Thread regarding Union Pacific Corp. layoffs

I take exception to this idea that immigrants are only taking jobs Americans don’t want to do or there aren’t enough qualified Americans. Go anywhere where there are only white people, and you’ll see white janitors, white hotel cleaners, white cooks, white dishwashers, white mechanics, white landscapers...white people doing everything. Now, try to find a mechanic, landscaper, janitor, etc. that speaks English well in border cities. I’m using white since it’s the most obvious sign of Americans doing things Americans allegedly won’t do, not because whites are the only true Americans...it’s harder to tell in minority areas who is a non-white American and who is a recent immigrant just by looking. Clearly, however, no matter which side of the immigrant debate you are on, they are employed in every type of profession and have taken over even jobs Americans would do at minimum wage.

When you import the third world, you become the third world. Before the drunken, negligent fool Teddy Kennedy passed new legislation in the 60s, we imported only those with skills, who passed health exams and criminal background checks. I have a relative who still has the chest x-ray she had to bring with her during the immigration process, so they’d be sure she didn’t carry TB to the states.

UP showed where their loyalties lie when they gave the massive tax break straight to the shareholders. They’ll blame floods, tariffs, recession, government regulation, or lack of qualified workers, but they’ll never blame any executive decisions for anything.

1wbq gets it! Thank you! This anti tariffs guy has his head buried in something! If it’s good for China or XI it’s bad for America!

@ 1wbq:

There is nothing in your response that provides a rebuttal to the thesis that the tariffs are not good for American businesses or American workers.

How and why the tariffs are bad, and how they aren't hurting the people/institutions they're directed toward has been throughly explained elsewhere on this thread.

Nobody who is saying the tariffs are a good thing can explain how or why they are good thing. They won't lead to higher wages. They won't lead to more jobs. UP and their "Unified Plan 2020" are good examples. Not only did UP executives use the money they received from the tax cut to buy back stocks (and thus pad their own compensation packages), but when the tariffs and other poorly informed trade policies began costing them money, they cut jobs and scaled back investments.

Immigration, poverty, and child labor are tangential to original post. The jobs that immigrants are doing fall into two categories: jobs that Americans won't do (picking fruit, cleaning toilets, removing asbestos, etc.), and jobs that there aren't enough Americans to do (medical doctors, computer engineers, etc.). Do you want to pay $25 for a bag of onions? How about $2,000 for a smartphone? $3,500 for a basic laptop computer?

Nobody benefits from trade protectionism except for the people doing the protecting.

You are a damn fool if you think free trade with a 3rd world country that employs children to manufacture is a good thing for America. The reality is the only reason we need cheap goods is to support a growing poverty class of people (mainly illegal immigrants and lifelong welfare lifestyle types).

We import poverty to compete with cheap wages of the 3rd world. It is a downward spiral.

@1cwm:

Explain how tariffs are good for America.

Do you know what a tariff is?

Automate the UP trains. That will be fun!

@bff:

Nobody has to "hack" this site to post here. The comment you are referring to describes the overwhelming economic, financial, business, and policy consensus that is held both domestically and internationally, and is supported by statistical data from multiple credible independent sources.

To deny that the tariffs are having harmful effects, and that the effects of the tariffs will continue to do more harm as the costs to businesses are increasingly shifted to the consumer is similar to denying the effects of gravity.

The U.S. currently does not have the manufacturing capability to meet domestic demand for a huge range of consumer products, nor is that capacity attainable in any realistic way. Even if it was, much of the manufacturing would be highly automated, and would not lead to substantial job creation for "working folks". Far more manufacturing jobs have been lost to automation than to outsourcing.

China is not suffering under the tariffs. In fact, the trade deficit has grown even larger since the tariffs were applied, because American consumers and business have to pay more for the products China manufacturers. China is actually coming out ahead in a number of sectors.

Nobody benefits from trade protectionism except the people doing the protecting.

Tariffs will ruin the already hit hard farmer and the American businesses that rely on

Your hard earned UP dollar.

Good !!!!

UP succcckkkksss!!

Hope it goes bankruptcy!

Did China just hack this site👇? I think if we manufactured more goods in the USA it would be a good thing for working folks. Why would you want to be dependent on other countries to manufacture our products? I guess if you are so worried about other countries maybe you should move there. Good luck I’ll guarantee you’ll miss the USA and our tariffs when u are living in a 3rd world communist society.

@xia:

Tariffs are a blunt (and improper) instrument for the problem they are being applied to. They will not help the United States now or in the long run. They are leading directly to higher import and transportation costs which are in turn prompting shifts and delays in investments, and this is not benefiting American workers or industries.

The tariffs are also causing considerable disruptions to many critical supply chains that have lead and will lead to higher production and consumer costs. This is not good for "working folks" or anyone else.

There is no correlation between higher tariffs and higher wages. If anything, the opposite would be true, as companies work to offset the cost of the tariffs in the quickest way possible, namely cutting jobs and freezing wages.

Wages (adjusting for inflation) have been flat since the 1980s. Tariffs will not change that.

China isn't "ripping us off". Much of Chinese manufacturing is done under liscense and is foreign-owned. China conducts their international trade in accordance with WTO policies. Many of the issues that exist with China, like intellectual property transfer, don't affect "working people" and won't be resolved by tariffs.

Nobody benefits from protectionism. Do your research and choose wisely in 2020.

Tariffs aren’t messing up 2020...2020 was an anticipation of tariffs and recession. They got ahead of the upcoming economic downturn instead of having to react after the fact. How they did it s---s.

So we’ll just let China keep ripping us off? Just be patient these tariffs will help the US in the long run. Joe Biden or any of the other candidates won’t do anything the help us working folks either we saw that during the Obama years worst pay raises the unions ever got us and insurance skyrocketed. So be careful at the ballot box and do your research before casting your ballot.

The tariffs are forcing a costly rearrangement of many global supply chains. This has had a direct effect on how, where, and if companies like UP invest. Many small-mid sized manufacturers have also been hit hard. Soy farmers have taken enormous losses. With the latest round of tariffs it will now be impossible for companies to shield their customers from the resulting increase in costs.

This is all true even without considering the exacerbating effects of retaliatory tariffs, which tend to be targeted at specific regions where products for export are produced (ex. Iowa).

The layoffs likely have little to do, at least directly, with the tariffs, though they would help to balance the inevitable increase in operating costs resulting from the tariffs in the short-term. Small to mid-sized manufacturing operations (100-1,000 people) will shed many more jobs as a result, unable to pay both higher costs of domestic labor along with higher material and shipping costs. A book can be written on the negative effects of the tariffs. So far, nothing of lasting economic good has come of them.

As far as "fighting against" the tariffs goes, that has to be done at the ballot box in 2020. The people applying the tariffs do not understand supply chains, global investment practices, or free markets in general, and they should be replaced with people who do at the first opportunity.