Local "Liberty" Hero Linda Bean Proposes New Tax on Lobsters

We do love to bash companines such as LLB. Years ago people (including yours truly) bashed them for charging too much for their stuff--now we complain because they sell "cheap imports". Go figure.

Yes, well...now they sell cheap imports and charge far too much for them. It's the worst of both worlds.

I buy some things in other countries so I am all for free trade, as long as everyone else is doing it....so will I. If it is fair for Walmart to do so, then I will do the same thing.

But.....:

There is a flat statement made by many, and believed by way many more than those actually saying it.

"If it is good for business, then it is good for America"!

Gov LePage is noted for making the same statement with "Maine" substituted for "America". Either way it means the same thing.

How I interpet that is this. The bottom line of any business today is money, nothing wrong with that, but money, all that can be gotten by any business, is the ultimate goal. Can't argue with that can we. Making money is what any business is all about, or it wouldn't stay in business very long, that's for sure.

I am just using LL Bean as an example here, since we are talking about them in this thread. So at some point, driven by competetion from many places, Cabela's is probably one of them, LL Bean decided that it would be "good business" to seek to buy most of the stock needed for their retail operations, overseas where they could buy it cheaper.......much cheaper! So the end result of this is that this move was smart for LLB as it surely must have increased their profit margins considerably. But hey, its "good for business" so it's alright! The goal was to increase the bottom line wasn't it? And they surely did!

LL Bean was not the only company to do this. Walmart, and lots of other large retailers made a science out of this "offshoring". But again it was good for business so it was good for America, based upon that criteria, I would certainly say.

But did this all have a downside?

Well yes it did.....and has had some profound effects on the manufacturing industy in the USA and it has cost millions of Americans their jobs. But hey, it is "good for business" so tough luck guys.....with losing your jobs, that is just the way the cookie crumbles these days"

Businesses like Walmart, with all of this cheap stuff available to sell in their stores are ecstatic and they should be, they did the very American business thing of vastly increasing their profits. Of course all those who lost good jobs in the manufacturing industries were just "collateral damage" weren't they!

Does anyone other than me see anything wrong with that picture?

Since most of us seem to be in agreement that any business that accumulates a pile of money is a good thing, perhaps the only good thing, it is OK because the more money American business has the better off America will be.

I will leave this with a bit of a riddle.

In the late 1930's Walter Reuther, the head of the United Auto Workers union was visiting Henry Ford in one of his plants. Mr Ford was showing Reuther some brand new machinery that was going to build some parts of his cars faster and more efficiently, and was going to do that with less workers.

Henry Ford said he was going to be able to build much better cars this way, with all this new stuff. Walter Reuther than said: "Mr Ford, who do you think will be able to buy those cars?"

Something maybe we should think about a bit perhaps.

WC

WC

It's nice to look back at things in the past in order to not repeat the mistakes.

It's also advisable to keep looking forward in case there happens to be a cliff you're headed for.
So What is to be done about the low price of lobster?

Bruce Libbey

The potato situation between Maine and Canada seems to have been realitively calm since our dollar has been close to par with theirs.
I think the government over there got tired of pumping money into the industry as well.

Only two things can raise the price of lobster, less caught or more bought. I have seen dealers move into an area determined to put the other guy out of business or at least hurt them, unfortunately paying the lobstermen more and selling for less is not a long term business formula. And if the processors cannot move all their product then what, low prices for consumers in order to empty the freezers to make room for this years product. There is no silver bullet, but getting govt involved is not the answer that's for sure.