An honest discussion about jobs in the United States.

[All_That_Chaz]

So I learned something today that made me think about the global economy. I approached a good friend who's very knowledgeable about finances and talked briefly about the current problems we have in the US in relation to jobs. I told him about an idea I've had for a while that I thought would greatly assuage the issue. It's incredibly socialistic, so it's very telling about where I fall politically when it comes to industry. I thought that a good idea for any country hurting for jobs locally would be to tax a portion of the profits made by private companies who send their jobs oversees. This would be done on an aggregate basis. The company would need to report the profit made by all plant located outside the country and how much it would cost to produce the same goods or services in the states. Then, a portion of that savings would be taxed as a way to counteract the effect of removing those jobs from the country. Now this is a case of double-taxation, but that line is misleading. We are double-taxed all the time. You pay payroll taxes on your job, and then later you pay income taxes on the same money. If you use that money to buy food at a grocery store, guess what, it's taxed again. Money is taxed over and over again and that line given by the GOP is just a way to get people riled up (I don't want this to become a political discussion, but that point was bound to come up).

My friend came back to me with this bit of knowledge that startled me. If a company opens a plant oversees, sometimes the country charges fees. Why wouldn't they? They know the company is going to save a massive amount of money by opening a plant here. Those fees certainly aren't going to stop anybody. Under current law, the government issues a credit to those companies equal to those fees. In effect, the government is paying private industry to move jobs out of the country. This is ludicrous to me. Wouldn't a country like ours that needs to hold onto jobs want to provide every incentive for companies to stay here? Why would the government give incentive to move out? It also brings up the point of where we draw the line when it comes to labor relations oversees. Right now we can pay programmers, a skilled position, in India a third of what workers in America would make. These people are still very poor, but their making tons more than others in the country. What if we found a country that had slaves. We could easily make a deal with that country to get incredibly cheap labor there. Should we take jobs over there? They'll work for nothing. Should we pay American companies to support slavery in other countries? Where do we draw the line in wages of what is even a living wage in foreign countries? If we don't care, then by all means, let's enslave a nation. I'm sure some company would have use for them. Personally, I don't support slavery.

My general point is that I think the government should be on the side of the American worker. American tax dollars should not be going to private industry rewarding them for finding a way to fire more American workers. Instead, that money they're saving should go back to the American people. I'm sure those dollars would help pay for medicare or welfare or even just put it towards the debt.

What do you guys think?