Why I favor a current events test to vote

Texas Tech ^ | 3/27/2015 | unknown

[econjack]

These are voting-age college students and yet we wonder why we get the politicians we do. Check out the video at: http://safeshare.tv/w/oHbxeOtsOP

[DannyTN]

or...
1) Who was the first gay NFL player?
2) Which candidate believes the earth is only 6000 years old?
3) Which candidate claims they can see Russia from their house?

[petercooper]

George Carlin — ‘Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.’

[econjack]

I wouldn’t have a problem with cell phones, either, if they were used to get jobs, but I really don’t think that’s the case. I’d feel even better if, when they do get a job, they turn in the cell phone for someone else to use.

I’m not a big fan on tariff or quotas. Years ago the steel industry was bitching because Japan was “dumping steel in the US at less than their cost”. Really? The result was import quotas and tariffs that raised the price of steel to protect and industry still using 1890’s technology and employing about 10,000 workers. So, every consumer of steel, from cars to spoons pays higher prices so less efficient workers can get $42/hour. There are dozens of like products, from oil to electronics. Plus, why should the gov’t get the revenues when they do nothing to earn it? Unfettered markets work.

[DannyTN]

Raise them across the board not for specific industries. We are paying for cheap imports twice. Once when we pay for the product and again when we pay to support the unemployed Americans.

Import tariffs worked well for this country for 180+ years. What we’ve seen since we’ve lowered them is our industries devastated and our enemies like China empowered.

[econjack]

Import tariffs worked well for this country for 180+ years

Really? How measured? Most of the justification was to protect fledgling industries during the early stage of the Industrial Revolution and I get that. However, that ship has sailed and it is now used to protect inefficient industries. Back in the 1950's when super-cheap oil was discovered in the mid-East, the domestic oil producers seduced Eisenhower with the military argument that we needed quotas and tariffs to protect against the instability of the mid-East. Ike bought into it. The result: OPEC. What if we had capped our own wells back then, sucked the mid-East dry with $1/bbl oil and when they ran out, we uncapped ours? Consumers would have benefited immensely and the oil industry would still have existed since imports could not make up total supply.

Horse and buggies worked pretty well for 180+, too, but I fail to see that as an effective substitute for air travel.

[DannyTN]

We’ve got 100 million Americans on food stamps now. And what has changed is that in the 1960’s we lowered the import tariffs. Real wages have stagnated since then.

You keep talking about inefficient industries. But all of our industries are inefficient when you consider how cheap third world labor is. The choice is not between efficient and inefficient. The choice is between America having it’s own industries and building wealth or being completely dependent on other countries and watching our wealth dissipate.

[DannyTN]

We’ve got 100 million Americans on food stamps now. And what has changed is that in the 1960’s we lowered the import tariffs. Real wages have stagnated since then.

You keep talking about inefficient industries. But all of our industries are inefficient when you consider how cheap third world labor is. The choice is not between efficient and inefficient. The choice is between America having it’s own industries and building wealth or being completely dependent on other countries and watching our wealth dissipate.

[econjack]

And what has changed is that in the 1960’s we lowered the import tariffs.

Classic non sequitur. Perhaps the single biggest reason for increased food stamps is the easing of restrictions and qualifications to get them. Real wages have risen since the 1960's.

But all of our industries are inefficient when you consider how cheap third world labor is.

Labor has very little to do with it. Look at the capital investments made in modern equipment in China and Japan. Indeed, one reason Japan can produce steel so cheaply is because we bombed their steel production plants into the Stone Age in WWII, which they replaced entirely after the war. In the US, we have plants still running using 1890's technology. They are an order of magnitude more productive than ours is...and it has nothing to do with cheap labor.

Productivity is measured in output per unit of input, not dollars paid to labor. Look at the output per labor hour in the US and compare it to China and Japan, especially in durable goods production. We do have a comparative advantage in agricultural production, but I suppose you'd favor tariffs and quotas against us in the countries that buy our products. It's a goose-gander thing.