Mitt Romney was in his element a few years ago as the Obama
administration struggled to rescue the Detroit auto industry. In an
eat-your-spinach tone, he ticked off his recommendations for reform. Top
management should go, executive dining rooms should be shut, and
factory wages slashed. Then there were the industry’s “legacy costs”:
given how drastically Detroit’s market share had shrunk in the face of
rampant imports, retiree entitlements had come to account for as much as
$2,000 per car. Countless retirees would just have to be thrown
overboard.
Whatever the merits and demerits of Romney’s lengthy list, it contained a notable omission. It made no mention of international trade. This despite the fact that for decades Detroit has been undermined by an egregiously unfair world trade system. As if to rub salt in Detroit’s wounds, Romney held up Japanese automakers as a model of quality manufacturing—the same companies which for two generations have been the greatest beneficiaries of rigged markets.
As the Michigan-born son of a top auto executive—and as one of America’s most capable experts on how the global economy really works—Romney certainly knew better. But he is hardly alone in buttoning his lip where trade with Japan is concerned. America’s entire globalist elite has long realized that Tokyo no longer tolerates frank discussions and is often devastatingly effective in evening the score with anyone rash enough to challenge it.
Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/japans-bad-trade/
Whatever the merits and demerits of Romney’s lengthy list, it contained a notable omission. It made no mention of international trade. This despite the fact that for decades Detroit has been undermined by an egregiously unfair world trade system. As if to rub salt in Detroit’s wounds, Romney held up Japanese automakers as a model of quality manufacturing—the same companies which for two generations have been the greatest beneficiaries of rigged markets.
As the Michigan-born son of a top auto executive—and as one of America’s most capable experts on how the global economy really works—Romney certainly knew better. But he is hardly alone in buttoning his lip where trade with Japan is concerned. America’s entire globalist elite has long realized that Tokyo no longer tolerates frank discussions and is often devastatingly effective in evening the score with anyone rash enough to challenge it.
Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/japans-bad-trade/
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