Restricting Trade

[cm husker]

One thing both of the worst candidates among a awful field support is a general restriction on trade, particularly around "outsourcing" and "currency manipulation."

 

It's ironic that Trump and Sanders' populist rhetoric is so similar in effect, if not tone.

 

I've noticed a number of people on the board seem to echo their sentiments. How do you justify those feelings? Are you willing to reconsider them if prevented convincing facts around free trade, even unilateral free trade?

[BigRedBuster]

I have been a proponent of some how/some way not allowing products to the sold in the US that isn't manufactured in facilities that have the same employment and environmental regulations as manufacturers in the US must abide by.

 

I know that is an extremely sticky thing to accomplish. However, companies in the US are struggling in many markets to compete with imported products due to the disparity in regulations. As long as that is happening, Americans will lose investment and jobs.

 

 

 

And....no....I am not a supporter of either Bernie or Trump.

[cm husker]

That sort of policy/restriction would deprive developing nations from going through their own industrial revolutions. Is it better to pull jobs out of developing economies (who are populated by future customers of the world economy) or to let people who are there assume some risk, like our forefathers did, when producing goods and services?

 

Also, a very important point to understand is that workplace safety and environmental protections in the US were improving as quickly or more quickly prior to OSHA, the EPA and other restrictions (that coincidently drive down competition) were put in place by US agencies (who are often heavily influenced, for good and bad reasons, existing industry competitors).

 

 

 

Increased productivity, and its resulting wealth, are easily the best ways to achieve real and sustainable workplace and environmental safety.

[cm husker]

I view workplace safety requirements sort of like national minimum wage; what it really does is restrict movement of work from high cost/high income states (e.g., California and, believe it or not, Michigan) to low cost/low income states like SEC country. These restrictions have exactly the opposite effects that purported progressives hope for, but they can't seem to comprehend that.

[BigRedBuster]

That sort of policy/restriction would deprive developing nations from going through their own industrial revolutions. Is it better to pull jobs out of developing economies (who are populated by future customers of the world economy) or to let people who are there assume some risk, like our forefathers did, when producing goods and services?

 

 

 

 

My biggest and first concern are not if the economies of developing nations are able to employ people for 10 cents per hour in some sweat shop. My first concern are jobs in the US and keeping the standards of living up and improve life here.

 

Now, yes...we are all tied to each other in the world economy. If goods that are consumed here are made here, that helps everyone here.

 

I also am uncomfortable with the fact that so many of our goods are produced in areas where the environment and employees are taken advantage of.

 

 

 

Also, a very important point to understand is that workplace safety and environmental protections in the US were improving as quickly or more quickly prior to OSHA, the EPA and other restrictions (that coincidently drive down competition) were put in place by US agencies (who are often heavily influenced, for good and bad reasons, existing industry competitors).

 

 

 

Increased productivity, and its resulting wealth, are easily the best ways to achieve real and sustainable workplace and environmental safety.

 

Law of diminishing returns. It is not surprising that the biggest gains in work place safety are made when the first actions are taken to improve it. And, I am for some type of oversight to make sure work places are safe.

 

Now, I am NOT a fan of OSHA. It is a disgusting department of our government that I would love to see changed. BUT, that doesn't mean we don't need something like them.

 

What they do is flat out extortion. I've experienced it personally. Here is what they do. Some type of directive comes down that the field inspectors need to bring in money. So....they go out and start inspecting more and more facilities. You could have an extremely safe work place and they will stay there till they find SOMETHING. It could be the absolute littlest thing like an employee leaving an extension cord on the ground where it is against regulations. They then slap a huge fine on it.

Then the negotiations start.

 

I even know of large construction sites where an OSHA inspector is on site every single day. There are things that have to be done that there is absolutely no way to do them without getting fined. OSHA slaps a fine and the company has to pay.

 

It's a horribly corrupt system.

 

I'm all for regulating employee safety. But, this organization is doing it the wrong way.

 

Now, as far as trying to get back on topic.....I don't think we need to reduce regulations in the US to accomplish what I want. We need to somehow force other country to produce up to our standards.

[BigRedBuster]

Here is one area that US citizens are going to have to come to grips with. This will cause a form of inflation. You might not be able to go to Walmart and buy a pair of socks for .75 each. They may cost 1.50 each if they are made in the US or to our standards.

[cm husker]

Here is one area that US citizens are going to have to come to grips with. This will cause a form of inflation. You might not be able to go to Walmart and buy a pair of socks for .75 each. They may cost 1.50 each if they are made in the US or to our standards.

 

You're 100% correct. Restricting trade will raise the cost of living on people, and it's essentially a particularly regressive form of taxation that does nothing more than shift wealth from the middle and lower classes to the owners of companies in the U.S., all while reducing the competition domestic companies face.

 

Let's be clear, though. It's not just socks at Walmart. You could expect your cars and electronics to jump drastically.

 

Commodities would also jump, as we restrict the import of foreign oil, which is often drawn out of the earth in less than safe and environmental conditions compared to US producers.

 

But just using your examples of socks, doubling the cost of goods we buy would be crippling to individual consumers and ultimately the economy.

[cm husker]

 

That sort of policy/restriction would deprive developing nations from going through their own industrial revolutions. Is it better to pull jobs out of developing economies (who are populated by future customers of the world economy) or to let people who are there assume some risk, like our forefathers did, when producing goods and services?

 

 

 

My biggest and first concern are not if the economies of developing nations are able to employ people for 10 cents per hour in some sweat shop. My first concern are jobs in the US and keeping the standards of living up and improve life here.

 

Now, yes...we are all tied to each other in the world economy. If goods that are consumed here are made here, that helps everyone here.

 

I also am uncomfortable with the fact that so many of our goods are produced in areas where the environment and employees are taken advantage of.

 

 

 

Also, a very important point to understand is that workplace safety and environmental protections in the US were improving as quickly or more quickly prior to OSHA, the EPA and other restrictions (that coincidently drive down competition) were put in place by US agencies (who are often heavily influenced, for good and bad reasons, existing industry competitors).

 

 

 

Increased productivity, and its resulting wealth, are easily the best ways to achieve real and sustainable workplace and environmental safety.

 

Law of diminishing returns. It is not surprising that the biggest gains in work place safety are made when the first actions are taken to improve it. And, I am for some type of oversight to make sure work places are safe.

 

Now, I am NOT a fan of OSHA. It is a disgusting department of our government that I would love to see changed. BUT, that doesn't mean we don't need something like them.

 

What they do is flat out extortion. I've experienced it personally. Here is what they do. Some type of directive comes down that the field inspectors need to bring in money. So....they go out and start inspecting more and more facilities. You could have an extremely safe work place and they will stay there till they find SOMETHING. It could be the absolute littlest thing like an employee leaving an extension cord on the ground where it is against regulations. They then slap a huge fine on it.

Then the negotiations start.

 

I even know of large construction sites where an OSHA inspector is on site every single day. There are things that have to be done that there is absolutely no way to do them without getting fined. OSHA slaps a fine and the company has to pay.

 

It's a horribly corrupt system.

 

I'm all for regulating employee safety. But, this organization is doing it the wrong way.

 

Now, as far as trying to get back on topic.....I don't think we need to reduce regulations in the US to accomplish what I want. We need to somehow force other country to produce up to our standards.

 

 

This is interesting to me because you acknowledge that the system of "government oversight" is broken, but your solution is to change the tools of the system, not the system itself.

 

If OSHA is extortive, how do you envision their replacement functioning? How do you avoid the problems you've witnessed under OSHA? What incentive structures change or put in place to avoid those problems?

 

MOre fundamentally, why do we need a government oversight committee when we already see that workplace and environmental safety increase even without such oversight (as clearly evidenced by the chart).

 

To your first paragraphs, a more robust global economy ultimately benefits US workers and their standards of living, particularly their quality of life. We can be creative about distributing productivity gains, but restricting productivity would be a terrible reversal in the tide toward globalization.

 

To me, restricting trade between countries makes no more sense than allowing states to restrict trade among states. Thankfully, our forefathers recognized this and drafted a commerce clause to the Constitution.

It's time to expand that to foreign trade as well.

[BigRedBuster]

If I want to build a factory in the poorest county in Mississippi where there is poverty and high unemployment, what is preventing me to go in and not give a sh#t and create an extremely unsafe work environment if there is no form of oversight.

 

If you claim there still can be oversight without the government involved, who would you say should do that?

 

You can have governmental agencies that are not extortion rackets.

[cm husker]

If I want to build a factory in the poorest county in Mississippi where there is poverty and high unemployment, what is preventing me to go in and not give a sh#t and create an extremely unsafe work environment if there is no form of oversight.

 

If you claim there still can be oversight without the government involved, who would you say should do that?

 

You can have governmental agencies that are not extortion rackets.

 

What is preventing you from doing so? The fact that your employees wouldn't work there, so you'd soon go out of business. Again, as history has demonstrated, workplaces have become progressively safer, even without government oversight and rules. However, if I can offer my employees better wages while also creating a somewhat riskier workplace, then why shouldn't I and my employees be allowed to contract (provided all are informed of the risks)?

 

My claim/thought is that oversight is accomplished through competition. Provided that there are no barriers to entry to a market place (i.e., anyone can move their operations anywhere and offer whatever wage/work conditions they want), then companies that are unsafe will be run out of business by their lack of willing labor, which labor will take jobs at safer, better paying environments. In some ways, a safe work place is no different than another form of compensation, and we all know that laborers go to where compensation makes sense for them.

 

Regarding extortion rackets, which government agencies aren't extortive in practice? That's an honest question and one that's more about perspective than anything. Can you provide me any model examples of regulatory agencies that are extortive (as you defined the term in your OSHA example)?

[BigRedBuster]

 

If I want to build a factory in the poorest county in Mississippi where there is poverty and high unemployment, what is preventing me to go in and not give a sh#t and create an extremely unsafe work environment if there is no form of oversight.

 

If you claim there still can be oversight without the government involved, who would you say should do that?

 

You can have governmental agencies that are not extortion rackets.

 

What is preventing you from doing so? The fact that your employees wouldn't work there, so you'd soon go out of business. Again, as history has demonstrated, workplaces have become progressively safer, even without government oversight and rules. However, if I can offer my employees better wages while also creating a somewhat riskier workplace, then why shouldn't I and my employees be allowed to contract (provided all are informed of the risks)?

 

My claim/thought is that oversight is accomplished through competition. Provided that there are no barriers to entry to a market place (i.e., anyone can move their operations anywhere and offer whatever wage/work conditions they want), then companies that are unsafe will be run out of business by their lack of willing labor, which labor will take jobs at safer, better paying environments. In some ways, a safe work place is no different than another form of compensation, and we all know that laborers go to where compensation makes sense for them.

 

Regarding extortion rackets, which government agencies aren't extortive in practice? That's an honest question and one that's more about perspective than anything. Can you provide me any model examples of regulatory agencies that are extortive (as you defined the term in your OSHA example)?

 

Those people are right now out of work and living in poverty. They would be happy just having a job. And.....what if what I was doing that was unsafe was something they didn't know about for years down the road like causing health problems?

 

And...simple.....DOT or police doing traffic tickets are not extortive in my mind. There is a set law that is simple to abide by and if you go over the speed limit the regulations are set as to what the fine or penalty will be.

The way OSHA works, there literally is no way companies can operate without getting fined. The fines are huge and then there is a negotiation process from there.

[Creighton Duke]

Very good discussion guys. Great points on both sides and very informative.

[cm husker]

 

 

If I want to build a factory in the poorest county in Mississippi where there is poverty and high unemployment, what is preventing me to go in and not give a sh#t and create an extremely unsafe work environment if there is no form of oversight.

 

If you claim there still can be oversight without the government involved, who would you say should do that?

 

You can have governmental agencies that are not extortion rackets.

 

What is preventing you from doing so? The fact that your employees wouldn't work there, so you'd soon go out of business. Again, as history has demonstrated, workplaces have become progressively safer, even without government oversight and rules. However, if I can offer my employees better wages while also creating a somewhat riskier workplace, then why shouldn't I and my employees be allowed to contract (provided all are informed of the risks)?

 

My claim/thought is that oversight is accomplished through competition. Provided that there are no barriers to entry to a market place (i.e., anyone can move their operations anywhere and offer whatever wage/work conditions they want), then companies that are unsafe will be run out of business by their lack of willing labor, which labor will take jobs at safer, better paying environments. In some ways, a safe work place is no different than another form of compensation, and we all know that laborers go to where compensation makes sense for them.

 

Regarding extortion rackets, which government agencies aren't extortive in practice? That's an honest question and one that's more about perspective than anything. Can you provide me any model examples of regulatory agencies that are extortive (as you defined the term in your OSHA example)?

 

Those people are right now out of work and living in poverty. They would be happy just having a job. And.....what if what I was doing that was unsafe was something they didn't know about for years down the road like causing health problems?

 

YES! Great point, and exactly mine as well. So, now we have to ask ourselves:

 

(1) why don't they have a job? Personally, I don't think it's because they are inherently stupid or lazy. I think they are just, for a lot of systemic reasons, lacking the skills necessary to make it profitable for people to hire them for labor at existing US costs (which are imposed by regulations such as OSHA and minimum wage). We can get into a discussion about those causes, but I think those causes go away (eventually) if we properly address the second question.

 

(2) To me, the best and quickest (though admittedly not perfect) solution is to unyolk these folks from the standards imposed on "developed" communities within the US so that they can offer their level of skilled labor to society. As it is now, we artificially restrict their ability to contribute and then wonder why they aren't contributing. We didn't do this to people 50/60 years ago. For example, my grandfather worked in deplorable conditions at various jobs to fight his way out of literal dirt poor poverty. He probably wouldn't have that opportunity today. Same with my immigrant grandparents who came over in the early 20th century. The question is, why do we want to impose restrictions on poor people now? To me, that's just a version of closing the door/pulling up the ladder behind us, and it's accomplished under the guise of altruism ("we don't want to subject you to bad working conditions" and "you should be in school until you're 18, even if you aren't learning skills that will make you more productive than you would have been at 15").

 

That's my whole issue: these things sound great on paper, but they are having the exact opposite effect on real people's lives, whether they are located in inner-city Baltimore, rural alabama or a trailer park in western Nebraska.

 

It's what's so frustrating for me, too, because I think you and I share the same ultimate goals (unlike some people who will openly allow their racism/biases to govern their desire to see others fail). We just have such different ways of getting to the goal, and we probably see each other's methods as being counterproductive to reaching that goal.

 

As to long term health effects, that is a risk, but if the industry was negligent in understanding those impacts (or I'd even consider imposing strict liability), then they should compensate their workers for harming them. Insurance is also a great tool for mitigating that risk.

 

But, what is more risky to long term health: a potentially unhealthy job or no job?

[BigRedBuster]

Just an example of how this works.

 

The last time an OSHA inspector came through our facility, among the things he found was an electrical outlet. OK, it has a metal outlet box and cover that is typical in industrial situations. Something had bent the cover. It wasn't cracked. No way was there any exposed wires. It didn't cause any gaps around the cover where something could have entered the box and touched exposed wires.

 

The fine??? $6,000 for just that one thing.

 

Seriously??? Does that violation justify the fine? Oh...yes...and then it becomes public knowledge that we were fined by OSHA and the size of the fine makes people think some major issue was found.

Now, our insurance company has a free service to go through our facility and look for things OSHA may fine us for so that we can fix them before an OSHA inspector all of a sudden shows up. We have a full time safety person on staff doing nothing but trying to make sure when they show up the fine is as low as possible (No way to eliminate the fine totally) We had heard through the grape vine that they were stepping up inspections. We thought we were ready. Guess not.

 

The problem with this situation is not that it's a governmental program. It's that it's tied to politics. We as manufacturers could lobby congress to fix this. However, no politician in their right mind would even THINK about touching this because they would immediately be painted as not caring about the little guy. They don't care about the working class. All they want to do is make their fat business partners and friends happy....bla bla bla.....

[cm husker]

 

 

If I want to build a factory in the poorest county in Mississippi where there is poverty and high unemployment, what is preventing me to go in and not give a sh#t and create an extremely unsafe work environment if there is no form of oversight.

 

If you claim there still can be oversight without the government involved, who would you say should do that?

 

You can have governmental agencies that are not extortion rackets.

 

What is preventing you from doing so? The fact that your employees wouldn't work there, so you'd soon go out of business. Again, as history has demonstrated, workplaces have become progressively safer, even without government oversight and rules. However, if I can offer my employees better wages while also creating a somewhat riskier workplace, then why shouldn't I and my employees be allowed to contract (provided all are informed of the risks)?

 

My claim/thought is that oversight is accomplished through competition. Provided that there are no barriers to entry to a market place (i.e., anyone can move their operations anywhere and offer whatever wage/work conditions they want), then companies that are unsafe will be run out of business by their lack of willing labor, which labor will take jobs at safer, better paying environments. In some ways, a safe work place is no different than another form of compensation, and we all know that laborers go to where compensation makes sense for them.

 

Regarding extortion rackets, which government agencies aren't extortive in practice? That's an honest question and one that's more about perspective than anything. Can you provide me any model examples of regulatory agencies that are extortive (as you defined the term in your OSHA example)?

 

And...simple.....DOT or police doing traffic tickets are not extortive in my mind. There is a set law that is simple to abide by and if you go over the speed limit the regulations are set as to what the fine or penalty will be.

The way OSHA works, there literally is no way companies can operate without getting fined. The fines are huge and then there is a negotiation process from there.

 

 

DOT is interesting, especially when it encompasses regulations on things like taxis, where we see all sorts of examples of government abuse and extortion related to competitive car services (e.g., lyft and uber).

 

But more interestingly, traffic laws are in some ways no different than OSHA regulations, even if they appear more objective or fairly applied. Why? Because although you say that no company can avoid being fined, there certainly are (albeit cost prohibitive) ways of avoiding OSHA fines. Additionally, traffic laws are often applied with a certain level of discretion (e.g., a person fails to signal X number of feet before a turn, but instead signals X-10ft from turn... most times a cop won't pull driver over for that infraction).

 

Additionally, there are certainly directives that come down to police to generate revenue in much the same way that you see from OSHA. Look no further than a FL back country speed trap or a cop pulling over that driver for not signaling at X feet or any other number of ways police can find a way to fine you for a driving infraction that is otherwise quite minor.

 

In any event, I don't think that your example is a pertinent one because I don't really view traffic laws as a form regulatory compliance similar to OSHA, the FAA or other truly regulatory bodies that govern corporate behavior.