[iabob]

There was a time when unions had their place. Then they tended to outlive their usefulness when they failed to tell their members, 'Yes, you do need to be fired" in many cases.

I completely agree that unions better serve their membership by not defending the indefensible. They should demand a higher quality out of members, not protect those that are inferior.
As for wether or not they still have a place, I would argue their relevance only exists when workers have a power deficiency as they do today. We wouldn't need the workers voices represented by unions if their voices were represented elsewhere. We could promote wage growth and workplace safety through government regulation, min wage laws and OSHA, but workers aren't gaining that voice they're losing that voice as well as union representation. As another member said, I really don't care how we get there, just that we do get there. I want the middle class back.

 

[norman]

I think that robotics and artificial intelligence are going to replace human labor across all industries/fields at an exponential rate and will reach a critical point when the AI can design or train robots to new tasks on a regular basis. Why invest the time and cost to train new employees when a robot can be programed by AI much quicker and can perform a task more efficiently than the best employees. It isn't hard to imagine a future where there is an increasing economic and power divide between the small percentage of people that control/own that technology and the much, much larger percentage of people who do not. If that future unfolds, we will need some major changes in how we distribute/control economic benefits. The likelihood of that future is why we are seeing some of the tech leaders currently proposing Universal Basic Income.

On a related side note, unions will always be necessary, at least until robots and AI have replaced all human employment.

 

[satxron]

I completely agree that unions better serve their membership by not defending the indefensible. They should demand a higher quality out of members, not protect those that are inferior.
As for wether or not they still have a place, I would argue their relevance only exists when workers have a power deficiency as they do today. We wouldn't need the workers voices represented by unions if their voices were represented elsewhere. We could promote wage growth and workplace safety through government regulation, min wage laws and OSHA, but workers aren't gaining that voice they're losing that voice as well as union representation. As another member said, I really don't care how we get there, just that we do get there. I want the middle class back.

I understand but after WWII we were a serious geared up industrial powerhouse that had not been damaged by war. We were needed to pretty much rebuild the world. It was similar after WWI. We had such a need for manufacturing and trades the Unions were able to come together and demand benefits, wages, and working conditions. The business folks needed workers and needed them badly.

We have doubled our population since 1950 meaning we doubled our work force. We have, at the same time cut the need for skilled labor in half with robots. Non-existent economies, India and China really didn't matter in 1950. Now they are huge competitors with millions of cheap laborers.

I don't believe you get a middle class back by protecting industries anymore. The owners of the industry will just pocket bigger profits. Many of the most attractive states for big industry are Right to Work States.

The middle class we think of is gone. The one with a nice big house and a few cars in the driveway. The middle class we have is well behind the upper class, way behind. We put business owners on pedestals and call them job creators, instead of bosses. There are exceptions but the upper middle class you see today are folks that get trained, get educated and recoil against cranking up credit debt.

1 in 3 Americans has less than 4000 bucks liquid. The private sector jobs have less than 20% with pensions compared to 80% if you work for the government.

I am ranting. The old middle class is not coming back unless the workers run away from credit cards, run toward savings, and get educated. Tariffs are not going to do it.

 

[iabob]

I understand but after WWII we were a serious geared up industrial powerhouse that had not been damaged by war. We were needed to pretty much rebuild the world. It was similar after WWI. We had such a need for manufacturing and trades the Unions were able to come together and demand benefits, wages, and working conditions. The business folks needed workers and needed them badly.

We have doubled our population since 1950 meaning we doubled our work force. We have, at the same time cut the need for skilled labor in half with robots. Non-existent economies, India and China really didn't matter in 1950. Now they are huge competitors with millions of cheap laborers.

I don't believe you get a middle class back by protecting industries anymore. The owners of the industry will just pocket bigger profits. Many of the most attractive states for big industry are Right to Work States.

The middle class we think of is gone. The one with a nice big house and a few cars in the driveway. The middle class we have is well behind the upper class, way behind. We put business owners on pedestals and call them job creators, instead of bosses. There are exceptions but the upper middle class you see today are folks that get trained, get educated and recoil against cranking up credit debt.

1 in 3 Americans has less than 4000 bucks liquid. The private sector jobs have less than 20% with pensions compared to 80% if you work for the government.

I am ranting. The old middle class is not coming back unless the workers run away from credit cards, run toward savings, and get educated. Tariffs are not going to do it.

I don't disagree entirely, it's just as I see it it's not just that industry chases cheap labor like what's in right-to-work-for-less states. It's that we've for some strange reason embraced this double standard where if bosses use every tool at their disposal to pay labor less we applaud them for being a smart businessman that gets the best deal for his own interests that he can. But when the worker does that he's a lazy socialist afraid of hard work. If the boss uses all his tools to get more money for less work he's "smart". But if I unionize and my union through contract negotiations and political activity gets me more money for less work that's not.

 

[waterhog]

We all would like to see every job preserved and every worker thrive but the question eventually becomes whose going to do the job? Are you going to pass up 40 dollars an hr making micro chips to take a job making 20 per hour in a steel mill? We have a finite quantity of workers and for a long time now our immigration policy has kept that number restricted. So with only X number of workers we lose money if we utilize that labor for lower wage lower skill jobs. The US is pretty good at making airplanes. Every country is pretty good at making t-shirts. So we get maximum growth by teaching our laborers to make airplanes and import t-shirts.
I acknowledge that there's something visceral and emotional about steel. Steel is industry, its cool, its pride. But it's also cheap and plentiful. And contrary to one president's misguided opinions, our allies do not pose a national security risk. Even if we go to war with Canada we would have no problem importing steel from another source, and let's just get real, we're not going to go to war against Canada or Mexico. So let those other countries work harder making steel for low prices, we'll work smarter making things out of the steel after importing it.

There is huge skills gap between high tech jobs that you're talking about and the current US work force. STEM related jobs were in abundance even during the '08-09 great recession. Just too few qualified folks to fill them. It will take at least a decade or two, under concerted effort, to transition the service industry centered makeup to one that you are talking about. In the meantime we need to make sure that a generation of folks isn't left behind or forgotten. What Trump is doing is helping make that transition happen. We're talking about people's lives, not some abstract stats.

 

[waterhog]

I think a lot of thought went into the US labor rates and EPA regulations before anything went to Mexico or Canada. I don't see a lot of plants coming back. It would take a few hundred million per plant to restart them. And those areas no longer have the trained personnel anymore to work them. Any new plants will probably be built south in the Right to work states rather than the Union States. I see the US public getting hit with a few thousand more per car to pay for the tariffs.

Especially the stamping and parts production with Steel and Aluminum going up.

It is a good way to get all the money lost on tax breaks back in the revenue stream from the very people given the break. They won't be smart enough after buying that car to realize they just gave back the tax cut they got.

Toyota and Honda would be dancing in the streets if they got tariffs on US auto brands coming back across the border. They make their stuff here now, then the profit heads back to Japan.

I don't think you grasp the gist of the argument for why change is necessary and perpetuating the status quo will dig us deeper in a hole from which, at some point, we may not be able to escape. At that time, it will be too late and all the shoulda/coulda won't do diddly good.

Trump, despite all his personal flaws, has embarked an undertaking that no politician had the will and courage to do. Because it would mean going against the establishment that prospered before the great recession, during it, and after it, having amassed stocks and real estate assets at bargain basement prices that now exceed pre-recession valuation. The middle class that couldn't afford stocks/real estate during the crises got left farther behind.

 

[iabob]

There is huge skills gap between high tech jobs that you're talking about and the current US work force. STEM related jobs were in abundance even during the '08-09 great recession. Just too few qualified folks to fill them. It will take at least a decade or two, under concerted effort, to transition the service industry centered makeup to one that you are talking about. In the meantime we need to make sure that a generation of folks isn't left behind or forgotten. What Trump is doing is helping make that transition happen. We're talking about people's lives, not some abstract stats.

Yes we are talking about real people's lives, no Trump is not helping to make the transition happen. If anything he's preventing it from happening. It won't take 10-20 years, it could start right now if people put partisanship and ideology aside and agreed to pragmatism. Well scrap that, it COULD happen almost immediately but politicians like Trump will never let it happen. The government serves the billionaires that own it and not the people who would be the middle class. They get 1.5 trillion dollars worth of tax cuts and we get 1.5 trillion dollars of debt. The schools that would educate and train for skilled work get their funding cut so the money can be redirected to for-profit prisons, walls that Mexico isn't paying for, and Navy ships to fight a war we're not in.

 

[satxron]

I don't disagree entirely, it's just as I see it it's not just that industry chases cheap labor like what's in right-to-work-for-less states. It's that we've for some strange reason embraced this double standard where if bosses use every tool at their disposal to pay labor less we applaud them for being a smart businessman that gets the best deal for his own interests that he can. But when the worker does that he's a lazy socialist afraid of hard work. If the boss uses all his tools to get more money for less work he's "smart". But if I unionize and my union through contract negotiations and political activity gets me more money for less work that's not.

These maps look so similar. Looks like where the Republicans go Right to work is soon to follow. I wonder is this is a map of the end of unions.

Right to work States

2016 election map

 

[satxron]

I don't think you grasp the gist of the argument for why change is necessary and perpetuating the status quo will dig us deeper in a hole from which, at some point, we may not be able to escape. At that time, it will be too late and all the shoulda/coulda won't do diddly good.

Trump, despite all his personal flaws, has embarked an undertaking that no politician had the will and courage to do. Because it would mean going against the establishment that prospered before the great recession, during it, and after it, having amassed stocks and real estate assets at bargain basement prices that now exceed pre-recession valuation. The middle class that couldn't afford stocks/real estate during the crises got left farther behind.

I understand what you are saying. I really do, but having the ones left behind pay more for all consumable goods to survive in a tariff war punishes the very folks that were left behind. If I make 10k a month a few hundred in inflated cost of goods doesn't hurt me. If I make 3k a month it is devastating. The cash register doesn't know or care what your income level is. It must be fed the amount in the window or you don't get the item.

If you opened 10 new steel plants and 10 new car plants you would move 200,000 people from $10.00 per hour to $18.00 per hour. 250 million people will pay more for goods in the interest of 200,000.

You can't build enough factories to elevate 50-60 million people into a higher economic level. There is a reason India, as example, has a large gap in the caste system. With a large population there simply is more need for the simple laborer and a strong business desire to keep the lower class low.

All the while we talk about this we have kids not graduating from High School, not getting specialized degrees, not going to trade schools. They are being and will be left behind. The parents of these children, if relatively untrained and under-educated, will continue to make 25-45 grand a year in perpetuity until automation makes them unemployable and with no pension benefits other than SS.

 

[iabob]

These maps look so similar. Looks like where the Republicans go Right to work is soon to follow. I wonder is this is a map of the end of unions.

Right to work States

2016 election map

I'm just going to guess if you found a map showing which states have below avg wages and which states are above avg it would also look similar.

 

[satxron]

I'm just going to guess if you found a map showing which states have below avg wages and which states are above avg it would also look similar.

Similar but not quite the same.

 

[bigjg]

We all would like to see every job preserved and every worker thrive but the question eventually becomes whose going to do the job? Are you going to pass up 40 dollars an hr making micro chips to take a job making 20 per hour in a steel mill? We have a finite quantity of workers and for a long time now our immigration policy has kept that number restricted. So with only X number of workers we lose money if we utilize that labor for lower wage lower skill jobs. The US is pretty good at making airplanes. Every country is pretty good at making t-shirts. So we get maximum growth by teaching our laborers to make airplanes and import t-shirts.
I acknowledge that there's something visceral and emotional about steel. Steel is industry, its cool, its pride. But it's also cheap and plentiful. And contrary to one president's misguided opinions, our allies do not pose a national security risk. Even if we go to war with Canada we would have no problem importing steel from another source, and let's just get real, we're not going to go to war against Canada or Mexico. So let those other countries work harder making steel for low prices, we'll work smarter making things out of the steel after importing it.

In a state where I am from that has one of the largest steel mills in the country which is Arkansas (believe it or not) that twenty dollar an hour job is pretty important when there is zero 40 dollar an hr micro chip jobs.

This is the got to be the most ignorant post you have made so far.

Also, I don't work for this steel mill but it provides in the area where I live quality jobs compared to what is available which is service and agriculture that pays maybe half.

The reason why we have " x number of workers" is because the past thirty years the public school systems have brainwashed kids to get a four year degree instead of going to a trade school. All the while corporations with the help of politicians divested this countries manufacturing capabilities by moving to low wage countries.

Now you have a bunch of young adults in debt to their eyeballs with student loans for a degree that is useless. So what does this desperate depressed person do? They embrace other forms of government that they think will help them but will not help them and has failed throughout history every time.

While you're drinking your kool-aid go ahead and swallow that blue pill while you're at it.

 

[iabob]

Here's an interesting assessment I copied from another site:

The best, most cogent and elegantly simple explanation into the inexplicably destructive negotiating processes of the president,by Prof. David Honig of Indiana University.

Everybody I know should read this accurate and enlightening piece...

“I’m going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don't know, I'm an adjunct professor at Indiana University - Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of "The Art of the Deal," a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you've read The Art of the Deal, or if you've followed Trump lately, you'll know, even if you didn't know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call "distributive bargaining."

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you're fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump's world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don't have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over.

The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can't demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren't binary. China's choices aren't (a) buy soybeans from US farmers, or (b) don't buy soybeans. They can also (c) buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation.

One of the risks of distributive bargaining is bad will. In a one-time distributive bargain, e.g. negotiating with the cabinet maker in your casino about whether you're going to pay his whole bill or demand a discount, you don't have to worry about your ongoing credibility or the next deal. If you do that to the cabinet maker, you can bet he won't agree to do the cabinets in your next casino, and you're going to have to find another cabinet maker.

There isn't another Canada.

So when you approach international negotiation, in a world as complex as ours, with integrated economies and multiple buyers and sellers, you simply must approach them through integrative bargaining. If you attempt distributive bargaining, success is impossible. And we see that already.

Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM - HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem.

Trump has the same weakness politically. For every winner there must be a loser. And that's just not how politics works, not over the long run.

For people who study negotiations, this is incredibly basic stuff, negotiations 101, definitions you learn before you even start talking about styles and tactics. And here's another huge problem for us.

Trump is utterly convinced that his experience in a closely held real estate company has prepared him to run a nation, and therefore he rejects the advice of people who spent entire careers studying the nuances of international negotiations and diplomacy. But the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it. And that means they look at Trump and, given his very limited tool chest and his blindly distributive understanding of negotiation, they know exactly what he is going to do and exactly how to respond to it.

From a professional negotiation point of view, Trump isn't even bringing checkers to a chess match. He's bringing a quarter that he insists of flipping for heads or tails, while everybody else is studying the chess board to decide whether its better to open with Najdorf or Grünfeld.”

— David Honig

 

[waterhog]

I understand what you are saying. I really do, but having the ones left behind pay more for all consumable goods to survive in a tariff war punishes the very folks that were left behind. If I make 10k a month a few hundred in inflated cost of goods doesn't hurt me. If I make 3k a month it is devastating. The cash register doesn't know or care what your income level is. It must be fed the amount in the window or you don't get the item.

If you opened 10 new steel plants and 10 new car plants you would move 200,000 people from $10.00 per hour to $18.00 per hour. 250 million people will pay more for goods in the interest of 200,000.

You can't build enough factories to elevate 50-60 million people into a higher economic level. There is a reason India, as example, has a large gap in the caste system. With a large population there simply is more need for the simple laborer and a strong business desire to keep the lower class low.

All the while we talk about this we have kids not graduating from High School, not getting specialized degrees, not going to trade schools. They are being and will be left behind. The parents of these children, if relatively untrained and under-educated, will continue to make 25-45 grand a year in perpetuity until automation makes them unemployable and with no pension benefits other than SS.

I don't follow your argument. Let's just agree to disagree.

 

[waterhog]

Here's an interesting assessment I copied from another site:

The best, most cogent and elegantly simple explanation into the inexplicably destructive negotiating processes of the president,by Prof. David Honig of Indiana University.

Everybody I know should read this accurate and enlightening piece...

"I'm going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don't know, I'm an adjunct professor at Indiana University - Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of "The Art of the Deal," a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you've read The Art of the Deal, or if you've followed Trump lately, you'll know, even if you didn't know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call "distributive bargaining."

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you're fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump's world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don't have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over.

The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can't demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren't binary. China's choices aren't (a) buy soybeans from US farmers, or (b) don't buy soybeans. They can also (c) buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation.

One of the risks of distributive bargaining is bad will. In a one-time distributive bargain, e.g. negotiating with the cabinet maker in your casino about whether you're going to pay his whole bill or demand a discount, you don't have to worry about your ongoing credibility or the next deal. If you do that to the cabinet maker, you can bet he won't agree to do the cabinets in your next casino, and you're going to have to find another cabinet maker.

There isn't another Canada.

So when you approach international negotiation, in a world as complex as ours, with integrated economies and multiple buyers and sellers, you simply must approach them through integrative bargaining. If you attempt distributive bargaining, success is impossible. And we see that already.

Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM - HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem.

Trump has the same weakness politically. For every winner there must be a loser. And that's just not how politics works, not over the long run.

For people who study negotiations, this is incredibly basic stuff, negotiations 101, definitions you learn before you even start talking about styles and tactics. And here's another huge problem for us.

Trump is utterly convinced that his experience in a closely held real estate company has prepared him to run a nation, and therefore he rejects the advice of people who spent entire careers studying the nuances of international negotiations and diplomacy. But the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it. And that means they look at Trump and, given his very limited tool chest and his blindly distributive understanding of negotiation, they know exactly what he is going to do and exactly how to respond to it.

From a professional negotiation point of view, Trump isn't even bringing checkers to a chess match. He's bringing a quarter that he insists of flipping for heads or tails, while everybody else is studying the chess board to decide whether its better to open with Najdorf or Grünfeld."

- David Honig

Reads like a bunch of jibberish. Anyhow, we'll know in 2-3 years whether things are working out. In the meantime let's enjoy our Vics and hope for the best.

 

[bigjg]

Reads like a bunch of jibberish. Anyhow, we'll know in 2-3 years whether things are working out. In the meantime let's enjoy our Vics and hope for the best.

I realized it hogwash when I saw it was written by a professor.

 

[iabob]

In a state where I am from that has one of the largest steel mills in the country which is Arkansas (believe it or not) that twenty dollar an hour job is pretty important when there is zero 40 dollar an hr micro chip jobs.

This is the got to be the most ignorant post you have made so far.

Also, I don't work for this steel mill but it provides in the area where I live quality jobs compared to what is available which is service and agriculture that pays maybe half.

The reason why we have " x number of workers" is because the past thirty years the public school systems have brainwashed kids to get a four year degree instead of going to a trade school. All the while corporations with the help of politicians divested this countries manufacturing capabilities by moving to low wage countries.

Now you have a bunch of young adults in debt to their eyeballs with student loans for a degree that is useless. So what does this desperate depressed person do? They embrace other forms of government that they think will help them but will not help them and has failed throughout history every time.

While you're drinking your kool-aid go ahead and swallow that blue pill while you're at it.

No, I have made much more ignorant posts than this. However your response tops it by far on the ignorance scale. We do not have a finite number of workers because kids are going to college, that is a flat out stupid statement. We have a finite amount of workers because we have a finite amount of people in this country. We can't employ more people than we have living here. That's not ignorant, that's some "thank you Captain Obvious" sh!t right there.

I'm glad Arkansas has a steel mill that employs a lot of people, I never said they shouldn't. What I did say is that they are better off with the highest paying jobs possible. Again, Captain Obvious sh!t. Or so I thought but apparently not so. If this Arkansas steel mill can compete in the free market great! If it can't we shouldn't be giving it handouts. If those workers aren't prepared to move to the next job that's their right, just don't expect the tax payer to garuntee them a livelihood.

 

[iabob]

Reads like a bunch of jibberish. Anyhow, we'll know in 2-3 years whether things are working out. In the meantime let's enjoy our Vics and hope for the best.

Sorry but I don't hope for the best on the whims of incompetence. We don't need 2-3 years to understand how bone headed it is if we read history books. Of course to far too many Americans today history books read like a bunch of jibberish hogwash written by professors. It seems today people can only comprehend 140 characters at a time. Unless there's pictures...

 

[jellybean764]

We all would like to see every job preserved and every worker thrive but the question eventually becomes whose going to do the job? Are you going to pass up 40 dollars an hr making micro chips to take a job making 20 per hour in a steel mill? We have a finite quantity of workers and for a long time now our immigration policy has kept that number restricted. So with only X number of workers we lose money if we utilize that labor for lower wage lower skill jobs. The US is pretty good at making airplanes. Every country is pretty good at making t-shirts. So we get maximum growth by teaching our laborers to make airplanes and import t-shirts.
I acknowledge that there's something visceral and emotional about steel. Steel is industry, its cool, its pride. But it's also cheap and plentiful. And contrary to one president's misguided opinions, our allies do not pose a national security risk. Even if we go to war with Canada we would have no problem importing steel from another source, and let's just get real, we're not going to go to war against Canada or Mexico. So let those other countries work harder making steel for low prices, we'll work smarter making things out of the steel after importing it.

 

[jellybean764]

Youse already are.We sell our raw materials which can never be replaced and other countries get the manufacturing jobs and make the money .They hardly make anything up here and if they did the Canadians wouldn't buy them.They would rather buy the same thing made in the States.They are finding out how that is working out for them.