Answer Questions 3, 4, and 5 based upon the following editorial in the New York Times:
The Autoworkers' Pain Published: February 16, 2007
"American autoworkers are suffering through another round of layoffs, factory closings and buyouts. This time DaimlerChrysler has announced that it will cut 13,000 jobs in North America. Ford Motor and General Motors offered buyouts to a total of nearly 200,000 hourly workers in 2006. These losses stoke fears that America's manufacturing base is disappearing, that the country is 'de-industrializing'. With the loss of three million American factory jobs since the end of 2000 and the trade deficit at an all-time high, it's easy to see China's spectacular growth and assume that American factories are being gutted by foreign competition. But global competition is not the whole cause for the car manufacturers' problems, just as the answers are not to be found in protectionism. Many of the car companies' difficulties stem from some bad decisions by management and some uninspired car designs. Chrysler lost $1.48 billion last year and Ford lost $12.7 billion, the most in more than a century in business, while Toyota reported record profits and sales. The plight of the workers who have lost their jobs is real and has to be addressed, but the U.S. manufacturing sector is far more robust than the struggle of the carmakers suggests. According to the United Nations, the United States accounted for 21.2 percent of world manufacturing in 2000. As China surged ahead in recent years, the American share of world manufacturing barely budged, falling to 21.1 percent by 2005, the most recent year available. American factories produced a record $1.5 trillion in goods that year. In part, that's because foreign companies have invested so much in factory capacity in America. In a recent report, a Democratic research organization, the Progressive Policy Institute, cited government figures showing that foreign manufacturers invest billions more in the United States than American manufacturers invest abroad. Toyota provides over 29,000 manufacturing jobs in this country. Many of the jobs that have disappeared did not drain off to foreign competition, but to technological change on the shop floor. Robots and computers have allowed far fewer workers to produce more than ever. That kind of high-tech manufacturing is one reason successful American companies like Boeing and Caterpillar can compete with companies in countries where the labor costs are low. This is not to ignore the human dimension. It is too easy for free trade advocates to blame the robots and then ignore the pain of the blue-collar workers they have sidelined. The suffering in places like Ohio, Indiana and Michigan is very real, and so is the political backlash that results. The long-term answer is the vexing question of training American workers for a new world of jobs. But there are more short-term issues as well, starting with taking care of those Americans, middle aged and older, who suddenly find themselves without jobs right now. The burden falls on pro-trade politicians and those who support them, unless they want to see high tariffs and duties, which will ultimately choke global and domestic growth. Just to start, pro-trade politicians have to make sure that a lost factory job does not mean a drastic and lasting decline in living standards, with no access to health insurance and no hope for a college education for that worker's children. As the tide rises, this country cannot allow millions to drown. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Develop a hypothesis that will help to explore a causal relationship suggested by The Autoworkers' Pain editorial. Explain in detail the causal relationship that your hypothesis above is attempting to show. How would you operationalize this hypothesis? Be specific on what the units of analysis are attempting to depict. Using the website for the U.S. Senate [www.senate.gov],
