10-20-2004, 11:51 AM
I think everyone situation is different. One thing that tariffs can do is make American companies lazy. The ship building industry had a bunch of tariffs and American shipbuilders decided to continue being stupid by using the Standard system instead of metric and now they've been decimated by global competition.
I'm not quite sure how you would structure a tariff or tax to reward companies that stay in the US but I know it'd have to be very well thought out to prevent having the opposite than intended effect. Either way US education is key in long term competitiveness.
Hopefully some of the greedy IT companies won't sell themselves and us up the creek by outsourcing their core competencies to other countries so they can come back and do battle with us in 10 to 15 years. Giving your outsourcees capital and intellectual capital is guaranteeing that they are going to cut the middle man out one of these days.
I'm not quite sure how you would structure a tariff or tax to reward companies that stay in the US but I know it'd have to be very well thought out to prevent having the opposite than intended effect. Either way US education is key in long term competitiveness.
Hopefully some of the greedy IT companies won't sell themselves and us up the creek by outsourcing their core competencies to other countries so they can come back and do battle with us in 10 to 15 years. Giving your outsourcees capital and intellectual capital is guaranteeing that they are going to cut the middle man out one of these days.