Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Right For Jobs

CALL ME A PROTECTIONIST IF YOU LIKE. I am actually okay with that. The truth, if you have kept up with me at all in the past, is that I side more with the idea of free trade than anything. That aside, I strongly support the American worker, and have long held that what we know to be free trade today really isn't free trade at all if those other countries we are competing with are not playing by the same set of rules.

What, in part, leads me to believe the way I do? For one, I think we had the best and the strongest economic times when we were leaders in manufacturing. It used to be that the largest companies were all manufacturers, and those factories employed many millions of workers and provided jobs that paid family supporting wages and offered family supporting benefits as well.

Granted, many of these manufacturing companies WERE unionized, and I am also strongly against unions—but that is for another day.

Nowadays it seems the largest employer in the United States is Walmart. Not that I have anything at all against Walmart, but let's face it. They don't offer the same kinds of job opportunities, wages, and benefits that the large manufacturing firms of the past offered. And many of those jobs aren't even full time.

I want to talk a bit about the recent announcement by the Trump administration that tariffs would be placed on imported steel and aluminum.

The fact is that over the years, and actually over several decades, we have lost untold numbers of jobs due to steel and aluminum imports, the bulk of which has come from China. The other industries notwithstanding, what has been left for the American worker are the REAL CRUMBS Nancy Pelosi

and her democrat cohorts should be talking about.

Taco Bell, McDonald's, convenience stores and the like are the largest employers in this country if you take away small business. And none of them pay a living wage, and I would argue offer little in the way of a career path either. Let's not forget that MANY of those small businesses are actually restaurants which also do not pay high wages.

One of the things Trump talked about during his campaign were the stagnant wages this country has suffered for a very long time, and the plight of the people in jobs that just don't do anything to help lift them up out of the doldrums and off the dole. While protesters marched in the streets demanding $15 an hour jobs flipping hamburgers, then candidate Trump promised the American people that he would fix some of the wrongs over many decades that left American workers no real choice but to trade in their steel toed boots for spatulas. He wanted to put America first, put the American worker first, and bring back manufacturing...

The heart, bread, AND butter that made for a vibrant and robust American middle class.

I have long argued as well that part of the issues that plague the inner cities can be directly tied to the loss of manufacturing jobs—and even probably contributed in a big way to the entire breakdown of those inner cities.

NOT EVERYONE IS COLLEGE BOUND, NOR SHOULD THEY BE.

And that is not to suggest that I think that black people, because I just mentioned the inner cities which have large black populations, are less capable of getting a college degree. But manufacturing was indeed a sector that provided for very strong earnings for people of all colors and all walks of life to get out of high school and go out and make wages that would one day afford them the opportunity to join the ranks of the middle class.

Think of the economy sort of like the ecosystem. Remove one food source and something else dies as a result. When you took out manufacturing from the economy, many people were impacted by this—and it is not necessarily a question of simply getting different jobs. It's a question of what quality of jobs were left in manufacturing's stead.

When you have family supporting wages, and when you feel good about the opportunities and direction in your life, you tend to be more rooted—and thus family values are stronger. The inner cities in particular, and in large part, lost a part of that opportunity and one can easily see the path it has lead us on.

Back in the early days of this country, especially as our economy began to become more and more dominant, of course the people of this country were doing well. When an economy is doing well, the cost of labor rises. Lesser economically developed countries could naturally have an advantage over the American worker since it would have the ability to produce certain goods cheaper by default.

HOW DO YOU FIX THAT?

Tariffs. Duties assigned to imported goods to bring those imported goods on par with domestic goods.

And by the way, to me that's real free trade. Competition. Not only that, but FAIR competition. Let's compete on the quality of the product, not the price. Why should a Chinese manufacturer have an advantage JUST BECAUSE they happen to be able to make the product for less even if, for argument's sake, the two products are exactly the same?

The steel and aluminum coming out of the United States is no different than the steel and aluminum coming out of China. The only difference happens to be the price. And the question I have is, if that is the only difference, why should the American steel worker or aluminum smelter have to suffer and lose his job just because China can make the same product cheaper? Why should that worker be forced to say, take a job at Walmart because not only has the steel and aluminum industry been winked out—but the automakers and the oven makers, and other manufacturers have also left town?

When this whole thing got started, and this is not a new argument for me either, the fact that we could get goods cheaper was a novelty. In the beginning people were still going to work everyday making a Ford, or making a Frigidaire, and it was neat that they could walk into a Kmart and buy something for less, stretching their already good wages even farther.

What actually happened is those Ford jobs went to Mexico, and those Frigidaire jobs went to China, and when they walked into a Kmart store to buy cheaper goods it was not because it was neat. It was because it was all they could afford. Because after the good jobs left, as they stood in line waiting to check out at Kmart, they found themselves in a position to also ask for a job application.

Do I like the fact that because of the tariffs the price of goods containing steel and aluminum will likely be higher? Of course not. At the same time, I do think we are long overdue in this country to get away from the bulk of American jobs being reduced to retail and fast food—if we can get Americans back to work in factories, making better wages, I think we all benefit from that. Even the companies we work for. I think the world benefits from it as well because honestly there will never be a time when there will not be a need for, nor a demand for imported goods. If Americans have better jobs, and make better money, that just means Americans will also buy more goods.

NO MATTER WHAT, WE ARE STILL A CONSUMER DRIVEN SOCIETY.

What the real outcome of this global market has been is to slow down what is the real potential of the American consumer to consume at the rate that they might otherwise consume. What is even worse, and again is for another day, is that we have also created an enormous problem in this country with consumer debt which now surpasses $1 trillion. It is safe to say that with all of that debt out there, and if we continued on the path of low paying service economy jobs—a huge portion of that $1 trillion debt might be subject to default.

THINK BACK TO THE SUBPRIME CRASH. THIS COULD VERY WELL HAPPEN TO THE ENTIRE CREDIT CARD INDUSTRY.

You can take an old adage here into account, if you will indulge me, that you cannot get blood out of a stone. If American workers are not making money to buy goods and services, and ring up huge debts just trying to keep up, there will be no money for anyone at the end of the day to collect. And what's more, the amounts you can collect will become smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

Part of the reason we have come to a place that even welfare rolls are so high is because people have been left with less choices to find meaningful jobs. Letting the Mexicans and the Chinese, and whoever else, to win just leaves everyone behind, including the Mexicans and the Chinese.

Let me get to one last point here. One thing Trump is proving is that America can compete. What has largely held us back, besides all of the initiatives of past presidents to allow for things like NAFTA and MFN status—and unions by the way—are regulations stacked on regulations and high corporate taxes. Those things, even more than wages I contest, have more to do with why American workers lost out, and continue to lose out to foreign competition in the jobs market.

WHAT'S MORE, it is also a large part of the reason many of those foreign manufacturers even have not operated in the United States. Taxes and regulations.

If Trump can continue to succeed in getting rid of burdensome regulation, can continue to exceed in lowering the corporate tax rates, and can continue to succeed in boosting the American economy as a whole, it will only make sense that Chinese and Mexican companies may decide to start building more things in the homeland.

Like Foxconn, for example, which is starting up a massive operation in Wisconsin.

What we need in this country is a return the good old days of old where the middle class is vibrant and abundant. We need to return to a time when people have money to spend and have money to save.

When you live in the most economically rich and successful country in the world, half the population should not simply be left to have to get by. The people of the country should have the opportunity to get ahead.

There are over 300 million people in this country, and that number continues to grow. Based on just simple math as to what that relates to in terms of consumption rates, the truth is that there is, and will be plenty of money to go around—you can support both strong American labor forces and you will still need plenty of imports just to keep up.

We have to right this ship. We have to restore manufacturing. We have to restore wages. We will have less people on the dole, and the government will actually take in more money, and so will the rest of the world as a whole.

The tariffs on steel and aluminum are a great place to start. Personally I want to see more of this. I want to see more deals renegotiated when it comes to trade. I want a level playing field. I want more Americans to have more choices when they decide what they want to do when they enter the work force. I want to see less Americans relying on the government and more American workers making family supporting wages. I want to see family values return. And even some of that may be possible if we can get back to a time when a single income household was more than enough and children had solid support and role models to guide their future lives, which only made the country better and stronger, and safer for that matter.

In the end it won't matter if my can of beer might cost a few cents more. I'll be making dollars more that will more than make up the difference and pick up the tab.

.@SecretaryRoss: "We're talking about a total of $9 billion of tariffs. That's about one half of one percent of the economy. So this business that 'the sky is falling' is just silly." #SundayFutures @MariaBartiromo pic.twitter.com/zHx3P49fKR

— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 4, 2018

What Job Loyalty Means To Me

The short answer? Only a fool will allow himself to be beholden to anyone for his livelihood. I think of a job like I think of a business. It will make decisions that are imperative to keep the business afloat, and growing, regardless of how that affects the people in the business. That's just smart business and really nothing personal.

Don't get me wrong. I will continue to stay with any company that is doing all of the things that are right for maintaining my own business. That is, having the ability to pay my bills, having the ability to enjoy upward mobility, and having enough free reign to pursue my personal interests as it applies to money and ultimately my livelihood, present and future.

My boss is a jerk is not necessarily a reason to leave a company any more than my boss is a really nice guy is a reason to stay with a company.

For me it boils down to one question. Does the company have the meat to allow me the ability to get where I want? If the answer is no, then just like a business will decide that having 500 employees is not beneficial to the bottom line and reduces their workforce to 400 at the expense of 100 people now out of a job, deciding to leave a company behind is simply the right business decision regardless of any other factors, if it is determined that the company that you work for is stifling your ability to meet your own  personal business' needs.

When YOUR business affects the health and stability of MY business, it's not about loyalty. It's about doing what's right for the health of MY business.

No business I have ever heard of longs to have its doors shuttered just because it wants to be loyal to someone or something.

I am not loyal to a company. I am only loyal to my business. And as it should be, just as much as the company I work for is not loyal to me, but to its business, I should be loyal to my business.

You cannot and should not ever consider yourself a simple employee. And moreover, you should never allow yourself to become a simple employee. In  other words, you must make it your primary goal to afford yourself the ability to become an individual business within the framework of any company you work for, and thereby afford yourself the ability to make decisions about how you proceed based on what you can do as opposed to what you must do.

Why do people stay in jobs that don't have the meat? The simplest answer is because they have put themselves into a position to need their employer to support at least the continuity of their own personal business and equate that to the idea that they are being loyal to an employer that is taking care of their needs. At that point it really isn't about loyalty. It's about simple survival. But some people will mistake that as being taken care of by their employer to maintain the status quo, and thereby will take whatever comes to them.

Most of the time, people are just getting by. Your own personal business is being sustained, but it's on a treadmill, your business is running in place, and at any moment the belt can break and you will be sent reeling onto your hindquarters with egg on your face.

In this sense, one is more like a slave to their job and to their company than an individual person able to decide for himself or herself what the best next step is in expanding their own personal business. That is a hugely dangerous and foolish position to be in.

I work for no one except for myself. Plain and simple. In reality? I have no boss other than myself so long as I understand the needs of my own personal business and the ability of the company I work for to have the meat to allow me to do what I need to in order to make my business a winner.

The moment that I decide that is not the case, I walk. Regardless of the inconvenience to the company I work for. Regardless of the consequence of the people I worked with. Regardless of the impact of my decision on the livelihood of others. It is a business decision that is made with regard to the needs of my business, and nothing else.

Nobody else, and no other business matters except my own. And that is exactly the way it SHOULD be.

Loyalty to a job means to me that a person is in need of their job. Not in control of their own future, their own destiny, and not in control of the future expansion and growth of their own personal business.

The old saying that a fool and his money will soon be parted sort of applies here. If you rely on being loyal, you are likely leaving opportunity, and potentially money as well, on the table. No successful or smart business ever worries about who gets hurt in the process, and certainly they don't worry about competitors who get taken out either. They do what is right for their business, and so should you consider your own personal business above all else.

However harsh it may seem, loyalty to anyone but yourself is simply a good way to ensure that others around you will thrive while all you get to do is survive. In essence, you will forever be beholden to someone else for your livelihood.

It may seem selfish. But at the end of the day any smart business is in business to become a powerhouse and grow and make money. If you think of yourself as a business, then it just makes sense to pursue your needs above the needs of all others, including the company you work for.

A boss it a title. A business is an entity. And where I come from? A business trumps a boss. The only time a boss trumps a business is when he is allowed to do so. I choose to be a personal business and trump my boss. And a boss only has power when his business trumps the business of the other personal businesses around him. If the businesses around him are strong and powerful, concession is the right order of business. And then the reality becomes that what is actually taking place is partnerships.

To my mind, loyalty is a fool's game, pure and simple.

Unions Are Full of Donkey Poop

 

My wife started her new job at a local grocery store. She will not be a cashier, but rather will be working in the pharmacy since she has 28 years of experience there. She also will be starting far above the minimum wage.

None of that is the point.

We will call her store Weber's Fine Foods to protect the identity of both my wife, and the store she works for.

The fact is that Weber's Fine Foods is a union store. And as such of course she will be required to join the union to work there. So with that there is also a union orientation, which is really code word for "presentation and propaganda spewing."

"Do not shop the non-union stores like Aldi, Walmart, Sam's Club, or Whole Foods." They go on to say that "every dollar spent in a union store is a dollar spent toward ensuring the future stability of every union employee and employer."

Ahem. Waders please. And it is beginning to stink in here a bit.

How much does Weber's Fine Food's pay their cashiers? $8.00 an hour. How about another local discount grocer in the same union local? $7.25.

Average starting wage of a Walmart or Sam's Club employee? Around $11.75. How much is the average starting wage for a cashier at Aldi? $12.00. How much is the average starting wage of a Whole Foods associate? Around $10-$12.

So tell me again how the union is ensuring the future stability of every union employee and employer when every union employer is below the radar when it comes to employee wages—which by the way are further reduced by union dues?

Your union if full of donkey poop quite frankly and every indication is that working for a non-union store pays better, from the start and to the finish. But unions don't like to spout off numbers. Rhetoric is so much easier to spout off. And so long as they have captive audiences? All the better.

Biden Visits The Detroit Wasteland

It's a trap. That is, the unions. But Vice President Biden won't tell you that. Neither will Obama, or the entire democratic party. Because they don't want people to catch on. The truth is that Detroit us a wasteland in part due to unions who sought to siphon every penny they possibly could out of companies from wages, to benefits, to pensions and beyond.

Did anyone care to look at a balance sheet? Of course not. That would tell the real story about how much money a company could afford to pay its workers. And it would not fit the narrative that the unions wanted the workers to hear.

Companies are bad. CEOs are evil. Workers need protection from bad and evil and the unions will come to their rescue.

But they didn't, and that's the point. And one that so many workers missed then, and continue to miss today. When they think about the jobs they had that went away, they don't put the blame on the unions who essentially took those jobs away by making unreasonable and unfounded demands for more money that simply wasn't there to give. They blame it on the companies and the executives who had to make tough decisions according to what was best for the company to keep their doors open at some level.

That means shuttering some doors, and letting workers go. It is simple business. And it was the unions who caused this, and even the workers themselves. But again, that's not the story anyone will hear nor pay attention to.

So Biden made a trip to Detroit this past Labor Day to speak with workers in the wasteland, and what did he tell them? You deserve more. Forget the wasteland around you, toppled by insane demands and union work rules that made it nearly impossible for the companies to operate. Forget that in right to work states people have jobs, get paid well, and are doing well. No, workers deserve more.

But the proof that simply demanding more doesn't work doesn't matter anymore than the proof that higher taxes do not increase government revenues. They will go on and beating the dead horse until there is nothing left but dependents who will need the democrats to feed them, clothe them, and now take care of all of their medical needs.

Wake up America. Wake up workers. Let's figure out what "fair" really means instead of trying to make up a hogwash definition of it on our own.

Image is mine from my private collection © 2014

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