Mr Konop,
How do we compete with slave labor?
—Why would you want to? What’s so wonderful about working in harsh conditions (any factory) doing boring work? Are you still fixated with bashing metal into smaller bits of metal?
Why would you want land- and labor-intensive, polluting production in America?
Why would you not embrace the benefits of lower prices for American families?
Does your praise of Chinese authorities arresting people for violating Chinese employment laws mean that you are now “pro-China” ?
Mr Konop, you, dear sir, are the one who has lost it.

The enlightened, educated, informative response was,
David
King of the slaves!

And then, completely off topic,

Go ask the 4 million American workers in the U.S. who lost thier [sic] job due and healthcare if David is right.
Go ask the workers in Countries like China if David is right?
Go ask any human rights group if David is right?
Do you feel comfortable that China holds so much of our currency they could destroy us?

Mr Konop,

If you don’t know enough to argue the issue, pick another one.
This is getting tiring.

I know you’re an educated man, but you really need to define your terms.

I don’t see how a mix of nationalism and capitalism can be anything other than self destructive.

The eventual outcome is best described as having merchandised yourself back to the stone age.

“I don’t know how a nuclear war might be fought, but the one after that will be fought with spears and clubs.”

I don’t know who will stage the last going out of business sale, but the buyers won’t be paying with debit cards.

How do people win a race to the bottom with legal rights and human rights at the work place?

The issue isn’t emotional. It’s rational. You’re emotional. You’ll get over it.

Economics isn’t about perfection or emotions or making people wealthy.

Economics is all about conserving limited resources and the use of limited resources for the best, maximum beneft.

China wastes several resources, including as you have pointed out humans.

There is no point in our country or any one in our country wasting the lives of 4 million to recreate wage slavery within the borders of the United States.

That’s from the very fundamentals of economics.

Now in terms of competition.

If Z makes widgets cheaper than A, A should stop making widgets.

If A makes cheese cheaper than Z, Z should stop making cheese.

There are better examples that I could steal from David Ricardo and others on the subject of comparative advantage.

There are problems to comparative advantage. Just as there are problem in competition.

Competition for the sake of competition (winning at any costs) is stupid when country is competing with country.

And, often when company competes with another company.

We ‘could’ destroy 4 million people to compete with China. We ‘could’ strip our land of the remaining natural resources to compete with China.

China ‘could’ destroy 40 million or even 400 million to beat us at that game. Despite having more land mass than China, China might have more natural resources (untapped/undeveloped).

So in fighting to an end game with China, they not only could destroy us by using our currency against us, they could let us destroy what ever remains of our natural resources and merely outlast us in direct competition.

David is right that the U.S. can’t win in the traditional winner take all competition against emerging China. Shouldn’t try.

It’s not what the GOP wants. It’s not what you want. Few people what to hear this ‘defeatist’ attitude.

Tough nipples for them.

The inability to compete and win at the same tired game could and should force changes in behavior.

There will be pain. The wealthy won’t feel it much, thanks to huge and foolish tax breaks for Paris Hilton et al. The poor (the real middle class) will feel it.

This is the lesson of Iraq and post 9/11. The trade offs of immediate gratification versus long term achievement.

National pride just isn’t worth the price of self destruction.

The “Manifest Destiny of the American People” group has always been a bunch of crap eating, crap spewing neanderthals.

A pity they can reproduce.

Go ask the workers in Countries like China if David is right?

Go ask any human rights group if David is right?

Do you feel comfortable that China holds so much of our currency they could destroy us?

David is right twice.

Let me get back to you on that.

MD

I try to keep personal attacks out of these discussions, and I appreciate it when others do, too.

You’re right.

I was wrong to compare you to a race horse. That insulted race horses which are bred to compete.

You’re just another oxen that pulled a plow.

It’s a waddle and grandiloquence.

King of the slaves!