Malibu2 said:

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You didn't address any part of my argument. You just repeated your same argument from last time with new numbers you pulled out of Narnia. We get it, you think if no government regs existed we'd have all the factories filled with all the workers and people here would thrive on $1/hour. It ignores comparative advantage, nor considers that an industrialized modernized economy should have better baseline alternatives for unskilled labor than subsistence farming like our Asian competitors.

---

I addressed every sentence of your post with a 2-3 sentence response. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Name one thing, other then fewer stupid government economic policies, that gives China a comparative advantage. We have more land (which is ridiculously fertile) and have an advantage on natural resources. We have over 10 times longer coastline.

You may claim that they have an advantage on population, but that mathematically cancels out. Every person that can produce stuff is another person to feed, house, and clothe. Look how dirt poor India for the only example you need.

The other advantage you seem to think exists is the, "they are more willing to live for peanuts" angle. That is wrong. We demand high ass salaries due to our stupid economic policies that make our expenses ridiculously high. The "peanuts" that Chinese get is enough that they can have a 50% savings rate. I've spent 3 paragraphs discussing this already (which you conveniently ignored).

So the only real advantage they have is fewer stupid government policies. Which is what I'm arguing that we change on our side. If only more voters understood economics.

aTmAg said:

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Malibu2 said:

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You didn't address any part of my argument. You just repeated your same argument from last time with new numbers you pulled out of Narnia. We get it, you think if no government regs existed we'd have all the factories filled with all the workers and people here would thrive on $1/hour. It ignores comparative advantage, nor considers that an industrialized modernized economy should have better baseline alternatives for unskilled labor than subsistence farming like our Asian competitors.

---

I addressed every sentence of your post with a 2-3 sentence response. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Name one thing, other then fewer stupid government economic policies, that gives China a comparative advantage. We have more land (which is ridiculously fertile) and have an advantage on natural resources. We have over 10 times longer coastline.

You may claim that they have an advantage on population, but that mathematically cancels out. Every person that can produce stuff is another person to feed, house, and clothe. Look how dirt poor India for the only example you need.

The other advantage you seem to think exists is the, "they are more willing to live for peanuts" angle. That is wrong. We demand high ass salaries due to our stupid economic policies that make our expenses ridiculously high. The "peanuts" that Chinese get is enough that they can have a 50% savings rate. I've spent 3 paragraphs discussing this already (which you conveniently ignored).

So the only real advantage they have is fewer stupid government policies. Which is what I'm arguing that we change on our side. If only more voters understood economics.

---

Have you been to China? You act like they are better off than we are.

China has $12.900 per capita
The United States has $54,800 per capita

That's a pretty substantial difference. Their expenses are not $41,900 less than ours. Their standard of living is.

They are willing to work for peanuts because they have to.
They currently have no other option. Our labor force consists of more white collar workers, which is good, not bad.

You are also completely ignoring the fact that many of these manufacturing jobs, have been, or will be replaced in the next several years by advancing robotics and computer systems.

If we were living in the 1820s, I'd fully agree. However, times have changed. It's time to adapt and move forward, not stagnate and fall behind.

It's now occurring to me that you don't know the econ 101 definition of comparative advantage. From Wikipedia:

In an economic model, agents have a comparative advantage over others in producing a particular good if they can produce that good at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade.

Their workers make garments and iPhones, we make apps, services, knowledge work that increases the relative prosperity and economic output of both countries. In aggregate it is mutually beneficial for manufacturing to occur in Asia and services to occur here.

I really see no point in arguing whether or not a subsistence farmer will compete at a lower labor cost than a high school dropout here, with or without entitlements as it's an obvious point. You can continue to argue otherwise and the rest of us will roll our eyes and shake our heads.

I don't think we are going to see apocalyptic levels of inflation, and probably not anything near 70's inflation, but it's still very worrying.

At least the Norwegians don't have their collective heads up their asses and are going to start raising their interest rates slowly.

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/breaking-ranks-norway-signals-4-rate-hikes-by-mid-2022-2021-06-17/

aTmAg said:

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Malibu2 said:

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You didn't address any part of my argument. You just repeated your same argument from last time with new numbers you pulled out of Narnia. We get it, you think if no government regs existed we'd have all the factories filled with all the workers and people here would thrive on $1/hour. It ignores comparative advantage, nor considers that an industrialized modernized economy should have better baseline alternatives for unskilled labor than subsistence farming like our Asian competitors.

---

I addressed every sentence of your post with a 2-3 sentence response. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Name one thing, other then fewer stupid government economic policies, that gives China a comparative advantage. We have more land (which is ridiculously fertile) and have an advantage on natural resources. We have over 10 times longer coastline.

You may claim that they have an advantage on population, but that mathematically cancels out. Every person that can produce stuff is another person to feed, house, and clothe. Look how dirt poor India for the only example you need.

The other advantage you seem to think exists is the, "they are more willing to live for peanuts" angle. That is wrong. We demand high ass salaries due to our stupid economic policies that make our expenses ridiculously high. The "peanuts" that Chinese get is enough that they can have a 50% savings rate. I've spent 3 paragraphs discussing this already (which you conveniently ignored).

So the only real advantage they have is fewer stupid government policies. Which is what I'm arguing that we change on our side. If only more voters understood economics.

---

The disregard for human life and complete lack of Christian morals in throwing bodies into the machine comes to mind.

Doesn't matter how 'smart' the AI is or how fast the CPU's are.

Garbage in: Garbage out.

They're loading garbage in and the result is: garbage analysis. They've already defined the results and are rigging the system to achieve the desired output. Which is 100% politically driven.

Oldag2020 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Malibu2 said:

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You didn't address any part of my argument. You just repeated your same argument from last time with new numbers you pulled out of Narnia. We get it, you think if no government regs existed we'd have all the factories filled with all the workers and people here would thrive on $1/hour. It ignores comparative advantage, nor considers that an industrialized modernized economy should have better baseline alternatives for unskilled labor than subsistence farming like our Asian competitors.

---

I addressed every sentence of your post with a 2-3 sentence response. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Name one thing, other then fewer stupid government economic policies, that gives China a comparative advantage. We have more land (which is ridiculously fertile) and have an advantage on natural resources. We have over 10 times longer coastline.

You may claim that they have an advantage on population, but that mathematically cancels out. Every person that can produce stuff is another person to feed, house, and clothe. Look how dirt poor India for the only example you need.

The other advantage you seem to think exists is the, "they are more willing to live for peanuts" angle. That is wrong. We demand high ass salaries due to our stupid economic policies that make our expenses ridiculously high. The "peanuts" that Chinese get is enough that they can have a 50% savings rate. I've spent 3 paragraphs discussing this already (which you conveniently ignored).

So the only real advantage they have is fewer stupid government policies. Which is what I'm arguing that we change on our side. If only more voters understood economics.

---

Have you been to China? You act like they are better off than we are.

China has $12.900 per capita
The United States has $54,800 per capita

That's a pretty substantial difference. Their expenses are not $41,900 less than ours. Their standard of living is.

---

We've been living beyond our means as evident by our record debt. China has been living below their means as evident by their 50% savings rate. When our chickens come home to roost, our standards of living will plummet. It's like somebody who rings up credit cards to buy fur coats, Ferrari's, jewelry, etc. Then they lose their credit and never to sell their stuff in order to eat. That is coming our way.

Ironically, if we had been a real free market this whole time, our standard of living would be well beyond what it is now. And it wouldn't be paper worth only. We'd be producing all the crap we needed for ourselves.

Quote:

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They are willing to work for peanuts because they have to.
They currently have no another option. Our labor force consists of more white collar workers, which is good, not bad.

---

They got plenty of white collar labor in China. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous. And the reason we don't "have to" is because we pay people to not work. As I've already spent several posts describing why that does more damaged than good.

Quote:

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You are also completely ignoring the fact that many of these manufacturing jobs, have been, or will be replaced in the next several years by advancing robotics and computer systems.

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There is good automation, and there is bad automation. When the cost of automation is reduced below the level of labor, then that is good. That means it is a labor multiplier and makes people more efficient. This is like replacing shovels with backhoes. Workers become backhoe operators and do 10 times the work of one man and get paid a lot more than prior. Bad automation is what we are experiencing in the US. That is where the government pushes the cost of labor above the high cost of automation. Then machines are installed, not to make people more productive, but to replace them altogether. That's when workers get kicked to the curb without any job skills. So if the Chinese government doesn't make the same stupid mistakes we did, their automation would be the good kind, not the bad kind. So theirs would be labor multipliers rather than replacers.

Quote:

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If we were living in the 1820s, I'd fully agree. However, times have changed. It's time to adapt and move forward, not stagnate and fall behind.

---

Laughable comment. Your ideology is what has caused our economy to stagnated. It's the reason our production moved overseas, why we are up to our eyeballs in debt, and why more and more Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. We've tried your way for 100 years. It sucks. We need to abandon this ignorance and go back you what has proven to work.

Malibu2 said:

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It's now occurring to me that you don't know the econ 101 definition of comparative advantage. From Wikipedia:

In an economic model, agents have a comparative advantage over others in producing a particular good if they can produce that good at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade.

Their workers make garments and iPhones, we make apps, services, knowledge work that increases the relative prosperity and economic output of both countries. In aggregate it is mutually beneficial for manufacturing to occur in Asia and services to occur here.

I really see no point in arguing whether or not a subsistence farmer will compete at a lower labor cost than a high school dropout here, with or without entitlements as it's an obvious point. You can continue to argue otherwise and the rest of us will roll our eyes and shake our heads.

---

The economic ignorance is all yours. There is nothing fundamentally different about Chinese workers that give them a comparative advantage in making garments and iPhones better than us. The ONLY reason they do and we don't is because our government has made it far too expensive to hire employees here.

If you disagree, then name it. What makes them more better at making phones OTHER than the salary (that is not pushed up by government)? I'll wait.

Fitch said:

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aTmAg said:

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Malibu2 said:

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You didn't address any part of my argument. You just repeated your same argument from last time with new numbers you pulled out of Narnia. We get it, you think if no government regs existed we'd have all the factories filled with all the workers and people here would thrive on $1/hour. It ignores comparative advantage, nor considers that an industrialized modernized economy should have better baseline alternatives for unskilled labor than subsistence farming like our Asian competitors.

---

I addressed every sentence of your post with a 2-3 sentence response. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Name one thing, other then fewer stupid government economic policies, that gives China a comparative advantage. We have more land (which is ridiculously fertile) and have an advantage on natural resources. We have over 10 times longer coastline.

You may claim that they have an advantage on population, but that mathematically cancels out. Every person that can produce stuff is another person to feed, house, and clothe. Look how dirt poor India for the only example you need.

The other advantage you seem to think exists is the, "they are more willing to live for peanuts" angle. That is wrong. We demand high ass salaries due to our stupid economic policies that make our expenses ridiculously high. The "peanuts" that Chinese get is enough that they can have a 50% savings rate. I've spent 3 paragraphs discussing this already (which you conveniently ignored).

So the only real advantage they have is fewer stupid government policies. Which is what I'm arguing that we change on our side. If only more voters understood economics.

---

The disregard for human life and complete lack of Christian morals in throwing bodies into the machine comes to mind.

---

That's not an advantage. They kick our ass despite these things, not because of them. It goes to show how stupid our government policies are. We can't even compete with THAT.

Your last 3 responses did nothing but discredit everything you have said in these threads. You are an American doomsayer. That is all.

It's sad that you'll likely spend the rest of your life in fear of what will never come. Many people, you included, are trapped by fear of success, fear of progress, and fear of change. It's a natural, yet very bad disposition.

I already have. Our lowest skilled workers can deliver food or work in a warehouse as an opportunity cost. Their workers opportunity cost is subsistence farming. It's why we specialize in services and they sew on zippers. That's comparative advantage, as a result there are more aggregate services and widgets than us trying to do it all.

And anyways, like I said, I'm just not going to argue with whether or not it's true someone living hand to mouth working in the sun all day to eat will work for less money than an American high school drip out.

Oldag2020 said:

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Your last 3 responses did nothing but discredit everything you have said in these threads. You are an American doomsayer. That is all.

---

You are a delusional facts and logic denier. There is nothing good about 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Nor each taxpayer being over $225K in debt on behalf to the US government.

Quote:

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It's sad that you'll likely spend the rest of your life in fear of what will never come. Many people, you included, are trapped by fear of success, fear of progress, and fear of change. It's a natural, yet very bad disposition.

---

This is laughable. We have been doing it your way for 100 years. YOU are the one afraid of change. Not me.

And fear of success? Who are you kidding? You'd rather cling to the stagnation we'd experience over decades. Our economic foundation has never been worse. Not even during the Great Depression. My system has proven to succeed like no other. That makes you the one afraid of progress and success.

Malibu2 said:

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I already have. Our lowest skilled workers can deliver food or work in a warehouse as an opportunity cost. Their workers opportunity cost is subsistence farming. It's why we specialize in services and they sew on zippers. That's comparative advantage, as a result there are more aggregate services and widgets than us trying to do it all.

---

Are you kidding? Food delivery is huge in China. Before covid, food delivery apps had 419 million customers in China (way more than our entire population). Who knows how huge that number is now. And they've got more warehouses than we do by far. This point is laughable. I can't believe you tried it.

And besides, all your examples of Chinese "comparative advantage" is actually disadvantage self imposed by our government. That is my entire point. It's not like Saudi Arabia having a comparative advantage over Japan on petroleum products. Or Switzerland having a comparative advantage over Mexico on ski equipment. It's like South Korea having a "comparative advantage" over North Korea. Or West Germany having a "comparative advantage" over East Germany. If North Korea and East Germany didn't have crappy governments, there would be no advantage at all. Likewise, if we didn't have a huge government that pays people to not work, didn't regulate the crap out of our industries, and didn't tax the crap out of everybody, then we would have comparative advantage in every aspect over places like China. China is a basketcase. There is no reason in the world for them to be better at us at anything. That goes to show how much our government is holding us back.

We are screwing ourselves. Yet you want more of that. Quite sad.

Ok, let's Econ 101 this since you're completely lost about the operational definition of comparative advantage.

https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadvantage.html

Quote:

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Amazingly, everyone always has a comparative advantage at something. Let's look at another example. Suppose you and your roommate want to clean the house and cook a magnificent Chicken Kiev dinner for your friends one night. The easy case is when you are each better at one activity. If you are an accomplished chef, while your roommate doesn't know the range from the oven; and if after you vacuum the carpet the dust bunnies have shifted from under the sofa to under the coffee table, while your roommate can vacuum, dust, and polish the silverware faster than you can unwrap the vacuum-cleaner cord, then you and your roommate will each be better off if you cook and your roommate cleans. It's easy to see that you each have a comparative advantage in one activity because you each have an absolute advantage in one activity.

But what if your roommate is a veritable Martha Stewart, able to cook and clean faster and better than you? How can you earn your keep toward this joint dinner? The answer is to look not at her absolute advantage, but at your opportunity costs. If her ability to cook is much greater than yours but her ability to clean is only a little better than yours, then you will both be better off if she cooks while you clean. That is, if you are the less expensive cleaner, you should clean. Even though she has an absolute advantage at everything, you still each have different comparative advantages.

The moral is this: To find people's comparative advantages, do not compare their absolute advantages. Compare their opportunity costs.

---

Econ 101 deals in microeconomic basics and generally assumes "all things equal". It also clearly states that one of the main drivers that can make comparable things unequal is government intervention. Yet you continue to fail to grasp ATM's point.

No, I understand his point. He's just wrong. He's confusing absolute advantage with comparative advantage, and still has magical thinking about how cheap an American would be vs. a subsistence farmer if we lived in Randistan.

Malibu2 said:

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No, I understand his point. He's just wrong. He's confusing absolute advantage with comparative advantage, and still has magical thinking about how cheap an American would be vs. a subsistence farmer if we lived in Randistan.

---

His thinking is definitely a fantasy. But that's only because we are 100 years deep in Keynesian economic idiocy and would have to have a hard reset to go back to true, logical, free market principles. We are so far away that we think what we have is good. And what we have is barely holding on despite the stranglehold of economic idiocy that's been shoved down our throats.

With sound economics, we would be leading the world in tech, bio, energy, AND manufacturing the majority of the things we consume while enjoying cheaper prices and greater economic prosperity for all Americans.

Malibu2 said:

---

Ok, let's Econ 101 this since you're completely lost about the operational definition of comparative advantage.

https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/comparativeadvantage.html

Quote:

---

Amazingly, everyone always has a comparative advantage at something. Let's look at another example. Suppose you and your roommate want to clean the house and cook a magnificent Chicken Kiev dinner for your friends one night. The easy case is when you are each better at one activity. If you are an accomplished chef, while your roommate doesn't know the range from the oven; and if after you vacuum the carpet the dust bunnies have shifted from under the sofa to under the coffee table, while your roommate can vacuum, dust, and polish the silverware faster than you can unwrap the vacuum-cleaner cord, then you and your roommate will each be better off if you cook and your roommate cleans. It's easy to see that you each have a comparative advantage in one activity because you each have an absolute advantage in one activity.

But what if your roommate is a veritable Martha Stewart, able to cook and clean faster and better than you? How can you earn your keep toward this joint dinner? The answer is to look not at her absolute advantage, but at your opportunity costs. If her ability to cook is much greater than yours but her ability to clean is only a little better than yours, then you will both be better off if she cooks while you clean. That is, if you are the less expensive cleaner, you should clean. Even though she has an absolute advantage at everything, you still each have different comparative advantages.

The moral is this: To find people's comparative advantages, do not compare their absolute advantages. Compare their opportunity costs.

---

---

It's cute how you pretend to have a clue on economics. Do you have the brain capacity to actually argue my points? Or are you going to continue this hilarious tact of avoiding any real discussion and instead post definitions pretending to understand them better than me?

Malibu2 said:

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No, I understand his point. He's just wrong. He's confusing absolute advantage with comparative advantage, and still has magical thinking about how cheap an American would be vs. a subsistence farmer if we lived in Randistan.

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I'm not confusing anything. You cannot name a single advantage (comparative or otherwise) that the Chinese enjoy that is NOT imposed by government policy. Now you are resorting to the pathetic "you just don't understand comparative advantage" argument over and over (which you know is bogus). You must have nothing else left in your arsenal.

It's all mental masturbation.

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are two of my favorite re-reads (former is better), but to believe that life isn't better off for more people today from when Rockefeller owned Standard Oil is willful self deception.

We are headed where we are today because after 70 years of Pax Americana each generation born after WWII has not known actual strife, want or hunger. We're soft and fat teeted as a result of the American Dream being a fait accompli. Economic drive (or lack of) follows.

And there's your lofty soap box schpeal for today.

You're proving my point. Good night.

mazag08 said:

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Malibu2 said:

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No, I understand his point. He's just wrong. He's confusing absolute advantage with comparative advantage, and still has magical thinking about how cheap an American would be vs. a subsistence farmer if we lived in Randistan.

---

His thinking is definitely a fantasy. But that's only because we are 100 years deep in Keynesian economic idiocy and would have to have a hard reset to go back to true, logical, free market principles. We are so far away that we think what we have is good. And what we have is barely holding on despite the stranglehold of economic idiocy that's been shoved down our throats.

With sound economics, we would be leading the world in tech, bio, energy, AND manufacturing the majority of the things we consume while enjoying cheaper prices and greater economic prosperity for all Americans.

---

I do not pretend to think that we would vote ourselves into industrial revolution policies. But that doesn't change the truth in my arguments.

We will continue down this path until we have an economic collapse. Then I wonder if people like Malibu will be smart enough to realize that they were wrong the entire time, or if they will blindly blame whatever or whoever the Trump of the day may end up being.

Malibu2 said:

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You're proving my point. Good night.

---

Is your point that you cannot think of such an advantage? If so, then your point is absolutely proven. Good job.

Sleep on it.. maybe call your friends and consult your liberal forums. Perhaps you guys can put your heads together and come up with something.

I've seen and participated in enough of aTmAg threads play out to know that any future discussion is fruitless.

Fitch said:

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It's all mental masturbation.

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are two of my favorite re-reads (former is better), but to believe that life isn't better off for more people today from when Rockefeller owned Standard Oil is willful self deception.

---

Thank the lord that Rockefeller's competitors, who could not compete against him in the market, were able to collude and get the government to take him down on their behalf. Eliminating the most cost effective competitor really did America a great service. (that is sarcasm, BTW)

While it is true that we are better off today in absolute terms than we were during Rockefeller's time, that is not because of government intrusive policies. It is despite of them. Millions of people innovating over a century will undoubtedly improve lives. But more people could have provided more innovation if government hadn't impeded them along the way. In short, if we had the same policies over the last 100 years that we have during Rockefeller's time, we would be vastly better off today than we are currently.

Malibu2 said:

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I've seen and participated in enough of aTmAg threads play out to know that any future discussion is fruitless.

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Because you don't have mental capacity, apparently.

Just name one thing that China has a competitive advantage that is not a result of government. What are you scared of?

aTmAg said:

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Fitch said:

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It's all mental masturbation.

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are two of my favorite re-reads (former is better), but to believe that life isn't better off for more people today from when Rockefeller owned Standard Oil is willful self deception.

---

Thank the lord that Rockefeller's competitors, who could not compete against him in the market, were able to collude and get the government to take him down on their behalf. Eliminating the most cost effective competitor really did America a great service. (that is sarcasm, BTW)

While it is true that we are better off today in absolute terms than we were during Rockefeller's time, that is not because of government intrusive policies. It is despite of them. Millions of people innovating over a century will undoubtedly improve lives. But more people could have provided more innovation if government hadn't impeded them along the way. In short, if we had the same policies over the last 100 years that we have during Rockefeller's time, we would be vastly better off today than we are currently.

---

Thanks for letting us know there was sarcasm.

That was sarcasm by the way.

Fitch said:

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aTmAg said:

---

Fitch said:

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It's all mental masturbation.

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are two of my favorite re-reads (former is better), but to believe that life isn't better off for more people today from when Rockefeller owned Standard Oil is willful self deception.

---

Thank the lord that Rockefeller's competitors, who could not compete against him in the market, were able to collude and get the government to take him down on their behalf. Eliminating the most cost effective competitor really did America a great service. (that is sarcasm, BTW)

While it is true that we are better off today in absolute terms than we were during Rockefeller's time, that is not because of government intrusive policies. It is despite of them. Millions of people innovating over a century will undoubtedly improve lives. But more people could have provided more innovation if government hadn't impeded them along the way. In short, if we had the same policies over the last 100 years that we have during Rockefeller's time, we would be vastly better off today than we are currently.

---

Thanks for letting us know there was sarcasm.

That was sarcasm by the way.

---

Some people don't catch on to such things.

I believe his point is the opportunity cost for their laborers is different, which lowers the minimum acceptable wage they'll take versus our folks. I think this would be true even without government distorting policies. The value of unskilled labor is the same (sale price) but the cost of unskilled labor will vary based on the value of the next-worst alternative for the laborer.

True 'nuff.

Zobel said:

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I believe his point is the opportunity cost for their laborers is different, which lowers the minimum acceptable wage they'll take versus our folks. I think this would be true even without government distorting policies. The value of unskilled labor is the same (sale price) but the cost of unskilled labor will vary based on the value of the next-worst alternative for the laborer.

---

And my point is that the reason Americans refuse to accept a low wage is because everything is so damn expensive here. We would starve to death if we suddenly got China wages. Instead, if stuff here cost a tiny fraction of what it does now, then they would.

Who here would honestly refuse a deal to get half their current wage in exchange for 1/3rd of their current expenses?

So, I'm certainly not a Keynesian and I'm equally sympathetic to Friedman and von Mises, but I think you're off the mark in this particular place.

Many people in China are poor in a way that nobody in the US is. If you had a magically and perfectly accurate view of purchasing power parity, the poor in the US would have quite a bit more purchasing power than the poor in China. I think this should be fairly easily agreed upon.

For the comparative advantage thing - wave your magic wand and undo all government labor interference. Ok. Now imagine a product that requires unskilled labor to make. The product has a notional value in the market, the sale price - it also has a fixed raw material price. To maximize profit, the last variable is the labor price. The product requires near-zero skill to assemble, it just takes a body and some work.

Imagine a reverse auction where you will accept the lowest bid to manufacture the item. Do you think you're more likely to find your winning (low) bid in New York City or rural New Mexico? Now in the US or South East Asia?

The problem isn't that we should be able to produce everything. It's that we don't produce virtually anything anymore. We pay our people to not work while paying the Chinese to do the work out entitled non-workers won't do.

A market free from manipulation and government dependence wouldn't bring all of that back to America. But some of it would come back, and we would get back to exporting more than we import and profiting off our own labor again.

I'm with you. I was just trying to clarify that there is room for comparative advantage between different labor pools in a free market.

Also just to be clear we do still make a ton of stuff domestically.

Last thought. You can't be a proponent of Friedman and think trade deficits are unmitigated evil.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/milton-friedman-schools-donald-trump-and-others-who-suffer-from-upside-down-thinking-on-trade-and-protectionism/

First of all.. appreciate the honest debate.

Zobel said:

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So, I'm certainly not a Keynesian and I'm equally sympathetic to Friedman and von Mises, but I think you're off the mark in this particular place.

Many people in China are poor in a way that nobody in the US is. If you had a magically and perfectly accurate view of purchasing power parity, the poor in the US would have quite a bit more purchasing power than the poor in China. I think this should be fairly easily agreed upon.

---

So I'm going to stop you for a moment. This is an unfair comparison. China has a 50% savings rate. The US has been in the single digits. So personal debt it much higher in America. In addition, unfunded and funded government debt is MUCH higher in America, and our largest expenditure are entitlement programs, by far. So our poor are getting a ton of money from the government. (Money that we will have to pay back one way or another). So you are, in effect, comparing one group of people who are quickly going deeper and deeper in debt to fund their lifestyle to another group that is not. That is like saying a family who is ringing up credit cards to buy fur coats, sports cars, and jewelry are better off than the family next door who have a simple car, live in a modest house and are saving their money. Wait until the result of that debt ends, THEN compare. It's misleading to compare the two before the creditors catch on.

Quote:

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For the comparative advantage thing - wave your magic wand and undo all government labor interference. Ok. Now imagine a product that requires unskilled labor to make. The product has a notional value in the market, the sale price - it also has a fixed raw material price. To maximize profit, the last variable is the labor price. The product requires near-zero skill to assemble, it just takes a body and some work.

Imagine a reverse auction where you will accept the lowest bid to manufacture the item. Do you think you're more likely to find your winning (low) bid in New York City or rural New Mexico? Now in the US or South East Asia?

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US in a landslide. Unless you are saying that Americans are naturally lazy, then there is no reason to think that under the exact same economic conditions that Americans wouldn't be able to produce at lower cost given that we have more natural advantages such as landmass, resources, etc. Your mind is biased by our current conditions.