How Important Is “Made In America”
Currently, the news is filled with controversy surrounding President Trump’s tariff plans. On one side of the controversy is the liberal point of view attempting to make the case that all that will happen is that the price of goods here in America will go up. On the other side of the controversy is the conservative idea that the tariff’s will bring back jobs to this country and it is important to have our goods wear the “Made In America” label again.
Both sides have a valid points of view, but this issue is too big and important to allow it to be hijacked by a biased media. The way this issue should be examined is by looking at how the issue got to the point it is currently at, and what benefits or drawbacks does each position hold.
Back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the idea of offshoring American work to foreign countries began. What became very apparent was that this had a huge impact on the costs of an item and the price the American consumer had to pay along with the additional profits American companies made. Keep in mind that after World War 2, America was the only real superpower in the world. Almost every competitor had been affected by the damage the war inflicted on them. America on the other hand quickly changed it’s factories over to consumer goods and very quickly became the supplier to the world.
Over the next 25 years, American companies faced very little foreign competition and for the most part were able to maintain a profitable business model. But by the mid 1970’s change was beginning to enter into the picture. Those competitors America faced before World War 2 had recovered for the most part and were operating new, efficient factories. Also, after the war, America opened it doors to almost all comers so as to stimulate the growth of many of our former enemies because we faced a new threat from the Soviet Union.
Now American industries were facing new competition that they hadn’t had to face in a long time and they now needed to change their current way of operating. This was the beginning of offshoring jobs. Very slowly at first, American corporations began the process of moving work to foreign countries which lowered their costs and they passed on part of those new lower costs to the consumers as a way to keep their dominant market positions.
It didn’t take long for American corporations to realize that the more work they sent offshore, it gave them ever growing profits and an easy path to keeping the consumer happy by lowering pricing. And on the consumer’s part, those new lower prices were addicting. But that didn’t mean that everything and everyone was feeling great. The shifting of work offshore meant jobs here in America began to shrink. Most of the time, the jobs that felt the brunt of these cuts at first were good paying middle class jobs. And while this caused disruptions, most of the time the affected workers were able to move into other industries and come close to their previous pay levels.
But as the allure of extra profits for the companies and lower prices for consumer products continued to bring more job cuts, the issue was becoming increasingly worrisome for workers. Little by little, the American middle class was being hollowed out, especially in the ranks of the blue collar workers. Oh, the result wasn’t only one sided. Sure, blue collar jobs were disappearing, but all that offshoring created new jobs in areas like logistics.
By the 2000’s. the picture was changing. Many entire industries, that once provided jobs for tens of thousands of Americans had just disappeared entirely. And all those savings the consumers once enjoyed were drying up as corporate America become obsessed with pleasing Wall Street with ever growing profit levels. For the executives of these large corporations, their pay and perks skyrocketed, as shareholders wanted to express their gratitude and had no problem allowing multi million dollar pay and bonus packages.
That brings us to today. Now entire industries are gone, even important ones like the manufacturing of our medicines. The financial makeup of American society has morphed into a scenario that it has become only two sided situation, the rich and the poor. The costs to consumers are no longer cheap. Nike shoes sell for hundreds of dollars while the costs are around forty dollars allowing those outsized executive pay packages, huge profits and multimillion dollar sports endorsement deals.
The benefits of offshoring have worn off substantially and our current President wants to attempt to shift those jobs lost back to America. The liberal Democrats only look at the short term and ignore the continuing jobs losses and the hollowing out of incomes. Isn’t it time we at least attempt to reverse the effects of past offshoring and focus on our workers. Isn’t it better to bring back jobs, instead of offering more unemployment and safety net money?