Last year I needed a pair of cheap sunglasses to keep in my car. I found a pair for $5, and I got them at Wal-Mart.
I use non-prescription reading glasses, but Wal-Mart charges $8. Ocean State Job Lots in Whitinsville sells them for $3.
In Dorchester I wandered into the Dollar Store. Everything is literally one dollar. I can buy sunglasses and reading glasses for a buck.
That gave me pause. I worked in retail as a commissioned salesman, and I learned a wee bit about business. Even when selling things for a dollar those corporations—Dollar Store, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Family Dollar—are making a profit.
How much can they be paying the employees in factories overseas that grind out products purchased by American consumers?
Did these corporations profit from trade agreements, and were American jobs lost because of globalization, a 2016 presidential campaign issue?
Republican front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders think so and have used their opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by the US, Canada, and Mexico, to excite their supporters. They’re also opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement among twelve Pacific Rim countries including Australia, Japan, and Vietnam that has yet to be approved.
There is a debate between opponents and proponents of free trade agreements. A positive argument is they cause exports from America to increase substantially, and imports to this country give us a greater variety of choices at much lower prices. American consumers have a higher standard of living because they can afford to buy more products that improve the quality of their lives.
Opponents maintain this country has run up trade deficits that cause job loss and unemployment while reducing domestic production. They claim China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) resulted in the loss of 3.2 million jobs, and that enactment of the TPP would result in the loss of millions more.
Donald Trump proposes a 35% tariff on imports, a move economists say would provoke a trade war and devastate our economy. That’s called PROTECTIONISM, i.e., protecting domestic industries against foreign competition by the use of tariffs (taxes), quotas, or other import restrictions. The conventional wisdom is that the world economy benefits from free trade.
There are those who advocate a boycott of stores that sell these cheap foreign goods, but ironically the people who avoid them are generally middle-class liberals. The lower classes flock to these establishments, and they are located in the in the poorer sections of cities. They’re in Roxbury, not Beacon Hill.
If people get lower wages because of foreign trade and its elimination would result in domestic production, more employment, and higher salaries, it also follows that prices for American goods would not only be much higher, there would no doubt be fewer choices.
In gambling that’s referred to as “a wash,” meaning to break even.
This may be an insoluble problem.
We’ve all seen comical pictures on the internet of WalMart shoppers. Based on their appearance, which candidate do you think they’d support?
Asking poor people to boycott these corporations is comparable to Nancy’s Reagan’s “Just Say No” to drugs or Rodney King’s “Why can’t we all get along?”
None of them is ever going to happen.
by 
Exactly. I have a very PC cousin who will NOT set foot in a Wal-Mart. Possibly some of my other ivory-tower liberal relatives as well, I’m not sure. They are middle-to-upper-middle class. They might make themselves feel good, but they are wasting their effort. I go to Wal-Mart because their West Boylston location is very convenient for me.
I’m not an expert on trade agreements, and I would bet that not many people are; i e have read and understand the agreement. I believe that most people just go with their gut. Understandably, if you’ve lost your job, or even your industry, as a result of lower-priced imports, you will probably be dead-set against trade agreements and all for protectionism. The trouble is that protectionism never works. Especially now, with worldwide instantaneous communication. The world is now, I think, like a huge version of New York City. If you try to cut yourself off from the other boroughs, you will lose in the end. Technological advances, including robotics, have more to do with shuttered U.S. industries than trade does. And with creative destruction, one door closes but another opens. It is very difficult for the people who are affected, but that’s just the way things are, unfortunately.
If I had wanted to write a longer blog I would have mentioned what you say, i.e., that technology may be the real culprit on this issue rather than trade. When Henry Ford invented the auto he put buggy whip manufacturers out of business. Farm machinery cost hundreds of thousands of agricultural jobs and a migration to the cities. What are you gonna do?
Trump does not want a 35% tariff. He wants a level playing field. He said we can impose a 35% tariff if they do not level the field. Why must I always correct the opposition’s lies?Trump correctly points out that we have been on the bad side of previous trade agreements. That career politicians don’t know how to deal and wheel and make good deals. The gridlock in Washington is prove enough.
Mike, do you really think Trump has a chance to become president? He’ll get the nomination, much to the GOP establishment’s chagrin, but he is going to lose the general election even worse than Barry Goldwater did in 1964. He has a 27% approval rating nation-wide, even worse than Hillary’s 37%. He only appeals to white folks, especially older male white folks. There aren’t enough of them in the country any more to make up 270 electoral votes.
I have not been to his rallies. I have looked at pictures of the rallies. Lots of young men and woman there. Approval ratings have nothing to do with likely to vote ratings. Nobody is enthused about Hillary. Lotta people enthused about Trump. I am not voting for either. I am voting for Gary Johnson. But I think that if the election were held today Trump wins by a landslide. And just like I did with Obama I will do the same for Trump. Give him a chance if he wins it.
Today I wake up. Make my coffee. Check the news. http://www.telegram.com/article/20160322/NEWS/160329821 More votes for Trump. Last week it was the Framingham rapists. All these people doing this crap are unwittingly being Trumps best campaign workers. This is why Trump will be elected. Hillary will get routed. And rightfully so.
Given that half the population is below average intelligence, I can only hope that the other half will vote and prove you wrong.