A German company, Nordex, is expanding—in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The company plans to hire up to 700 Americans at above-average wages. I haven’t heard any conservatives denounce the action of Nordex. Yet, when a US company builds a plant in Germany and hires German workers, some conservatives go ballistic and call on the US government to “do something” to keep jobs in the US—and I don’t mean just “do something” like cut taxes and regulations that hamper American businesses—while they denounce foreign direct investment, outsourcing, and even imports.
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/14416/conservative-hypocrisy-on-nordex/
Conservative Hypocrisy on Nordex
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Uh, you might want to check your premise. I believe it is the anti-free trade liberal democrats that are full throated in their renunciation of what you are talking about. Or do you just have some reflexive need to denigrate a minority within the conservative movement?
“call on the US government to “do something” to keep jobs in the US”
This sounds like a direct quote out of Barbara Boxer’s mouth in one of the debates. This gives an indication of how far to the left Barack Obama and his cronies are – they make Barbara Boxer look like a Conservative!
I have to agree with the above two posters; there are very very few conservatives who have anything to say about outsourcing or in-sourcing. A few RINOs (Republicans In Name Only, liberal republicans in congress) may go ballistic, but then again, calling them conservatives is calling us Keynesians.
This hits the nail on the head with what’s wrong with “little ‘c’ conservatives.” (or RINO’s as Jordan calls them).
When my colleagues would sometimes enter the USA on business, usually for a complex series of organizational meetings, technical discussions, product planning, etc. they told me they would be asked by the border penguins what they would be doing in the country. Apparently if they said they were doing “engineering” or “programming” or something like that then they would be barred from the country, apparently for “taking jobs from Amurricans”. So they simply told them, “We’re coming to the USA for training,” and they were allowed to pass with a knowing smirk that said, “Of course you need to be trained in American know-how, you ignorant foreigner, just step right up and let us show you how it’s done.”
That’s probably what the protectionist America-first fools would conclude about Nordex opening a plant in the USA – “Of course they have to come to America if they actually want to get something built right.”
To my critics–I am not denying that liberals may also say these things, but go back and read some of the early issues of The American Conservative and you will see what I mean about some conservatives, and it is not just a minority.
Laurence:
The general consensus is that free trade is a good thing. Most Austrians believe that Ricardo’s Laws of Absolute and Comparative Advantage are sound economic principles. However,i don’t think we should treat this as a mantra -free trade good, protectionism bad.
Consider what has happened in the US. After WWII the US enjoyed an absolute advantage on most of our manufacturing and agriculture. Ricardo’s laws would dictate that we concentrate on what we do best and use free trade (i.e. outsource) the rest. However, over time,increases in taxation, labor laws, trade unionism, and government regulation have expanded to such an extent that when these costs are factored in, we no longer have an absolute advantage in many things we used to have. In fact, many of the jobs and the know how have been outsourced. ( I noticed an article yesterday announcing that China now has a supercomputer that is 50% faster than the fastest US computer.) So, if some “Conservative” or “Tea Bagger” says that the US is crazy continuing along this path, I think they may have a valid point.
The trend we have at the moment is to shrink the manufacturing base and move the people who were working in the manufacturing jobs into unproductive government jobs including unemployment – unemployment these days is just a federal government job that pays minimum wage. Unemployment is a virtual Keynesian hole in the ground. We may as well just assume that half the unemployed, sat on their asses, are digging a hole and the other half are filling it in and this is providing a great economic stimulus – Nancy Pelosi actually said that paying unemployment benefits was one of the best ways to stimulate the economy.
We end up printing fiat money to buy the end goods from China at a lower price than if we had produced them ourselves. I think it is great that I can buy a 50 inch plasma TV for $1000. But I don’t see how this can go on indefinitely. What is going to happen when the China realizes that our fiat money is worthless?
So I still think you are giving Conservatives and Tea Baggers a bum rap.
I have to side with Laurence on this one. Lots of conservatives are “America first” types. Everything from cars, to beer are inexplicably better if they are “uh-merry-kan.” I think it’s overflowing patriotism. You know “support our troops, support our business.” While I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone say the govt. should be involved I’m sure the peer pressure is there.
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