Good on substance, bad on politics when jobs in Ohio are scarce.

We employ a lot of contractors overseas, especially the Pacific Rim. In our case it's not outsourcing, because the jobs never existed here to begin with, but still - we probably employ 5 people in the developing world, or more, per person in the U.S. ROI being what it is, I'm not sure that any of these jobs are taking away from US jobs. We hire here when we can - proximity, time zones and shared culture matter.

We've also been hiring a lot in Spain lately, and I could see Italy and also Portugal on the list soon - the terrible policies of forced austerity caused by the failing Eurozone have created such high unemployment that educated bilinguals and trilinguals work for wages that compete with places like Mexico.

And in California....

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/us-bridges-roads-built-chinese-firms-14594513

It's good for Balko that he isn't running for office. Otherwise, he'd just committed political suicide.

There are two ways to build a car.

First method: Build a factory, produce designs, buy or make the parts, assemble them.

Second: Grow $18,000 worth of wheat. Ship the wheat to Detroit or Korea. They will ship you a car.

The point? Groups specialize in different things. You are just as well off making something efficiently and trading it, as you are making everything yourself. You "ship jobs" to another city, state, or country, and they ship jobs to you.

When you buy a chinese shirt for $15 instead of $30, you have a shirt plus $15 to buy something else, possibly from people in your community or state. Everyone becomes better off by buying things which are made efficiently. Wealth means having more stuff. Trade allows everyone to have more stuff.

If you want to give people charity, it is cheaper to give them some money rather than arranging to employ them in an inefficient use of resources.

"You "ship jobs" to another city, state, or country, and they ship jobs to you."

So we can expect $295 Billion in jobs coming to us from China this week? Because we've been shipping them jobs for years.

To Gog_Magog,

Yes, the "Chinese" (people and companies physically located in China) have been buying American goods with the dollars they have received from the US.

The Chinese don't trade with us to admire pretty pieces of paper (dollars). They turn in that paper for the real things which the US produces. They have been doing this all along.

Some of what they bought has been US Treasury bonds. Then, our government takes those dollars and wastes them, creating few jobs, and more importantly little value. Who should be blame: US companies that buy less expensive foreign goods and services, or our own, stupid government?

On another tack, do you lament the fact that people buy cars from Detroit and Tennesee? Those purchases ship jobs from every other state to Detroit and Tennesee. These are good, local, manufacturing jobs which just disappear to those favored states.

Your thinking would lead to every state passing the "State of XX Automobile Local Source Bill", requiring that any automobile purchased in the State of XX must be made of parts from XX making up at least 40% of the value of the car.

This is thankfully unconstitutional, or states would be doing this right now. Do you think that we would all be better off with these sorts of bills? How about all the other things we buy?

Here's one about cars I genuinely enjoy asking:

Which is the most American car - the Nissan from Smyrna, Tennessee or the Dodge from Hamamatsu?

How about the Chevy S-10, when it was America's most popular import truck?

Better to lament the near-criminal clumsiness and malevolence of government in the market.

Better to lament the near-criminal clumsiness and malevolence of government in the market.

I don't have enough time to finish that, Radwaste.

NPR yesterday interviewed somebody from the Republican (something something) in Florida, about Obama campaigning down here.

~ "Florida is a requirement to win, technically it's possible to win without it, but realistically, it's required, so it makes sense that he'd be campaigning hard here."

(Seems reasonable, and a good analysis.)

Then they went to the Democrat whatever whatever of Florida.

~ "The President is going to run on his recovery, and win Florida"

(Ok, so not just analysis, but hyper-partisan. More importantly, I don't think that's a good strategy right now.

Romney's not hitting back hard yet, but I think Bain might end up boomeranging on Obama, hard.

"Yes, we took [companies] in hard times, and did what had to be done to survive and thrive. We didn't keep doing the same thing over and over."

Bain will forever be a liability for Romney. Obama will keep reminding people of the outsourcing, and all the times Bain got paid while bankrupting companies.

To Staples,

Ironic, Staples is one of the many Bain success stories.

Do you have some information about one of the companies which Bain bankrupted, and made a big profit anyway?

I mean, a nice company bought as a profitable business which Bain intentionally shut down to sell the assets.

Possibly you have a link to the method used to buy profitable companies and make out like a bandit by shutting them down.

Look up GS Technologies. The way you do it is to buy a company, sell a bunch of bonds, pay yourself a healthy profit, and allow the company to go bankrupt.