It seems that we are talking about autarky, rather than isolationism in the historic sense.
That $20 DVD player you and a bunch of other people were going to buy on Saturday suddenly costs $1200 because it’s made in the USA with union labor. So DVDs revert to being rich mens’ playthings. But there are only so many rich men, who got rich before all this happened. Are they going to pay enough, and often, to support this industry’s existence and profitability?
By what means did you determine that manufacturing DVD players in the US with union labor would results in a %6000 increase?
The same math that makes a 600% increase = 6000%? 
Just want to be clear here…are you contending that moving all those industries back to the US wouldn’t result in increased price and decreased availability? Or are you saying something else?
-XT
That would be my lack of typing and reading skills:smack: The computation was within the scope of my otherwise limited math skills.
By what means did you determine that manufacturing DVD players in the US with union labor would results in a %600 increase?
Yes, we are. Too bad we’re not trying to pay bills in Bangladesh, or commute to work on foot.
I actually suffer the ills of first world success myself. In a third world country I would have died at birth, or from one of my many asthma attacks, like perhaps I should have been allowed to.
Instead I live on to require expensive medical care for the rest of my life. Because I can only stand to work about 40-50 hours a week at around ten dollars an hour, I can pay the bills-but only just.
What I see is a time when we had a large manufacturing sector, high import duties, high taxes on the far upper reaches of society-and a booming economy, a growing middle class, and an expansion of economic opportunities.
That was my mother’s and father’s generation. I can expect to never own a home, never have economic security, not reproduce or adopt because I don’t have the money or time, and die working, IF I’M LUCKY ENOUGH TO NOT BECOME DISABLED. If I get disabled we’re talking a nice luxurious cardboard box, all my stuff in a stolen shopping cart, and broiled pigeon for dinner.
No happiness. No security. No permanence. No safety. Work, work, work, until I die.
I worked 51 hours this week and my heater hose blew out on the way home last night, on my 15-year old car I can’t jolly well afford to replace. I got to limp it home by accelerating like a maniac then cutting it off before it redlined and then coasting, for about 15 miles, on the freeway, because tows cost 90$
AND HERE YOU ARE TELLING ME HOW WELL OFF I AM.
I dive dumpsters for clothing. I try to repair my own car-not too well-because I can’t afford to pay someone else to do it. I try to grow some of my own food-and am hampered by time. My spouse and I live in my mom’s old mobile home that she’s decent enough to let us live in rent-free. And we feel guilty about it.
So, Dr. Love, you want to tell me how more of the same free trade that has been flushing my generation down the toilet is going to make my life all rosy?
:mad::mad::mad:
If you have some other proposal to lift me and people like me out of American-style poverty, instead of telling me how good I actually have it from what is probably a much better perch, why don’t you put your suggestion on the table?
As you can probably tell, it’s been a crappy week in BayouHazard land.
Amended to say: last week. Still worn out from it, though.
I can dig it.
Math note: $20 to $1200 is not a 600% increase. If my math is correct, it’s a 5800% increase.
One proposal I have is that we avoid protectionism, which would be likelier to make you worse off than better off.
You’ve had a shitty week. That sucks, and you quite honestly, with total sincerity, have my sympathy. I know how you feel, because I am celebrating (literally - this very day, September 15) the worst year of my entire life. I’d give you a list of everything that’s gone wrong but, really, I’d rather not and you would rather not hear it.
It doesn’t cause me to believe things that aren’t true, though, like the silly notion that free trade is flushing a generation down the tubes. How does having trade with other nations cause the USA to have a bad health care system, for one? (e.g. the problem you’d have were you disabled)? You can’t even draw a logical argument from one to the other, or ignore the rather glaring fact that nations with just as much free international trade have functioning universal health insurance systems.
Great. Confirming this is beyond my math abilities. Maybe Indistinquishable could offer a picosecond of time to resolve this. How do you arrive at the number?
Wait, using a calculator I now come up with %5900 increase. Or rather $1200 is %6000 of $20. Depending on how you define it.
Oh forget it. DVD players aren’t going to cost $1200 even if we become isolationist.
Good grief…ok, so my own math is completely messed up. Not sure what I was thinking…probably there is some rule that when you are trying to be funny by pointing out a trivial error someone made you HAVE to make an even worse gaff! :smack:
Regardless, I agree…we aren’t going to see such an increase. Not because the labor or material costs might not go that high, but more because the market wouldn’t bear such a cost, so no sane manufacturer is going to bother to manufacture such an item since they won’t sell many (or any).
-XT
Based on the last few posts, I recommend against economic isolationism. We won’t be able to balance the books.:smack:
Exactly. They won’t sell many, so they won’t bother trying. It matters not whether the price in this example is $1200 or $600 or $1500, it’s more than will allow them to make a profit from the number of people who’ve that much disposable income to spend and who will make the choice to spend it on those goods. Some people seem to be fastening onto the union reference. It’s not (even mostly) the unions’ fault, it’s the cost of doing business in America, regulatory, environmental, fiscal, energy, wages. Because we have chosen this lifestyle/standard of living and we are comfortable with it, we will not/cannot depress our living standards to the point where we can make goods, sell them at $20, and make a profit the way they can making them for us in China.
Autarky has never worked in any kind of first-world society. Where it was forced on people by circumstances, like the Confederacy, the economy gradually imploded. Germany tried it in the '30s and managed to keep the balls in the air for a time, but concluded the only way to make it work was going to be to seize other economies, pillage their resources, push their native populations to the other side of the fence and leave them to starve in order to feed Germans.