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A downstream issue with importing the product of forced labor into the US is that US manufacturing markets, business (small & medium in particular), labor, & ma

A downstream issue with importing the product of forced labor into the US is that US manufacturing markets, business (small & medium in particular), labor, & markets affected by finance are distorted. The argument that an influx of cheap foreign goods & cheap labor costs are good for the economy does not properly consider the long term & strategic costs of hollowing out large markets where the USA once lead the world as well as the poverty/blight incurred by former middle-class communities. I grew up in Hawaii, which used to have a large sugar cane industry. I found it strange that the sugar cane was shipped to the mainland, to be processed, then packaged, shipped back, & sold to the consumer in Hawaii. The value added was effectively removed the local market, which created a monopoly for H,C,&S to buy land, have authority over water rights, allowing them to break treaties & promises to the citizens of the islands. There were also celebrated things that occurred due to the sugar industry, such as importing many people of different ethnicities to work in the plantations. Today, Hawaii has highly prized land, which is expensive, & many families living there for generations who do not make much money. With few employable industries (government & tourism being the largest employers), the economy is vulnerable to Black Swan events, such as the Covid lockdowns.

mgh2 6y ago
Keep in mind part of the demographic you are talking to here- (mostly) high salaried tech and the elite. Does this affect them? They will happily ignore these issues as long as they keep on getting their shiny iPhones and Macs.
wolverine876 6y ago
> A downstream issue with importing the product of forced labor into the US is that US manufacturing markets, business (small & medium in particular), labor, & markets affected by finance are distorted. The argument that an influx of cheap foreign goods are good for the economy does not properly consider the long term & strategic costs of hollowing out large markets where the USA once lead the world. That's potentially a very valuable point politically: Those complaining about unfair competition from China and those concerned about human rights can find common cause, and maybe enough support to pass such a bill. 'American workers should not have to compete with slave labor!'
- briantakita 6y ago
  > 'American workers should not have to compete with slave labor!' That's a powerful point! This is a big issue that will affect our lives & the lives of generations to come. Not to mention National Security issues & living in safe/strong neighborhoods. There are many reasons to promote ethical behavior & transparency with suppliers, on par with US standards. Ensuring that suppliers are ethical also disincentives industry/labor from leaving the US, as labor & compliance costs will be equalized.
  - wolverine876 6y ago
    > Ensuring that suppliers are ethical also disincentives industry/labor from leaving the US, as labor & compliance costs will be equalized. We want lower-paying jobs to leave, to be replaced by higher paying jobs. I think the focus should be on the latter: improve people's skill and productivity, and make sure that people can make the transition from the old jobs to the new, including a proper social safety net to see them through.
    - briantakita 6y ago
      I agree that we should improve skill & productivity. The best way to create wealth & knowledge is to create a market for small & medium businesses. Employees can gain skills & learn about the industry to create their own businesses, which further evolves the market & creates more jobs & opportunity for advancement. Education with auto-didactic learning, tax law, & practical business is important, to help people reach the next level of wealth. There's probably effective & ineffective ways of promoting citizens' interests with local, national, & international business; however if we care about our neighbors & our values as a country, we should invest in our neighbors who share these values.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - 5tefan 6y ago
    Foe the sake of argument I put it rather bluntly: I don't think this happened by accident but on purpose. There is simply no way to end up in a situation where you use forced labor by accident. Poverty and forced labor are just the other side of wealth and freedom. Same coin. Someone has to to pay the price. Earth's ressources are limited and if not shared you'll end up where we currently are.
twodave 6y ago
This reminds me of a piece of local history I recently learned in my hometown (Northeast FL). In the late 1800s, a number of slave families traveled down-river from Georgia after being emancipated and homesteaded in my area on the St. Johns River. As property values increased and they started being taxed more heavily on their (mostly waterfront) land, many of these families (whose patriarchs were mostly illiterate and not at all business-savvy) ended up selling to (i.e. getting taken advantage of by) housing developers, basically losing their identity and heritage. The story isn't necessarily a direct parallel, but the pattern reminds me of the "milkshake" scene from the movie There Will Be Blood. People shouldn't have to worry about their basic livelihood and property being stripped away by anything other than perhaps a natural disaster of some kind.
- pas 6y ago
  > People shouldn't have to worry about their basic livelihood and property being stripped away by anything other than perhaps a natural disaster of some kind. This is a very interesting point. I'm not sure what to think of it. Maybe it needs a bit more complexity. After all the exploitation of disadvantaged minority owners is seen as hopefully almost universally bad, whereas using eminent domain to create a park/hospital/bus-stop/townhouse might be a good thing. Yet tyranny of the majority is also problem. (And of course it's hyperdimensional interlocking turtles in every direction philosophically.) NIMBY-ism that happens in growing cities - so basically in all of them, since urbanization and migration to urban areas, and urban revival is going on - is seen as usually bad. Yet usually the problem is that any new development puts additional burden on the incumbents. (Eg. as population and population density grows there will be more people, more traffic, more big houses blocking out the sun, god forbid even more diversity too.) Which is a very similar in certain aspects. (A community trying to set themselves and their circumstances in stone. And we know people pretty much prefer stability.) Land Value Tax comes up a lot to fight NIMBY-ism, but that's again a kind of tyranny of the majority. (If you have a small plot of land, let's say a garden, or a small grocery store in the middle of the city, LVT would probably force you to sell or develop it.) However, at the same time we see that - for example in California - raising taxes on property is very much frowned upon. Sure, we know they have a very big financial interest in keeping housing prices going up and keeping taxes down. ... So after all this rambling, probably what I'm trying to say is that the right to self-determination is important on many levels, but it naturally implies the conflict between those levels. Individual vs. group interests.
0xfaded 6y ago
I have a friend from Ibiza who described the same problem of vastly disproportionate income opportunity for locals compared to the price of real estate. For them, moving out from the home means leaving the island.

mgh2 6y ago

Keep in mind part of the demographic you are talking to here- (mostly) high salaried tech and the elite. Does this affect them? They will happily ignore these issues as long as they keep on getting their shiny iPhones and Macs.

wolverine876 6y ago

> A downstream issue with importing the product of forced labor into the US is that US manufacturing markets, business (small & medium in particular), labor, & markets affected by finance are distorted. The argument that an influx of cheap foreign goods are good for the economy does not properly consider the long term & strategic costs of hollowing out large markets where the USA once lead the world. That's potentially a very valuable point politically: Those complaining about unfair competition from China and those concerned about human rights can find common cause, and maybe enough support to pass such a bill. 'American workers should not have to compete with slave labor!'

briantakita 6y ago
> 'American workers should not have to compete with slave labor!' That's a powerful point! This is a big issue that will affect our lives & the lives of generations to come. Not to mention National Security issues & living in safe/strong neighborhoods. There are many reasons to promote ethical behavior & transparency with suppliers, on par with US standards. Ensuring that suppliers are ethical also disincentives industry/labor from leaving the US, as labor & compliance costs will be equalized.
- wolverine876 6y ago
  > Ensuring that suppliers are ethical also disincentives industry/labor from leaving the US, as labor & compliance costs will be equalized. We want lower-paying jobs to leave, to be replaced by higher paying jobs. I think the focus should be on the latter: improve people's skill and productivity, and make sure that people can make the transition from the old jobs to the new, including a proper social safety net to see them through.
  - briantakita 6y ago
    I agree that we should improve skill & productivity. The best way to create wealth & knowledge is to create a market for small & medium businesses. Employees can gain skills & learn about the industry to create their own businesses, which further evolves the market & creates more jobs & opportunity for advancement. Education with auto-didactic learning, tax law, & practical business is important, to help people reach the next level of wealth. There's probably effective & ineffective ways of promoting citizens' interests with local, national, & international business; however if we care about our neighbors & our values as a country, we should invest in our neighbors who share these values.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- 5tefan 6y ago
  Foe the sake of argument I put it rather bluntly: I don't think this happened by accident but on purpose. There is simply no way to end up in a situation where you use forced labor by accident. Poverty and forced labor are just the other side of wealth and freedom. Same coin. Someone has to to pay the price. Earth's ressources are limited and if not shared you'll end up where we currently are.

twodave 6y ago

This reminds me of a piece of local history I recently learned in my hometown (Northeast FL). In the late 1800s, a number of slave families traveled down-river from Georgia after being emancipated and homesteaded in my area on the St. Johns River. As property values increased and they started being taxed more heavily on their (mostly waterfront) land, many of these families (whose patriarchs were mostly illiterate and not at all business-savvy) ended up selling to (i.e. getting taken advantage of by) housing developers, basically losing their identity and heritage. The story isn't necessarily a direct parallel, but the pattern reminds me of the "milkshake" scene from the movie There Will Be Blood. People shouldn't have to worry about their basic livelihood and property being stripped away by anything other than perhaps a natural disaster of some kind.

pas 6y ago
> People shouldn't have to worry about their basic livelihood and property being stripped away by anything other than perhaps a natural disaster of some kind. This is a very interesting point. I'm not sure what to think of it. Maybe it needs a bit more complexity. After all the exploitation of disadvantaged minority owners is seen as hopefully almost universally bad, whereas using eminent domain to create a park/hospital/bus-stop/townhouse might be a good thing. Yet tyranny of the majority is also problem. (And of course it's hyperdimensional interlocking turtles in every direction philosophically.) NIMBY-ism that happens in growing cities - so basically in all of them, since urbanization and migration to urban areas, and urban revival is going on - is seen as usually bad. Yet usually the problem is that any new development puts additional burden on the incumbents. (Eg. as population and population density grows there will be more people, more traffic, more big houses blocking out the sun, god forbid even more diversity too.) Which is a very similar in certain aspects. (A community trying to set themselves and their circumstances in stone. And we know people pretty much prefer stability.) Land Value Tax comes up a lot to fight NIMBY-ism, but that's again a kind of tyranny of the majority. (If you have a small plot of land, let's say a garden, or a small grocery store in the middle of the city, LVT would probably force you to sell or develop it.) However, at the same time we see that - for example in California - raising taxes on property is very much frowned upon. Sure, we know they have a very big financial interest in keeping housing prices going up and keeping taxes down. ... So after all this rambling, probably what I'm trying to say is that the right to self-determination is important on many levels, but it naturally implies the conflict between those levels. Individual vs. group interests.

0xfaded 6y ago

I have a friend from Ibiza who described the same problem of vastly disproportionate income opportunity for locals compared to the price of real estate. For them, moving out from the home means leaving the island.