which is quite protected thank you very much.

There are others who are doing quite well thank you, and do have protectionist policies for what are considered national security industries in place. We used to, then came Ronnie Raygun Reagan.

I haven't heard much about German protectionism.

but it is protected in certain industries very well, thank you very much. They may be EU members, but for example the Auto industry, foreign product faces a certain shall we say taxation at the border.

There are a few other industries like that, biotech, and electronics.

It also helps that the Union sits at the board of directors... so exporting jobs is hardly easy.

IMO they found quite frankly the sweet spot between open markets and closed borders... Their attitude is we do some of it, but we also open our borders to things we frankly do not produce. Since Unions sit at oh the board of BMW it is not just profit that drives this. Did I mention this was one of OUR impositions after that nasty heroic good war?

I'd heard there are some very nice aspects to German labor unions that really work for them. I wonder why we don't hear more about it.

and a lot of them were imposed by us after WW II. Hell, single payor was kind of, YOU WILL DO IT.

Yup the Second Bill of Rights was imposed, just NOT on the United States.

Japan's, Germany's and Itay's were designed by the Occupation forces.

US imports $2.24 trillion vs GDP of $15.3 trillion. German imports €1.155 trillion vs a GDP of €2.57 trillion.

It is hard to prove with those numbers that the Germany market is quite well protected. Looking at those numbers I would say that the US must be doing a better job of protecting its markets.

Every country in Europe imports more (as a percentage of their economies as well as on a per capita basis) and exports more than the US does. Every developed country in the world imports and exports more (relative to their sizes) than the US.

Even in China (which most of us perceive as importing very little) imports represent 22.5% of their economy and India comes in at 24.4%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_india

By the way trade deficits are what are ruining Europe - it's driving their foreign-held debt into the stratosphere. It's what is killing Greece.

When you are running a trade deficit you can cut domestic spending to ZERO and still go into ruinous debt. Basic fact of economics.

Now I know you can't answer this.. but hell why not... what happens to imports when your country falls into the debt levels that Greece has?

Trade deficits are not ruining Germany - which has a trade surplus in spite of its high wages, high taxes and strong unions. I'm not promoting trade deficits as a sane economic policy but a look at how progressive countries take care of their people and have a healthy economy at the same time.

Trade deficits with the third world are part of what's causing Europe's debt crises.

I'll let you look up PIGS and guess where they're located.

Plus, eventually you run out of jobs to give the third world. What happens then?

and the change, if any, in those amounts.
And to contrast that with finished goods.

Part of the reason being the impact on labor, particularly skilled labor in manufacturing the finished goods.

You are aware I hope of EU free trade rules? Imports from elsewhere in the EU are free of import duties which are levied on non-EU imports. Which means that for example Renaults and Citroens and Fiats and Alfa-Romeos sold in Germany don't have additional import duty, since the EU is a free-trade area. Imports of vehicles into the US are levied a 2.5% duty, which is lower than the 10% rate Germany imposes on non-EU imports, but the US is hardly non-protectionist here.

since you love offshoring so much, why don't you put your skin in the game?

I don't believe I've said I support "offshoring" anywhere. (Here's a helpful hint for you: Germany isn't China.) And the anti-immigrant xenophobia is quite uncalled for and ugly; I am in fact myself an immigrant; I live in the UK. I moved here when I married my British wife.

You're an immigrant but are corporations hiring you at lower than average wages? You want to know what my issue is? Then view this.

so you're conflating one issue with another and making a false argument. I really have no problem at all with immigrants being hired if they happen to be qualified and are paid the same wage. Someone who's brought from another country specifically to work at one job on an H1B visa and who has no intention of long-term settlement is not an immigrant.

And the fact that the majority of US-made cars, for instance, aren't what the vehicle market in Europe, or Japan, demands, is not bullshit, it's a fact. There are reasons why cars like the Ford Ka or Mondeo sell well in Europe and F-150's sell not at all.

And those tariffs are on a single category of product (cars, in this instance). The argument about VAT below is nonsensical, because VAT is levied on everything sold at retail in Germany anyway (at a rate of 19%).

Why would American cars sell if they're priced higher by tariffs?

Your views on immigrants doesn't reflect reality. The reality is that employers import immigrants, often undocumented, to pay them below average wages. What do you think we should do about it? Shrug and let it continue? Outlaw this practice?

VAT isn't refunded to the consumer; retail items imported for sale and not personal use are not double-taxed by VAT on import first and then at sale, either. You clearly have a pretty limited understanding of how VAT works.

for 200 years until it was abandoned in favor of "free trade" in the 1980's; but has been adopted by every other successful country.

The Free trade mania that made us go from the largest exporter in the world to the largest importer, that is a good thing?

we wouldn't have become the dominant economic power during the 20th century. The reason we became such an importer is a factor of how far above the rest of the world that we became during the 20th century.

The problem with the trade deals is that we aren't ensuring that labor and environmental standards are up to where they should be.

Additionally there is the fact that nations with higher trade levels creates a peace dividend in that nations with higher trade levels don't usually go to war.

The European Union traces its origins back to the late 1950s, when a few countries on the European continent decided to eliminate tariffs among themselves. (In its present form, the EU has had some serious problems, but that's another discussion.)

What other countries lacked in the post WWII era was factories that hadn't been bombed to smithereens.

Those Third World countries that you get all misty-eyed about would be better off creating common markets among themselves, building upon their own strengths, protecting the industries that needed nurturing, and allowing local people to become prosperous business owners.

You might want to look into the histories of Japan and Taiwan, neither of which followed the "free" trade religion as laid out in the pages of The Economist.

Anyone that doesn't want the citizens of those (virtually all non-white) countries to toil in poverty (And sometimes outright slavery) for our benefit is clearly a racist.

Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense.

American workers are excluded from the global market.

Free traders are scared to death to respond to this basic fact.

Everyone else, take note.

Really try another angle, that one doesn't help you.





LOL had to correct to exports.

Because it shows just how stupid your argument is.

The 500 billion a year is leaving our country. That money is no longer circulating in the economy, meaning less economic activity, fewer jobs, and falling wages. The Chinese take their trade surpluses with us and build things that stimulate their economy while ours keeps running up trade deficits and losing jobs. We have run up 8 trillion dollars in trade deficits since we embraced this free trade insanity, and it's killing us economically. We can't go much longer with these trade imbalances. It is unsustainable!!

BTW, we are about 5%, not 1%. Also, we don't have enough money and jobs to lift up the 200+ other countries with 6.7 billion people. We keep up the trade policies you worship for another 20 years, and we will have half our population in poverty and will start resembling the third world countries you want to help so much.

Before anyone takes you seriously about anything, you need to answer this.

Of course, you won't answer it, because you can't.

Here's my attempt.

There is no basic relationship between the trade deficit and the national debt. The trade deficit measures the balance of the value of imports and exports and the national debt measures the value the government has borrowed to finance budget deficits. They do not need to move in the same direction. Budget deficits do not need to be financed via international borrowing.

By your own assessment this appears to be a fatal blow to your credibility.

Cite:

http://industryweek.com/articles/u-s-_free_trade_policy_causes_trade_deficits_federal_debt_25366.aspx?ShowAll=1

Your credibility is riding out of here in a hearse.

It's true that there's an accounting identity in there. Outflow = inflow, there's no other way. However, this does not mean what you claim, that the trade deficit adds to the national debt. Surely you've heard of Japan?

The accounting identity can be met with either public or private international borrowing.
The accounting identity does not mean that a decreasing trade balance causes an increasing national debt.
The accounting identity is consistent with a trade surplus and increasing national debt. Japan's trade deficit last year (due to the earthquake) was the first in 31 years. How does your "basic law of economics" explain their ever increasing national debt?
The accounting identity does not imply that any of these things CAUSE the others because outflow = inflow can also adjust by changes in a currency's value (i.e. currency value changes to make the accounting identity true given the demand for imports, exports, and international borrowing)

Unfortunately there's no easy way to correct your superficial and incorrect knowledge of economics.

Japan's national debt is mostly held domestically.

The national debt that you generate when you import more than you export is foreign-held debt. You can shut down all domestic Government spending and that will not in any way slow down the growth of your foreign-held debt if you are importing more than you export.

If you are buying more goods than you are selling, your cash reserves are going down. Basic law of mathematics.

By the way a trade deficit ALSO devalues your country's currency. This is a fact that even the Federal Reserve understands. Do you? http://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/drecon/1999/9910.html

Of course America could defeat offshoring by devaluing its currency (printing a lot of dollars). We beat our debt at the end of World War II by inflating it away. It would lower the value of the dollar and make imports prohibitively expensive - a de facto tariff, if you will, without actually passing a tariff law. It would be exactly what China did to create the competitive advantage it has enjoyed.

Facts. You do not have them. Have a nice day!

But you do it in a most curious way.

It's nice that you acknowledge that government debt does not need to be internationally held. It's also nice that you acknowledge that trade balance impacts a currency's value (though I really have no idea why you think I didn't know that considering I WROTE it in my post...). It also seems like you're acknowledging that, given a trade deficit, that private debt can account for the balance. So it seems like you've agreed to everything I've said! And yet somehow you're still trying to take an adversarial position. As if I, too, would alter my understanding 180 degrees and we could continue on with this farce.

Offshoring INCREASES internationally-held debt. That was my point from the start. The trade deficit adds to the national debt. Foreign-held debt is still the national debt. We as a nation still owe that money. You tried to refute that point and you failed.

There has been no backtracking on my part and you have absolutely nothing to back up your wild eyed claims that there ever was.

No, really, you're dead wrong.

Apparently either

a) Successfully fooling a lot more than we think or
b) Juuuuuuuuuuuust in the doorway of the right side of the Big Tent. Content is veiled enough to not be considered out-and-out right-wing, but it's kind of evident that it's not exactly Progressive either.

Your ignorance is showing; Ford and GM both do pretty well in Europe, for instance; GM with Opel and Vauxhall and Ford with their European division. Both sell cars designed for the demands of European drivers; smaller, more fuel-efficient, manual instead of automatic gearbox, lower CO2 emissions...if American exports fare poorly on world markets it's at least in part because products designed for the American market aren't compatible with what foreign consumers are looking for, not because foreign markets hate America.

The reason why we are running this deficit is because the rest of the world has cheaper labor.

Europe has cheaper labour and production costs than the US? I don't think so. And how much of a trade SURPLUS is Germany running? You don't actually know what you're talking about.

Go sell your bullshit economics somewhere else.

Which honestly isn't "way way down"; compared to its peak it's significantly less than the decline in sterling, for instance. Here's a chart for you; comparative unit labour costs in manufacturing are nearly 25% higher in US dollars in Germany. And of course Germany is running a trade surplus with the US; the US imports more from Germany than Germany imports from the US, that's how that works. And the dollar value of German exports is higher; German exports to the US tend to be cars, consumer electronics and domestic appliances; US exports to Germany on the other hand are mostly heavy machinery, aircraft and pharmaceuticals. Even so Germany accounts for over 4% of total US exports. Adjusted for relative GDP US imports comprise a larger percentage of the German economy than German imports do the US.

Let Germany drop their 10% tariff on American products and see what their surplus is after that.

similar product, their VAT is refunded. Try and sell certain electronic products to someone in Germany. Your product will cost the end customer so much more than a similar German-made product, there is no way you can compete unless you sell it for close to dealer cost. The US has no VAT and can't use that trick.

Spider Jerusalem admitted upthread the fact that Germany has import tariffs four times as high as America's - 10% versus 2.5%.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=568233

The good news is his argument still has 9 toes left.

They aren't four times higher on all classes of goods. There's your reading comprehension problem again. (And the rate is EU-wide, not just Germany.)

Germany refunds the VAT for things made in Germany.

And we are only topped as an exporting nation by a country that has 4 times our population.

China exported $1.94 trillion last year. We exported $1.47 trillion. (Germany was third at $1.288 trillion in exports.)

Though China's population is 4 times ours, they only export 32% more than we do so, on a per capita basis, an American exports 3 times as much as a Chinese citizen exports. I don't think that shows that the world hates American workers.

We import many, MANY times what we export.

Your argument is like a sheet of cheap Chinese-made paper towels trying to hold back a bursting dam of bullshit (that being globalism).

On a side note: do you understand the relationship between huge trade deficits and the national debt?

moved on.

I understand that you are into hyperbole, but we actually import 52% (not "many, many times&quot more than we export. I realize that "many, many times" makes things sound more dire than "52%" does, so I get where you are coming from.

Since we import relatively little compared to other advanced countries, the answer to balancing would seem obvious. And since "foreign markets" do not hate America, we should be able to increase our exports. If Germany can do it (where manufacturing workers make 50% more than in the US and they pay for a high-benefit society) I think we can do it too.

Reality does not agree with you.

And I'm the one with whom reality does not agree.

OTOH, if "they" (don't you just love that word - "they" are so different from "us" aren't they?) do like our goods, we should be able to sell more of them in the future. The real problem would be if "they" didn't like our goods.

I just found our trade data for February and our imports are now only 25.4% more than our exports, down from the 52% for 2011. Looks like we might be headed in the right direction. "They" must be buying more of our goods.

American products tend to be at least viewed pretty well.
(data 2009)

UK scores US products;
They rate them 3rd out of 50 (countries).

Canada
They rate them 2nd out of 50

Germany
They rate them 2nd out of 50.

China
They rate them 1st out of 50.

Japan
They rate them 2nd out of 50.

http://www.simonanholt.com/Research/research-introduction.aspx

These ratings/branding most countries would die for.

Last edited Mon Apr 16, 2012, 01:07 PM - Edit history (1)

If your Simon Anholt Nation Branding index cite was worth its weight in salt our trade deficit would be FAR smaller than it is.

Argentina and Italy being prime examples.

to buy stuff 'made in the USA'?

Surely you cannot be serious.

millionaires and billionaires who are getting rich off this crap. Flawed trade and outsourcing agreements you orgasm over have cost over 10 million Americans their middle class jobs and more job losses are on the way. These fake free trade deals are nothing more than outsourcing/investment agreements that benefit rich investors and corporate executives. They hijack David Ricardo's trade theory by slapping the term "free trade" on these agreements, and people like you fall for it. Fire the US worker making $20.00 an hour, move the factory to some place like China where you pay the worker $1.00 an hour, and make a killing. Make even more thanks to paying zero benefits and no FICA contributions, no worries about OSHA or environmental expenses, and of course no worries about US labor laws.

I don't think any OTHER argument is necessary.

It's possible, and sensible, to think that industrial-scale transportation causes more harm to humanity as a whole than it provides benefit.

One of the major harms it provides is a monolithic dominating culture that has wired in short-term profit and exploitation as fundamental values, even deeper than those of the individuals that make up the culture. Merely resisting consumerism as a Westerner doesn't actually do anything to stop consumerism from consuming resources.

So, basically, you're arguing a trivial legalism about twenty steps down a path of which I reject the original premises... not a fruitful discussion.

What "people" want is, to me, barely meaningful at all if they've been programmed with media since childhood. Any more than someone who was locked in a closet their entire childhood is a good model of human language.

I have nothing against international trade. I am involved in international business.

But it's not at the expense of American workers, nor do I take the "I just want money and I don't care how I get it" attitude that is so common in the corporate world today.

I work for people all over the world, but I refuse sweatshop wages and sell on the basis of providing overnight translations in native English for people in Asia.

I also refuse to take jobs that are ethically challenged, such as a group that was trying to promote the works of a 1920s Japanese pundit who was one of the intellectual architects of militarism.

If I wanted an English to Japanese translation, I would hire a Japanese person in Japan, but only because the number of native speakers of Japanese living in the U.S. is much smaller than the number of native speakers of Japanese living in Japan. (How about that!) Translation fees in Japan are actually a bit higher than they are here.

You keep setting up straw men of hippie-dippy localists who only want products from within walking distance or nationalists who hate foreign workers. Nobody has advocated either meeting all one's needs within walking distance or hating foreigners.

You, on the other hand, are on the side of the greedheads who have de-industrialized America, thrown hard-working Americans out of the jobs that used to provide the first generation of upward mobility in this country, and taking advantage of the low wages, lack of environmental laws, and repressive governments (that will cheerfully arrest and even kill anyone who tries to start a union) of the Third World.

You argue like a buyer for WalMart or an outsourcing specialist. No one's buying your line.

is not that they restrict imports, it is that they impose high and progressive taxes on themselves and use the proceeds to provide strong social safety nets, effective national health care and tighter regulation of corporations. They also make sure that strong unions are supported legally.

All of this allows progressive countries to trade more than we do and to do it successfully. OTOH, we have low, regressive taxes and use the relatively meager funds for things other than a strong social safety net, an ineffective (to be kind) health care system and loose regulation of corporations. And we provide little support for unions.

But we do blame foreigners (particularly the poor ones) for most of our problems (even though we trade - and import - less than any other country this side of North Korea).

I blame our corporate greedheads, not for trading (obviously we can't produce everything) but for deliberately destroying America's industrial base.

Last edited Mon Apr 16, 2012, 05:57 AM - Edit history (1)

What did I miss?!

.....

Edit to Add: Nevermind, I found it. WOW. Just wow.

And it never will be.

My community consists of the real flesh-and-blood people with whom I share some sort of commitment. Don't talk to me about "world community" -- it's an abstraction of the cheesiest sort.

"Community" is a term that's been battered into meaninglessness, and 20th-century globalism has certainly made its contribution.

As soon as we talk about American workers and how they've lost their jobs, you go on your wild eyed rants about the John Birch Society.

High paying manufacturing jobs that created a middle class lifestyle got sent overseas and were replaced by low paying service jobs, which are now also going overseas.

them at will? Why can't people go reside where they wish, when they wish? Why only money and industry, not humans?

It has been harder to make that happen in most of the world. I agree. Why not humans?

can you bring me back a tricorder and a holodeck, too? Thanks!

Or try going to work in China or India from Europe.

And the countries that ARE united within the EU are having some very very big problems with the Euro. Greece, anyone?

contend that eliminating borders between many countries on a continent really doesn't count, because they maintain borders with other countries, feel free to use your own definition.

Yes, Europe still has problems. Greece in particular, but every poll I've seen shows that the Greek people overwhelmingly want to stay in the EU though they are more split on whether to withdraw from the Euro.

Your definition is utterly meaningless unless this 'borderless society' is global in nature. Which it never will be.

There will always be borders. And the Euro will be dragged under by the PIGS, probably taking the EU with it.

the EU's external border. If only a borderless world will fit your definition of a borderless society, you are welcome to it. I prefer to acknowledge progress where it has been made even if the world still has a long way to go.

There will certainly always be borders. There is still a border between France and Germany. Perhaps it will be the significance of a "border" that will change - just as it has with the border between France and Germany. Many wars have been fought over that border. Now it has a whole new meaning.

I do agree with you that there is the possibility that "the Euro will be dragged under by the PIGS, probably taking the EU with it." Nothing would make the French National Front (and many other far-right parties in Europe) happier, so I hope it does not happen.

1 billion Muslims will have a vote in your religious freedoms, and 1.3 billion Chinese will have a vote on your reproductive rights.

That, and there'll be nowhere for you to escape when said groups vote your freedoms right out the window.

So I'll leave you to your doomed one world community fantasies. Have a nice day!

Are you afraid of Hispanics and Blacks, too? There 1 billion Africans and close to a billion Latinos in Central and South America. Should we be afraid of them too? Their must be something we have that they want to take away, too.

Sounds like we can only really trust other Americans and - maybe - Canadians. Don't sound to thrilled about letting Europeans into the circle of trust. "Us" humans vs. "them" humans - got to love it!

If you learned French you could join the National Front. They worry a lot about Muslims and Africans (particularly North Africans who are mostly Muslims). And they hate the EU and love tariffs to boot.

I'll leave you to your doomed dream of a walled off United States that interacts as little as possible with the rest of the world. Have a good one, too!

You would have every job shipped out of here and all of America living off food stamps.

Apparently you would also like to see China export its One Child Policy and Great Internet Censorship Firewall to America. In your world, to despise that is to hate Chinese people. And you must also want Sharia Law to become the law of our land; after all, to despise that misogynist system is to hate Muslims.

So, going by your enlightened reasoning, you oppose free speech, reproductive rights AND religious freedom.

In reality? In a borderless world you can kiss all those freedoms goodbye. But you'd be happy with that.

What a clumsy attempt.

State to State without papers. The fact is, there is much exploitation of 'illegal immigrants' from non EU countries in the EU and UK. Anyone who is not from EU does not cross freely. Most certainly can not show up and work legally and make a residence.

with cheap immigrants from Eastern Europe.

An English friend told me that Tony Blair's government gave Eastern Europeans unlimited immigration to the UK, something that no other Western European country did.

Try to find a native speaker of English among the housekeeping staff and bellhops at your London hotel or restaurant or coffee shop. Only the front desk staff speaks native-level English. The Eastern Europeans seem to be OK as workers, but you have to wonder where all the people who live in the council flats (what we would call "the projects&quot are supposed to find jobs if entry level jobs are all going to people from other countries.

Your analysis falls so flat not because you fail to tell us how things work in Europe, but rather because you can't seem to identify just what went wrong here in America.

We have all the laissez-faire, corporation-aggrandizing "free trade" that you have lobbied for, and yet we still await our workers' paradise to spring forth.

We had high and progressive taxes after WWII. We had strong unions. We had an effective safety net. We had effective corporate regulation and oversight of the financial sector. All of these we had thanks to Democrats. (It is true that we never had effective health care, though Medicare and Medicaid were at least improvements over what existed before.) Our income equality was among the best in the world and the productivity gains made for the first 25-30 years after the war were translated directly into increased pay for the working class.

What went wrong in the US was the we (largely, but not solely, republicans) cut taxes and made them more regressive; emasculated unions; shredded the safety net and deregulated everything under the sun particularly the financial industry.

And then we looked around and wondered how things got so bad and how income inequality got back to pre-Depression levels. Rather than reverse all of those policy mistakes, some suggest that maybe we should cut back on trade to make up for all these problems we created. The fact is that we trade less than practically any country in the world (aside from a few "hermit" nations) - certainly much, much less than any developed progressive country.

The reason I look to Europe is that it is largely a progressive continent with much better income equality, strong unions and an effective safety net. They are much further along the path to progressive societies than we are. I realize that the US is different (if not exceptional but there are lessons to learn from Europeans on how to create a progressive society.

They have achieved this by not doing what we did: they have maintained high and progressive taxes, strong unions, an effective safety net and effective regulation of corporations and the finance industry. And they trade more than we do. So trade doesn't kill progressive taxes (just look at Sweden), we did that all by ourselves; it doesn't kill strong unions (just look at Germany), we did that all by ourselves; it doesn't kill effective safety nets or regulation, we did that too all by ourselves.

Trade does not create a "workers paradise". What does create at least a strong middle class and high quality of life (not sure that there is a "workers paradise" anywhere), at least in the "Real World" of much of Europe is what I have mentioned above with respect to taxes, unions, the safety net and regulation. And the countries that have achieved these relatively progressive societies also see trade a significant part of the picture.

With regards to the "Real World" I seldom see trade critics offer real world examples of progressive countries that use high tariffs to provide their citizens with a "workers paradise". If tariffs are all we need to create a progressive society, surely there must be some examples which we can examine and learn from their experience. Or must high-tariff "workers paradises" remain a misty dream unexamined in the context of the Real World.

The most recent examples of high tariffs in the US were enacted in the 1920's and 1930 by republicans and, not surprisingly since they were republican policies, helped create extreme income inequality (though we have matched that in the last few years). That's one reason that FDR was a low-tariff, pro-trade advocate both during the 1930's and in his plans for the post-war world which included GATT to help prevent the return of republican high tariffs.

That's odd.

Of course corporatists are going to support politicians who push tax cuts on the top 1%. They're the ones who will benefit from such a pay-out, and they'll keep more of their money if there are fewer social programs in the United States.

If you want to rebuild America's Middle Class, you need to give them high-paying jobs. Those people who keep pushing free trade essentially destroyed unionized manufacturing jobs in the United States, and that was THE bulwark of the American Middle Class. That bulwark is gone.

I'm not against trade with other nations, but I am against trade if the main point of the endeavor is simple global labor arbitrage. For that, I favor scientific tariffs levied and changed yearly that attempts to equalize labor costs across borders. It may cost $15 to make an iPhone in the dictatorship of China and $85 to make it in the United States, and Apple should be free to move factories to China to make that phone, but before those phones are allowed into the United States, they should pay a labor tariff of $70/phone to equalize the costs. In this effort, corporations would be forced to compete on quality of the products, not the simple cost of the products.

If all this free trade stuff worked, I'd be working in the Muskegon or Grand Rapids areas and spending more time with my elderly Mom.

of the appliance industry. Hits just keep on coming.

It's an odd feeling, living here, surviving, maybe even thriving, while everything falls down. But it's my home--a beautiful and sad place. I hope you find your way to wherever it is you'd most like to be--wherever that is.

The towns hit by the appliance industry problems are Benton Harbor and St. Joseph. Benton Harbor has an emergency manager. The place used to be the big manufacturing hub of Whirlpool.