Monroe wrote:You do understand don't you that the government is the boss and paying for this.
No, I don't - I was under the impression that the United States was a democracy.
The
taxpayer is the boss, and the
taxpayer is the one would would be paying.
A company that couldn't afford it wouldn't get the bid. You do understand that right?
That's been my point all along - that jobs would be lost, either because they didn't get contracts because of this law, or because their materials costs went through the roof because of this law. There go your precious American jobs out the window.
Graham hit it square on the head. What idiot would use foreign goods over domestic goods for a domestic revitalization project? How much sense does that make? The project is designed to make the US run better. Why the hell would we want to use other country's materials?
Where exactly did Graham say anything of the sort? Indeed, he pointed out that in both the short and long term, this protectionism is a bad thing:
GK wrote:All this will do is drive up prices; American suppliers will see that they no longer have to compete against foreign markets because they are the only suppliers now. The natural thing for the suppliers to do is hike their prices. Which will mean lee infrastructure built per dollar and so less jobs in manufacturing, not more.
Similarly foreign countries will respond by imposing restrictions of their own, which will close their markets to American products and again be bad for American industry as well as our own.
As for why to use foreign raw materials; 1) because the alternative is to significantly increase the costs of the consumers of those raw materials, which would harm the US economy, and cost the US jobs (you've been ignoring this side of the equation all through the argument) and 2) we live in a global economy, that is suffering a global recession. If you think that shutting yourselves away and only buying US products, raw materials, etc is the solution then you're an idiot - that's what you as a country did last time, and it damaged your economy so badly it took a world war, and the resulting vast demand for war material, to get you out of it.
Maybe but they aren't losing business. They just aren't gaining it. So once again, QQ.
Of course they'd be losing business - the stuff the US manufacturing sector buys off them now, because the US equivalent either isn't good enough or isn't cheap enough.
Far as NAFTA and the claim that people in the United States likes it.
What such claim?
*snip links*
Thank you.
So seriously even asking for evidence that people in the United States dislike NAFTA or that its bad for our economy shows a tidal wave of ignorance unparalleled to anything I've witnessed on this forum outdoing that bigoted Renegade and all the Chakats combined.
You're welcome to continue believing that if you want to. Asking for evidence is never an example of ignorance - mere;y That's now plenty of evidence that NAFTA is unpopular.
I'm still waiting for evidence that it's a bad thing - as Kendall pointed out, most US jobs that are disappearing are going to China, not Mexico or Canada, and if they disappear, while it'll certainly have serious short-to-medium term effects, it shouldn't have long term effects. Why are people still whinging, and demanding that the government protect evidently failing industries, instead of setting up new industries?
Its a United States project designed to boost the economy. Of course they're going to buy US whenever possible.
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Even when buying US is detrimental to the economy?
