More "Free Trade" Fail.

[Anti Federalist]

Blarg, blarg, blarg, global economy, blarg, blarg, blarg, globalized world, blarg, blarg, blarg, new world order.

What bullshit.

The whole "global economy" is tethered directly to the most tenuous of chains: petroleum.

Let there be some interruption in the flow of "just in time" logistical crude, and the whole house of cards comes crashing down, overnight.



Where are the Jobs? For Many Companies, Overseas

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/28/business/main7191280.shtml?tag=topnews

Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn't anyone hiring?

Actually, many American companies are just maybe not in your town. They're hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.

More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were outside the U.S. UPS is also hiring at a faster clip overseas. For both companies, sales in international markets are growing at least twice as fast as domestically.

The trend helps explain why unemployment remains high in the United States, edging up to 9.8 percent last month, even though companies are performing well: All but 4 percent of the top 500 U.S. corporations reported profits this year, and the stock market is close to its highest point since the 2008 financial meltdown.

But the jobs are going elsewhere. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, says American companies have created 1.4 million jobs overseas this year, compared with less than 1 million in the U.S. The additional 1.4 million jobs would have lowered the U.S. unemployment rate to 8.9 percent, says Robert Scott, the institute's senior international economist.

"There's a huge difference between what is good for American companies versus what is good for the American economy," says Scott.

American jobs have been moving overseas for more than two decades. In recent years, though, those jobs have become more sophisticated think semiconductors and software, not toys and clothes.

And now many of the products being made overseas aren't coming back to the United States. Demand has grown dramatically this year in emerging markets like India, China and Brazil.

Meanwhile, consumer demand in the U.S. has been subdued. Despite a strong holiday shopping season, Americans are still spending 3 percent less than before the recession on essential items like clothing and more than 10 percent less on jewelry, furniture, electronics, and big appliances, according to MasterCard's SpendingPulse.

"Companies will go where there are fast-growing markets and big profits," says Jeffrey Sachs, globalization expert and economist at Columbia University. "What's changed is that companies today are getting top talent in emerging economies, and the U.S. has to really watch out."

With the future looking brighter overseas, companies are building there, too. Caterpillar, maker of the signature yellow bulldozers and tractors, has invested in three new plants in China in just the last two months to design and manufacture equipment. The decision is based on demand: Asia-Pacific sales soared 38 percent in the first nine months of the year, compared with 16 percent in the U.S. Caterpillar stock is up 65 percent this year.

"There is a shift in economic power that's going on and will continue. China just became the world's second-largest economy," says David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, who notes that half of the revenue for companies in the S&P 500 in the last couple of years has come from outside the U.S.

Take the example of DuPont, which wowed the world in 1938 with nylon stockings. Known as one of the most innovative American companies of the 20th century, DuPont now sells less than a third of its products in the U.S. In the first nine months of this year, sales to the Asia-Pacific region grew 50 percent, triple the U.S. rate. Its stock is up 47 percent this year.

DuPont's work force reflects the shift in its growth: In a presentation on emerging markets, the company said its number of employees in the U.S. shrank by 9 percent between January 2005 and October 2009. In the same period, its work force grew 54 percent in the Asia-Pacific countries.

"We are a global player out to succeed in any geography where we participate in," says Thomas M. Connelly, chief innovation officer at DuPont. "We want our resources close to where our customers are, to tailor products to their needs."

While most of DuPont's research labs are still stateside, Connelly says he's impressed with the company's overseas talent. The company opened a large research facility in Hyderabad, India, in 2008.

A key factor behind this runaway international growth is the rise of the middle class in these emerging countries. By 2015, for the first time, the number of consumers in Asia's middle class will equal those in Europe and North America combined.

"All of the growth over the next 10 years is happening in Asia," says Homi Kharas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and formerly the World Bank's chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific.

Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent often points out that a billion consumers will enter the middle class during the coming decade, mostly in Africa, China and India. He is aggressively targeting those markets. Of Coke's 93,000 global employees, less than 13 percent were in the U.S. in 2009, down from 19 percent five years ago.

The company would not say how many new U.S. hires it has made in 2010. But its latest new investments are overseas, including $240 million for three bottling plants in Inner Mongolia as part of a three-year, $2 billion investment in China. The three plants will create 2,000 new jobs in the area. In September, Coca-Cola pledged $1 billion to the Philippines over five years.

The strategy isn't restricted to just the largest American companies. Entrepreneurs, whether in technology, retail or in manufacturing, today hire globally from the start.

Consider Vast.com, which powers the search engines of sites like Yahoo Travel and Aol Autos. The company was founded in 2005 with employees based in San Francisco and Serbia.

Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria worries that the trend could be dangerous. In an article in the November issue of the Harvard Business Review, he says that if U.S. businesses keep prospering while Americans are struggling, business leaders will lose legitimacy in society. He exhorted business leaders to find a way to link growth with job creation at home.

Other economists, like Columbia University's Sachs, say multinational corporations have no choice, especially now that the quality of the global work force has improved. Sachs points out that the U.S. is falling in most global rankings for higher education while others are rising.

"We are not fulfilling the educational needs of our young people," says Sachs. "In a globalized world, there are serious consequences to that."

[Cowlesy]

Articles like these bring me around more and more to Pat Buchanan's point-of-view on trade policy.

Unfortunately we'll never be a nation of 300 million astronauts. Unless we plan to subsidize everyone who'd be a widget-maker in the U.S. (and we're getting there), we need to get some jerbs back to the United States. Some would say "subsidize them using all the corporate profits coming in" but the profiteers will just take their whole operations out of the USA. And of course, creating a nation of dependents is pretty much as anti-American as could possibly be.

I don't know what the answer is. The more we grow the welfare state because it isn't hospitable to create jobs here as opposed to overseas, the further down the path we slide.

[low preference guy]

all i see is more Anti Federalist fail

[Anti Federalist]

Articles like these bring me around more and more to Pat Buchanan's point-of-view on trade policy.

Unfortunately we'll never be a nation of 300 million astronauts. Unless we plan to subsidize everyone who'd be a widget-maker in the U.S. (and we're getting there), we need to get some jerbs back to the United States. Some would say "subsidize them using all the corporate profits coming in" but the profiteers will just take their whole operations out of the USA. And of course, creating a nation of dependents is pretty much as anti-American as could possibly be.

I don't know what the answer is. The more we grow the welfare state because it isn't hospitable to create jobs here as opposed to overseas, the further down the path we slide.

PJB has had it right on trade policy for years now. Still got a PJB for prez bumper sticker on one of my old trucks out in the woods.

Honestly, I don't think the answer is that difficult, although implementation will be a bitch.

Tariffs on everything coming into the country, combined with massive tax reform or elimination of taxes on business and profit, along with tort and regulatory reform or elimination.

Make it expensive to outsource, make it profitable to do domestically.

[james1906]

Make it expensive to outsource, make it profitable to do domestically.

With 'National Security' being the cliche for everything, why is it appropriate for a CSR overseas to access my SSN, credit card#, banking account #, etc?

[axiomata]

Here's a Cato@Liberty response (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/are-u-s-multinationals-to-blame-for-high-unemployment/) to your AP opinion piece.


Many Americans believe the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high because U.S. multinational companies have been outsourcing and offshoring jobs to low-wage countries at the expense of jobs at home. And they believe this in part because politicians and the media tell them it’s so, even though it isn’t.

Consider this story today from the Associated Press under the provocative headline, “Where are the jobs? For many companies, overseas.”


Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn’t anyone hiring?

Actually, many American companies are–just maybe not in your town. They’re hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.

More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were outside the U.S. UPS is also hiring at a faster clip overseas. For both companies, sales in international markets are growing at least twice as fast as domestically.

The trend helps explain why unemployment remains high in the United States, edging up to 9.8 percent last month, even though companies are performing well: All but 4 percent of the top 500 U.S. corporations reported profits this year, and the stock market is close to its highest point since the 2008 financial meltdown.

But the jobs are going elsewhere. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, says American companies have created 1.4 million jobs overseas this year, compared with less than 1 million in the U.S. The additional 1.4 million jobs would have lowered the U.S. unemployment rate to 8.9 percent, says Robert Scott, the institute’s senior international economist.

Where to start? First, look back at the reference to Caterpillar, the quintessential U.S. multinational company. If more than half of the employees the company has hired this year are outside the United States, doesn’t that imply that the company also hired workers within the United States, perhaps several thousand?

In fact, as I noted on p. 101 of my Cato book Mad about Trade, Caterpillar and other U.S. multinationals tend to hire workers at home when they are hiring workers abroad. When global business is good, employment tends to ramp up throughout a multinational company’s operations, whether in the United States or abroad. (Earlier this month the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News ran a story about Caterpillar hiring 600 new workers at a local distribution center.)

It is simply false to argue that, if U.S. multinationals did not add jobs to their operations abroad, those jobs would be created at home. The opposite is much closer to the truth. Over the past 30 years, the change in employment of U.S. multinationals in their U.S. parent operations and in their affiliates abroad has been positively and strongly correlated. When hiring grows abroad, it grows at home, and when it lags at home, it lags abroad.

And when U.S. companies do hire abroad, their aim is not typically to cut wage costs but to reach new customers (as I explained in an earlier op-ed). That’s why U.S. multinationals employ far more workers in high-wage Europe than in low-wage countries such as India and China. In fact, according to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Commerce Department, U.S. multinationals employed five times as many workers in Europe (4.82 million) in 2008 than they did in China (950,000).

If U.S. companies are forced to reduce their operations abroad in the name of fighting unemployment at home, they will be less able to compete in global markets and less able to expand production and employment in their domestic operations.

There is definitely some fail in this thread.

[james1906]

The reason our economy is in the shitter is because we don't make anything. Only a moron wouldn't understand that the whole 'easy credit' economy could not sustain itself. Let's all work at Starbucks and take out no money down adjustable rate loans to buy a $400,000 house in the middle of the fucking desert. Wanna take a vacation and help keep the economy going helping other people in low paying service jobs? Refinance! Hooray for prosperity!

[axiomata]

The reason our economy is in the shitter is because we don't make anything. Only a moron wouldn't understand that the whole 'easy credit' economy could not sustain itself. Let's all work at Starbucks and take out no money down adjustable rate loans to buy a $400,000 house in the middle of the fucking desert. Wanna take a vacation and help keep the economy going helping other people in low paying service jobs? Refinance! Hooray for prosperity!

You have it backwards. "We don't make anything" because of easy credit and our economy is in the shitter because of easy credit bubbles. I put it in quotes because it is not true. We are still the largest manufacturer in the world and we are still are on a trend of increasing our industrial output (minus the recession's downturn). The fact that China is increasing its manufacturing base faster is neither surprising nor bad. Children do grow faster than adults. Right now we export worthless paper dollars. In exchange we get computers, clothes, toys etc. It's really quite a good deal for us and it's a shame it cannot last. When the dollar crashes we will be forced to manufacture more at home, and it will not be good for our quality of life.

[Anti Federalist]

The reason our economy is in the shitter is because we don't make anything. Only a moron wouldn't understand that the whole 'easy credit' economy could not sustain itself. Let's all work at Starbucks and take out no money down adjustable rate loans to buy a $400,000 house in the middle of the fucking desert. Wanna take a vacation and help keep the economy going helping other people in low paying service jobs? Refinance! Hooray for prosperity!

Agreed and inb4 the one worlders come in and call us the idiots.

[Anti Federalist]

You have it backwards. "We don't make anything" because of easy credit and our economy is in the shitter because of easy credit bubbles. I put it in quotes because it is not true. We are still the largest manufacturer in the world and we are still increasing our industrial output. The fact that China is increasing its manufacturing base faster is neither surprising nor bad. Children do grow faster than adults. Right now we export worthless paper dollars. In exchange we get computers, clothes, toys etc. It's really quite a good deal for us and it's a shame it cannot last. When the dollar crashes we will be forced to manufacture more at home, and it will not be good for our quality of life.

Well, besides the fact that "manufacturing" numbers have been fudged for the last twenty years or so, (grilling Big Macs is not "manufacturing") just like "unemployment" numbers, you're contradicting yourself here.

[axiomata]

Well, besides the fact that "manufacturing" numbers have been fudged for the last twenty years or so, (grilling Big Macs is not "manufacturing") just like "unemployment" numbers, you're contradicting yourself here.


The industrial production (IP) index measures the real output of the manufacturing, mining, and electric and gas utilities industries; the reference period for the index is 2007. Manufacturing consists of those industries included in the North American Industry Classification System, or NAICS, definition of manufacturing plus those industries-logging and newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishing-that have traditionally been considered to be manufacturing and included in the industrial sector.

Can't seem to find evidence that Big Macs are included in this (http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/G17/ip_notes.htm)industrial production metric.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/INDPRO_Max_630_378.png

[Anti Federalist]

Can't seem to find evidence that Big Macs are included in this (http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/G17/ip_notes.htm)industrial production metric.

Awesome, then all is right with the world and I'll go back to my corner with my tin foil hat.

But, then again, I'm not so sure I'd be too trusting of a statistic published by the Fed.

[Kregisen]

If consumers are saving 10 times the amount of the salaries of lost American jobs, why can't we tax 10% of the savings to consumers and pay the full salaries of the people who would be losing their job due to imports?

The end result is then, those people have a full salary and their full time, and consumers have savings.

How is this not a win-win?


I'll admit, I'm frankly, stumped by your question.

He admitted he's never taken an economics course in his life, and he admits here he's stumped when presented with a simple free-trade argument, and yet continues to spew this big-government regulating trade BS....that's what I'd call a "fail".

http://www.saddleback.edu/faculty/aorrison/mathhelp/sdtrade.htm

Go down to "First Try: A Teddy Tariff" if you don't want to read everything. It goes through step by step how when tariffs or quotas are enacted, consumers are hurt more than local producers are helped, and wealth is destroyed.

This is like arguing calculus before opening up a textbook. If other people on this site have never taken economics before, I don't want them buying into this bullshit that free trade and outsourcing is destroying america. It's such an easy topic to debate, but like the minimum wage argument, the sheeple let their emotions do their thinking for them.

[james1906]

Awesome, then all is right with the world and I'll go back to my corner with my tin foil hat.

But, then again, I'm not so sure I'd be too trusting of a statistic published by the Fed.

That tin foil hat you made could have been made in China for cheaper.

[axiomata]

Awesome, then all is right with the world and I'll go back to my corner with my tin foil hat.

But, then again, I'm not so sure I'd be too trusting of a statistic published by the Fed.

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8108/indpromax630378.png

Better?

[ClayTrainor]

If other people on this site have never taken economics before, I don't want them buying into this bullshit that free trade and outsourcing is destroying america

They should at least consider what Ron Paul has to say...




http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/free-trade/

"Free trade with all and entangling alliances with none has always been the best policy in dealing with other countries on the world stage. This is the policy of friendship, freedom and non-interventionism and yet people wrongly attack this philosophy as isolationist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Isolationism is putting up protectionist trade barriers, starting trade wars imposing provocative sanctions and one day finding out we have no one left to buy our products." - Ron Paul

"The economic argument for free trade should be no more complex than the moral argument. Tariffs are taxes that penalize those who buy foreign goods.If taxes are low on imported goods, consumers benefit by being able to buy at the best price, thus saving money to buy additional goods and raise their standard of living. The competition stimulates domestic efforts and hopefully serves as an incentive to get onerous taxes and regulations reduced." - Ron Paul, March 2000

"There is another way. Free trade and free markets are, without a doubt, the best guarantor of peace. But this requires something all too few in Washington want: less government intervention." - Ron Paul, June 7, 1999

"Conflicting and inconsistent views on trade policy result largely from a lack of understanding of basic economic principles. Free trade is not a zero-sum game where some countries benefit and others inevitably suffer. On the contrary, true free trade by definition benefits both parties." - Ron Paul, Feb 12, 2001

"Free trade is the process of free people engaging in market activity without government interference such as tariffs or managed-trade agreements. In a true free market, individuals and companies do business voluntarily, which means they believe they will be better off as a result of a transaction. Tariffs, taxes, and duties upset the balance, because governments add costs to the calculation which make doing business less attractive. Similarly, so-called managed trade agreements like WTO favor certain business interests and trading nations over others, which reduces the mutual benefit inherent in true free trade." - Ron Paul

[Anti Federalist]

That tin foil hat you made could have been made in China for cheaper.

Honestly.

[james1906]

yet continues to spew this big-government regulating trade BS....that's what I'd call a "fail".



The Constitution calls for tariffs, not an income tax, to fund the government. Oh, and I have taken economics courses in college where I was taught the benefits of free trade. What wasn't covered was what happens when the majority of goods and services a country performs can be done cheaper overseas and that country is left with little to trade. Oh well, we still make the best movies. I guess we can keep trading those for $5 toasters.

[axiomata]

That tin foil hat you made could have been made in China for cheaper.

Probably. But it is designed and used by Americans.

I design HRSGs. All I produce is calculations and blueprints. The vast majority of the steel and manufacturing is procured from Asia for delivery all over the world. There is nothing wrong with a strong US service sector. There is also nothing wrong with a strong US manufacturing sector. The key is to allow individuals to freely choose without intervention and manipulation.

[ClayTrainor]

The key is to allow individuals to freely choose without intervention and manipulation.

....b..b.b..bbbbut I know what's best for everyone! :p

[james1906]

Probably. But it is designed and used by Americans.

I design HRSGs. All I produce is calculations and blueprints. The vast majority of the steel and manufacturing is procured from Asia for delivery all over the world. There is nothing wrong with a strong US service sector. There is also nothing wrong with a strong US manufacturing sector. The key is to allow individuals to freely choose without intervention and manipulation.

Sorry, we can't all work in R&D. Anyways, I'm sure a guy in Bangalore can do your job just as well for 1/10th the salary. Why don't you tell your boss that?

[Kregisen]

The Constitution calls for tariffs, not an income tax, to fund the government. Oh, and I have taken economics courses in college where I was taught the benefits of free trade. What wasn't covered was what happens when the majority of goods and services a country performs can be done cheaper overseas and that country is left with little to trade. Oh well, we still make the best movies. I guess we can keep trading those for $5 toasters.

I don't want an income tax either. All a tariff is is a very inefficient tax on consumers, where there's a hole in the moneybags as the government is walking away with it.

[agitator]

Germans have few natural resources. Heavy in maufacturing. Not exporting the world reserve currency to finance their budget. Why are they so sucessful? How do they handle trade in comparison to the US?

[Anti Federalist]

....b..b.b..bbbbut I know what's best for everyone! :p

Globalized free trade will have completed it's mission when the middle class is effectively destroyed, living standards in the west having been lowered to global norms and we're all living in grinding poverty, being ruled over by a "five percenter", elite ruling class, like most of the world lives right now.

Not a future I want any part of...

[james1906]

All a tariff is is a very inefficient tax on consumers

There are basic functions of the federal government that need to be funded, and the Constitution states this is the way to do it. The way to get out of paying the tariff is to buy domestically, which helps the economy. There's nothing wrong with that.

[axiomata]

Sorry, we can't all work in R&D. Anyways, I'm sure a guy in Bangalore can do your job just as well for 1/10th the salary. Why don't you tell your boss that?

If he can, and my customers would prefer to hire him, more power to him. The fact that he isn't, is pretty good proof that he can't.

[Kregisen]

What wasn't covered was what happens when the majority of goods and services a country performs can be done cheaper overseas and that country is left with little to trade.

lol enlighten me. Let's think about this for just one minute.....let's use logic even an 8-year old can comprehend.

If we're fucked up at one point in time (which is BS in itself), and your solution is proved to destroy wealth and HURT our consumers more than it HELPS our producers, how do you think that's gonna help us?

if we're at point negative 1000....subtracting 100 more will not help us reach 0.

[agitator]

The Constitution calls for tariffs, not an income tax, to fund the government. Oh, and I have taken economics courses in college where I was taught the benefits of free trade. What wasn't covered was what happens when the majority of goods and services a country performs can be done cheaper overseas and that country is left with little to trade. Oh well, we still make the best movies. I guess we can keep trading those for $5 toasters.



Look how well the economy is doing with all those who have studied economics advising the governemnt from the universities and think tanks...

[Anti Federalist]

Sorry, we can't all work in R&D. Anyways, I'm sure a guy in Bangalore can do your job just as well for 1/10th the salary. Why don't you tell your boss that?

And happy to get it.

For the last 20 to 30 years of this process, that I have been witnessing all of my adult life, the "hard assets" have been sold off and shut down, that took time to build a Bessemer converter in China.

All it takes now, for the remnant, is an internet connection.

[Anti Federalist]

If we're fucked up at one point in time (which is BS in itself), and your solution is proved to destroy wealth and HURT our consumers more than it HELPS our producers, how do you think that's gonna help us?

What was fucked up?

[james1906]

If he can, and my customers would prefer to hire him, more power to him. The fact that he isn't, is pretty good proof that he can't.

Usually when people discover they can get the same product or service for less elsewhere, they gravitate to the cheaper supplier. Just because it hasn't happened yet is not proof that it won't.

[Kregisen]

Look how well the economy is doing with all those who have studied economics advising the governemnt from the universities and think tanks...

That has nothing to do with this. That's keynesian economics....the free-trade argument is economic fact. It's like 2+2....no economist, either keynesian, supply-side, austrian, etc, tries to refute it.

[Kregisen]

What was fucked up?

He implied we're screwed if the majority of goods and servies produced by the U.S. can be made cheaper overseas, so I said, even assuming that was true, his argument came crashing down when his solution would only make matters worse, no matter how bad off we were.

[cindy25]

the founders passed a protective tariff in 1789; needed then, needed now

[james1906]

What was fucked up?

Ok, so I'm not the only one who isn't understanding him.

[ClayTrainor]

Globalized free trade will have completed it's mission when the middle class is effectively destroyed,

lmao... you think we are witnessing free trade? Do you also believe that we have free markets as well?

Do you believe the government when it tells you that NAFTA is a free trade agreement?



living standards in the west having been lowered to global norms and we're all living in grinding poverty, being ruled over by a "five percenter", elite ruling class, like most of the world lives right now.

Not a future I want any part of...

Yea, that's because of Central banks, Monopolies on money, managed trade agreements, Regulations, Taxation, War and virtually every statist policy that exists, not free markets and free trade.

[Kregisen]

By the way, nice of you to completely ignore my first post with the link in it, AF. :)

lol I better never see you rant against free trade again until you try to refute it.

[james1906]

He implied we're screwed if the majority of goods and servies produced by the U.S. can be made cheaper overseas, so I said, even assuming that was true, his argument came crashing down when his solution would only make matters worse, no matter how bad off we were.

So putting up tariffs that would create jobs in our own country is not the solution? The only other option is to keep printing more money so we can buy the goods and services we refuse to make domestically.

[Anti Federalist]

the founders passed a protective tariff in 1789; needed then, needed now

Yup.

Tariffs were in place for 150 years of this country's history.

In 150 years we became an economic and innovative powerhouse the likes of which the world has never seen before.

Post WWII and that started to change.

The final nail in the coffin driven in the early 70s by Nixon and Kissinger, letting Mao know that his 50 million dead were well spent in the Great Leap Forward, and removing the last vestige of reality to the US dollar.

[Kregisen]

So putting up tariffs that would create jobs in our own country is not the solution? The only other option is to keep printing more money so we can buy the goods and services we refuse to make domestically.

Keep printing money? You have me bamboozled here. I thought we were talking about trade, not our federal government spending....


Tariffs destroy wealth is fact. Tariffs hurt the consumers more than the help the local producers. Fact.

No matter HOW rich or poor your country is, tariffs will ALWAYS destroy part of your country's wealth.


That's why this is the stupidest debate I've been in.

[Anti Federalist]

By the way, nice of you to completely ignore my first post with the link in it, AF. :)

lol I better never see you rant against free trade again until you try to refute it.

Answered in the post above.

And I'll rant and rave to my heart's content, thank you.

[ClayTrainor]

You can't support free markets and oppose free trade, without being a giant hypocrite.

[agitator]

That has nothing to do with this. That's keynesian economics....the free-trade argument is economic fact. It's like 2+2....no economist, either keynesian, supply-side, austrian, etc, tries to refute it.

Being that other counties don't operate the same and the fact that the governments needs to raise funds, what is wrong with small tariffs instead of internal taxation?

[Anti Federalist]

Keep printing money? You have me bamboozled here. I thought we were talking about trade, not our federal government spending....


Tariffs destroy wealth is fact. Tariffs hurt the consumers more than the help the local producers. Fact.

No matter HOW rich or poor your country is, tariffs will ALWAYS destroy part of your country's wealth.


That's why this is the stupidest debate I've been in.

Simple question.

What hurts savings, investment, capital improvements and is more intrusive:

Income taxation,

or

Tariffs?

[Kregisen]

Yup.

Tariffs were in place for 150 years of this country's history.

In 150 years we became an economic and innovative powerhouse the likes of which the world has never seen before.

Post WWII and that started to change.

The final nail in the coffin driven in the early 70s by Nixon and Kissinger, letting Mao know that his 50 million dead were well spent in the Great Leap Forward, and removing the last vestige of reality to the US dollar.

AF, why do you keep ignoring my post on page 1?

Listen, I couldn't care less what you choose to believe, but you create more threads than anyone else on here, and it seems like 1/4 of those threads are against free trade, and it's MISLEADING people.

If you keep ignoring the facts and won't bother debating people, please for the sake of everyone else, STOP POSTING about it.

[ClayTrainor]

Tariffs destroy wealth is fact. Tariffs hurt the consumers more than the help the local producers. Fact.

No matter HOW rich or poor your country is, tariffs will ALWAYS destroy part of your country's wealth.


Yup. This is true of all forms of taxation and extortion. Tariffs are not some magical exception.

Ron Paul gets this...

"Tariffs, taxes, and duties upset the balance, because governments add costs to the calculation which make doing business less attractive. Similarly, so-called managed trade agreements like WTO favor certain business interests and trading nations over others, which reduces the mutual benefit inherent in true free trade." - Ron Paul



That's why this is the stupidest debate I've been in.

It's the same as all arguments for state policy, "Free Trade/free markets don't work, the solution is for government to regulate and tax us".

[driller80545]

Krigesen, I'm not sure that your facts are actually facts. Good read, but a little shaky in the real world.

[agitator]

It's the same as all arguments for state policy, "Free Trade/free markets don't work, the solution is for government to regulate and tax us".

If we are to believe governments need to raise funds for its operation, what do you propose.

[Kregisen]

Yup. This is true of all forms of taxation and extortion. Tariffs are not some magical exception.

Ron Paul gets this...

"Tariffs, taxes, and duties upset the balance, because governments add costs to the calculation which make doing business less attractive. Similarly, so-called managed trade agreements like WTO favor certain business interests and trading nations over others, which reduces the mutual benefit inherent in true free trade." - Ron Paul



It's the same as all arguments for state policy, "Free Trade/free markets don't work, the solution is for government to regulate and tax us".

Exactly. If the federal government has to raise funds someway, then some market will become distorted. What I'm arguing against is this view that the majority of america holds (who get it from their TV sets) that free trade is hurting America, and tariffs will help us. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I'm NOT TRYING to say that tariffs can't be used for revenue, if there are no better alternatives.

It's just plain stupidity to say that tariffs will make us richer. (like what AF says every single post) That's what I'm arguing against.

[ClayTrainor]

If we are to believe governments need to raise funds for its operation, what do you propose.

That you put the gun down, and let me choose to give my earnings to whoever I want and interact with anyone I want. I see no reason for me to meddle in your affairs, and would kindly ask that you don't require an agency to meddle in mine and force me to pay for it.

"The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State... is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State." - Rothbard

[jtstellar]

so many economic illiterates in the "liberty" camp.. fuck
spare me the struggle between laziness and responsibility for fucks sake
how many hours do you even freaking spend reading free market economic/austrian materials or just financial stuff in general in a week to even feel qualified in your own mind to define what free trade is and to make a case (a shitty one) against it
a <1/10 fraction of what i do would put you around at least 5hrs a week give it a break already you brain dead economic illiterates

[axiomata]

Krigesen, I'm not sure that your facts are actually facts. Good read, but a little shaky in the real world.

Instead of keep on saying, "Econ 101" I'll show you.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/778/56574448.png

If a tariff does it's job, it always reduces consumer surplus. It can increase producer surplus (hence why producer lobby for them at the expense of consumers), but as a result of the tariff, the sum of consumer plus producer surplus is less than it would be without the tariff. This is called the deadweight loss and why Krigesen's insistence that tariffs destroy wealth is 100% correct.

[ClayTrainor]

Simple question.

What hurts savings, investment, capital improvements and is more intrusive:

Income taxation,

or

Tariffs?

An Income tax is probably more harmful, but that's like saying getting punched in the gut hurts less than getting punched in the face. Both suck.

[charrob]

we need trade balance, where imports = exports. Impose tariffs on goods from foreign nations until there is a trade balance; if eventually we start exporting a little more than importing, ease up on the tariffs so that there is again balance. This is a win-win for everybody, and still allows nations to specialize in what they might be particularly good at making.

[agitator]

That you put the gun down, and let me choose to give my earnings to whoever I want and interact with anyone I want. I see no reason for me to meddle in your affairs, and would kindly ask that you don't require an agency to meddle in mine and force me to pay for it.

"The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State... is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State." - Rothbard

So no form of taxation? Including sales tax?

[ClayTrainor]

So no form of taxation? Including sales tax?

Right. Taxation is extortion, and all organizations financed in this manner will naturally breed more extortion and corruption. There are far better ways to finance every single service that government claims to provide, all the way from security services to health care services.

[Anti Federalist]

AF, why do you keep ignoring my post on page 1?

Listen, I couldn't care less what you choose to believe, but you create more threads than anyone else on here, and it seems like 1/4 of those threads are against free trade, and it's MISLEADING people.

If you keep ignoring the facts and won't bother debating people, please for the sake of everyone else, STOP POSTING about it.

Because I haven't.

Because your example assumes a number of things, most importantly that the $40 bears are EQUAL in quality to the displaced $55 bears.

And your own example lists producers and their employees as being "hurt" buy a flood of cheap foreign teddy bears.


The people hurt, at least in the short run, are in two groups, both on the supply curve.

1. The first hurt is all those firms – and their workers and owners – who were producing teddy bears at $55 but can’t afford to produce them at $40. These firms are on the supply curve above point F but below the supply-and-demand intersection point. These firms were knocked out of the market. Presumably, they’re going to enter another market, but at least in the short run they’ll be unemployed, and the “short” run can be long and usually is painful. (These resources’ inability to produce for $40 indicates that they are valued elsewhere. Remember this from comparative advantage: if you’re high-cost at producing one thing, you must therefore be low-cost at producing something else.)

And finally, FOR ONE MORE TIME this entire model is based on Ricardo's law of Comparative Advantage:

WHICH DOES NOT APPLY WHEN YOU ARE DEALING WITH A RIGID INDENTURED SERVITUDE CASTE SYSTEM/STATE LIKE INDIA OR A PRISON STATE LIKE COMMUNIST CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no business model that can compete with a state prison that opens up shop right next to yours making the same thing with prison labor.

Now, that is why I think about this topic the way I do, perhaps I'm wrong, but it is not my intent to "mislead" anybody, nor is it the nonsensical rantings of an idiot, both of which you have insinuated in this thread.

I'll rant and rave all I please about it and we can discuss the matter, but if you want to keep up the left handed insults, you'll end up being only the second person that I've put on ignore in over three years.

[agitator]

so many economic illiterates in the "liberty" camp.. fuck
spare me the struggle between laziness and responsibility for fucks sake
how many hours do you even freaking spend reading free market economic/austrian materials or just financial stuff in general in a week to even feel qualified in your own mind to define what free trade is and to make a case (a shitty one) against it
a <1/10 fraction of what i do would put you around at least 5hrs a week give it a break already you brain dead economic illiterates

No, I think many agree in the hypothetical. But do you think the governments are ever going away? Do you think they will not always want some form of coercive funding?

So in that society, how best to fund the government?

[axiomata]

we need trade balance, where imports = exports. Impose tariffs on goods from foreign nations until there is a trade balance; if eventually we start exporting a little more than importing, ease up on the tariffs so that there is again balance. This is a win-win for everybody, and still allows nations to specialize in what they might be particularly good at making.

Why do we need imports = exports? That's just mercantilism lite.

Check out this: http://www.lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams58.1.html

[james1906]

Instead of keep on saying, "Econ 101" I'll show you.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/778/56574448.png

If a tariff does it's job, it always reduces consumer surplus. It can increase producer surplus (hence why producer lobby for them at the expense of consumers), but as a result of the tariff, the sum of consumer plus producer surplus is less than it would be without the tariff. This is called the deadweight loss and why Krigesen's insistence that tariffs destroy wealth is 100% correct.

I studied that in college too.

Once again, no free trade advocates have stated how a country can trade when it produces very little. The only way to continue trading is to pay for the goods. However, when you don't have any money to pay for the goods, you are forced to print it out of thin air.

[Anti Federalist]

I studied that in college too.

Once again, no free trade advocates have stated how a country can trade when it produces very little. The only way to continue trading is to pay for the goods. However, when you don't have any money to pay for the goods, you are forced to print it out of thin air.

Or borrow it from the producing nations until they realize you will never be able to pay them back and they cancel your "national" credit card.

[Kregisen]

WHICH DOES NOT APPLY WHEN YOU ARE DEALING WITH A RIGID INDENTURED SERVITUDE CASTE SYSTEM/STATE LIKE INDIA OR A PRISON STATE LIKE COMMUNIST CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no business model that can compete with a state prison that opens up shop right next to yours making the same thing with prison labor.


China subsidizing their products makes the U.S. richer, not poorer. It's more economics you're missing out on.


if you want to keep up the left handed insults, you'll end up being only the second person that I've put on ignore in over three years.

I never meant to insult you personally, just some of your anti-free trade arguments. Sorry if it came out the wrong way. Don't take it personally.



There's nothing else to be said here. The facts have been presented, but no one has to believe them. Have fun everyone.

[ClayTrainor]

No, I think many agree in the hypothetical. But do you think the governments are ever going away?

Does it matter? If you lived 300 years ago, and thought slavery was never going to go away, would you compromise your position?

Actually, when you really think about it... slavery is just taxation/extortion at a 100% level.



Do you think they will not always want some form of coercive funding?


Some people always will, but the problem is the state makes it legal for them to do so. You will not be able to "limit" such an organization with some fancy form of taxation. We simply shouldn't be making exceptions for people in fancy government costumes to do things that no rational, moral person should do.

Taxation is extortion, and it shouldn't be legal for some individuals to extort from others. This is the cancer, everything else is just a symptom.



So in that society, how best to fund the government?

You're witnessing it. The US Constitution was probably the greatest attempt at putting limits on government, and look what happened. It's turned into arguably the biggest state in world history. What you're seeing now is the result of the best the world has come up with.

[axiomata]

I studied that in college too.

Once again, no free trade advocates have stated how a country can trade when it produces very little. The only way to continue trading is to pay for the goods. However, when you don't have any money to pay for the goods, you are forced to print it out of thin air.

Right now we do trade a lot of worthless paper for real goods. I do not deny this. (If it was sustainable it would be quite a steal for us.) The Walter Williams article I linked to above explains how a trade deficit balances with the forieign capital account investment in the US.

However even if we did have an honest monetary system, it is a fallacy to insist that only goods can be traded for goods. As I mentioned earlier, I pay for my goods with blueprints, this exchange is mutually beneficial. How do you pay for yours? Even if all you do is flip burgers at McDonalds when I freely choose to eat there, and use the time I save cooking dinner to make more blueprints, you end up paying for your Chinese made goods.

[Anti Federalist]

I never meant to insult you personally, just some of your anti-free trade arguments. Sorry if it came out the wrong way. Don't take it personally.

Nah nah, it's cool, I snapped too.

I'm in a high state of piss off, about something completely unrelated, tonight.


There's nothing else to be said here. The facts have been presented, but no one has to believe them. Have fun everyone.

Yes, they have, many times.

We'll see what shakes out, won't we?

[james1906]

China subsidizing their products makes the U.S. richer, not poorer. It's more economics you're missing out on.





Like how unemployment checks keep the economy moving?

[axiomata]

If they came from China and not future US taxes they would, at least in the US.

[james1906]

Right now we do trade a lot of worthless paper for real goods. I do not deny this. (If it was sustainable it would be quite a steal for us.) The Walter Williams article I linked to above explains how a trade deficit balances with the forieign capital account investment in the US.

However even if we did have an honest monetary system, it is a fallacy to insist that only goods can be traded for goods. As I mentioned earlier, I pay for my goods with blueprints, this exchange is mutually beneficial. How do you pay for yours? Even if all you do is flip burgers at McDonalds when I freely choose to eat there, and use the time I save cooking dinner to make more blueprints, you end up paying for your Chinese made goods.

Services can be traded. However we don't 'export' services, but we 'import' them plenty.

[charrob]

Why do we need imports = exports? That's just mercantilism lite.

We shouldn't compete with a slave-labor, child-labor, sweatshop, environmentally degrading, unsafe working conditions state like China. If we compete w/o tariffs, we drive our lifestyles to be that of the chinese slave laborers. Instead, tariffs should be applied so that we abide by American standards of safety, environmental regulation, workplace hours, child-labor, etc. This not only brings our workers and workplaces to appropriate lifestyles, but also will eventually better the lifestyles of the laborers in China. The question then becomes: how much in tariffs should be applied to China? -we need to take into consideration, again, the workplace safety, environmental regulations, work-place hours/breaks, etc....and somehow come up with a figure. All that sounds like reams of calculations and paperwork. A better solution is to allow all countries to produce what they are best at- and to keep the trade between nations from being imbalanced so that all countries and their citizens can be productive. This seems like the cleanest way.

[axiomata]

Services can be traded. However we don't 'export' services, but we 'import' them plenty.

I export my engineering services all the time. Right now I'd designing a plant in Kyrgyzstan of all places.

[james1906]

I export my engineering services all the time. Right now I'd designing a plant in Kyrgyzstan of all places.

And how many people in the world do your work?

[axiomata]

And how many people in the world do your work?

I don't know exactly what you're asking. Are you asking how many people do the manual labor involved in the construction or how many engineers do what I do?

[mtj458]

Why are the jobs of foreigners less important than the jobs of Americans? Why should I care more about strangers in Detroit than strangers in India? Why is it wrong to make laws discriminating against uncontrollable factors such as race but not wrong for uncontrollable factors such as which imaginary lines on the map I was born inside of?

[james1906]

I don't know exactly what you're asking. Are you asking how many people do the manual labor involved in the construction or how many engineers do what I do?

You might do highly specialized work.

[specialK]

the founders passed a protective tariff in 1789; needed then, needed now

That's how international trade wars get started and everyone ends up becoming more and more protectionistic. This results in more and more losers, including the USA. Ron Paul believes in an excise tax or a VAT. I'm with RP on this one.

[dannno]

Articles like these bring me around more and more to Pat Buchanan's point-of-view on trade policy.

Unfortunately we'll never be a nation of 300 million astronauts. Unless we plan to subsidize everyone who'd be a widget-maker in the U.S. (and we're getting there), we need to get some jerbs back to the United States. Some would say "subsidize them using all the corporate profits coming in" but the profiteers will just take their whole operations out of the USA. And of course, creating a nation of dependents is pretty much as anti-American as could possibly be.

I don't know what the answer is. The more we grow the welfare state because it isn't hospitable to create jobs here as opposed to overseas, the further down the path we slide.

Not to be insulting, as you could be correct that protectionist measures might help foster more jobs edit: protect more jobs from being destroyed in our country temporarily, but ultimately it is an economic distortion that leads to decreased total output which results in less overall wealth.. so that argument is similar to the argument that the free market failed so we need more regulations.. We don't have free trade, we have govt. managed trade and central banks in every country around the world printing and manipulating currencies...

Ultimately free trade brings about more prosperity, and with a free market it would be fantastic for our country.

[axiomata]

You might do highly specialized work.

Of course I do, and so should you (not necessarily the same kind). Specialization and the division of labor is one of the primary wealth creating features of an economy.

[kah13176]

Honestly I think the biggest reason for unemployment is simply uncertainty. There's a good deal of hype over taxes of all kinds - death taxes, payroll taxes, cap and trade, more or less ad infinitum. It's essentially manipulation of market indicators - in this scenario, it is hard for companies and consumers alike to evaluate risk. Should Company X hire 20 new workers? How should they know: cap and trade taxes might be instated and they may thus need the wage money for a "rainy day" instead.

Or consider Consumer Z. He has a little extra money coming in, but what if there's an unexpected change in money supply or income taxes. Obviously, that makes him more hesitant to spend and save money where the markets would best dictate it to go based on risk and reward. Screwing around with economic indicators always brings uncertainty, which makes people more hesitant to do anything, especially taking the risk of hiring some new workers.

Lastly, I think that free trade and the exporting of blue collar jobs does not have any major, negative, long term impact on the average middle-class person. For one, it means that lower income families are able to get goods at cheaper prices. Logically, if foreign countries begin specializing in blue-collar jobs, businesses in the United States can focus on other things, which is why we have seen such an exponential increase in white collar jobs in the last five or so decades.

[Cowlesy]

Not to be insulting, as you could be correct that protectionist measures might help foster more jobs edit: protect more jobs from being destroyed in our country temporarily, but ultimately it is an economic distortion that leads to decreased total output which results in less overall wealth.. so that argument is similar to the argument that the free market failed so we need more regulations.. We don't have free trade, we have govt. managed trade and central banks in every country around the world printing and manipulating currencies...

Ultimately free trade brings about more prosperity, and with a free market it would be fantastic for our country.

Ultimately I think a balance needs to be reached. Free trade of course has its benefits, but being nice and letting someone rob your house is just plain stupid. China dumped well pipe on the market and forced Pennsylvania pipe makers to shutdown. The Free Trade argument, I imagine, would be "well if the PA pipe company couldn't innovate to compete with China, then they should shutdown and retrain --- creative destruction, etc." Unfortunately, after China drove the pipe manufacturers out of business, they began to raise prices. Again, I imagine the Free Trade argument would be "Well then the Penn'a pipe manufacturer could start up and compete. Unfortunately, there are tons of fixed costs and risked involve with stopping and starting enterprises including market, financing and many assorted other risks. On a chalkboard it works out perfectly in theory, but in reality if you drive an industry sector to shut down, it's very costly to start it back up.

[erowe1]

The article in the OP is nothing but good news. I don't see the problem.

[Sentient Void]

I'm so sick and tired of debating against fallacious arguments in favor of restrictionism (in the fucking liberty forum, of all places) that I simply refuse to get involved in this thread apart from recognizing the fact that this thread is full of economic restrictionist FAIL.

All the defenders of free trade in here, you have much more patience than I and I commend you.

I'm tired of debating the same points over and over again. This is utterly ridiculous. No amount of valid economic nor logical reasoning nor moral reasoning will change the restrictionists' minds. They simply hold it as an emotionally charged nationalistic *belief* and will simply conveniently ignore or fallaciate* (fellate?) their way around sound economic apriori and empirical evidence.

* And yes, I just made up that word.

[mtj458]

Why are the jobs of foreigners less important than the jobs of Americans? Why should I care more about strangers in Detroit than strangers in India? Why is it wrong to make laws discriminating against uncontrollable factors such as race but not wrong for uncontrollable factors such as which imaginary lines on the map I was born inside of?

I agree with the poster above which is why I'd really appreciate it if one of the anti free traders can defend there position from a non-economic angle. If you replace "American" with "white" and "foreigner" with "black" in this debate you'd end up saying some pretty racist things along the exact same logic.

[Brian4Liberty]

Unfortunately, there are tons of fixed costs and risked involve with stopping and starting enterprises including market, financing and many assorted other risks. On a chalkboard it works out perfectly in theory, but in reality if you drive an industry sector to shut down, it's very costly to start it back up.

Good point. In addition, people (labor) are not widgets that can be stored in a warehouse when they are not needed.

[Sentient Void]

Good point. In addition, people (labor) are not widgets that can be stored in a warehouse when they are not needed.

People are economic agents working within an economic environment, and are thus bound by the same laws of economics that capital is bound by.

[Brian4Liberty]

I agree with the poster above which is why I'd really appreciate it if one of the anti free traders can defend there position from a non-economic angle. If you replace "American" with "white" and "foreigner" with "black" in this debate you'd end up saying some pretty racist things along the exact same logic.

There we go with the race card.

Is racism the only reason for borders between Nicaragua and Costa Rica? Sweden and Norway? Congo and Gabon? Vietnam and Laos? It is possible for borders, immigration and trade issues to have nothing to do with race.

[Brian4Liberty]

People are economic agents working within an economic environment, and are thus bound by the same laws of economics that capital is bound by.

That is the failure of economics.

[Sentient Void]

That is the failure of economics.

Huh? What is the failure of economics? That it acknowledges the *fact* that human beings are bound by the same laws of economics as anything else - and to try and make 2+2=5 not only doesn't work, but makes things worse?

Feeling emotional about something doesn't change the realities of the situation. You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

[dannno]

Ultimately I think a balance needs to be reached. Free trade of course has its benefits, but being nice and letting someone rob your house is just plain stupid. China dumped well pipe on the market and forced Pennsylvania pipe makers to shutdown. The Free Trade argument, I imagine, would be "well if the PA pipe company couldn't innovate to compete with China, then they should shutdown and retrain --- creative destruction, etc." Unfortunately, after China drove the pipe manufacturers out of business, they began to raise prices. Again, I imagine the Free Trade argument would be "Well then the Penn'a pipe manufacturer could start up and compete. Unfortunately, there are tons of fixed costs and risked involve with stopping and starting enterprises including market, financing and many assorted other risks. On a chalkboard it works out perfectly in theory, but in reality if you drive an industry sector to shut down, it's very costly to start it back up.


Ya big corporations do the same thing in this country, they will come in with low prices and drive out the small mom and pop operations, then raise the prices. The reason they are able to do that is excess credit, it's not a function of a healthy free market.

The reason China was able to do that is due to their artificial currency devaluation which has resulted in artificially cheap goods along with a large dollar reserve. If we had a free market currency setup, then that mechanism would never have existed.

[dannno]

That is the failure of economics.

More like the resiliency of economics.

[Brian4Liberty]

Feeling emotional about something doesn't change the realities of the situation. You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Lol! You are a master of irony. ;) Ignoring emotions doesn't change the reality that they exist.

Darwinism and the law of the jungle are reality. When people are unemployed, homeless or starving, they don't care about charts and graphs, free trade theory, property rights or the NAP. That's reality. You can't discard people and not expect blow-back. As a matter of fact, you create an environment ripe for socialism, communism, crime and totalitarianism.

[mtj458]

There we go with the race card.

Is racism the only reason for borders between Nicaragua and Costa Rica? Sweden and Norway? Congo and Gabon? Vietnam and Laos? It is possible for borders, immigration and trade issues to have nothing to do with race.

Actually, you just played the race card. I didn't say that not having free trade was racist, I said it's wrong for the same reason that racism is wrong and there is a big difference. You still haven't answered the question of why its okay to discriminate based on national origin but not race.

[Brian4Liberty]

Actually, you just played the race card. I didn't say that not having free trade was racist, I said it's wrong for the same reason that racism is wrong and there is a big difference. You still haven't answered the question of why its okay to discriminate based on national origin but not race.

He who first throws the card on the table has played it...

[dannno]

Lol! You are a master of irony. ;) Ignoring emotions doesn't change the reality that they exist.

Darwinism and the law of the jungle are reality. When people are unemployed, homeless or starving, they don't care about charts and graphs, free trade theory, property rights or the NAP. That's reality. You can't discard people and not expect blow-back. As a matter of fact, you create an environment ripe for socialism, communism, crime and totalitarianism.

When large groups of people are unemployed, homeless or starving it ISN'T BECAUSE OF FREE MARKET ECONOMICS.. It might be because of central economic planning, minimum wage laws, taxes, central banks inflating/deflating currencies, regulations, etc... That is the whole point here, is that what you seem to be advocating is precisely what is causing more unemployment, homelessness and starvation.. and that is government intervention into the economy, at any level, is absolutely damaging to the economy in total.

[mtj458]

He who first throws the card on the table has played it...

Can you just answer the question if I'm wrong?

There are four questions.
1. Why are the jobs of foreigners less important than the jobs of Americans?
2. Why should I care more about strangers in Detroit than strangers in India?
3. Why is discriminating based on race wrong?
4. Why does your answer to question three apply to race but not national origin.

Your answer should be in the following format:
1. text text text text text text
2. text text text text text text
3. text text text text text text
4. text text text text text text

If you cannot answer me in that format than I'll take it to mean you don't have any sort of intelligent rebuttal.

[Sentient Void]

Lol! You are a master of irony. ;) Ignoring emotions doesn't change the reality that they exist.

Darwinism and the law of the jungle are reality. When people are unemployed, homeless or starving, they don't care about charts and graphs, free trade theory, property rights or the NAP. That's reality. You can't discard people and not expect blow-back. As a matter of fact, you create an environment ripe for socialism, communism, crime and totalitarianism.

::sigh::

Way to miss the point. Sound economic policy (ie, no policy at all, but instead letting the free market, free trade and capitalism work) is what minimizes these things.

Emotional knee-jerk responses based on economic ignorance are what create these problems or make them worse.

[Anti Federalist]

Ultimately I think a balance needs to be reached. Free trade of course has its benefits, but being nice and letting someone rob your house is just plain stupid. China dumped well pipe on the market and forced Pennsylvania pipe makers to shutdown. The Free Trade argument, I imagine, would be "well if the PA pipe company couldn't innovate to compete with China, then they should shutdown and retrain --- creative destruction, etc." Unfortunately, after China drove the pipe manufacturers out of business, they began to raise prices. Again, I imagine the Free Trade argument would be "Well then the Penn'a pipe manufacturer could start up and compete. Unfortunately, there are tons of fixed costs and risked involve with stopping and starting enterprises including market, financing and many assorted other risks. On a chalkboard it works out perfectly in theory, but in reality if you drive an industry sector to shut down, it's very costly to start it back up.

An excellent point.

Bessemer converters and cold roll presses are not items that you can set up in couple of days.

[Anti Federalist]

I'm so sick and tired of debating against fallacious arguments in favor of restrictionism (in the fucking liberty forum, of all places) that I simply refuse to get involved in this thread apart from recognizing the fact that this thread is full of economic restrictionist FAIL.

All the defenders of free trade in here, you have much more patience than I and I commend you.

I'm tired of debating the same points over and over again. This is utterly ridiculous. No amount of valid economic nor logical reasoning nor moral reasoning will change the restrictionists' minds. They simply hold it as an emotionally charged nationalistic *belief* and will simply conveniently ignore or fallaciate* (fellate?) their way around sound economic apriori and empirical evidence.

* And yes, I just made up that word.

Hiya SV, good to see ya'.

[Sentient Void]

Hiya SV, good to see ya'.

:-*

I fucking hate you.

Meh, I love-hate you.

Bastard. ;)

[Anti Federalist]

:-*

I fucking hate you.

Meh, I love-hate you.

Bastard. ;)

Happy New Year, brother.

;)

[Brian4Liberty]

Can you just answer the question if I'm wrong?

There are four questions.
1. Why are the jobs of foreigners less important than the jobs of Americans?
2. Why should I care more about strangers in Detroit than strangers in India?
3. Why is discriminating based on race wrong?
4. Why does your answer to question three apply to race but not national origin.

Your answer should be in the following format:
1. text text text text text text
2. text text text text text text
3. text text text text text text
4. text text text text text text

If you cannot answer me in that format than I'll take it to mean you don't have any sort of intelligent rebuttal.

Very well:

1. Because I am an American, because members of my family are Americans, because my neighbors and my city/State are Americans.
2. That is relative. Chaos in Detriot is more likely to effect me.
3. My family and neighbors are not of one race. Race is superficial.
4. National origin is more relevant. It has to do with location, distance, language, values, population density. A house can be filled with people of all races. If you are outside the house, then those inside decide if you can come in. The relevant difference is whether you are in the house or outside the house.

[HOLLYWOOD]

DANNO: Not to be insulting, as you could be correct that protectionist measures might help foster more jobs edit: protect more jobs from being destroyed in our country temporarily, but ultimately it is an economic distortion that leads to decreased total output which results in less overall wealth.. so that argument is similar to the argument that the free market failed so we need more regulations.. We don't have free trade, we have govt. managed trade and central banks in every country around the world printing and manipulating currencies...

Ultimately free trade brings about more prosperity, and with a free market it would be fantastic for our country. This practice has been done 1000's of times over especially lately, in the high tech sector of silicon and every American's favorite, Flat Panel TVs. Let get a little micro econ... as far as domestic production terrorism, Bill Gates is at the top of the list. This where your corporate Top Secret Board/War Rooms hammer out with the Attorneys on corporate espionage, patent theft/infringement, cost analysis, and destruction of the competition through multiple routes ie, Golden Parachute Buyouts, Corporate Raiding, or a slew of Anti-Trust operations. Gate successfully stole plenty of ideas, patents, or destroyed lesser companies.

Hell, Bill Clinton and the NSA used their Echelon Intel network to spy and intercept; Business Comm, Industrial espionage/anti-trust OPS abroad. disclaimer: (That's one I can use because it's public knowledge)

It mostly comes down to how America can compete with the most Expensive, Intrusive, and Burdensome government on the planet. Anti-Trust will continue around the world as competition and business models, but there's so many variables, it's like squeezing a balloon.



Ultimately I think a balance needs to be reached. Free trade of course has its benefits, but being nice and letting someone rob your house is just plain stupid. China dumped well pipe on the market and forced Pennsylvania pipe makers to shutdown. The Free Trade argument, I imagine, would be "well if the PA pipe company couldn't innovate to compete with China, then they should shutdown and retrain --- creative destruction, etc." Unfortunately, after China drove the pipe manufacturers out of business, they began to raise prices. Again, I imagine the Free Trade argument would be "Well then the Penn'a pipe manufacturer could start up and compete. Unfortunately, there are tons of fixed costs and risked involve with stopping and starting enterprises including market, financing and many assorted other risks. On a chalkboard it works out perfectly in theory, but in reality if you drive an industry sector to shut down, it's very costly to start it back up.

LIVEVIDEO.com won't embed...


http://www.livevideo.com/video/CanEHdianRockerLive/CC6CBFAEF385414FBBC0B75C7ADC6D39/enough-is-enough-.aspx

http://www.livevideo.com/video/CanEHdianRockerLive/CC6CBFAEF385414FBBC0B75C7ADC6D39/enough-is-enough-.aspx

[mtj458]

Very well:

1. Because I am an American, because members of my family are Americans, because my neighbors and my city/State are Americans.
2. That is relative. Chaos in Detriot is more likely to effect me.
3. My family and neighbors are not of one race. Race is superficial.
4. National origin is more relevant. It has to do with location, distance, language, values, population density. A house can be filled with people of all races. If you are outside the house, then those inside decide if you can come in. The relevant difference is whether you are in the house or outside the house.

And my rebuttals:
1. Again, if we substitute White for Americans, we would say "Because I am White, because members of my family are White, because my neighbors and my city/State are White." The first two are obviously ethically wrong, to me at least. The third isn't true but if it were it would be racist too.
2. Point taken, I completely disagree that it will cause chaos.
3. My family members are not of one national origin, and most people I know have at least some family outside of the country.
4. A. Why does location matter? Is it any different from distance?
B. Most people in Mexico are closer to San Diego than I am in Philly.
C. Why does the language of who I trade with matter?
D. Since when are peaceful person values subject to government laws in a libertarian society?
E. Why does population density matter?
F. You're point about households contradicts your main point. When Americans trade with foreigners, it is not America trading with another country, it is people in America trading with people in another country. When my household exchanges goods and services with a household in India, I am doing so with my own property. You living in the same country as me is not the same as you living in the same household as me, and so you should have no business deciding what I do with my own household.


Anyway, my whole point is based on Steven Landsburg's article http://www.thebigquestions.com/forbes/forbes.htm . Like him, I'm tired of defending this topic economically. It is one of the few topics that economists belonging to almost any school of thought unanimously agree upon, and none of the objections stand up to empirical data. Sure, you might find minor examples every now and then but that's no basis for enacting laws that are mostly destructive and interfere with my right to exchange my property with whoever I see fit.

[forsmant]

There is no market free from human manipulation and force. Get over it.

[axiomata]

From today's Mises Daily.

"Economic Nationalism Is a Philosophy of War" (http://mises.org/daily/4934)

Some choice excerpts:


Liberalism did not and does not build its hopes upon abolition of the sovereignty of the various national governments, a venture which would result in endless wars. It aims at a general recognition of the idea of economic freedom. If all peoples become liberal and conceive that economic freedom best serves their own interests, national sovereignty will no longer engender conflict and war. What is needed to make peace durable is neither international treaties and covenants nor international tribunals and organizations like the defunct League of Nations or its successor, the United Nations. If the principle of the market economy is universally accepted, such makeshifts are unnecessary; if it is not accepted, they are futile. Durable peace can only be the outgrowth of a change in ideologies. As long as the peoples cling to the Montaigne dogma and think that they cannot prosper economically except at the expense of other nations, peace will never be anything other than a period of preparation for the next war.

Economic nationalism is incompatible with durable peace. Yet economic nationalism is unavoidable where there is government interference with business.

There is no use in conjuring away these conflicts by wishful thinking.

A lot of wishful thinking in these woods. And a lot of people who mistakenly associate real free trade with global governance and the loss of sovereignty. From Mises to Ron Paul, I can't, for the life of me, understand where this idea comes from.

[Brian4Liberty]

4. A. Why does location matter? Is it any different from distance?
B. Most people in Mexico are closer to San Diego than I am in Philly.
C. Why does the language of who I trade with matter?
D. Since when are peaceful person values subject to government laws in a libertarian society?
E. Why does population density matter?
F. You're point about households contradicts your main point. When Americans trade with foreigners, it is not America trading with another country, it is people in America trading with people in another country. When my household exchanges goods and services with a household in India, I am doing so with my own property. You living in the same country as me is not the same as you living in the same household as me, and so you should have no business deciding what I do with my own household.


Whoops, I was mixing immigration policy in with trade policy. That's where population density comes in.

I don't really have anything against true international trade (as opposed to global corporatism and governance). I do have something against income taxes, and would prefer they be completely replaced with flat, across the board Tariffs, assuming that the Federal government will minimally exist and need some revenue.

[freshjiva]

Tariffs on everything coming into the country, combined with massive tax reform or elimination of taxes on business and profit, along with tort and regulatory reform or elimination.

Make it expensive to outsource, make it profitable to do domestically.

This is probably the only thing I disagree with you on, my brother.
All I have is three words: Smoot-Hawley Act.

But hey, even the founding fathers disagreed :)

[Anti Federalist]

This is probably the only thing I disagree with you on, my brother.
All I have is three words: Smoot-Hawley Act.

But hey, even the founding fathers disagreed :)

From the NYT, by Ben Stein:


At the time of its enactment, exports were only about 5 percent of the economic output of the United States and still outweighed imports. (Even now, exports are a smaller part of output in the United States than in any other large developed nation.) To say that the act, which applied to a distinct minority of imports and which raised tariffs generally by only about six percentage points, caused the Depression is almost comical. It did no good, but compared with the titanic monetary policy disasters of the era, the effect of Smoot-Hawley was probably very small, or so most mainstream economists believe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10every.html


But hey, even the founding fathers disagreed

And, surprisingly, one of things they disagreed vigorously over was this very same issue.

We're in good company. ;)

[dannno]

There is no market free from human manipulation and force. Get over it.

lol, do you not understand that a free market means free from GOVERNMENT manipulation (government who has a monopoly on force)??

[JRegs85]

Here's where I'm torn:

Free trade works on paper - the theory sounds nice ("government regulation is bad").

However, how can anybody say that the push for free trade has been beneficial over the past 15-20 years? Michigan has had a 10-year recession. Other Rust Belt states have similar situations. If free trade is good, shouldn't the lost manufacturing jobs have been replaced with other decent (if not better jobs)?

I agree that free trade is supported by abstract theory. Unfortunately, I believe that REALITY indicates otherwise.

[noxagol]

The correct answer is: Lower the tax burden on American workers so they can earn less per hour but still have the same real wage. Cutting the bloated military budget down to about 100 billion by bringing every one home and leaving everyone else alone is a good start.

If you want to create jobs here you MUST address government spending. Nothign else will do it right.

[dannno]

Edit: Ya ^




However, how can anybody say that the push for free trade has been beneficial over the past 15-20 years? Michigan has had a 10-year recession. Other Rust Belt states have similar situations. If free trade is good, shouldn't the lost manufacturing jobs have been replaced with other decent (if not better jobs)?

I agree that free trade is supported by abstract theory. Unfortunately, I believe that REALITY indicates otherwise.

Well you're wrong about "reality", because NAFTA and CAFTA are government managed trade, not free trade.. we don't have anything close to free trade.. not to mention all of those things can be blamed on domestic policy, over taxing/regulating, expensive foreign policy, etc.. In fact those are primarily WHY so many jobs are going over seas, because our government is too big, it crushes the economy, that's why it's cheaper to build stuff other places.. not because of free trade.

[forsmant]

lol, do you not understand that a free market means free from GOVERNMENT manipulation (government who has a monopoly on force)??

If they didn't have a monopoly then everyone would use force. Oh wait lots of peeps do.....

[RonPaulMania]

One of the major causes of the fall of the Byzantine empire was free trade (it was the longest empire in history).

Free trade has short term benefits, and long-term problems. Just like Byzantium they benefitted from free-trade initially as the cost of goods helped saving, but when the jobs went away, and their wealth was exported they realized the long-term benefits were horrible.

Anyone who is a big free-trader answer me this...

If the country has $100 in wealth (yes, I know that's ridiculously low) and we import more than we export you are trying to tell me everyone prospers when that country spends more than produces and eventually that $100 goes down to $50 because we exported our wealth for cheaper goods? You see the idea that the products are cheaper therefore we save on goods is a fallacy, because eventually the work-force is decimated and there is less wealth period.

Do the math, put $100 on a table, devise a free-trade system, and create one country which always is spending more than it takes in. It's just like the game of monopoly, you'll see what happens. It's not hard to figure out.

[mtj458]

You're ignoring the role of investment in trade balances. Running a trade deficit in no way means that a country is in debt (in America's case, the debt contributes, but it's not the only cause. And the problem is the debt rather than the trade deficit.). And can you give me an example of this decimated work force? Yes, jobs are destroyed, but you ignore the new jobs created. We've had relatively free trade for 200 years here and the unemployment rate has been relatively low the whole time, excluding recessions. Unless you want to tell me that this recession was caused by free trade, to which I'll reply that you're wrong.

Let's try this experiment. Over the next 10 years, you export half of the stuff you acquire to my household. I'll give you none of my stuff. You'll run a gigantic trade surplus, and I'll run a gigantic trade deficit. When the ten years are over, we'll see who's wealthier.

[Anti Federalist]

We've had relatively free trade for 200 years here and the unemployment rate has been relatively low the whole time.

Free trade amongst ourselves.

For roughly 150 of those 200 years, there were substantial import tariffs in place.

[mtj458]

I said relatively. Obviously we don't have perfectly free trade, but it's been better than most countries at least. If you go here you can see (one organization's opinion of) which countries have the freest trade and view them as a ranking. http://www.heritage.org/index/explore I'd rather live in the countries on the top of that list than the bottom. There are other factors of course, but free trade has a lot to do with it.

[BenIsForRon]

Well you're wrong about "reality", because NAFTA and CAFTA are government managed trade, not free trade.. we don't have anything close to free trade.. not to mention all of those things can be blamed on domestic policy, over taxing/regulating, expensive foreign policy, etc.. In fact those are primarily WHY so many jobs are going over seas, because our government is too big, it crushes the economy, that's why it's cheaper to build stuff other places.. not because of free trade.


Well, that, and the fact that the countries getting the jobs are run by completely oppressive regimes. All US taxes and regulations removed, it's still not free trade.

[RonPaulMania]

Let's try this experiment. Over the next 10 years, you export half of the stuff you acquire to my household. I'll give you none of my stuff. You'll run a gigantic trade surplus, and I'll run a gigantic trade deficit. When the ten years are over, we'll see who's wealthier.

That's not what trade is. You produce and sell. To use your example it would be like me selling you half of the stuff to acquire your household, and also other people's households as well in another country. You HAVE to pay me as I have no desire to give you these things for free. So your country is losing it's wealth to pay me for my stuff.

It's really that simple. At first it's great for the "cheaper country" as they reap the benefits of more savings, but eventually the wealth is destroyed.

This country got wealthy on tariffs and exporting goods. Now you want to tell me we can get wealthy doing just the opposite while China is prospering through tariff free exports and heavy tariffs on their imports... ok.

[Cowlesy]

:-*

I fucking hate you.

Meh, I love-hate you.

Bastard. ;)

Your avatar makes sense to me now.

:P

[denison]

Well, that, and the fact that the countries getting the jobs are run by completely oppressive regimes. All US taxes and regulations removed, it's still not free trade.

qualify that, which countries?

and is it anymore oppressive than coporatist-socialist police state system we have going on?

from canada and switzerland POV your government is very oppressive(genocide/warmongering squads ie CIA/MIC). should they beable to restrict all their citizen from trading with you?

[Bossobass]

Can't seem to find evidence that Big Macs are included in this (http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/G17/ip_notes.htm)industrial production metric.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/INDPRO_Max_630_378.png

Same BS, different thread. :rolleyes:

Take a look at the industrial production chart a bit closer:
http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/ae206/pointonetech/us-collapse-18-11.gif

And who's buying from the MIC? The federal government, with YOUR future earnings, life savings and assets.

I wish Americans (especially those who post as if...) would pull their nuts outta their butts and do some research before they form an arrogant opinion.

I love the other guys repost of the CATO article which says:


Caterpillar and other U.S. multinationals tend to hire workers at home when they are hiring workers abroad. When global business is good, employment tends to ramp up throughout a multinational company’s operations, whether in the United States or abroad. (Earlier this month the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News ran a story about Caterpillar hiring 600 new workers at a local distribution center.)

This is the same BS they've been dishing out for a quarter of a century. Take your next vacation in Detroit. Remember the '80s when you couldn't escape the term "Rust Belt"? But hey, don't sweat it, the commercial RE bubble plastered malls over the rust.

Thank you AntiFed for continually bringing up the obvious.

"Global Free Trade" is a term that's been used by the British Empire for 200 years. There's no excuse for anyone who still buys the BS campaign slogan anymore.

Bosso

[mtj458]

That's not what trade is. You produce and sell. To use your example it would be like me selling you half of the stuff to acquire your household, and also other people's households as well in another country. You HAVE to pay me as I have no desire to give you these things for free. So your country is losing it's wealth to pay me for my stuff.

It's really that simple. At first it's great for the "cheaper country" as they reap the benefits of more savings, but eventually the wealth is destroyed.

This country got wealthy on tariffs and exporting goods. Now you want to tell me we can get wealthy doing just the opposite while China is prospering through tariff free exports and heavy tariffs on their imports... ok.

That is what a trade balance is though. When I borrow money to run a trade deficit, the problem is not that I've run a trade deficit. The problem is that I've borrowed money. The trade deficit is the advantage of my debt.

And second, a trade deficit does not imply debt. It can, but it can also imply that my country is attractive to foreign investors. If I buy a a TV from Sony and Sony uses that money to buy stock in a United States company, the US will run a trade deficit with the money having practically never left the country. There's some currency exchange going on behind the scenes there but the values of both currencies will adjust to reflect the demand.

And finally, that's not how this country got wealthy. It got wealthy by having a relatively free market that encouraged entrepreneurship and innovation. If you really think that we got rich by producing things of value and trading them to the rest of the world for pieces of paper, then I don't know what to tell you. If you want, I can give you pieces of paper for the the things that you export into my house, but ultimately the only reason you'd want my household's brand of paper is because you want to buy things from my household.

[pcosmar]

The problem here is that Free Trade is not Free Trade.

Or
What we have here is a failure to communicate.

[Brian4Liberty]

"Global Free Trade" is a term that's been used by the British Empire for 200 years. There's no excuse for anyone who still buys the BS campaign slogan anymore.


Young and idealistic? ;)

[jmdrake]

Free trade != first world nation with minimum wage laws, labor laws, OSCHA, environmental laws and a welfare state propped up by bad debt and fake credit competing against third world economies with tariffs, dirt wages, no labor laws (or government run labor unions), little to no regulation and lower corporate income taxes.

Face it. We've enslaved our small businesses (while bailing out the big ones with taxpayer money) while China enslaves its labor force and somehow this is supposed to be "free trade". Huh? And remember the "lead paint" scare? The poison toys coming from China? What did the U.S. government do? It slapped more regulations on U.S. toy makers who did NOT cause the problem while granting an exemption to Mattel which was importing the toys from China! And folks wonder why our economy stinks?

[Anti Federalist]

No, thank YOU Bosso, for finding that chart.

I know I had seen it before, but just couldn't find it.

That is the story, plain and simple, the only "production" going on in this country is for the Military/Surveillance complex.

We'll all be bankrupt and out of work, but our master's will still be able to incinerate a destitute family, hiding in their hooch in some third world shithole somewhere.

I'd give you +10 reps for that post if I could.




Same BS, different thread. :rolleyes:

Take a look at the industrial production chart a bit closer:
http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/ae206/pointonetech/us-collapse-18-11.gif

And who's buying from the MIC? The federal government, with YOUR future earnings, life savings and assets.

I wish Americans (especially those who post as if...) would pull their nuts outta their butts and do some research before they form an arrogant opinion.

I love the other guys repost of the CATO article which says:



This is the same BS they've been dishing out for a quarter of a century. Take your next vacation in Detroit. Remember the '80s when you couldn't escape the term "Rust Belt"? But hey, don't sweat it, the commercial RE bubble plastered malls over the rust.

Thank you AntiFed for continually bringing up the obvious.

"Global Free Trade" is a term that's been used by the British Empire for 200 years. There's no excuse for anyone who still buys the BS campaign slogan anymore.

Bosso

[forsmant]

I repped bossos post. Probably the best post in this thread. If you want to actually discuss what is going on instead of repeating hypothetical free trade rhetoric, look to that post.

[Anti Federalist]

I repped bossos post. Probably the best post in this thread. If you want to actually discuss what is going on instead of repeating hypothetical free trade rhetoric, look to that post.

No shit, grand slam home run, that post.

Everything listed is the high end, value added production that keeps a nation free and independent, keeps a viable middle class functioning and creates real jobs.

And it's all declining, precipitously.

And the few jobs that are left will tightly controlled and monitored with real time work ID cards like TWIC, where if you step out of line, in just the slightest manner, your credentials will get pulled and no more job for you.

Modern day debtors prison.

And we sit around arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, with esoteric philosophical arguments about what is and what will never be, unless we address this serious shitstorm bearing down on us right fucking now.

[Pericles]

I repped bossos post. Probably the best post in this thread. If you want to actually discuss what is going on instead of repeating hypothetical free trade rhetoric, look to that post.
I would pile on, but I would just be repeating myself from previous threads.

[Anti Federalist]

I would pile on, but I would just be repeating myself from previous threads.

I wonder if the "N/A" in semiconductors for the latter half of 09 in the chart indicates the end, that no semiconductors are being made here anymore?

As bad as things are, I'm sure (hope) that isn't the case.

[Pericles]

I wonder if the "N/A" in semiconductors for the latter half of 09 in the chart indicates the end, that no semiconductors are being made here anymore?

As bad as things are, I'm sure (hope) that isn't the case.
I'd think that Texas Instruments still makes them in Texas, but it has been about 10 years since they have expanded a production facility in the Dallas area.

[awake]

So who should I be allowed and not allowed to trade with?

And for Pete's sake can we define free trade properly; Each person is by natural right free to buy and sell to whom ever, where ever without exception or restriction.

Government managed custom unions parading as free trade would rightly be abolished for the above kind of free trade.

Unlike some here, I want to trade with the Chinese. Please do not use the government to prevent me from exercising my right to buy and sell. If any one has a good reason to forcibly stop me from exercising my natural given right, then speak up, I would like to hear it.

[Pericles]

So who should I be allowed and not allowed to trade with?

And for Pete's sake can we define free trade properly; Each person is by natural right free to buy and sell to whom ever, where ever without exception or restriction.

Government managed custom unions parading as free trade would rightly be abolished for the above kind of free trade.

Unlike some here, I want to trade with the Chinese. Please do not use the government to prevent me from exercising my right to buy and sell. If any one has a good reason to forcibly stop me from exercising my natural given right, then speak up, I would like to hear it.
Don't want to stop you from trading with the Chinese, if you wish to do so. Do want to stop subsidizing such trade.

[forsmant]

I am sure we all strive for absolute free trade, where no government interaction is involved. But we don't even have that when buying a burger. That is not the point of discussion. The point is playing the game with an idealized set of rules which only we pretend to follow is not the way to go. If you were playing a street game of basket ball where your shots only scored 2 and the opponents shots scored three would you play the game?

[awake]

Sports analogies don't work that well here; games define winners and losers under a uniform set of rules (level playing field), voluntary exchange can still benefit both parties even if one side tries to create preferential rules.

[mtj458]

I am sure we all strive for absolute free trade, where no government interaction is involved. But we don't even have that when buying a burger. That is not the point of discussion. The point is playing the game with an idealized set of rules which only we pretend to follow is not the way to go. If you were playing a street game of basket ball where your shots only scored 2 and the opponents shots scored three would you play the game?

I'd play that game if I benefited from scoring two points rather than zero. Just as you still benefit from buying the burger even though it's not produced with free trade.

Don Boudreaux on trade wars:

If governments fought real wars like they fight trade wars, here’s how the transcript of the communiqués between the leaders of two warring nations would read:

Leader of Absurditopia (A): I say, leader of Stupidia – we demand that you stop occupying that contested strip of land. If you refuse, we’ll have no choice but to shoot our own citizens.

Leader of Stupidia (S): You don’t scare us! That land is ours. And if you do kill some of your own people, make no mistake that we will immediately – and just as cruelly – commence to killing our own people. Courage is our national motto!

(A): Ha! You’re bluffing. But I’m not. I’ve just courageously ordered my troops to mow down in cold blood ten percent of my fellow countrymen. Take that!

(S): How dare you attack you like that! You leave us no choice but to attack us. I am ordering the Stupidian army to slaughter 15 percent of innocent Stupidians here in Stupidia. How do you like them apples?!

(A): You are cruel and inhuman to damage us by killing your people. I hereby instruct all of my fellow Absurditopians to commit suicide! Only then will you nasty Stupidians get your proper comeuppance and we Absurditopians the justice that we are due!

(S): You can’t beat us, you Absurditopian you! Listen up. I’m ordering all of my fellow citizens – Stupidians all! – to commit suicide. We’ll see who emerges victorious!
….
Then a long, long silence.

[silverhandorder]

I don't know if it has been answered yet but China can not ever become greater then US if they employ slave labor. Slavery maybe efficient for the master but not for the society as a whole. A slave is more productive if he is free as such if China wants to compete with US they must have a friendlier economic policy. This is where all protectionist arguments fail. If you are hurting in your own country it has everything to do with your government's harmful economic policies and not other government.

Not enough jobs at home? That means you have unfavorable conditions at home and not abroad. The only way to fix that is to fix the problems at home. Reduce income tax, do not devalue the currency, do not interfere in the markets.

A tariff will not increase employment at home. It will simple shift production of goods at home from export to domestic. You will not all of a sudden find wealth to make more factories and machines. The population that is into hand outs all of a sudden will not want less hand outs. You will just die more miserable.

Want to fund government through tariffs? Go ahead but that will not solve the underlying problems. It will not make you live better.

Comparative advantage works even if you have a country like China. As long as they make things them selves and we make things too they will always want things from us. They will always find a combination of how to make their goods more efficiently on one end so to take advantage of our efficiencies on another.

[Sentient Void]

Responding to protectionism with protectionism will make everyone's lives more miserable, not better. Maximizing free trade as much as possible on our end *regardless* of the situation can only help us. Period. This is the moral, economic, and empirically backed facts of the matter. Mercantilism was debunked hundreds of years ago. Get over it.

It's been discussed here to death on the forums and pretty much everywhere in general. Protectionism / Restrictionism has been refuted as knee-jerk emotional nationalism, based on economic ignorance, post hoc ergo propter hoc (correlation =/= causation) fallacies, and immorality in extending the heavy hand of government (the *antithesis* of liberty).

This has been beaten to death, and there's nothing more to say. We're all just going in circles, and the restrictionists don't care about sound economics, liberty nor morality in this matter. They are blinded by nationalism, economic ignorance and emotionalism - and you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

/thread

[james1906]

No, thank YOU Bosso, for finding that chart.

I know I had seen it before, but just couldn't find it.

That is the story, plain and simple, the only "production" going on in this country is for the Military/Surveillance complex.

We'll all be bankrupt and out of work, but our master's will still be able to incinerate a destitute family, hiding in their hooch in some third world shithole somewhere.

I'd give you +10 reps for that post if I could.

Agreed.

Our increase in industrial output is no different than when you go to a third world country and it takes 5 guys to stamp your passport. You need the private sector to grow the economy. No nation has ever spent itself into prosperity.

As for the post about Caterpillar saying that it's hiring for jobs at a distribution center, please note most jobs in a warehouse pay at or slightly above minimum wage.

And for those who say that moving all our production overseas is good and that those who disagree are unemployed, etc, please I note I work in project forwarding.

[Brian4Liberty]

So who should I be allowed and not allowed to trade with?


You are not allowed to trade with North Korea.

[Pericles]

I don't know if it has been answered yet but China can not ever become greater then US if they employ slave labor. Slavery maybe efficient for the master but not for the society as a whole. A slave is more productive if he is free as such if China wants to compete with US they must have a friendlier economic policy. This is where all protectionist arguments fail. If you are hurting in your own country it has everything to do with your government's harmful economic policies and not other government.

Not enough jobs at home? That means you have unfavorable conditions at home and not abroad. The only way to fix that is to fix the problems at home. Reduce income tax, do not devalue the currency, do not interfere in the markets.

A tariff will not increase employment at home. It will simple shift production of goods at home from export to domestic. You will not all of a sudden find wealth to make more factories and machines. The population that is into hand outs all of a sudden will not want less hand outs. You will just die more miserable.

Want to fund government through tariffs? Go ahead but that will not solve the underlying problems. It will not make you live better.

Comparative advantage works even if you have a country like China. As long as they make things them selves and we make things too they will always want things from us. They will always find a combination of how to make their goods more efficiently on one end so to take advantage of our efficiencies on another.
The better analogy of what it is about is a preditory pricing scheme designed to eliminate competitors from the market, in order to erect barriers to entry that protects the future monopoly position to collect economic rents.

[RonPaulMania]

That is what a trade balance is though. When I borrow money to run a trade deficit, the problem is not that I've run a trade deficit. The problem is that I've borrowed money. The trade deficit is the advantage of my debt.

Therefore you admit that you have exported wealth from one country to another. One country is richer, the other poorer and in debt, but not necessarily in debt.


And second, a trade deficit does not imply debt. It can, but it can also imply that my country is attractive to foreign investors. If I buy a a TV from Sony and Sony uses that money to buy stock in a United States company, the US will run a trade deficit with the money having practically never left the country. There's some currency exchange going on behind the scenes there but the values of both currencies will adjust to reflect the demand.

Well since I trade currencies for a living I know a bit about this. You still fail to realize that the country who sold the electronics does not have to re-invest back into the country they took the money from.


And finally, that's not how this country got wealthy. It got wealthy by having a relatively free market that encouraged entrepreneurship and innovation. If you really think that we got rich by producing things of value and trading them to the rest of the world for pieces of paper, then I don't know what to tell you. If you want, I can give you pieces of paper for the the things that you export into my house, but ultimately the only reason you'd want my household's brand of paper is because you want to buy things from my household.

2 things: I agree with you on how the wealth got created (free market), but not free trade. You can have a free market of ideas with low regulation to produce and still have tariffs. 2nd If you think wealth isn't created by selling stuff and taking that wealth from others in the form of pieces of paper, please send me all the pieces of paper we call money, or federal reserve notes more properly termed today, and then tell me who got wealthier.

You forget I can turn those pieces of paper into hard goods.

If you cannot see that the wealth of a country is from production, manufacturing, and exporting than I do not know what to tell you. You think that trade imbalances are indifferent to wealth, but you cannot see how countries that are on the plus side of their exports are gaining in wealth, and those who do not are losing their wealth.

You are also forgetting historical cases of free trade that caused damage to the nations or empires economies.

Again, one last time, put up $100 on a table, split it equally amongst 5 friends and call them countries. One country makes most of the stuff and the other nations consume it, and then tell me which country is the wealthiest in the end. It's really that simple.

[Anti Federalist]

Just to summarize my position once again:

1 - A nation cannot remain free and independent if it does nothing for itself and is dependent on everybody else in the world for the basics of survival.

2 - It is unjust and immoral to reward, with trade dollars, a regime that built it's economy on the backs of 50 million of it's own dead citizens.

3 - Tariffs and duties are the only specific constitutional means of taxation that are mentioned in the constitution. They are the least intrusive form of taxation.

4 - A prosperous middle class is vital to freedom. Lose that and the vast bulk of people will fall into grinding poverty, ruled over by a small ruling elite class.

[mtj458]

Therefore you admit that you have exported wealth from one country to another. One country is richer, the other poorer and in debt, but not necessarily in debt.


Well since I trade currencies for a living I know a bit about this. You still fail to realize that the country who sold the electronics does not have to re-invest back into the country they took the money from.



2 things: I agree with you on how the wealth got created (free market), but not free trade. You can have a free market of ideas with low regulation to produce and still have tariffs. 2nd If you think wealth isn't created by selling stuff and taking that wealth from others in the form of pieces of paper, please send me all the pieces of paper we call money, or federal reserve notes more properly termed today, and then tell me who got wealthier.

You forget I can turn those pieces of paper into hard goods.

If you cannot see that the wealth of a country is from production, manufacturing, and exporting than I do not know what to tell you. You think that trade imbalances are indifferent to wealth, but you cannot see how countries that are on the plus side of their exports are gaining in wealth, and those who do not are losing their wealth.

You are also forgetting historical cases of free trade that caused damage to the nations or empires economies.

Again, one last time, put up $100 on a table, split it equally amongst 5 friends and call them countries. One country makes most of the stuff and the other nations consume it, and then tell me which country is the wealthiest in the end. It's really that simple.

I think where we disagree is the role of money. I'll assume you understand all the currency swapping going on in the background and just leave that out of the argument for simplicity. When I trade people in another country real things for pieces of paper, both sides benefit because the pieces of paper can be exchanged for real things. In other words, I've benefited not because I have pieces of paper but because I have a claim on real wealth from those pieces of paper. But in order to redeem that specific country's pieces of paper, I must buy the goods from that specific country. So the pieces of paper I gain in a trade surplus are only valuable if I send them back to that country in exchange for goods which will negate that trade surplus. If they end up with more of our dollars, as they would if we ran a trade deficit, they have only two choices: they can either buy things from America or invest it in American companies. They can exchange the money at the bank for their country's dollars, but then the bank is left with the original two options.

[silverhandorder]

1 - A national cannot remain free and independent if it does nothing for itself and is dependent on everybody else in the world for the basics of survival.
Tariffs will not help this. We may start making things we were importing but that does not necessarily mean we will make more things. You will only hurt us.


2 - It is unjust and immoral to reward, with trade dollars, a regime that built it's economy on the backs of 50 million of it's own dead citizens.

Not your call to make about what I choose to do with my property. If I want to trade with Hitler I will. We declared no war.

3 - Tariffs and duties are the only specific constitutional means of taxation that are mentioned in the constitution. They are the least intrusive form of taxation.
They are still intrusive and last I checked we were into shrinking government. It really matters little how intrusive one form or another is. The only thing that matters is that it should be negligible either way if we have a government that is within it's bounds.


4 - A prosperous middle class is vital to freedom. Lose that and the vast bulk of people will fall into grinding poverty, ruled over by small ruling elite class.

Prosperous middle class comes from not printing money, not regulating industry and not taxing. Tariffs barely play a role in this.

[Pericles]

just to summarize my position once again:

1 - a national cannot remain free and independent if it does nothing for itself and is dependent on everybody else in the world for the basics of survival.

2 - it is unjust and immoral to reward, with trade dollars, a regime that built it's economy on the backs of 50 million of it's own dead citizens.

3 - tariffs and duties are the only specific constitutional means of taxation that are mentioned in the constitution. They are the least intrusive form of taxation.

4 - a prosperous middle class is vital to freedom. Lose that and the vast bulk of people will fall into grinding poverty, ruled over by small ruling elite class.

!fact!

[ClayTrainor]

That's why this is the stupidest debate I've been in.



It's the same as all arguments for state policy, "Free Trade/free markets don't work, the solution is for government to regulate and tax us".



/Thread.

Nationalism is just Socialism branded with a flag.

[james1906]

Tariffs will not help this. We may start making things we were importing but that does not necessarily mean we will make more things. You will only hurt us.

Of course we'll make more things. If something is more cost effective to make domestically, then the product will be made domestically. Do you know why Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all make their trucks for the US market in the US? Google it and find out.



Not your call to make about what I choose to do with my property. If I want to trade with Hitler I will. We declared no war.

I don't think neither AF nor I am saying to impose Cuba-like sanctions on China. We just don't want all our means of production lost. And we did declare war on Hitler. And I think if you were giving money to Hitler during the war, then you would likely be arrested, and for good reason.


They are still intrusive and last I checked we were into shrinking government. It really matters little how intrusive one form or another is. The only thing that matters is that it should be negligible either way if we have a government that is within it's bounds.

Agreed. That's why we eliminate the income tax, corporate tax, etc and the government is limited by tariffs. The great thing about tariffs is that if the government sets them too high, then products will either be made domestically or Americans simply won't buy them. This means government has a ceiling on taxation.




Prosperous middle class comes from not printing money, not regulating industry and not taxing. Tariffs barely play a role in this.

We had a prosperous middle class and relatively little debt before production was moved overseas. The term 'rust belt' did not exist in the 1950s when we had tariffs.

[ClayTrainor]

1 - A national The Individual cannot remain free and independent if it does nothing for itself and is dependent on everybody else in the world for the basics of survival.

Fixed. The individual Individual > Socialism with a flag (nationalism)



2 - It is unjust and immoral to reward, with trade dollars, a regime that built it's economy on the backs of 50 million of it's own dead citizens.


Regardless, The less trade the Chinese have, the more poverty and dead citizens they will have. Don't act like you're advocating trade barriers of your concern for the Chinese.

Also, What makes you think further funding the US govt. through tariffs is moral? Do you know how many deaths they are responsible for? Do you realize how destructive this organization is?



3 - Tariffs and duties are the only specific constitutional means of taxation that are mentioned in the constitution. They are the least intrusive form of taxation.


That's like saying the Mafia is being less intrusive when they mug you outside of your house, instead of walking in. It's still immoral, wrong, and will solve nothing other than funding a corrupt organization and distorting the market.



4 - A prosperous middle class is vital to freedom. Lose that and the vast bulk of people will fall into grinding poverty, ruled over by small ruling elite class.

Free markets and Free Trade create the middle class, without those, you just have bureacrats taxing and regulating the middle class away, which is destructive on multiple levels.

[silverhandorder]

Of course we'll make more things. If something is more cost effective to make domestically, then the product will be made domestically. Do you know why Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all make their trucks for the US market in the US? Google it and find out.
Not if the reason why we don't make them here is because of regulation. Sure we might shift some production towards cars but over all we are not guarantee to make more or raise our standard of living if problems such as regulations remain.



I don't think neither AF nor I am saying to impose Cuba-like sanctions on China. We just don't want all our means of production lost. And we did declare war on Hitler. And I think if you were giving money to Hitler during the war, then you would likely be arrested, and for good reason.
You are not going to preserve them by relying on tariffs. And unless you declare war you can not ask me for what you are asking.



Agreed. That's why we eliminate the income tax, corporate tax, etc and the government is limited by tariffs. The great thing about tariffs is that if the government sets them too high, then products will either be made domestically or Americans simply won't buy them. This means government has a ceiling on taxation.

The problem with your argument is that this is not your justification for tariffs. Throwing that on as if it will sweeten the deal will not make me support them.

We can reduce regulation and have more production or we can increase tariffs and be forced to shift production towards things we are importing now. It is a lose lose.

I don't care how government is funded when the only choices are all immoral interventions.


We had a prosperous middle class and relatively little debt before production was moved overseas. The term 'rust belt' did not exist in the 1950s when we had tariffs.

And you would have still had this prosperous middle class if you removed regulation, stopped taxing and stopped devaluing the dollar. Production overseas is less then 1% of our problems domestically.

[cavalier973]

Saying that one is for the free market but against free trade is a little like saying that one is for chastity before marriage, but can't abide the idea of sexual abstinence.

Trade is not an activity conducted between governments, and it is not some giant nationalistic pee-pee contest, whereby the gov't with the largest exports wins the game. Trade is an activity done between individuals for mutual benefit; any intervention in that activity, however well-intentioned, can only hurt and annoy the participants, and make them less well-off than they otherwise would be. The charge that free trade only works well "on paper" is devastatingly refuted by the vast free-trade market that is the United States, an example that also shows the anti-free trade arguments to be primarily nationalistic in source and purpose. If the U.S. were to split into 50 different nations, would the citizens of each state really be better off if each new national gov't raised protective tariffs, import quotas, and other barriers to trade?

[Anti Federalist]

Trade is not an activity conducted between governments, and it is not some giant nationalistic pee-pee contest, whereby the gov't with the largest exports wins the game

No, but it is directly connected to the ability of people to live, work and control their own destiny.

[cavalier973]

No, but it is directly connected to the ability of people to live, work and control their own destiny.

What is directly connected? Living, working, and controlling one's own destiny pretty much mandates free trade, it seems to me. Otherwise, one has gov't bureaucrats directing how one should live, where one should work, and to what purposes one's destiny is tied.

[Seraphim]

I agree with you on a lot of stuff...but you are dead wrong about free trade. What we have in the world today is NOT free trade, but a phantom of free trade that is called free trade by the ruling elite to serve their purposes. Now if you were to say that our current model of international trade is deeply flawed and that Americans are going to feel the wrath of reality soon as a result. BINGO.

The same way that American Govt officials crusade the world screaming FREE MARKETS, FREEDOM ETC ETC when what is implemented is nothing like free markets- the same concept applies to modern "free trade" among nations. It just does not exist. It has been CONCIOUSLY mislabelled to create civil tension and to keep people controlled.

We have nothing resembling free trade my friend.


No, but it is directly connected to the ability of people to live, work and control their own destiny.

[james1906]

Not if the reason why we don't make them here is because of regulation. Sure we might shift some production towards cars but over all we are not guarantee to make more or raise our standard of living if problems such as regulations remain.

Did you Google it? It doesn't appear that you did




You are not going to preserve them by relying on tariffs. And unless you declare war you can not ask me for what you are asking.

How won't tariffs preserve production domestically? I don't follow your response on declaring war.



The problem with your argument is that this is not your justification for tariffs. Throwing that on as if it will sweeten the deal will not make me support them.

How is providing supporting evidence a problem with my argument?


We can reduce regulation and have more production or we can increase tariffs and be forced to shift production towards things we are importing now. It is a lose lose.


No. Unless we turn into China, where there are no property rights, no due process, no civil rights, etc, then we cannot compete. If you want America to turn into dictatorial squalor, then we'll copy China's economic policies. Reducing regulation will work with tariffs, as it will encourage competition among the states like the Constitution envisioned. Even a RTW state with a low cost of living like Alabama cannot compete anywhere close with China.



I don't care how government is funded when the only choices are all immoral interventions.

The federal government in the Constitution has limited powers, but those powers must be funded. How do you propose going about that?




And you would have still had this prosperous middle class if you removed regulation, stopped taxing and stopped devaluing the dollar. Production overseas is less then 1% of our problems domestically.

First, let's have a source on your "less then (sic) 1%" figure. Second, this goes back to the fact that we cannot compete with China unless we turn ourselves into China.

[cavalier973]

Some perspective, using the example of Japan in the 1980's/1990's

http://reason.com/blog/2010/11/24/china-inc-here-we-go-again

From the article:

"For some perspective, let's look at what happened over the past twenty years after the Japanese bubble burst in 1990. (Americans got to enjoy both the internet and housing bubbles over that period.) According the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in real terms U.S. per capita GDP in 1990 was $32,000 and Japanese per capita GDP was $28,000. This year [2010], they are $43,000 and $34,000 respectively.

What about China? In 1990, its per capita GDP stood at $470 and is now $2,800. It would take almost 30 more years of the Chinese economy growing at a 10 percent annual rate for its per capita income to reach the current U.S. level."

[Cowlesy]

Same BS, different thread. :rolleyes:

Take a look at the industrial production chart a bit closer:
http://i972.photobucket.com/albums/ae206/pointonetech/us-collapse-18-11.gif

And who's buying from the MIC? The federal government, with YOUR future earnings, life savings and assets.

I wish Americans (especially those who post as if...) would pull their nuts outta their butts and do some research before they form an arrogant opinion.

I love the other guys repost of the CATO article which says:



This is the same BS they've been dishing out for a quarter of a century. Take your next vacation in Detroit. Remember the '80s when you couldn't escape the term "Rust Belt"? But hey, don't sweat it, the commercial RE bubble plastered malls over the rust.

Thank you AntiFed for continually bringing up the obvious.

"Global Free Trade" is a term that's been used by the British Empire for 200 years. There's no excuse for anyone who still buys the BS campaign slogan anymore.

Bosso

Good grief -- I hadn't seen this chart before. I'm going to have to look at the source data from the Census Bureau is that is shocking stuff.

[cavalier973]

Good grief -- I hadn't seen this chart before. I'm going to have to look at the source data from the Census Bureau is that is shocking stuff.

This is one year of data, collected during a recession AND during a war. We would expect to see industrial production to fall off because of the recession (remember that Austrian Economics demonstrates that firms in the higher orders of production suffer most during the period when malinvestments are liquidated), and we would expect defense-related production to increase because of the war. I do not find this chart a good example of how "free trade" has destroyed our manufacturing base.

another perspective:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/08/military-vs-non-military-durable-goods.html

[Sentient Void]

This is one year of data, collected during a recession AND during a war. We would expect to see industrial production to fall off because of the recession (remember that Austrian Economics demonstrates that firms in the higher orders of production suffer most during the period when malinvestments are liquidated), and we would expect defense-related production to increase because of the war. I do not find this chart a good example of how "free trade" has destroyed our manufacturing base.

another perspective:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/08/military-vs-non-military-durable-goods.html

Yup, very right.

Because once again... post hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy (correlation =/= causation).

[Bossobass]

This is one year of data, collected during a recession AND during a war. We would expect to see industrial production to fall off because of the recession (remember that Austrian Economics demonstrates that firms in the higher orders of production suffer most during the period when malinvestments are liquidated), and we would expect defense-related production to increase because of the war. I do not find this chart a good example of how "free trade" has destroyed our manufacturing base.

another perspective:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/08/military-vs-non-military-durable-goods.html

Sorry, this is a decade of data, not one year.

And, if you take out the durable goods generated by the housing bubble, this graph would show a continual decline.

Bosso

[silverhandorder]

Sorry, this is a decade of data, not one year.

And, if you take out the durable goods generated by the housing bubble, this graph would show a continual decline.

Bosso

It is the result of our domestic policy has nothing to do with who we put up tariffs to. You are not going to get people to come back here and start business if you still have regulation and devaluing currency. You are not going to achieve some fantasy of getting government to shrink if you try to do it in such a sneaky and dishonest manner. What do you think socialists are stupid? The first question they will ask you is how you planning to pay for their hand outs.

[silverhandorder]

Did you Google it? It doesn't appear that you did
This is like the central dogma of what RP advocates. You got to be freaking kidding me. Why do you follow RP then?


How won't tariffs preserve production domestically? I don't follow your response on declaring war.

Because all they do is discourage buying from abroad. It's like suggesting that Zimbabwe should raise tariffs to 1000% and watch it's domestic production flourish. Domestic production will only be helped by domestic economic policy that eliminated regulation and protects the home currency.



How is providing supporting evidence a problem with my argument?

It is not supporting evidence it is a dishonest tactic. You want tariffs because you think they will preserve production. To also say it is the least intrusive taxation does nothing to help your original argument. It may get people like me on board simply for our desire to reduce taxes but it will not get the socialists on board. As such you are speaking to every group what they want to hear. It won't take people long to realize what you are doing. I already caught on I don't take socialists for being stupid.


No. Unless we turn into China, where there are no property rights, no due process, no civil rights, etc, then we cannot compete. If you want America to turn into dictatorial squalor, then we'll copy China's economic policies. Reducing regulation will work with tariffs, as it will encourage competition among the states like the Constitution envisioned. Even a RTW state with a low cost of living like Alabama cannot compete anywhere close with China.
China has its faults and its strengths. Stop pretending like everything about China's economic policy is evil or bad. Yes they practice economic central planning but so do we. To their credit the burden on their business is far lower then we put the burden on our own. This is why everyone wants to go there.

Chinese labor is highly competitive but it does not mean that America is affected to the degree you suggest. It is a common fallacy amongst those who do not understand elementary economics. Comparative advantage allows chine to profit off of US even if they are better at making everything. This means both countries will still trade and produce things together.



The federal government in the Constitution has limited powers, but those powers must be funded. How do you propose going about that?
Through progressive income tax! Shit I just told you I don't care how I am taxed, I am either taxed or not taxed. I prefer not being taxed. Again this has nothing to do with your argument for tariffs.



First, let's have a source on your "less then (sic) 1%" figure. Second, this goes back to the fact that we cannot compete with China unless we turn ourselves into China.
More like you believe in regulation which says enough.

1% was obviously an exaggeration. It is more like 0% since as people have so eloquently proved you wrong tariffs hurt us not help us.

[Anti Federalist]

I view economic interventionism the same way I view military interventionism.

And the elite view it the same way as well: as poison to their plans.



‘Imperial By Design’

Posted by Charles Burris on January 2, 2011 01:43 PM
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/74394.html

Political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has a very intriguing analysis of contemporary American foreign policy in the current edition of The National Interest. Entitled “Imperial By Design,” his thoughtful article carefully and decisively destroys the flawed rationales behind the post-Cold War grand strategy of “global dominance” — whether of the neoconservative or liberal imperialist varieties — which has fueled all presidential regimes for the past two decades. In its place Mearsheimer offers a counter strategic stance which he deems “offshore balancing.” One important caveat: The good professor wants his elite readership to clearly know that he is a communicant in good standing of the sanctified Church of America’s foreign policy Establishment. He quickly dismisses from serious policy considerations the heretical Paulian option of non-interventionism or strategic disengagement, with the straw man smear of “isolationism”:

“THE DOWNWARD spiral the United States has taken was anything but inevitable. Washington has always had a choice in how to approach grand strategy. One popular option among some libertarians is isolationism.This approach is based on the assumption that there is no region outside the Western Hemisphere that is strategically important enough to justify expending American blood and treasure. Isolationists believe that the United States is remarkably secure because it is separated from all of the world’s great powers by two giant moats—the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—and on top of that it has had nuclear weapons—the ultimate deterrent—since 1945. But in truth, there is really no chance that Washington will adopt this policy, though the United States had strong isolationist tendencies until World War II. For since then, an internationalist activism, fostered by the likes of the Rockefeller Foundation, has thoroughly delegitimized this approach. American policy makers have come to believe the country should be militarily involved on the world stage. Yet though no mainstream politician would dare advocate isolationism at this point, the rationale for this grand strategy shows just how safe the United States is. This means, among other things, that it will always be a challenge to motivate the U.S. public to want to run the world and especially to fight wars of choice in distant places.”

[Bossobass]

It is the result of our domestic policy has nothing to do with who we put up tariffs to. You are not going to get people to come back here and start business if you still have regulation and devaluing currency. You are not going to achieve some fantasy of getting government to shrink if you try to do it in such a sneaky and dishonest manner. What do you think socialists are stupid? The first question they will ask you is how you planning to pay for their hand outs.

I honestly haven't a clue what you're trying to say here, but I'm equally certain it has nothing to do with the OT.

Bosso

[cavalier973]

Sorry, this is a decade of data, not one year.

And, if you take out the durable goods generated by the housing bubble, this graph would show a continual decline.

Bosso

Ah...I was looking at the right-hand side of the chart that said "First Half of '08 to First Half of '09".

So, what you're saying is that the decline in durable goods manufacturing is due to bad economic policies foisted upon us by the FedGov, rather than problems with trade, free or otherwise, right?

[james1906]

[
This is like the central dogma of what RP advocates. You got to be freaking kidding me. Why do you follow RP then?

No it's not.



Because all they do is discourage buying from abroad. It's like suggesting that Zimbabwe should raise tariffs to 1000% and watch it's domestic production flourish. Domestic production will only be helped by domestic economic policy that eliminated regulation and protects the home currency.

Small countries are a different story. I think it's is counterproductive to put heavy tariffs on products you can't manufacture domestically. Further, Mugabe turned that place into a shithole, and it had nothing to do with tariffs.



It is not supporting evidence it is a dishonest tactic. You want tariffs because you think they will preserve production. To also say it is the least intrusive taxation does nothing to help your original argument. It may get people like me on board simply for our desire to reduce taxes but it will not get the socialists on board. As such you are speaking to every group what they want to hear. It won't take people long to realize what you are doing. I already caught on I don't take socialists for being stupid.

What? You are aware Miller Lite can both taste great and be less filling, yes? The two points I made in my argument are not mutually exclusive.



China has its faults and its strengths. Stop pretending like everything about China's economic policy is evil or bad. Yes they practice economic central planning but so do we. To their credit the burden on their business is far lower then we put the burden on our own. This is why everyone wants to go there.

Did I say everything is evil or bad? And yes, we have central economic planning, but it is nowhere near the degree China is at. Yeah, burden on businesses. Like child labor laws. The buinsess burden between China and the US is not comparable to say, New York to Texas.



Chinese labor is highly competitive but it does not mean that America is affected to the degree you suggest. It is a common fallacy amongst those who do not understand elementary economics. Comparative advantage allows chine to profit off of US even if they are better at making everything. This means both countries will still trade and produce things together.

First, I understand 'elementary' economics. If you want to make a point, support your statements with evidence, not insults.




Through progressive income tax! Shit I just told you I don't care how I am taxed, I am either taxed or not taxed. I prefer not being taxed. Again this has nothing to do with your argument for tariffs.

Ok, you prefer an income tax. And you started your rant asking ME why I supported Ron Paul?




More like you believe in regulation which says enough.

And an income tax isn't regulation?



1% was obviously an exaggeration. It is more like 0% since as people have so eloquently proved you wrong tariffs hurt us not help us.

Instead of hyperbole, provide statistics.....and there you go with the insults again!

[silverhandorder]

I honestly haven't a clue what you're trying to say here, but I'm equally certain it has nothing to do with the OT.

Bosso

I am saying regulation of business and devaluation of currency is the reason the business is leaving and not the fact that China is using slave labor.

If you put in tariffs that does not grantee you that the business will return.

Lastly you are focusing on things that can be seen and ignoring the things that can not be seen. If we do put the tariffs back in we will be forced to produce goods we were importing. However we can't magically divert resources to something and not sacrifice productive capacity in other areas. So w/e manufacturing that is left in the country will be retooling and wasting their time to make things less efficiently back home.

Do we need manufacturing back home? Absolutely. Tariffs will not bring it back.

[silverhandorder]

[

No it's not.

Sorry I lost track of what we were talking about and assumed something I shouldn't have.

On that topic I don't know what makes car manufacturers make things here. If it is a mandate that says something along the lines "only cars made in America can be sold here" then that is a bad and intrusive law.

Sure there is no alternative but to make cars here but the price of the cars will reflect the increased cost and crowd out some of the poor consumers.



Small countries are a different story. I think it's is counterproductive to put heavy tariffs on products you can't manufacture domestically. Further, Mugabe turned that place into a shithole, and it had nothing to do with tariffs.


For that same reason it is counter productive to put tariffs on anything else. You are making us produce thing that we produce less efficiently. For every good we produce less efficiently there is a good not made that we could produce more efficiently.


What? You are aware Miller Lite can both taste great and be less filling, yes? The two points I made in my argument are not mutually exclusive.


That will not convince a capitalist who disagrees with your tastes or a socialist that wants something more filling. You lost two customers.

I can support tariffs to fund government if and only if we already eliminated big government. Your strategy will not yield that outcome. If people like me rally behind your tariff we will end up with an extra tax and not cut backs. Because the other people who would rally behind you the labor unions will not support cuts in government and will fight to keep other taxes.


Did I say everything is evil or bad? And yes, we have central economic planning, but it is nowhere near the degree China is at. Yeah, burden on businesses. Like child labor laws. The buinsess burden between China and the US is not comparable to say, New York to Texas.

If our central planing is nowhere as bad then how come business is leaving? I don't see Chinese business leaving for other countries.

Sure you can beat the child labor laws drum but you must remember there is a big an-cap part of the movement that would rather not see child labor laws in the first place.


First, I understand 'elementary' economics. If you want to make a point, support your statements with evidence, not insults.

If you understand elementary economics how can you look past a simple economic concept of comparative advantage when you are discussing US?


Ok, you prefer an income tax. And you started your rant asking ME why I supported Ron Paul?

What some one prefers is irrelevant when you are trying to sell tariffs as something that will return business to US.



And an income tax isn't regulation?

Technically regulation and tax are two different things but both are bad. I rather see neither.


Instead of hyperbole, provide statistics.....and there you go with the insults again!

I am not interested in providing statistics when I simple language is enough.

Do you believe Rand and Ron when they say w/e government spends it must first take from the private sector? The concept is the same for tariffs. If we are producing things less efficiently then we are not producing things we could produce more efficiently.

I am all for bringing jobs back to US. Tariffs will not bring back those jobs. They will not limit government.

[cavalier973]

I wanted to point this out: http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/adv/pdf/table1a.pdf

We had $193 billion in new orders in Nov of 2010; around $11 billion of that was defense. In Nov of 2000, the numbers were $210 billion and $8.5 billion respectively. In 2005, it was $223 billion and $9 billion. I point this out because someone posted a fundamentally dishonest chart, for the purposes of this argument. The line graph makes it appear that military or defense durable goods manufacturing outweighed nondefense durable goods manufacturing. As someone pointed out in correcting me, the data of the chart covers 10 years; it shows the relative percentages of defense and non-defense durable goods shipments--not the actual amounts of goods shipped. The right hand side of the chart--the bar graphs--only covers one year, and it shows military and non-military shipments and orders (rather than just the shipments). What the purpose of showing only shipments on the line graph, and shipments and orders on the bar graph I don't know.