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Mary K. McClanahan of Loveland writes:

Unintended Consequences. Contaminated goods from China have caused prodigious fears among our populace. The solution is to ban all foreign-made products, but that would perhaps create even greater problems.
Consider: Jobs brought back to the U.S. would necessitate re-opening of closed-down steel, furniture, clothing, and communication industries (to name only a few). Costs of re-starting would be staggering. Companies would have to pay higher wages to American workers, accustomed to comfortable lifestyles. CEO’s would be forced to take huge cuts in salaries and perhaps forego bonuses to get businesses up and running and to meet payrolls! While American-made merchandise would certainly be superior to and safer than imported goods, consumers would undoubtedly have to dig deeper in their wallets to pay for them.
And who will take those newly-created jobs? (Let us assume in this imagined idyllic economy that all illegal aliens have gone home.) Previously laid-off middle-managers might not stoop to manual labor. Brains and bodies of young Americans have turned to mush from lack of activity. Unable to find work, the only muscles that have remained fit are those in their thumbs. And college tuition is so expensive they can ill afford higher education. These young folk, once so full of promise, would be totally incapable of taking on high-paying jobs which require strong backs and/or good old-fashioned intellect. Once again, employers would bear the brunt of supplying an adequate labor force. Their only option: provide financial assistance to students in order to bring them up to speed for the abundant positions. Another hit for those poor CEO’s! Plus burdensome workloads for college professors!
This solution, with its built-in dire consequences, would have the further disadvantage of leading to a resurgence of our dwindling middle class. And what a shame that would be. Are we ready to pay the price?

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

Mary, Imports, human and otherwise, and exports, including American jobs, have become "The American Way" you don't want to upset that new global balance do you??

Washington DC and the "globalists" know whats "good" for the country!

Please do not think about the majority of Chinese crap that is sent daily into this country because you will get a whopper of an American headache!!!
Oh, but then you can take a few contaminated Chinese aspirin that should do it for you...ta ta!

While I applaud your desire to re-establish the American middle class, dreams and all, you should have started your second paragraph: "Once upon a time in a land far, far away, consider..."

I remember when Walmart actually advertised that all it's products were American made and sported an American flag on it's fascia next to the main sign. How sad it's decline in my mind.
I don't blame companies for trying to find the most cost effective means of production, we have been doing that for years. There is a difference when it comes to where those goods came from though. When we were rebuilding Japan after actually writing their constitution for them we saw the new democracy as a great potential ally. We read "Made In Japan" on it's trinkets offered here and joked about their quality. When things improved for their population and prices rose there, we switched to helping Taiwan. A renegade Chinese province in need of assistance became a manufacturing powerhouse that served both the needs of the Taiwan people and American interest. We joked "Made in Taiwan" and their economy boomed. We built bases there that served us well through the cold war.
Enter the Chinese. A fascinating culture with more soldiers in it's standing Army than the whole population of America! Every ex-military bone in my body wants to be friends with that nation. Some say that trade alone will bring our countries to dependence on each other but I think we set aside our morals when boosting their economy so much. I see our decline as a nation following the switch to a service related economy under the shadow of China's manufacturing muscle. We may be able to "Shock and Awe" some third world province for now but if the Chinese retooled for war their capability would Shock and Awe the whole world.
How do we scold the worlds largest military the next time we are targeted and hit with Chinese made equipment like the Silkworm missile if launched by a terrorist group.
If we have to do business there to compete then American Quality Control personnel working with the subcontractor corporation must be completely responsible for all products coming over here and those American companies held liable for every mistake suffered by the American consumers. We have rule of law and they do not. That is the very minimum we should expect from our government concerning products from Communist China.

So we all stop buying Chinese goods and they go broke and start wars to gobble up other countries.

So there you are in Walmart, looking for socks made in America and asking yourself, will this purchase add to world stability or decrease it?

Now every purchase is a geopolitical nightmare.

hey we cant cut off china as one of our past presidents gave the honor of most favored nation, for trade.
we better be careful or that family will be back in power and be really mad.

namelees@05:03- doesn't congress have the final say on such things as MFN status? And wasn't the congress of that time controlled by newt(the toot) and his cadre of contract on America republics?
Surely you can do better than w'all Clinton did it too.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

Wow, Econ classes should be mandatory. So many silly assumptions in that letter leaves me stunned by it's sheer ignorance.

It always amazes me that people want us to be able to export all we want but to only buy American made goods....

awww, right, reality is not the norm for the lib mind. Wishful thinking is.

People have laughed at me for years when I have told them why we should boycott China. Maybe now some will listen. Every penny we spend on Chinese goods will one day, come back to us from the barrel of a gun.

Shop locally owned businesses and look for the labels on anything you buy. Stop buying junk like plastic tableware and go get some real ones at thrift stores.

Stop buying fad items, like all those "support our troops, flag, country'" stickers made in China.

Stay out of Hobby Lobby, and all the big box stores unless you look for made in U.S.A. labels.

I'm ALWAYS looking for Made in the USA labels. Hope in the future there will be many more of those.

Patrick,

When NIxon visited China it was hailed as a great move. Now, when our overeager regulators find real flaws in products they recall them. Does anyone think we might recognize that we have detected the flaws? We are comparably safe. Wonder how upset the trial lawyers were when they closed that factory in China. Of course we have to be careful to study WHY, with our surplus of natural resources, abundant skilled workers and address the fact that regulations on workers, workplaces and the tax rates, both personal and corporate make it more cost effective to ship materials to China and ship the finished good back. Let's see if the government can come up with any real safety measures and inspections to protect consumers without rewarding bureaucratic stupidity.

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