royalties, have slave labor conditions, etc... Looking at trade through the single lense of economic efficiency is reducing humanity to ants. That modus will not last.
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