Capt. Apathy,
With China's acceptance into the WTO, it will get worse not better (for the record, I think they should be allowed in, but made to play by all the rules).
Here's why: Right now, the US imposes tariffs, sometimes hefty tariffs, on certain classes of goods imported in from the PRC. Those tariffs currently help other countries like Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, Phillipines, etc. compete with China from a cost perspective. Now once China enters the WTO, the fear is, with those tariffs gone, the other countries cannot compete. That will tempt them to lower already low standards (including environmental and wage standards) just to keep some share of that business. It's well-known, and a given, that none of these countries can compete with China, period.
As you can see, we already had China paying high tariffs comparitively to these other countries, and still they could beat us and those countries at this.
As for the domestic jobs, consider this. In the early, mid, and latter part of the 1900's, the shoe and textile industry boomed in New England. But then all those jobs moved to the south, not south as in Mexico (as of then) but the southern US states.
Why? A few of the reasons (but by no means the full, comprehensive list) were stricter environmental laws coming into play up north, but more importantly, the workforce to do these jobs was drying up. Folks improved their standard of living for themselves and their children, and it was those very children that chose NOT to work at the jobs their parents did. Even higher wages sometimes wasn't enough. The job itself wasn't intincing enough. So the factories and the jobs moved south.
The consumer was unwilling to pay higher prices for products, when cheaper alternatives were available. So to stay alive, the companies moved.
Like I said, many other issues came into play such as state-sponsored Corporate welfare which played a huge role. Hell in Mass. in the late '90's the state government gave Raytheon huge tax incentives to stay put, when Raytheon threatened to move it's Andover plant to Texas. Raytheon had to promise to keep the same number of jobs on the payroll......they didn't, but by then Mass had already given the tax breaks.
Cobra
