The President Needs To Take Some Economics Classes

This demonstrates pretty amazing ignorance of basic economics by a person in such high office:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43526626/ns/business-going_green/

Healthy industries exist where their products are competitive on their own merit. The reason those industries don't exist here any more in the country that built those industries is because whatever product we could produce is either just undesirable or too expensive for people to want to buy. Our steel industry and its jobs went overseas because steel made here became too expensive. It had nothing to do with anything else.

I remember very well back in the day when the cost to produce many of our country's products began to be more expensive than those made overseas. I and others argued loud and long that the loss of heavy industries like steel would create big problems for us in the future. Those who encouraged generous pay and benefits packages that in turn drove up the price of products said we were overreacting. Many liberal economists said(!) that even if we lose some industries that way we'll just be switching to a service economy and there's no reason why that won't work for us just as well. We argued that loss of hard manufacturing would hurt our economy because making useful products is what creates healthy growing economies. They said nonsense!

Well, once again we nutcase knuckleheads on The Right have been proven correct. It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to say I/we told you so ... we cannot have a healthy growing economy unless we keep manufacturing healthy by whatever means necessary. Driving up the cost of products with expensive pay and benefits gives the workers a temporary feeling of a better life while eventually robbing them of their jobs altogether. What would you rather have? A job with a bit lower pay and benefits or no job at all?

Take a look at ALL the industries that have left this country. Steel, clothing and many others. Automobiles too to a great extent. They were ALL heavily unionized and in every one of them unions pushed hard for increase after increase in pay and benefits. In fact, we could have lost our auto industry altogether if we taxpayers hadn't poured billions of dollars into propping up their unaffordable retirement plans last year.

Such products ceased being manufactured here because we couldn't make them price-competitive. Period. There was nothing wrong with those products except their price to consumers. Liberals will say it's just a coincidence that those industries had strong unions but they're wrong. Simple economics dictated that the production of such things would move overseas. Just as simple economics guarantees that will, in turn, cause problems for an economy. We need a health manufacturing sector, THRIVING ON ITS OWN MERIT, for our economy to remain healthy.

If you don't understand the cause of something you're likely not going to fix it correctly. So it is with the current administration. Moving those industries back to the USA by ANY means other than finding a way for them to complete on their own (without government propping them up) is a fool's errand that will further drain the financial resources of our country. Look at who the president says must fix this problem: Universities, industry and the government. No mention of the root cause (I'm not sure he even knows) and fixing that. And no mention of unions. To fix a problem, an intelligent person tries to understand the root cause and fix THAT. Fixing the root cause is the least expensive, the least painful over time and will fix it permanently not temporarily.

Liberals in general and progressives in particular always want to fix things NOT by addressing the root cause but by ignoring it but by attempting to fix it with taxpayers' money instead. Watch what happens on this. President Obama will want to throw taxpayer money at it somehow and rebuild/create industries that are dependent on infusions of money from The People rather than succeeding on their own ability to become and remain competitive. That's socialism folks! The more government controls things and confiscates The People's money in order to steer it into the production of goods, the farther you're moving into socialism.