Counterpoint: Imports are Necessary – In Balance

Imported products throttle unrestrained profiteering and monopoly building that arises from closed markets

Left to its own, an unregulated  free market protected from the intrusion of competitive forces beyond its domestic borders generates another exploitative behavior – price gouging and monopoly building. The was played out in the late 19th century, when severe import tariffs stopped the flow of imports, leading to runaway price inflation. This is the foundation upon which protectionism gained its reputation as destructive. Corporations exist for the purpose of creating wealth though optimizing profits. When protected from competition, this comes in the form of higher prices – whatever the market will bear. With the opportunity to use imports, wealth building comes in the form of exploitation of cheap labor abroad.

We suffer a form of domestic protectionism now, that actually fuels the exploitation and devaluation that occurs from imports. The interesting paradox of this is that the restriction of immigration restricts domestic access to low cost labor, which leads to artificially high labor rates here. In reaction to the unrestricted immigration of the turn of the century, which depressed wage rates to intolerable levels, we enacted restrictions to immigration to ease stress on the working class.

So Why Would Anyone Harm the Home Market? (Devaluation for Profits Part II?)

One might read this article on the Apple iPod and its related job creation and think that this import thing is just not all that bad at all….  Of course, dig deeper and you will find that the “wealth” created here is not for higher salaries at all. The analysis is actually upside down. Professional and worker earnings in the USA are stagnant or declining, not improving.  This has been well documented, and getting worse since 2006. Apple is doing nothing to repair this, or even change it.

The Pursuit of Devaluation for Profit – and How it’s Destroying Us

A robust value delivery structure includes many layers, each employing a variety of skills and talents. These layers all feed into a layer above, and often to the side of the primary value chain, creating an inter-connectivity within industries that reduces the impact of any one chain failing or slowing.

Our economy is being driven by a process that seeks to extract profit from DEVALUATION over value creation. The difference is lost on those who focus on profit outcome and market share numbers over the buildup of a robust national inventory of value generators. The destruction of the manufacturing sector in the United States, along with the design, engineering, and services industries, is eroding our national capacity and reducing our economic diversity – leading to the volatile state we find ourselves in today. The United Kingdom discovered this too late, Germany has not – that is why the Germans own so many English brands, and still manufacture products shipped around the world – not to mention manufacturing around the world. Once a nation has lost its leadership in this value creation infrastructure, rebuilding it becomes virtually impossible. Others are using theirs as a weapon against our own – fed by our greed and lack of vision.

Time Magazine Gets It – well sort of anyway…

Check this article out in Time. It explains everything I have attempted here – that conservation is our best , cheapest, and most readily available fuel source. I am not alone….

The article made the cover as well

Time Cover Story – December 31, 2008

Here’s a piece of the action:

“This may sound too good to be true, but the U.S. has a renewable-energy resource that is perfectly clean, remarkably cheap, surprisingly abundant and immediately available. It has astounding potential to reduce the carbon emissions that threaten our planet, the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our security and the energy costs that threaten our wallets. Unlike coal and petroleum, it doesn’t pollute; unlike solar and wind, it doesn’t depend on the weather; unlike ethanol, it doesn’t accelerate deforestation or inflate food prices; unlike nuclear plants, it doesn’t raise uncomfortable questions about meltdowns or terrorist attacks or radioactive-waste storage, and it doesn’t take a decade to build. It isn’t what-if like hydrogen, clean coal and tidal power; it’s already proven to be workable, scalable and cost-effective. And we don’t need to import it.”

Now if we could only get the rest of the press to wake up and smell the free fresh air…

So here’s the dig – putting the blame on lighting (cover art), and using that spiral CFL lamp as the icon of energy conservation. This is becoming a little silly, espesially when the article makes a great deal of noise about foreign oil, which has nothing to do with lighting at all (electrical energy is not produced from oil.) The problem with rolling all energy into one big pile, is it leads people to believe thatif they buy an energy efficient car, they are doing their part… while sucking energy of a different type up at home, which taps totally different resources. Conservation is a two-front war. Oil use in transportation, Coal and Nuclear material use at home and in the office. Both are in need of substantial improvement.

But, at least it gets the big picture – we’ll just have to beat them up on details later.