Very simply, the solution to all of this is immediate, across the board import tariffs.
I’d advocate 100%.
Not some central government program of selecting winners and losers - just one uniform 100% tariff on EVERYTHING imported.
Jobs will spring up all over the place, right here in America.
Sure importers like Wal*mart will quickly find their line of “work” less lucrative. Sort of the idea. :)
Tariffs. Now.
Half of US industry will go bankrupt within 24 hours. Try again.
By the way, it is completely possible to go to Walmart and buy everything made in the USA. Not just food, either - auto supplies, plastic goods (which you’d expect to be made in China, but isn’t), tools... Not that they don’t carry foreign stuff, but they have far and away more USA-made merchandise than many people here seem to think.
Target, on the other hand.... well, let’s just say that their logo is red for a reason.
The answer is to free up individual Americans to become industrious and competitive again, we could rule the world for another decade; get rid of the incredibly burdensome government regulation (easy - just words to change), over taxation of enterprise (easy), social welfare programs up the wazoo (easy), outright attacks on entrepreneurs (easy), and the lying, cheating, thieving, government bureaucrats (hard).
Most changes are up to politics, would only the even corrupt politicians see the advantage in a wealthy America... Aside: Hey, stupid, you can get more! And you might not have to provide you and your family to ride around in an armored car! Idiot!
I like your plan on tariffs, but lets be sneaky about like the Free Traders are sneaky. We'll start our tariff at a benign 10%. Then, we will increase it 10% per year, slowly turning up the heat.
PS We will EXCLUDE energy imports just to piss off the greeniacs.
I disagree. Across the board tariffs will simply increase everyone’s costs.
Your "solution" will kill more jobs than it creates.
It sounds simple and easy. It is not. When people sell us stuff from other countries, they buy stuff here. The stuff they buy from us creates jobs here.
We still make more stuff than any other country on earth, it is just that we do it more efficiently with less workers.
There are plenty of studies that show that international trade makes more jobs here than it destroys.
Nothing is permanent. We are in the process of moving from labor intensive manufacturing to information intensive manufacturing. More robots, less drudge labor. Any change makes it hard on those who are forced to change with the technological changes.
We could make it much easier on those impacted by the change by reducing our regulatory burden, or even making the rules easy to follow and transparent.
The Obama administration has done the opposite. People will not invest and create jobs when they do not know what the new regulations will be or how much they will cost.
It is the uncertainty and bumbling incompetence of the current administration, and the nagging doubt that maybe it is malevolence rather than incompetence, that is keeping the economy in the doldrums.
You see lots of retail, relatively low tech stuff made overseas in our stores, such as Wal Mart, because relative low tech countries can compete with us in those areas.