Protectionist Babs?

John Seiler:

During the Carly Fiorina-Barbara Boxer debate Wednesday, Babs charged:

When she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard, before she was terminated actually, she shipped 30,000 jobs overseas. Think about it. That’s the size of Foster City. That reminds me of Wall Street. … Bonuses at the top. Pain for everybody else.

So, is  Babs advocating protectionism? Will she call for a 50% tariff on foreign imports? How about shutting out imports to the ports of San Francisco, Long Beach and Los Angeles? Will she go down to those ports and personally fire all those longshoremen?

Or does she want to cut the fiberoptic lines to India, so California companies stop hiring Indian computer gurus?

Or how about shutting down Apple? Its computers all say, “Designed in California, Made in China.” (Flip them over and look.) Maybe Babs wants to jail Steve Jobs to save California jobs.

Or maybe every iPod and iMac and iWhatever should be seized and dumped into he Pacific Ocean.

Of course, almost  nobody is protectionist anymore. It’s well understood, even in the U.S. Senate, that free trade is essential to economic prosperity.

How, then, to help Americans, especially those unemployed, and advance American exports? Simple: Stabilize the dollar with the gold standard. Cut taxes. Cut the mammoth U.S. and California government bureaucracies.

Is Babs advocating any of that? No.

By the way, her husband, Stewart, is a wealthy lawyer.  What are their investments? Are they invested in foreign companies? Have they helped ship American jobs overseas?

Maybe not. Just wondering.


Tags assigned to this article:
Barbara BoxerCaliforniaCarly FiorinaU.S. Senate

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