Does the supply of cheap goods from exploited workers in China disguise our own worsening standard of living?
no, it actually does the opposite by accentuating our high standard of living, but it is having an adverse affect on our own economy. When there is high demand for a product (LCD TV let’s say) in the US It drives the prices up, and up, and up, because of the minimum wage laws in the US. This makes it more profitable for companies to outsource jobs to other countries, and then transport the goods back to the US. Also, when prices go up people start to shop around for the best deal, and Chinese goods are much less costly, therefore China gets more business from Americans than America does. If tariffs were to be placed on Chinese goods, then China would be less impactfull on the US economy, but our standard of living would decline because we could not afford to have the shiny new technology, and that would probably piss the Chinese off, which at this point in time we do not want (we have enough people pissed off at us). Either way we will not be the top country for much longer…Unless we
