Is protectionism inevitable?

[Egbert]

This is an illusion. The lower and middle classes of today has appreciably improved their financial status. It's come to the point where even people in immigration detention centres have access to the internet. Improvements in quality of life, access to technology, health and medicine mean that the gap between rich and poor is the gap between owning an 52" flat screen and a 32" flat screen. Even those at the lower end of the income scale have access to the necessities, and most of the luxuries, of everyday life.

Were you at all aware that
There are many people who skip meals because they need to conserve money, sometimes to feed the kids

Do you actually know anyone who lives in Housing Commission accomodation?
Do you actually know anyone who lives in a boarding house?
Do you live in a house with six bathrooms?

[Zevico]

You sound like a bloke who enjoys wages and conditions far better than the wages and conditions of a factory worker.

Who I am doesn't matter, it's the merits of the argument that matters. My point is that if we take a look, for example, at the Qantas dispute, we can see that the union there is fighting to keep the privileged position of pilots. In so doing it's arguing that Qantas doesn't have the right to choose to hire people from overseas for its staff. Doesn't that strike you as a ridiculous, telling someone who to fire or hire? If you were running a business wouldn't you want the right to hire who you wanted, on the terms you wanted, for the best price? I'm not saying the issue is cut and dried. I for my part haven't made up my mind 100% on every aspect of union-employer relations. But it's a fairly easy pattern to follow: company gets union; union wins excessive conditions for its workers; company goes broke or leaves the country. There's a reason jobs go to China. It's not because the Chinese beat their workers or engage in a vast criminal enterprise known as the People's Republic of China--that produces less productivity, not more. It's because their wages are lower than ours, productivity notwithstanding. The reality is that we would have more manufacturing jobs if employee costs were lower. Employee costs and export costs are the major impediments to a manufacturing base in Australia.

[Egbert]

There's a reason jobs go to China. It's because their wages are lower than ours, productivity notwithstanding. The reality is that we would have more manufacturing jobs if employee costs were lower. Employee costs and export costs are the major impediments to a manufacturing base in Australia.

Australian manufacturing workers are not going to quietly submit to a pay cut of 90% or thereabouts. They would be rather more likely to listen to a Marine le Pen espousing protectionism, I suggest.

[Egbert]

Who I am doesn't matter, it's the merits of the argument that matters.

Allow me to clarify. The remark you are responding to was intended as a polite way of saying you appeared to have no idea what you are talking about.

Your comments on the living standards of the poor sounded like HC giving a lecture on life in the slums. Confident, eloquent, and utterly uninformed.

[Zevico]

[QUOTE=Braindead;6077852]Were you at all aware that
There are many people who skip meals because they need to conserve money, sometimes to feed the kids[quote]

I'm not against Australians getting higher wages but it's the market that utlimately has to determine their wages. Otherwise there won't be an Australian market for those goods or services at all. That's why the manufacturing sector is dying in this country.

Of course there are people who still struggle but far less than there were before, and we owe that to the free market system that allowed for more and more people to innovate, create better products at lower prices, and discover new technologies and medicines.

Whether I know people who are in a worse or better position than I am financially is irrelevant to the subject. My point is that generally speaking the lives of the vast majority of people in our society have improved over the past few decades. Who I know and who you know doesn't establish what we should do, it just means that maybe we feel sorry for or envious of the people we know. But that's not a guide to making public policy, it's just emotions. Public policies have to be made according to the best information and in light of past experience about the success of those policies. We can feel really good about doing something and completely stuff it up as we do it. Equally we can feel really bad about a policy but make a success of that policy. My point is that we make policy based on its success not based on who we know.

[Zevico]

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[Zevico]

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[Zevico]

Your comments on the living standards of the poor sounded like HC giving a lecture on life in the slums. Confident, eloquent, and utterly uninformed.

My comment is simply that the living standards of the poor have increased dramatically over the last few decades. And that's obvious. No, not every poor person owns a flatscreen TV. I acknowledge that to say as much was silly. It was not my intention to trivialise the suffering of those who struggle by pointing out that a lot fewer people do--even in the Commission flats.

Also, try to be polite. It goes a long way. I don't mean anything I write here as a personal attack on you. And my private life and who I know or don't doesn't have anything to do with that discussion.

My point hinges on perceptions. If people feel insecure, or worse off, then rational economic arguments may fail and be replaced, perhaps by some sort of "populist politics".

It's possible in any society, but then again anything is possible. Is it likely? I don't think it's any more likely than it was two decades ago during the 'recession we had to have,' which followed on from the liberalisation of trade policies and tariffs. After all people don't usually make decisions based simply on perception or instinct if they have better information available to them to make a rational decision.

Australian manufacturing workers are not going to quietly submit to a pay cut of 90% or thereabouts. They would be rather more likely to listen to a Marine le Pen espousing protectionism, I suggest.

Well as a starting point I'd ask you where you get that figure of 90% from. We don't have to speculate about wages in China--we do have some statistics on it, I'm sure. I'm not saying your figure is wrong but I'd like to the facts before I comment fully on the argument premised on those facts.

And secondly the protectionists of this world lost the argument decades ago and as long as we explain why they lost it and how we'll keep a successful and prosperous system in place, Australians don't have much to worry about.

I guess I could also add that the question is speculative but we can compare past recessions or societal failures and gauge them against our own. Example-World War 1, 2; the Depression. We came through all of those and retain our democracy. I think we can go through a recession or two and retain a free market system if we explain why it's the best one around.

[Aeson]

There's a reason jobs go to China. It's not because the Chinese beat their workers or engage in a vast criminal enterprise known as the People's Republic of China--that produces less productivity, not more. It's because their wages are lower than ours, productivity notwithstanding.

The reason is the workers don't actually have a choice. All this "free market" bull**** ignores the fact that through immigration laws we've effectively built cages around huge swaths of the world population.

We really need to tear down that Statue of Liberty monstrocity. It's only a shining beacon of our hypocrisy and disregard for humanity.

[ricketyclik]

The reason is the workers don't actually have a choice. All this "free market" bull**** ignores the fact that through immigration laws we've effectively built cages around huge swaths of the world population.

We really need to tear down that Statue of Liberty monstrocity. It's only a shining beacon of our hypocrisy and disregard for humanity.

Agree.

[PLATO]

You guys realize that a lot of heavy industry doesn't build here because of the stringent environmental laws, OSHA regs, legal environment, and a host of non-employee related expenses, right?

Not that those are bad things, but from a corporate profit position, they make a huge difference.

[DaShi]

Your comments on the living standards of the poor sounded like HC giving a lecture on life in the slums. Confident, eloquent, and utterly uninformed.

Also, try to be polite. It goes a long way. I don't mean anything I write here as a personal attack on you. And my private life and who I know or don't doesn't have anything to do with that discussion.

He's completely correct, unless you think being compared to HC is an insult in itself.

[Egbert]

[q]
Also, try to be polite. It goes a long way. I don't mean anything I write here as a personal attack on you. And my private life and who I know or don't doesn't have anything to do with that discussion.

My point is that an understanding and awareness of the financial challenges facing low paid workers puts the consequences, to individuals, of macro-economic policies into perspective. Seems hard to get that understanding without directly, and thus vicariously, experiencing the outlook of at least one person who is struggling.

I am also suggesting that the political reactions need to be considered.

I concede that I did advance my point in a way that was impolite. My apologies.

[Thorn]

Starving huh, Should have raped children after moving to greece, then you'd get a pension!

[Sava]

Incidentally, factory closures are attributable to excessive wages and ridiculous workplace conditions. Lower wages--probably still much better in real terms than those in India--would mean a larger manufacturing sector. But the total victory of unionism is itself a self-defeating phenomenon: for its short term self-interest unions advocate high wages for unionised workers and far too stringent conditions (like demanding the right to choose whether a company can outsource its workers or not). Having obtained that result they bewail the fact that these very manufacturers find higher profits overseas. The result is that the union loses members, jobs are lost, and the economy suffers.

While this is an excellent talking point, it's wrong. Completely false.

If Ipads were made in the US and workers got $30+ dollars an hour instead of less than a dollar an hour, labor costs would only rise $100 for Apple. If sold at current prices, their profit margin would shrink from 54% to 39%.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/18/if-apple-onshored-ipad-production-it-would-create-67000-american-manufacturing-jobs/

So yeah... you are wrong... wrong wrong wrong
wrongity wrong wrong... Wrongy McWrongers