I'm guessing he's trying to say that since we're not trading...

Tiggity®

Ultimate Clemson Legend [108561]

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Labor. I've mentioned it a million times. He is clueless about labor.

May 8, 2025, 11:10 AM

All he sees are dollars. I don't think we've ever had a President as clueless about labor as Trump, unions completely notwithstanding.

Average Chinese worker earns $16K a year. Average US worker makes $65K a year. That's roughly a 4 to 1 return in labor to the dollar, trading with China. That $1T trade deficit, represents $4T in goods NOT shipped to the US (assuming we simply balance our trade). Send $100 to China to make a widget, and get shipped $400 worth of widgets. Sell the widgets in the US for $400 and that's called PROFIT.

Make the widgets here in the US, and you pay a 1 to 1 labor to dollar ratio, meaning you then have to pay the full price of the domestic dollar for the widget (this is actually higher than the market price when it was imported btw), THEN ADD to the cost to have a profit. So you pay $400 for what was $100 of widgets, then sell them for $600, and that's taking a huge loss in profits. And hope people invent some money or every adult woman suddenly has 6 kids.

It's not a coincidence that the dollar to yuan labor ratio is 4 to 1, because China's population is roughly 4x that of the US. They have 4 times as many workers to work. 4 times THE LABOR of the US.

Can SOMEONE please explain to him that a dollar, to a starving person in China, Guatemala, Venezuela, Kenya, India, Brazil, Argentina, ETC and almost every other country on EARTH, means more to that FOREIGNER than it does to an American? A foreigner will work 2x, 3x 10x the number of hours, expending many multiples MORE LABOR, earning that dollar in their own country, than an American spends earning that same dollar working in the US.