Me at my best www.youtube.com?watch?v=99AJialnM8 A little truth raggae style!

1. We often confuse where a car is assembled with where it is "made." My recollection is that about $2,000 of the cost of a Janesville-made Tahoe was assembly labor. The value (and residual economic benefit) of parts/components is spread around the globe.
2. Some US nameplates (e.g. Mustang) have a majority of foreign-made content.
3. You can buy stock in publicly traded companies like Toyota and Honda and share in their profits/appreciation.
4. GM and Ford have an important footprint in Europe and Asia. Is the logical extension of your argument that Chinese -- the fastest growing vehicle market -- should not buy a GM vehicle?
So much of this whole argument about trade and protectionism is based on a reality that disappeared 30+ years ago. Look around and note all of the jobs in the US/WI/Jvl that are supported by buyers of our products/services from other countries. Xenophobia is grounded in irrational emotion, not an understanding of economics.

Stevie,

There's a growing anti-trade sentiment in our country. Much of the dialogue is grossly misinformed. Since there is no moral argument for preventing one person from trading with another, anti-traders shift their argument to a patriotic appeal.

When the money you write of leaves the USA do foreigners keep all those dollars they earned under a mattress? They are not that stupid. They use those dollars to import capital goods such as U.S. stocks, bonds and U.S. Treasury notes. They might use some of it to build factories in the U.S. such as Honda, Novartis and Samsung. The dollar amount of those purchases is going to equalize the value of what we import. We sport a huge surplus in our capital account with foreigners. As such, they are dependent on us for a safe and profitable place to invest their earnings. That dependency contributes to OUR economic growth. Anything that increases economic efficiency -- whether by outsourcing or a hundred other things -- is likely to cost somebody's job. The automobile cost the jobs of people who took care of horses or made saddles, carriages, and horseshoes.

Indeed, when protectionists seek to block imports-- often under the banner of "patriotism"-- what they're really blocking is the free exercise of property rights. And there's nothing American about that.

Protectionism is as wrong in practice as it is in theory. Steve just as you're better off "importing" goods into your house from stores rather than laboring to produce everything yourself within the borders of your home, so too is a nation better off observing that same principle.

I am going to go out on a limb and assume you did not type your column on a typewriter. I am correct? Where do you think the vast majority of components come from? Imagine if U.S. computer companies were forced to make all their components at home. The cost of computers would be higher, so U.S. business could not enhance productivity, grow and hire workers. Plus, U.S. computer makers would be priced out of the market and forced to fire workers-in fact you might not even be able to have a blog on the bliss website.

When DC took over GM and we helped with their loan bailout, I heard the President say we don't want to dictate things like WHERE they put their plants. Why not? That's exactly where we should have made a difference, then we wouldn't be without a plant in Janesville or other US towns...Mr. Prez, if we bail them out, why can't they keep our jobs here in the old US of A, so we pay taxes from our incomes to help pay for their bailout? Just a thought from a simple backwoods Wisconsin tax payer... Ms. Wicket

How can profits for transplant companies be a bad thing, when GM didn't make a profit for at least the last 10 years?

Steve, the "trail of money" is in the economic activity crated by producing a car, from design, to parts manufacturing, to final assembly, to sales. The biggest drivers of economic activity are parts production and final assembly. The sales dealerships are all domestic. If you want to benefit further from "foreign" profits going back to the parent company, buy stock in that company.

I will not look to Madison or Washington for any help, I'm too old to believe in fairy tales. Younger readers will have to do that.

That would be Dirksen. As in Everett. The flippin' building is named after him.

(Not Derksin, Dirksen.)
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You ask whether anyone in Washington "gets it". The problem was whether anyone in Detroit "got it" and they steadfastly refused to for -- unbelievably -- decades.
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I would be for protectionism if it were part of a more broad industrial policy, but that strategy has been roundly rejected over the years.
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The fact is that US manufacturing production has continued to increase steadily. Protectionism is not needed. The reason for job loss is much more attributable to productivity improvements using better processes and technology. Focusing on the industries that have moved overseas is misleading. Yes, there have been communities devastated by the loss of factories, but overall the US continues to produce and export more every year (excepting the recession). What has happened is that the average value of GDP per worker has skyrocketed. Before the 2001 recession we were at as close to full employment as we have ever been in the postwar era.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archiv...
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Meanwhile, despite these gains in per-worker productivity, the wages paid workers have remained almost flat in real dollars, while CEO pay has zoomed higher and higher. There is a fundamental disconnect here and the labor market is not receiving the benefit of these productivity gains. If they were, the loss of jobs would not be as painful to bear, because worker pay would have increased accordingly.
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This is the real crisis. Foreign competition did not throw Janesville out of work. We were selling SUVs like gangbusters until the housing crash took away billions of dollars in investment by American families.
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I'm glad you're focused on policy, Steve, but you don't seem to be absorbing lessons pertinent to the current problem.

Destroy the village in order to save it?

Everett Dirkson (RP-Il)