Ow. You just broke my brain. I think I can solve the energy crisis by hooking up a turbine to David Ricardo's grave.
What you're talking about here would, first off, cause a regulatory explosion. Okay, so IBM has to sell laptops at $100? Despite the fact that while the local labor force might get paid $1/hr, the horde of lawyers responsible for navigating the IP thicket costs a lot more? Clearly, you can't ask IBM to sell their laptop below cost... and you can't trust IBM to tell you what their real cost is... so we need some independent agency to determine what the true cost of their laptop is.
Once you know the true cost, how are you going to force IBM to sell there? Any time you want the law to force someone to do things, you're talking about an enforcement agency. Okay, so let's add an enforcement agency on top of the regulatory agency.
And how many laptops are they required to sell at $100? Hmm. Clearly, this is a matter for Congress to decide. Congress will, using the information provided to them by the regulatory agencies, force IBM to sell X laptops at $100. Now, what happens if those X laptops don't sell?
... Oh! And even after Congress makes these decisions, every Tom, Dick and Harry who has an axe to grind against IBM (in other words, all of their business competitors) will file lawsuits alleging IBM is not in compliance with these laws and should be punished. So now the courts get involved, too.
So, once you've presided over the conversion of decentralized capitalism to a centrally planned socialist system, you're ... going to be effectively upping the price of labor in Malaysia. IBM isn't going to go along with this out of the goodness of their hearts. They're going to say "well, each laptop costs $100 more if we build it entirely in the US, so let's do it here and avoid the headache."
Which puts tens of thousands of poor Malaysians out of a job. Instead of $10/day sitting in an air conditioned factory, they're now earning $1/day doing backbreaking labor in hot fields.
no subject
What you're talking about here would, first off, cause a regulatory explosion. Okay, so IBM has to sell laptops at $100? Despite the fact that while the local labor force might get paid $1/hr, the horde of lawyers responsible for navigating the IP thicket costs a lot more? Clearly, you can't ask IBM to sell their laptop below cost... and you can't trust IBM to tell you what their real cost is... so we need some independent agency to determine what the true cost of their laptop is.
Once you know the true cost, how are you going to force IBM to sell there? Any time you want the law to force someone to do things, you're talking about an enforcement agency. Okay, so let's add an enforcement agency on top of the regulatory agency.
And how many laptops are they required to sell at $100? Hmm. Clearly, this is a matter for Congress to decide. Congress will, using the information provided to them by the regulatory agencies, force IBM to sell X laptops at $100. Now, what happens if those X laptops don't sell?
... Oh! And even after Congress makes these decisions, every Tom, Dick and Harry who has an axe to grind against IBM (in other words, all of their business competitors) will file lawsuits alleging IBM is not in compliance with these laws and should be punished. So now the courts get involved, too.
So, once you've presided over the conversion of decentralized capitalism to a centrally planned socialist system, you're ... going to be effectively upping the price of labor in Malaysia. IBM isn't going to go along with this out of the goodness of their hearts. They're going to say "well, each laptop costs $100 more if we build it entirely in the US, so let's do it here and avoid the headache."
Which puts tens of thousands of poor Malaysians out of a job. Instead of $10/day sitting in an air conditioned factory, they're now earning $1/day doing backbreaking labor in hot fields.