Simple law to fix the economy.

I hate rules, but if we are going to have them, I got one for ya.

If we feel our min wage and labor laws are just and neccessary, are they not just and neccessary for more than just Americans?

Why not have a rule that says that if you want to import a product to the US, all steps in the supply chain must follow some specific US labor laws such as min wage, workers compensation after injury and other basic, but specific worker protections. This goes right down the the mine where the sand for the driveway comes out.

To enact such restrictions here and then allow imports that don't follow them amount to a punishment of Americans and we are feeling the pain right now. This is well designed. I personally would solve this by getting rid of these regs at home, but that ain't gonna happen.

To impose tarriffs does not really solve the problem either, it allows others to keep producing overseas and to simply bribe our govt to let the stuff in. This may balance some costs, but the benefit of those that don't change go to the govt.

The regs can include the burden of proof being on the foreign producer. They must pay for full, regulary and random audits with strict loss of rights if they fail.

Costs of items and raw materials producted outside of the country would start to match our costs, or be higher because of shipping. Production, mining and farming domestically would go up and people would spend more internally. Walmart would have to shift or start looking expensive.

Our economic problem is not Obama or Bush, it is that we send all our money and jobs elsewhere. What say you? Would you sign a well worded petition to representatives? Can you imagine clothing, toys and other stuff made domestically? Buying a car with 100% American Made parts? Can you imagine your neighbors with good jobs or opportunities to no longer work for others?

There are some things other countries do better than us, sugar cane is one good example. Why should you penalize our consumer by jacking up prices so that Kansas sugar cane is competitive to Brazilian?

Simple? LOL
It would be possible to have regulations and standards written in "free trade" agreements. Difficult to equalize wages across countries with widely different standards of living and currency valuations. And some countries have other advantages like technology, natural resources, cheap energy and automation. Labor is only one part of the economy.

Interesting cultural trade war story I read a couple months ago. Americans don't eat chicken feet, Chinese love them, so Americans have been exporting these feet to China for pennies, cheaper to ship than to dispose of, so we were selling them under cost. Chinese chicken farmers protested.

I am not suggesting jacking prices, just giving all producers equality under the law. The price changes would come via this equality. As I said, the best way to make everyone equal under the law is to get rid of the laws here, but people are attimant about keeping these laws in place so that those that still have jobs are paid well and work in better conditions, we just accept that in order to get this for these people, we need to fire another huge group of Americans and send their jobs oversees where there are better laws for production.

LOL, I think my system is less complicated than sending all the jobs out of the country by design, having no economy and fighting wars for everything we want, vs. equal trade.

If we dropped the fed min wage and people in Mississippi worked for $2 an hour with little taxation, but here in CO you still had min wage of $8 or so and lots of taxes (like we do), I think people in CO would be marketing against buying from MS or trying to change the Constitution so they could restrict such trade, as most products on CO shelves would be made out of state and like now, many cannot afford to buy them anyway (remember we eliminated their job by design).