How Ignorant and Misguided Can Charles Schumer Be?

Think big. Gigantic. This is the latest from Charles Shumer, the Democrat from New York:

When he found out that Adidas was planning to outsource manufacturing of NBA jerseys he “called on the league to terminate its contract with the German-based sportswear giant unless it halts plans to transfer production of game-day jerseys from an upstate New York facility to Thailand.”

Great idea! Let’s make sure that we force companies to produce stuff at the highest possible cost in the name of some lame “buy and make American” nonsensical theory. I am sure that forcing Adidas to give up on the possibility to reduce its production costs will do wonders for this economy.

Besides, as George Mason University’s Don Boudreaux noted in a still unpublished letter to the editor of the New York Daily News yesterday:

“I wonder where Mr. Schumer’s business suits are made. All in the U.S.? What about his shoes? His neckties? His underwear? How about the coffee he drinks? The flowers he buys for his wife in January? Are these all made in America?

Does Mr. Schumer eat cheese from only Vermont and Wisconsin? Drink wine from only California and Oregon? Does he vacation only in places such as Maui and Martha’s Vineyard? Does he listen to only recordings made by musicians holding U.S. passports? Does he read books written only by American authors, and decorate his home with only those paintings, vases, and sculptures produced by Americans residing in U.S. locales such as Santa Fe and Manhattan? Is his life nearly devoid of modern consumer electronics, given that very few of these devices are today manufactured in America?

I don’t know Mr. Schumer personally, but I’ll bet my pension that his everyday consumption consists of countless products containing such large quantities of non-American inputs and labor that, were Mr. Schumer suddenly to rid his existence of these foreign contributions to his living standard, he would soon find himself ignorant and appallingly impoverished.”

And of course we know that Schumer has always had great ideas about how to improve the health of our nation. For instance, his big contribution at the job summit yesterday was to ask that the Census Bureau staff go to unemployment offices around the state to hire temporary workers for the 2010 population count.

Way to go Charlie!