You should. You should also research how their governments gives breaks to their businesses.

I have found the income tax to be negative as it grows in percentage the higher the income, which has a negative impact on an individual for an incentive to earn more. Why earn more, when a greater percentage is extorted by the government the more you earn?

What gives those who do not produce the right to take from those who do produce? There is something ethically and morally wrong with that.



As long as the person you hire is a United States citizen who is law abiding, why not? Of course, if you have a contract with the government, you might be subject to security clearances.

Also, all attempts to give unfair advantage to some in markets should be avoided as well.

The problem is that they are not literate in English. It is difficult enough that the natives have a problem with communicating here among ourselves, even more so when you have someone with an entirely foreign culture dealing with systems in the United States, which is one of the primary reasons quality suffers



It isn't and again it is left for those behind to make it work, and they end up having to work more hours, hours that were unnecessary to fix the mis-communication. And those left behind are under added stress to do it, because of the fear that they could lose their jobs as well. Everyone suffers.



By that time, the market will come to bear and the company will go under. The only ones who will have profited would be the cost cutters whose short-sighted brought about the mess in the first place.
Then those jobs are gone for good.

No Sam, YOU believe the market should be taken out of the equation when YOU perceive an unfair advantage. From all the kibbitzing in the $1 Million Action #1 thread, it's pretty clear that not everybody sees the same ethical obligations as everybody else does. Markets in and of themselves aren't fair or unfair. Is it fair for us to take advantage of the fact that we have a 97% literacy rate, that we've already made the move from an agrarian to industrial society, that we've already created wealth in part from sweatshops and child labor and deadly coal mines, but now we can afford regulations?




Well Sam that last sentence is patently false. We avoid that choice daily, because we effectively export the risk. Also, while some of the cost savings may stem from fewer regulations, some of them simply stem from the ready availability of a labor force willing to work a a lower wage. The wage would be lower even if conditions were raised to US levels.

Even if the two propositions(low prices=high risks) were mutally exclusive people hold contracdictory positions all the time. You can ask somebody if they'd like foreign workers to be removed from the US, a majority might say "yes", then ask them is they want the price of their Strawberries or SAP R3 implementations to increase and a majority would probably say "no". Tell them they can have one or the other, and they'll split, but I would guess that they'll choose the cheap strawberries.




Fair as you've defined it I suppose. Is it unfair of Saudi Arabia to use it's oil to its advantage, after all, its a resource not all nations possess (and none to that degree). Is it fair of us to use both our Atlantic and Pacific coasts to receive shipments, when most nations only have one ocean, and some have none? Is it fair that our well educated citizens compete with illiterates? Is it fair that we gained much of our natural resources by way of "ethnic cleansing" an indigenous people? Get real Sam, there are no level playing fields. What you want is to start a Monopoly game, where you have the Railroads, Boardwalk and Park Place and start with 10 times as much money as any other player.


Well what's fair is fair right? Seems to me we've banned importation of a lot of European meat (for an admittedly sound reason).

Well if all 171 thousand layoffs happened and
the economy added a net 126 thousand jobs, that means at least 297 thousand new jobs were created.

That being said, yes, it's a fairly stagnant recovery.

I thought you wanted to argue specifics. I have no doubt that many foreign nations offer a myriad of tax breaks and other enticements to create jobs for their local economies. Much as the individual states do here to compete with each other.



Sam, whether you find the income tax "negative" or not, progressive and regressive, as terms applied to taxation have specific meanings in the field of economics. A tax is called progressive if the percentage of income paid rises as the income does. A regressive tax is one where the percentage of income paid in tax tends to decrease as income rises. You can probably find those definitions in any Intro to Macroeconomics text. Note that a tax system can contain taxes of both kinds and be characterised as either progressive or regressive in total. Sure the words were probably applied by proponents of progressive tax structures, but even economists who dislike the terminology, know what it means.

In terms of the disincentives caused by taxes. Sure I suppose they exist, but tell me Sam, do you make sure your income is such that you pay no taxes? Would you turn down a raise if it that raise income will be taxed at a higher rate? You might, or you might be like most people and realize you're still have more money than you would have if you hadn't earned that extra dollar. Say you have to give $0.40 of your last dollar to the government, you still have $0.60 than you did before. That's why people do it, and that's why the system still works. Otherwise the economy would look like it did when the income tax was enacted.



This from the man who said "Morals are nor[sic] only subjective but they have no absolutes and can change at any time."

Besides, your plan to protect American jobs imposes a cost on the consumers of those products in the form of higher prices and fewer good produced. How is that then right? Or is it okay because we're taking from those who produce to others who produce?

Not that I think it's morally wrong to tax the rich and give to the poor. Quite the opposite. Wealth is created and maintained largely because of the stability of society and the guarantee of property rights. You'd have no incentive to build a house, if I can come move in any time I want to. So in return for the protection society gives us, I feel we owe something back to those who do not benefit as much from being the the society.



Why should your property rights be restricted by only being allowed to hire US citizens? You've drawn a line there, but it seems awfully arbitrary to me, unless you are going to ban all imports and exports and live in an entirely closed system. Of course in such a system our standard of living will drop, given that we are a net importer of goods.

Sam, this is anecdotal evidence, but no more anecdotal than yours above. But I can tell you, I find it much easier to converse with the South Asian ex-pats I've worked with than I do the kid at the Jiffy Lube who makes Jethro Bodine sound like George Will.



Hey, like I said, he's just taken an effective pay cut right, and you're okay with that aren't you? I once had my job duties increase by 50% overnight with no increase in pay. I had two options, suck it up, do the work and keep the job, or quit and take my chances. In 1998 I might've quit. In 2001, I stayed put.




You're not seeing the big picture Sam. Those jobs produced something (lines of code, widgets, whatever). Presumably there was a demand for that something. So the firm that went to Indian labor went under. Somebody has to pick up that demand. That's where the jobs go Sam. Since you believe foreign workers are not competent enough to do the jobs, they'll have to go back to American workers.

I'm serious when I say this is a terrific business opportunity for someone who sees the world the way you do. You can use in your pitch how you only hire American citizens, minimizing communication issues, increasing response time, improving quality all at a cost no greater than what the competitor offers.

No it was not false. It was an opinion, and one you extrapolate on by saying we export the risk.
The risk is a cost and to be fair should be applied throughout the manufacture of the product in question. That is again my view on this situation.



But to make it fair trade, they must pay for the risks involved. If the government which they elect decides to make rules that hinder production in their country, the costs of those risks should be passed on the product no matter where it is produced. When government gets involved, there is no longer a laissez-faire economy and free markets are out the window because of the interference of the government.