Problem: Globalization is degrading the wage scale of American workers.

Emerging markets are threatening American jobs as never before. Manufacturing and service sector jobs are being lost to low-wage overseas competition at an alarming rate, and American workers are being forced into lower-paying jobs. We can't be competitive against a country with an artificially weak currency and an average wage scale of 50 cents/hour. In my business I go head-to-head with a Canadian company for contracts to deliver chemical analysis software. Sometimes I beat them, sometimes they beat me. That's the biz world. I can be competitive with them because Canadians pay their workers a decent wage like I do, and they toss in some health care and retirement benefits as well. I'm not afraid of competition with them - I welcome it. There's no way that I can compete against a Chinese or Indian company where well-trained engineers make five bucks an hour. When my Louisville-based engineers become unemployed as a result, maybe we'll wake up and smell the coffee. But the coffee will already be gone.

Solution: Tariffs.

Tariffs that adjust import prices to wages are the only viable solution. These tariffs would be long-term, but not permanent.  As wage scales in emerging markets improve, tariffs would be relaxed. When a country's wage rates approximate those of American workers, tariffs would be eliminated. In the case of China, an additional tariff component would be assessed to compensate for the artificially-low Yuan exchange rate. When the Chinese government eliminates the mechanism that keeps the Yuan undervalued, these tariffs would be eliminated as well. You don't think that tariffs will work? The Chinese can't afford to think so, because in 2005, over $243 billion in Chinese goods entered our country. If we even whisper the word tariffs, they'll listen. They'll have to.

Tariffs on goods that we import from developing countries may be the only short-term way to stop the erosion of our manufacturing base. Better education to improve our technical skills is the only viable long term solution. But we'd better get going; the objects in our mirror are larger than they appear.

Problem: Globalization is abetting the exploitation of workers in developing countries.

Every time we buy a made-in-China pair of socks for 50 cents, we're sanctioning the exploitation of workers who are grotesquely underpaid.

Solution: Tariffs.

Tariffs that adjust import prices to wages will apply economic pressure on emerging economies to raise the wages of their workers to a humane level. When their workers earn a wage that approximates ours, we'll eliminate the tariffs,

If you really want to study the subject of globalization, take a look at PBS' excellent series Commanding Heights.