[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Byron100', '
')The mentality that some folks have today in regards to "globalism" and "free trade" is just beyond me, it really is...

[lawnchair]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', '
')David Ricardo came up with the idea of 'comparative advantage'. Each nation peruses the activities it finds most productive and they trade those goods with each other. i.e. Americans should make Boeings and sell them and use the money to buy t-shirts. Trade barriers inhibit this and create situations where uneconomic activities are pursued as a group has the political clout to block more competitive trade.

[jdmartin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'I') like your post. The answer of course is to not have "free trade" with countries with vastly dissimilar standards of living, unless we accept the fact of living a much reduced standard of living in the US - and I don't just mean less flat screen tvs, I mean polluted water, eliminate worker protections, etc.

[jasonraymondson]

Let’s make this simple.

What is really wrong with closing ourselves off to all but Canada and maybe a few other strategic partners (read people not interested in our destruction)? We would still get half of the oil we need.

End all of the wars and bring troops back home. Cut the troop strength to 1/2 or less.. All we will need is defense of our borders. Employ troops to run the border and shoot anyone trying to cross with bullets or rock salt.

Send the 50,000,000 illegal’s in this country back to Mexico or shoot them.

If everything is made here and everything is consumed here what is the problem? Companies will still make money, sure, maybe they won't make hundreds of trillions, but neither will anyone else.

We can provide all of the food we need for our citizens. Our problem is that we ship 60 - 80% of our food elsewhere.

Eliminate the stock market.

Get rid of programs like welfare, if people can't take care of themselves .... they die. Survival of the fittest. We insure the dominate people survive to procreate.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lawnchair', 'H')e's got a fair bit of savings. They could sell the house for quite a bit.

[lawnchair]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lawnchair', 'H')e's got a fair bit of savings. They could sell the house for quite a bit.

[oiless]

"Canada to raise minimum wage to $10.25"
Where is this information from? Minimum wage is a provincial jurisdiction, not federal.
For instance in BC, where I am, employers are required to pay at least $6.00/hr during the first 300 hrs of an employee's employment, and $8.00/hr after 300 hrs. That is unlikely to be increasing any time soon.
$8.00 an hour would be difficult for anyone not living at home to get by on, so for the most part I believe more has been payed, because jobs have been plentiful and if employers wanted to keep decent employees they had to pay more. That will be changing I'm afraid.

To put $8.00 an hour Canadian in perspective, I make 3.5 times that, and I am not well off, not scraping by by any means, but not rolling in cash either. A lot of stuff costs more here than in, say, the US.

Another way low payed employees get screwed is through cost of living increases. The company I work for gives annual increases based on the official inflation figures. So maybe 2%-3% most years. My wages get progressively greater than the lowest paid employees. They get paid proportionally less than I do every year. They get further and further behind every year.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', '(')...)
It is controversial but I reckon the best way out of this catastrophe is for international minimum wages in certain key industries such as car manufacturing, hard rock mining, metal smelting and so on. This will be deeply unpopular with low cost markets as it will undermine there competitiveness and they will not want too loose the jobs, but I think they jobs lost can be replaced with service sector and manufacturing demand of the workers who remain but with good incomes. The jobs will also flow back west as the western high technology high wage factories become more competitive.

(...)

[Blacksmith]

Minimum Wage in Canada
Updated: 02/01/09

Province Minimum Wage
Alberta $8.40
BC $8.00
Manitoba $8.50
New Brunswick $7.75
Newfoundland $8.50
NWT $8.25
Nova Scotia $8.10
Nunavut $10.00
Ontario $8.75
PEI $8.00
Quebec $8.50
Saskatchewan $8.60
Yukon $8.58

[Fiddlerdave]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', ' ')Snip....
2. What happens if Wal*Mart shelves empty out and there is nothing to replace them because Americans can't afford to buy the consumer products that they themselves would produce?

There are lots of products we simply cannot produce in the United States at prices that would allow American consumers to afford them. Posters have already commented that cheap tshirts put American workers out of a job because they can't compete with 50 cent/hour workers.

OK, so what would the tshirt cost with American labor? Would anyone be able to afford them? And if so, could they buy as many?

How many Americans would simply be cut out of the tshirt market rather than pay $30 for a "Made In America" tag.

You can't just turn back the clock.

[lawnchair]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fiddlerdave', '
')When you see how many crates of tomatoes a picker picks in an hour, you can get an idea of just how little labor costs, but the wealthy do not get so by sharing any possible pennies they could otherwise keep.