It's time to face facts that if you're in manufacturing, you'll either be
earning less, or have no job at all in the foreseeable future...as long as
we don't impose large tariffs on imports. The problem with tariffs is that
they increase the cost of goods at a rate that's much larger than the
increase in employee income...and high inflation begins to rear its ugly
head.

Rush Limbaugh had a guest host last week who advanced an interesting claim
about tariffs. He said that Bush's tariffs on imported steel had saved 100,000
American jobs in the domestic steel industry. At that point, my 5-minute
allotment of conservatism was about used up for the day and I was in the
process of concluding, "OK, just more RW glorification of the Bush economic
program. What else is new?.......) when the guest host said...."But, those same
tarrifs that saved 100,000 American jobs in the steel industry have cost us, to
date, a total of 400,000 jobs in other industries that can no longer compete
when manufacturing items made from steel, and all because the tariffs have
artificially raised the price of steel in the US. So, we spent 400,000 jobs to
save 100,000 jobs. Not good policy!"

((I haven't checked it out to see whether the numbers are accurate.))

but....
What's this? Limbaugh's guest host criticizing Bush's economic decisions?
Unless I miss my guess, it will be a "while" before Rushbo asks that guy to sit
in again. :-)


"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
I'm pretty sure imports don't affect the productivity numbers. Those
statistics are talking about *American* productivity.

You are most likely right. My comments were in response to the suggestion
that
American companies seeking further increases in productivity will now need
to
invest in either automation or labor in the US.