Outsourcing. Sorry I had my tonsils out and was not able to respond to our previous debate in time.

Hope you are feeling better. The reason prices have to go up is that a tariff is essentially a tax on imports. So if you wanted to make sure that CEO's were not going to ship an automobile factory overseas, then you would tax the importing of automobiles. So the price of cars goes up, and these costs get passed on through the economy, thus putting people out of jobs and then raising the cost of goods. That's the tricky thing about economics, you have to look at indirect effects. I'm not sure where you got those numbers from, but I can tell you the difference is because America produces a lot more than every other country, hence we make more money. America's GDP (dollar amount of how much we produce) is usually around 13 trillion dollars. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I believe Japan comes in second with 4 trillion GDP. There are several reasons for why that is, but mainly it is because relative to other countries, America has a very free market economy. So when you say these corporate profits are not "necessary," what exactly are you basing that claim on? If European CEO's make only 7 times the average worker, then why is that not obscene? Why doesn't the CEO make 1.5 times? When you say the discount of outsourcing is not passed on to the customer, there are a few things wrong with that statement: 1. Obviously the discount is passed on in some goods, because the reason we buy so many imports is because they are cheaper. Wal-Mart now provides material goods that were once unavailable to lower-income people. 2. Even if the price is not reduced, that profit goes somewhere. Businesses don't just bury money in the ground after they make it. Dividends are paid out to stockholders, some is invested in expanding the company or making it better. Even if the CEO kept all the extra profit for himself, everyone still benefits because the money will be spent, thus providing employment elsewhere. This part of your argument makes the assumption that rich people can "hoard" money. You can do three things with money: Spend it, invest it, save it. When you spend it you are giving it to someone else for something. When you invest it you are essentially making a loan to someone and you then either own part of their company (stocks) or the pay you back with interest (bonds), and when you save money, it doesn't just sit in the bank, the bank is loaning it out to people. The only time money is kept from circulation is when you are carrying cash, which no one has a billion dollars stashed in a vault, except for Scrooge McDuck. Since he is a cartoon character, I think we can rest easy. The idea that America is not producing anything is one I have never been able to figure out why people think this is so. I remember having this exact same conversation in one of my film studies classes, and the irony of it was that almost every film we watched was made in America. When I was in Europe I remember hearing American music everywhere, posters advertising American films, eating at a Burger King, and using a computer in a coffee shop that used Microsoft internet explorer. The most shocking thing were the American cars (Ford Focus is a popular car in parts of Europe). America has a very strong service economy. There is a lot more that goes into a product then just putting it together. I'll probably go into more detail about this in later rounds. We import more from Canada than China. Is anyone really concerned about trade with Canada? I think it has to do more with xenophobia than trade policy. But China and India also have over a billion people each. If every country traded with everyone else equally, then that would mean over a third of our trade would be with China and India. But China only accounts for about 15% of our imports, and India even less. You also haven't given a reason why it is unjust that these jobs are sent elsewhere, or why the jobs are the property of the employee. If I hire you to trim my hedges, but then one day decide that I want to hire someone else, or that I don't want the hedges anymore, is this unjustly taking away your job? It's not asinine that trade makes people wealthier, it is basic economics. Your assumption is that jobs are a constant--that you can not create jobs or wealth, they are merely transfered. But as technology advances, there are new opportunities for different jobs. When humans first went from being hunter-gatherers to living in agricultural communities, not as much time was need to find food. This technological advancement lead to the rise of arts, music and the like. Then with the industrial revolution, not as many people were needed to farm, so more people were free to pursue other things, which made us wealthier. Now you can be a banker, a scientist, a teacher, a merchant, an entertainer, etc etc. So there isn't a fixed pie; wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.