President Trump is right about taxing at our water’s edge.

[johnwk]

.

President Trump is spot on to promote tax policy, especially at our water’s edge, which advances America’s general welfare and common defense, just as our founding fathers did, and that would include a modern-day tax policy to insure America is not dependent upon foreign nations for steel or aluminum, both of which are vital in the production of America’s military needs.



The historical fact is, our founding fathers used taxes at our water’s edge to promote America’s best interests, and the use of these taxes were very much responsible for America becoming the economic marvel of the world, until our modern day Congress became infested with disloyal money hungry members who have sold their souls to international corporate giants who have no allegiance to America, and likewise have sold their souls to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce which now represents these international corporate giants and our global governance crowd.



Keep in mind when these free-trade globalist members in Congress talk about “free trade”, they are talking about international corporate giants being allowed to freely flood our market with untaxed cheap inferior goods, most of which are produced under slavish working conditions, while Congress then freely taxes and regulates to death America’s domestic manufactures, its industries and even taxes the property which working people have in their labor to fill our national treasury. I say “our” national treasury because our thieving traitors on Capitol Hill believe our national treasury is their personal ATM, and “free trade” is just another ticket for these thieves to rake in bribery money for passage of legislation beneficial to our globalist one world crowd.



By contrast, instead of taxing our domestic manufactures, industries and labor to fill our national treasury, our founding fathers taxed at our water’s edge and had foreigners paying for the privilege of doing business on America soil just as one buys a ticket to sell their goods and wares at a flea market!



Madison sums up our founding father’s taxing policy as follows during the creation of our Nation`s First Revenue Raising Act (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=001/llac001.db&recNum=55)



“…a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be oppressive to our constituents.”



The Act went on to tax specifically chosen imported articles and not one dime was raised by taxing American domestic manufacturers, the working man’s wage, or the returns on invested capital ___ all of which contributed enormously to America becoming the economic marvel of the world! It should also be noted the Act was signed by George Washington on July 4th, 1789, as if to give England a second notice of America’s independence while exercising her power to tax foreign imports in order to fill our national treasury while promoting America’s general welfare and common defense.



In regard to promoting America’s common defense and in addition to imposing a specific amount of tax on specifically chosen articles imported, our founding fathers imposed an across-the-board tax on imports which was higher for imports arriving in foreign owned foreign built vessels, and discounted the tax for imports arriving in American owned American built ships:



"...a discount of ten percent on all duties imposed by this Act shall be allowed on such goods, wares, and merchandise as shall be imported in vessels built in the United States, and wholly the property of a citizen or citizens thereof." SEE: An Act imposing duties on Tonnage July 20, 1789 (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=150)




This patriotic use of taxing at our water’s edge not only filled our national treasury, but gave American ship builders a hometown advantage and predictably resulted in America's ship building industry to flourish and America’s merchant marine to become the most powerful on the face of the planet. Unfortunately, last time I visited the docks in New York's Hell's Kitchen area, I was saddened that I could no longer read the names on the docked ships as they all seemed to be foreign owned foreign built vessels...an irrefutable sign of America's decline traceable to the ravages of our international “free trade crowd” and a traitorous sellout of America’s sovereignty to the highest international bidders by members of Congress and our presidents of the past.




The bottom line is, President Trump is correct in wanting to insure America is not dependent upon foreign nations in the manufacturing of our military’s needs, just as he is correct in adopting a trade policy which is an America first policy. And those yap about such a policy creating a “trade war”, suspiciously ignore the existing trade war the United States has been in ever since the NAFTA was adopted, which in effect un-constitutionally transferred Congress’ [the people’s elected representatives] assigned duty to regulate trade with foreign nations, placing this assigned power in the hands of Binational Panels (http://www.sice.oas.org/trade/nafta/chap-192.asp#An1901.2), who are not elected by the American People, a majority of whom are foreigners, and who represent the interests of international corporate giants who have no allegiance to America or any nation! And this is what our Global Governance Crowd (https://www.cfr.org/programs/international-institutions-and-global-governance-program) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce support ___ subjugating Congress’ power to regulate commerce with foreign nations with the idea of to advance an America First trade policy advantageous to America’s common defense and general welfare as its priority.




JWK




Without a Fifth Column Media, Yellow Journalism, Hollywood, and a corrupted FBI, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, would be making license tags in a federal penitentiary

[Gumba of Liberty]

Of All the Forms of State Theft:

Sales Taxes
Income Taxes
Excise Taxes
Inflation Taxes (Printing Money)
Property Taxes
Stamp Taxes
Permission Taxes (Licensing)

Import Taxes (Tariffs) are the least intrusive for the American People and keep Leviathan at the edges (borders) of the/any country.

[TheTexan]

“…a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be oppressive to our constituents.”

Exactly right, taxes must find the right balance between oppressive and not-oppressive

so it's only moderately oppressive

[charrob]

I have so much respect for Ron Paul as he is by far the most principled congressperson I've watched, but this is where I part ways and disagree with him. Having American labor compete with Chinese slave labor is a race to the bottom for the U.S. middle class and working class (what's left of it). Below is a good article by Pat Buchanan. One idea beyond Buchanan would be to just have dynamic tariffs so that the overall trade we have with another country has a trade deficit of $0. That way we can continue trade with that country without losing manufacturing jobs. It also forces countries with slave labor and environmental degradation to lift themselves up and have better conditions for their workers and environment if they want to sell products in the U.S. So instead of a race to the bottom for labor and the environment, it lifts up everyone. I know that's not very popular here, but it's what I believe.




Why Is the GOP Terrified of Tariffs?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

From Lincoln to William McKinley to Theodore Roosevelt, and from Warren Harding through Calvin Coolidge, the Republican Party erected the most awesome manufacturing machine the world had ever seen.

And, as the party of high tariffs through those seven decades, the GOP was rewarded by becoming America’s Party.

Thirteen Republican presidents served from 1860 to 1930, and only two Democrats. And Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson were elected only because the Republicans had split.

Why, then, this terror of tariffs that grips the GOP?

Consider. On hearing that President Trump might impose tariffs on aluminum and steel, Sen. Lindsey Graham was beside himself: “Please reconsider,” he implored the president, “you’re making a huge mistake.”

Twenty-four hours earlier, Graham had confidently assured us that war with a nuclear-armed North Korea is “worth it.”

“All the damage that would come from a war would be worth it in terms of long-term stability and national security,” said Graham.

A steel tariff terrifies Graham. A new Korean war does not?

“Trade wars are not won, only lost,” warns Sen. Jeff Flake.

But this is ahistorical nonsense.

The U.S. relied on tariffs to convert from an agricultural economy in 1800 to the mightiest manufacturing power on earth by 1900.

Bismarck’s Germany, born in 1871, followed the U.S. example, and swept past free trade Britain before World War I.

Does Senator Flake think Japan rose to post-war preeminence through free trade, as Tokyo kept U.S. products out, while dumping cars, radios, TVs and motorcycles here to kill the industries of the nation that was defending them. Both Nixon and Reagan had to devalue the dollar to counter the predatory trade policies of Japan.

Since Bush I, we have run $12 trillion in trade deficits, and, in the first decade in this century, we lost 55,000 factories and 6,000,000 manufacturing jobs.

Does Flake see no correlation between America’s decline, China’s rise, and the $4 trillion in trade surpluses Beijing has run up at the expense of his own country?

The hysteria that greeted Trump’s idea of a 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum suggest that restoring this nation’s economic independence is going to be a rocky road.

In 2017, the U.S. ran a trade deficit in goods of almost $800 billion, $375 billion of that with China, a trade surplus that easily covered Xi Jinping’s entire defense budget.

If we are to turn our $800 billion trade deficit in goods into an $800 billion surplus, and stop the looting of America’s industrial base and the gutting of our cities and towns, sacrifices will have to be made.

But if we are not up to it, we will lose our independence, as the countries of the EU have lost theirs.

Specifically, we need to shift taxes off goods produced in the USA, and impose taxes on goods imported into the USA.

As we import nearly $2.5 trillion in goods, a tariff on imported goods, rising gradually to 20 percent, would initially produce $500 billion in revenue.

All that tariff revenue could be used to eliminate and replace all taxes on production inside the USA.

As the price of foreign goods rose, U.S. products would replace foreign-made products. There’s nothing in the world that we cannot produce here. And if it can be made in America, it should be made in America.

Consider. Assume a Lexus cost $50,000 in the U.S., and a 20 percent tariff were imposed, raising the price to $60,000.

What would the Japanese producers of Lexus do?

They could accept the loss in sales in the world’s greatest market, the USA. They could cut their prices to hold their U.S. market share. Or they could shift production to the United States, building their cars here and keeping their market.

How have EU nations run up endless trade surpluses with America? By imposing a value-added tax, or VAT, on imports from the U.S., while rebating the VAT on exports to the USA. Works just like a tariff.

The principles behind a policy of economic nationalism, to turn our trade deficits, which subtract from GDP, into trade surpluses, which add to GDP, are these:


Production comes before consumption. Who consumes the apples is less important than who owns the orchard. We should depend more upon each other and less upon foreign lands.

We should tax foreign-made goods and use the revenue, dollar for dollar, to cut taxes on domestic production.

The idea is not to keep foreign goods out, but to induce foreign companies to move production here.

We have a strategic asset no one else can match. We control access to the largest richest market on earth, the USA.

And just as states charge higher tuition on out-of state students at their top universities, we should charge a price of admission for foreign producers to get into America’s markets.


And — someone get a hold of Sen. Graham — it’s called a tariff.

https://buchanan.org/blog/gop-terrified-tariffs-128840

[Swordsmyth]

https://static.infowars.com/politicalsidebarimage/trump-trade_large.jpg

[nikcers]

fake news Trump is not getting rid of the income tax- Trump is just adding more taxes to consumers when he doesn't change spending or any other form of taxation and just adds taxes.

[Swordsmyth]

fake news Trump is not getting rid of the income tax- Trump is just adding more taxes to consumers when he doesn't change spending or any other form of taxation and just adds taxes.

Who knows what the future holds?

As the economy improves from defending ourselves in the trade wars revenue will go up and the income tax can be cut further and welfare spending can be shredded, this could be the beginning of a transition in our taxation methods.

[nikcers]

Who knows what the future holds?

As the economy improves from defending ourselves in the trade wars revenue will go up and the income tax can be cut further and welfare spending can be shredded, this could be the beginning of a transition in our taxation methods.

They won't ever remove taxes that are there, that's why even the tax cut was a fake tax cut because the taxes are only temporarily cut and they will go up and when they go up they will not pass any more tax cuts. They will pass tax increases any way they can, even if they can con you into thinking that its only temporary to transition out of income tax.

[timosman]

They won't ever remove taxes that are there, that's why even the tax cut was a fake tax cut because the taxes are only temporarily cut and they will go up and when they go up they will not pass any more tax cuts. They will pass tax increases any way they can, even if they can con you into thinking that its only temporary to transition out of income tax.

The sky is falling.:eek:

[thoughtomator]

fake news Trump is not getting rid of the income tax- Trump is just adding more taxes to consumers when he doesn't change spending or any other form of taxation and just adds taxes.

Posts like this are why I have come to believe that a good portion of the frequent users of this site have actual brain damage. I can count the number of respectable posters left here on one hand, without having to use the thumb.

[johnwk]

fake news Trump is not getting rid of the income tax- Trump is just adding more taxes to consumers when he doesn't change spending or any other form of taxation and just adds taxes.

:rolleyes:


JWK



Without a Fifth Column Media, Yellow Journalism, Hollywood, and a corrupted FBI, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, would be making license tags in a federal penitentiary

[Anti Federalist]

Regardless of Trump and his faults, which are many, I support tariffs and am in favor of this, and always have been.

[Brett85]

I would be fine with abolishing all of the federal taxes we have now and replacing them with a 10% across the board tariff on all imports to fund a limited government. However, that isn't what we have now. What we have now with Trump's new policy is high tariffs in addition to already high federal tax rates. This will just end up being passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

[Ender]

I would be fine with abolishing all of the federal taxes we have now and replacing them with a 10% across the board tariff on all imports to fund a limited government. However, that isn't what we have now. What we have now with Trump's new policy is high tariffs in addition to already high federal tax rates. This will just end up being passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

It always has been. And the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1929 basically confirmed the Great Depression.

From Thomas DiLorenzo:


As mentioned above, by 1860 England itself had moved to complete free trade; France sharply reduced her tariff rates in that very year; and Bastiat’s free-trade movement was spreading throughout Europe. Only the Northern United States was clinging steadfastly to seventeenth-century mercantilism.

After the war the Northern manufacturing interests who financed and controlled the Republican party (i.e., the old Whigs) were firmly in control and they “ushered in a long period of high tariffs. With the tariff of 1897, protection reached an average level of 57 percent.”31 This political plunder continued for about fifty years after the war, at which time international competition forced tariff rates down moderately. By 1913 the average tariff rate in the U.S. had declined to 29 percent.

But the same clique of Northern manufacturers was begging for “protection” and persisted until they got it when Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1929, which increased the average tariff rate on over 800 items back up to 59.1 percent.32 The Smoot-Hawley tariff spawned an international trade war that resulted in about a 50 percent reduction in total exports from the United States between 1929 and 1932.33 Poverty and misery was the inevitable result. Even worse, the government responded to these problems of its own creation with a massive increase in government intervention, which only produced even more poverty and misery and deprived Americans of more and more of their freedoms.

CONCLUSIONS

Since the seventeenth century all the great classical liberals have defended free trade and opposed trade restrictions. Trade restrictions are an attack on the institution of private property, interfere with the international division of labor that is the source of our prosperity, and are nothing less than an act of theft. As Murray Rothbard remarked:

“The impetus for protectionism comes not from preposterous theories, but from the quest for coerced special privilege and restraint of trade at the expense of efficient competitors and consumers. In the host of special interests using the political process to repress and loot the rest of us, the protectionists are among the most venerable. It is high time that we get them, once and for all, off our backs, and treat them with the righteous indignation they so richly deserve.”34

[EBounding]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXmFqEWW0AAb522.jpg

[Sonny Tufts]

Choosing the tax base is always tricky. But the idea should be to raise the needed revenue with the least possible disruption of the market (there will always be some disruption whatever the tax system). Using taxes to protect selected domestic industries is wrong and simply increases the amount of crony capitalism that already exists.

[angelatc]

Of All the Forms of State Theft:

Sales Taxes
Income Taxes
Excise Taxes
Inflation Taxes (Printing Money)
Property Taxes
Stamp Taxes
Permission Taxes (Licensing)

Import Taxes (Tariffs) are the least intrusive for the American People and keep Leviathan at the edges (borders) of the/any country.

I agree but note they didn't repeal any existing taxes before implementing the tariffs.

[Superfluous Man]

Dear Troll,

Taxation is theft.

[bunklocoempire]

mandated middleman = LOL

lack of liberty

The answer is always more liberty. Fear is a snare, ya know.

Keep it simple for me, if Trump is right on this, please scale this down and show me how productive families in a neighborhood would be positively influenced by a third party coming to their town and mandating brand loyalty. I just don't see it.

"I want to trade with Floyd the barber"

"You can try to trade with Floyd the barber, but I'm going to use aggression to stimulate trade with Goober, because I have what's best in mind for you"

"Yes, I can see by your past and current actions that you most certainly have my best interests in mind"


Know what I mean?

[dannno]

mandated middleman = LOL

lack of liberty

The answer is always more liberty. Fear is a snare, ya know.

Keep it simple for me, if Trump is right on this, please scale this down and show me how productive families in a neighborhood would be positively influenced by a third party coming to their town and mandating brand loyalty. I just don't see it.

Families will be positively influence by lower tariffs globally so that we have the ability to produce and sell in new markets. You are only looking at one side of the coin. This is going to result in better deals.

We will have a more free market as a result of this, I can assure you. Trump knows wtf he is doing.

[bunklocoempire]

Families will be positively influence by lower tariffs globally so that we have the ability to produce and sell in new markets. You are only looking at one side of the coin. This is going to result in better deals.

We will have a more free market as a result of this, I can assure you. Trump knows wtf he is doing.

Can you show me how this works in Mayberry? A small scale example please.

I edited my previous post. This one too...

[bunklocoempire]

When is this okay?:

"I want to trade with Floyd the barber"

"You can try to trade with Floyd the barber, but I'm going to use aggression to stimulate trade with Goober, because I have what's best in mind for you"

"Yes, I can see by your past and current actions that you most certainly have my best interests in mind"

[Anti Federalist]

Dear Troll,

Taxation is theft.

Yes, it is.

So, until such time as we can either:

A - Have a revolution and violently depose the taxmen and their cronies and Quislings or:

B - Convince enough fellow citizens of this fact, then:

The fact is there will be tax of some kind, theft of some kind, enforced at the barrel of government gun.

So, the question then is: "How bad a form of robbery do I want to be subjected to"?

Tariffs are stealing my cigarette lighter.

Income taxes are a mugging at gunpoint and a beating.

Property taxes are a home invasion, where I am anally gang raped and sodomized, before being slowly tortured to death.

I'll take tariffs, thank you.

[Anti Federalist]

I don't agree completely, in fact, one of the primary reasons that those plants are here, creating millions and millions of dollars of wealth and wages is because of tariffs.

Still, a good read, and he is 100% on Uncle Sucker's safety and environmental fatwas.


Trump’s Tariff Turducken

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2018/03/06/trumps-tariff-turducken/

By eric - March 6, 201827690

Trump is getting heat for his threat to impose tariffs on “imported” cars in order to help American car companies. But what about all the “American” cars built outside America?

And what about the “import” brands that build their cars here?

GM and Ford and FiatChrysler have plants in Mexico. The American 1500 series trucks they build there are shipped here. They are objectively imported. Should they be tariffized?

Toyota has a yuge operation in California. Nissan builds its trucks in Tennessee. Honda has plants in Ohio. BMW builds SUVS in South Carolina. Are these “imported” cars? Should they receive protection from the “foreign” competition – even if the brand in question happens to have its corporate HQ here?

The fulsome scurvy truth is there’s no such thing as an “American” car – or an “imported” one. Not anymore.

Not as they used to be.

People outside the business don’t realize how international not just the car companies have become but also the cars – most of which wouldn’t run without common parts from Bosch (injectors) and Denso (electronics) and ZF (transmissions) and a bunch of others, regardless of the brand on the fender.

Cars are built to a global standard nowadays. Like it or not, it is what it is.

The current Ford Mustang, as a for-instance. It was specifically designed not just for America but also for Europe and other export markets. The influence of this works both ways. One way – in the case of the Mustang – is that it remained rear-wheel-drive. American Mustang buyers demand this – would revolt if Ford changed this to the more common front-wheel-drive layout. So, that stayed. But the Mustang also got a standard four cylinder engine – with a turbo – which was done to make the car more agreeable to European/export market buyers who have to deal with (among other things) gas prices twice as high as what we pay.

The point is, the architecture – an industry term – is global. Go visit a major automaker’s web page; read about it for yourself.

Nationalism is an anachronism, at least in terms of how cars are designed and built as well as where they are built.

Did you know that Jaguar (and Land Rover) are owned by an Indian conglomerate? They are British in heritage, but no longer English. Should they be hit with punitive taxes on account of this? How about all the Buicks GM builds in China? Speaking of that . . . who do you suppose owns Volvo these days? Hint: It’s not the Swedes.

The point here is that imposing tariffs based on who’s an “import” and who’s not is going to be yugely problematic. Trump is operating on the basis of a false premise – one that hasn’t existed in fact since at least the 1980s. In those days, one could at least speak accurately of imported and domestic cars. It is much harder to do so today without it just being idiot demagoguery cynically calculated to inflame the boobs who don’t know any better. Who think, for instance, that their all-American truck was actually made in American rather than hecho en Mexico.

The real problem – which Trump could address without resorting to idiot demagoguery – is not “unfair trade” but stupid (and morally unjustifiable) regulations emanating from Washington. For instance, Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) regs which raise the cost of cars in order to make them use less gas. Which in the first place is none of the government’s proper business.

It’s your car. And in the second place, it’s your gas.

You pay for both. Which makes it no more the government’s business than where you choose to eat and how much you choose to eat. People would get their backs up about the latter – if the government began decreeing where they were allowed to eat – and telling them how much they could eat. It’s the same principle.

CAFE has made cars cost literally thousands of dollars more than they otherwise would. Far more than they do as the result of “unfair” trade. This is not conjecture. It’s verifiable fact. CAFE – the pressure to make every car an economy car, in terms of its average fuel consumption – has pushed the car manufacturers (“foreign” and “domestic”) to add direct injection in place of port fuel injection and put transmissions with nine and ten speeds in ordinary family cars. These “save gas” – but cost money.

Our money.

And that makes it our business – not Uncle’s.

Getting Uncle out of the business of dictating mandatory minimum MPGs would be a boon to everyone, import and domestic alike. It might result in more “gas guzzlers” being made. But that doesn’t mean fuel-efficient cars wouldn’t be available – so long as natural market demand exists for them. It just means the government would no longer be in the business of punishing those who have different demands.

Another productive thing Trump could do would be to get the government out of the “safety” business – which is also none of the government’s business. It is important to define our terms here. We are not talking about defective cars or cars that aren’t roadworthy. Just cars that don’t meet the government’s arbitrary criteria regarding how well they withstand crashing into things.

This, again, is properly our business.

Once upon a time, it was. People could choose very efficient – and very light – cars that maybe couldn’t take a broadside as well as a Cadillac Sedan deVille but also didn’t cost as much as a Sedan deVille and used a lot less gas, too.

The government took those choices away. Trump could give them back.

And unlike the idiotic tariff threats he’s making – which would hurt the car business as well as car buyers – getting Uncle out of the MPG and “safety” business would help everyone.

Well, except for the useless eaters in Washington – who make a fat living inserting themselves into things which are none of their got-damned business.

[Superfluous Man]

So, the question then is: "How bad a form of robbery do I want to be subjected to"?

Tariffs are stealing my cigarette lighter.

Income taxes are a mugging at gunpoint and a beating.

Property taxes are a home invasion, where I am anally gang raped and sodomized, before being slowly tortured to death.

I'll tariffs, thank you.

I have no problem with your position. But that is not the position of the OP, which instead claims that taxation by way of tariffs is a positive good, and that it would be a bad thing to deprive the federal government of all revenue, since it needs money to advance America's general welfare and common defense.

Johnwk rejects the claim that you and I agree on that taxation is theft.

[dannno]

Can you show me how this works in Mayberry? A small scale example please.

John owns a tomato stand in Mayberry. He sells tomatoes for $1.99/lb.

Each day, Nick comes by to buy some tomatoes. He negotiates with John a special price of $1.79.

Florence comes in to buy tomatoes each day. She wears a shirt that has a pin that says, "I NEVER NEGOTIATE OR SHOP AROUND".

John decides to raise the price to $2.49/lb.

When Nick comes in, he says, "Hey, what about the deal we had? Is that still valid?"

John says, "Yes, of course it is."

Florence comes in and starts paying $2.49 for her tomatoes.

Years go by.

One day Nick and Florence go on a date and discuss their daily tomato purchases.

Nick convinces Florence to take the pin that says, "I NEVER NEGOTIATE OR SHOP AROUND" when she goes into the store next time.

When John sees the changes, he gets worried and the next day lowers his prices back down to $1.99.

Florence comes in the next day, sees the price drop and still negotiates a price of $1.79/lb with John.

The point is, if you wear your decision not to negotiate or shop around on your sleeve, people will take advantage of you and raise your prices.

As soon as you are willing to take it off and negotiate, you will get better deals.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtttradeH8I

[bunklocoempire]

John owns a tomato stand in Mayberry. He sells tomatoes for $1.99/lb.

Each day, Nick comes by to buy some tomatoes. He negotiates with John a special price of $1.79.

Florence comes in to buy tomatoes each day. She wears a shirt that has a pin that says, "I NEVER NEGOTIATE OR SHOP AROUND".

John decides to raise the price to $2.49/lb.

When Nick comes in, he says, "Hey, what about the deal we had? Is that still valid?"

John says, "Yes, of course it is."

Florence comes in and starts paying $2.49 for her tomatoes.

Years go by.

One day Nick and Florence go on a date and discuss their daily tomato purchases.

Nick convinces Florence to take the pin that says, "I NEVER NEGOTIATE OR SHOP AROUND" when she goes into the store next time.

When John sees the changes, he gets worried and the next day lowers his prices back down to $1.99.

Florence comes in the next day, sees the price drop and still negotiates a price of $1.79/lb with John.

The point is, if you wear your decision not to negotiate or shop around on your sleeve, people will take advantage of you and raise your prices.

As soon as you are willing to take it off and negotiate, you will get better deals.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtttradeH8I

You can try to trade with Floyd the barber, but I'm going to use aggression to stimulate trade with Goober, because I have what's best in mind for you.

That is what you are trying to sell. Nothing more.

[charrob]

It always has been. And the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1929 basically confirmed the Great Depression.


One big difference between then and now is that our country had a trade surplus when Smoot-Hawley was implemented on June 17, 1930 so imho adding tariffs made no sense; since Bush 1, we've lost $12 trillion in trade deficits and our manufacturing industries have been completely gutted followed by the gutting of wealth of the middle and working classes.

As mentioned in my post above: Having American labor compete with Chinese slave labor is a race to the bottom for the U.S. middle class and working class (what's left of it). ... One idea beyond Pat Buchanan would be to just have dynamic tariffs so that the overall trade we have with another country has a trade deficit of $0; once there's a trade surplus, the tariffs come off. That way we can continue trade with that country without losing manufacturing jobs.

Not sure I agree with choosing products (although i can understand Trump's interest in steel for defense purposes); overall bilateral trade should have a trade deficit of $0. Let the market decide which country in a trade relationship makes which widgets better and more efficiently.



Milton Friedman held the opinion that the Smoot–Hawley tariff of 1930 did not cause the Great Depression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act), instead he blamed the lack of sufficient action on the part of the Federal Reserve (https://fee.org/articles/the-great-depression-according-to-milton-friedman/). [The Great Depression According to Milton Friedman: The Great Depression Could Have Been Avoided if the Fed Had Not So Badly Botched Its Monetary Policy.]

Douglas A. Irwin wrote: "most economists, both liberal and conservative, doubt that Smoot–Hawley played much of a role in the subsequent contraction."

Peter Temin, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explained that a tariff is an expansionary policy, like a devaluation as it diverts demand from foreign to home producers. He noted that exports were 7 percent of GNP in 1929, they fell by 1.5 percent of 1929 GNP in the next two years and the fall was offset by the increase in domestic demand from tariff. He concluded that contrary the popular argument, contractionary effect of the tariff was small. (Temin, P. 1989. Lessons from the Great Depression, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass)

William Bernstein wrote "most economic historians now believe that only a minuscule part of that huge loss of both world GDP and the United States' GDP can be ascribed to the tariff wars "because trade was only nine percent of global output, not enough to account for the seventeen percent drop in GDP following the Crash. He thinks the damage done could not possibly have exceeded 2 percent of world GDP and tariff "didn't even significantly deepen the Great Depression." (A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World)

Nobel laureate Maurice Allais maintained that tariff was rather helpful in the face of deregulation of competition in the global labor market and excessively loose credit prior to the Crash which, according to him, caused the crisis in financial and banking sectors. He noted higher trade barriers were partly a means to protect domestic demand from deflation and external disturbances. He observes domestic production in the major industrialized countries fell faster than international trade contracted; if contraction of foreign trade had been the cause of the Depression, he argues, the opposite should have occurred. So, the decline in trade between 1929 and 1933 was a consequence of the Depression, not a cause. Most of the trade contraction took place between January 1930 and July 1932, before the introduction of the majority of protectionist measures, excepting limited American measures applied in the summer of 1930. It was the collapse of international liquidity that caused of the contraction of trade.


The one worry as I see it is the current extent of the damage to our manufacturing base. Not only have we lost since Bush 1 the skills of our manufacturing workforce, but as i see it, even more importantly, when most of our manufacturing was offshored to China, they didn't just close down the factories. They literally exported most of the huge machinery inside those factories to China as well. So we're literally starting from scratch. We have to build the machines the factories use in creating their products. This takes investment and a great deal of time. Certainly the positive affects of a resurging middle & working class for the country will not be fully attained in the next 3 years of Trump's reign, and may only begin to see signs of positive change by 2024 if he wins in 2020. As Buchanan wrote, it will take some pain to get there. Certainly the greatest pain would be felt by retired workers who would be living on pensions of a less prosperous time. But if allowed, certainly in time the middle and working classes will once again begin to grow and prosper. As Buchanan writes, the alternative is losing our independence; i would also add if trade deficits continue as they have, we will also continue to lose our prosperity in the race to the bottom as our workers continue to compete with slave labor in China and other 3rd world countries.

[dannno]

You can try to trade with Floyd the barber, but I'm going to use aggression to stimulate trade with Goober, because I have what's best in mind for you.

That is what you are trying to sell. Nothing more.

No no, the way I've explained it is that there will be more trade with Floyd the barber because there will be less taxes going the other direction.. Let me simplify..

Let's say there is a 40% tax for Mayberry residents to sell anything outside of Mayberry, and no taxes for people to buy things from outside Mayberry in Mayberry.

Well, clearly people are going to buy things from inside or outside Mayberry, but they will only be able to sell to each other and don't have access to sell in any outside markets.

Mayberry was rich, and they become more poor over time because they can't produce and sell goods to markets outside Mayberry.

So Trump comes a long and says, "Hey, I'm going to make it so you guys get to sell to outside markets with only a 5% tax, but you will also have a 5% tax on goods coming into Mayberry."

Now people can buy and sell goods inside or outside Mayberry, although unfortunately there is still some tax, it is a much lower amount that will be paid in total, about a quarter the amount of taxes.

[johnwk]

It always has been. And the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1929 basically confirmed the Great Depression.



What exactly do you mean "confirmed" the Great Depression?


JWK




Without a Fifth Column Media, Yellow Journalism, Hollywood, and a corrupted FBI, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, would be making license tags in a federal penitentiary

[Ender]

One big difference between then and now is that our country had a trade surplus when Smoot-Hawley was implemented on June 17, 1930 so imho adding tariffs made no sense; since Bush 1, we've lost $12 trillion in trade deficits and our manufacturing industries have been completely gutted followed by the gutting of wealth of the middle and working classes.

As mentioned in my post above: Having American labor compete with Chinese slave labor is a race to the bottom for the U.S. middle class and working class (what's left of it). ... One idea beyond Pat Buchanan would be to just have dynamic tariffs so that the overall trade we have with another country has a trade deficit of $0; once there's a trade surplus, the tariffs come off. That way we can continue trade with that country without losing manufacturing jobs.

Not sure I agree with choosing products (although i can understand Trump's interest in steel for defense purposes); overall bilateral trade should have a trade deficit of $0. Let the market decide which country in a trade relationship makes which widgets better and more efficiently.



The one worry as I see it is the current extent of the damage to our manufacturing base. Not only have we lost since Bush 1 the skills of our manufacturing workforce, but as i see it, even more importantly, when most of our manufacturing was offshored to China, they didn't just close down the factories. They literally exported most of the huge machinery inside those factories to China as well. So we're literally starting from scratch. We have to build the machines the factories use in creating their products. This takes investment and a great deal of time. Certainly the positive affects of a resurging middle & working class for the country will not be fully attained in the next 3 years of Trump's reign, and may only begin to see signs of positive change by 2024 if he wins in 2020. As Buchanan wrote, it will take some pain to get there. Certainly the greatest pain would be felt by retired workers who would be living on pensions of a less prosperous time. But if allowed, certainly in time the middle and working classes will once again begin to grow and prosper. As Buchanan writes, the alternative is losing our independence; i would also add if trade deficits continue as they have, we will also continue to lose our prosperity in the race to the bottom as our workers continue to compete with slave labor in China and other 3rd world countries.

Milton Friedman was a Keynesian.

From Milton Rothbard:


Milton Friedman has revealed his quintessential pro-income tax and egalitarian position in numerous ways. As in many other spheres, he has functioned not as an opponent of statism and advocate of the free market, but as a technician advising the State on how to be more efficient in going about its evil work. (From the viewpoint of a genuine libertarian, the more inefficient the State’s operations, the better![5]) He has opposed tax exemptions and “loopholes” and worked to make the income tax more uniform.

One of Friedman’s most disastrous deeds was the important role he proudly played, during World War II in the Treasury Department, in foisting upon the suffering American public the system of the withholding tax. Before World War II, when income tax rates were far lower than now, there was no withholding system; everyone paid his annual bill in one lump sum, on March 15. It is obvious that under this system, the Internal Revenue Service could never hope to extract the entire annual sum, at current confiscatory rates, from the mass of the working population. The whole ghastly system would have happily broken down long before this. Only the Friedmanite withholding tax has permitted the government to use every employer as an unpaid tax collector, extracting the tax quietly and silently from each paycheck. In many ways, we have Milton Friedman to thank for the present monster Leviathan State in America.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/02/murray-n-rothbard/total-demolition-milton-friedman/

The tariffs may bring a few more jobs in for actual steel production, but they will most likely cause lay-offs in jobs that produce products of steel.

And because the costs will be much higher in product production this will cause prices to skyrocket for the average American.

[Ender]

What exactly do you mean "confirmed" the Great Depression?


JWK




Without a Fifth Column Media, Yellow Journalism, Hollywood, and a corrupted FBI, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, would be making license tags in a federal penitentiary




Disintegration of the World Economy

The Hoover administration opposed any readjustment. Under the influence of “the new economics” of government planning, the president urged businessmen not to cut prices and reduce wages, but rather to increase capital outlay, wages, and other spending in order to maintain purchasing power. He embarked upon deficit spending and called upon municipalities to increase their borrowing for more public works. Through the Farm Board, which Hoover had organized in the autumn of 1929, the federal government tried strenuously to uphold the prices of wheat, cotton, and other farm products. The GOP tradition was further invoked to curtail foreign imports.

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of June 1930, raised American tariffs to unprecedented levels, which practically closed our borders to foreign goods. According to most economic historians, this was the crowning folly of the whole period from 1920 to 1933 and the beginning of the real depression. “Once we raised our tariffs,” wrote Benjamin Anderson, an irresistible movement all over the world to raise tariffs and to erect other trade barriers, including quotas, began. Protectionism ran wild over the world. Markets were cut off. Trade lines were narrowed. Unemployment in the export industries all over the world grew with great rapidity. Farm prices in the United States dropped sharply through the whole of 1930, but the most rapid rate of decline came following the passage of the tariff bill.

When President Hoover announced he would sign the bill into law, industrial stocks broke 20 points in one day. The stock market correctly anticipated the depression.

The protectionists have never learned that curtailment of imports inevitably hampers exports. Even if foreign countries do not immediately retaliate for trade restrictions injuring them, their foreign purchases are circumscribed by their ability to sell abroad. This is why the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which closed our borders to foreign products also closed foreign markets to our products. American exports fell from $5.5 billion in 1929 to $1.7 billion in 1932. American agriculture customarily had exported over 20 percent of its wheat, 55 percent of its cotton, 40 percent of its tobacco and lard, and many other products. When international trade and commerce were disrupted, American farming collapsed. In fact, the rapidly growing trade restrictions, including tariffs, quotas, foreign-exchange controls, and other devices were generating a worldwide depression.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/06/hans-f-sennholz/the-great-depression/

[CCTelander]

Yes, it is.

So, until such time as we can either:

A - Have a revolution and violently depose the taxmen and their cronies and Quislings or:

B - Convince enough fellow citizens of this fact, then:

The fact is there will be tax of some kind, theft of some kind, enforced at the barrel of government gun.

So, the question then is: "How bad a form of robbery do I want to be subjected to"?

Tariffs are stealing my cigarette lighter.

Income taxes are a mugging at gunpoint and a beating.

Property taxes are a home invasion, where I am anally gang raped and sodomized, before being slowly tortured to death.

I'll take tariffs, thank you.


I can respect your position.

However, I have to disagree with what the question actually is. It definitely is not "How bad a form of robbery do I want to be subjected to?", since we definitely are not being given a choice between tariffs, income tax or property tax. Your question, therefore presents a false dilemma.

In actuality we're being subjected to income tax, property tax, and then having tariffs added on top. So it's more like this:

"Here's what we're going to do. We're going to rob you at gunpoint and beat the shit out of you. Then we're going to follow you to your place where we'll invade your home, anally rape and sodomize you and slowly torture you to death. Oh, and by the way, we're stealing your cigarette lighter too."

Kind of adding insult to injury. I've been insulted, abused, and stolen from enough.

[charrob]

The tariffs may bring a few more jobs in for actual steel production, but they will most likely cause lay-offs in jobs that produce products of steel.

And because the costs will be much higher in product production this will cause prices to skyrocket for the average American.


Overall our country lost $12 trillion in wealth since Bush 1. So-called free trade caused way more lay-offs of good living wage manufacturing jobs than any tariffs ever could; indeed it's gutted entire cities and towns. Those that would be laid off at the beginning because of higher steel prices from foreign imports could become the new employees of a new steel industry in this country.

Your second point is noted, that's why I believe the attempt should be a dynamic tariff to obtain a $0 trade deficit in overall trade with another country which then would create many new manufacturing industries here, not just one industry. Done bilaterally with all countries, we then once again build a working and middle class who then can afford more expensive cars or widgets because the country itself is being lifted up. As I see it, only those not participating in the economy, ie. retirees living on savings and 401K's would be harmed by this because they are living on savings from a less prosperous time. But the country itself as a whole would be able to regain prosperity that has for so many years (since Bush 1) been lost to China and other 3rd world countries.

As Buchanan noted, there will be initial pain. There would need to be buy in from the country as a whole. It will take time to re-build the prosperity lost by most of America's middle and working classes since Bush 1. It's a huge endeavor. But if we stay the course, one day we could again have a working and middle class making living wages instead of living off debt. I think it's worth it. Many do not. And many won't have the patience to go thru the initial years of difficulty. And in that case, we just continue as we have with our country losing it's prosperity to other countries with each coming year.

[Ender]

Overall our country lost $12 trillion in wealth since Bush 1. So-called free trade caused way more lay-offs of good living wage manufacturing jobs than any tariffs ever could; indeed it's gutted entire cities and towns. Those that would be laid off at the beginning because of higher steel prices from foreign imports could become the new employees of a new steel industry in this country.

Your second point is noted, that's why I believe the attempt should be a dynamic tariff to obtain a $0 trade deficit in overall trade with another country which then would create many new manufacturing industries here, not just one industry. Done bilaterally with all countries, we then once again build a working and middle class who then can afford more expensive cars or widgets because the country itself is being lifted up. As I see it, only those not participating in the economy, ie. retirees living on savings and 401K's would be harmed by this because they are living on savings from a less prosperous time. But the country itself as a whole would be able to regain prosperity that has for so many years (since Bush 1) been lost to China and other 3rd world countries.


The problem, IMHPOV, is not free trade, which has not been happening since Bush 1, but the FED, fiat money, no gold standard & crony-capitalism.

A quote from AZJoe on the RP Forum:


Harry Browne on tariffs:

The government prohibits some imports and taxes others. … the real reason is to reward the industries with the most political influence.

The principal barriers to imports are tariffs that make foreign goods more expensive for you to buy. The tariffs also make American products more expensive by increasing the cost of imported raw materials. And the tariffs make some foreign products so expensive they can’t compete here-leaving you no alternative to more costly American versions.
In addition … foreign products can be banned entirely …

Import barriers cost Americans about $70 billion a year-roughly about $700 for every American household. …
The US should immediately spread the existing tariff revenue evenly over all imported products, reducing tariffs to roughly 2%. Tariffs should never be used as a political tool to reward influential industries and companies.

http://www.issues2000.org/Frontline/...mmigration.htm


No import tariffs, regardless of human rights. (May 1996)
Tariffs cost Americans $70B a year. (Sep 2000)
Replace WTO & NAFTA with uniformly low tariffs. (Jan 2000)
No import tariffs, regardless of human rights. (May 1996)

http://www.ontheissues.org/Harry_Browne.htm

[charrob]

The problem, IMHPOV, is not free trade, which has not been happening since Bush 1, but the FED, fiat money, no gold standard & crony-capitalism.


I agree with you that the FED, fiat money, no gold standard and crony-capitalism has increased the problems substantially; but we differ in our view of trade deficits which I believe has been a major blow to the middle and working classes.

[Krugminator2]

Milton Friedman was a Keynesian.

From Milton Rothbard:





Rothbard said a lot of things. Rothbard thought deflation was a wonderful thing in the depression because it would some how speed up the cleansing depression. Here is an alternative from Keynesian economist FA Hayek.


“I agree with Milton Friedman that once the Crash [of 1929] had occurred, the Federal Reserve System pursued a silly deflationary policy. I am not only against inflation but I am also against deflation. So, once again, a badly programmed monetary policy prolonged the depression.”


“The moment there is any sign that the total income stream may actually shrink [during a post-bust deflationary crash], I should certainly not only try everything in my power to prevent it from dwindling, but I should announce beforehand that I would do so in the event the problem arose.”

[Ender]

Rothbard said a lot of things. Rothbard thought deflation was a wonderful thing in the depression because it would some how speed up the cleansing depression. Here is an alternative from Keynesian economist FA Hayek.

Not a Hayek fan.


Why Mises (and not Hayek)?
By Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Mises.org

September 14, 2016

Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek are widely considered the most eminent classical liberal thinkers of this century. They are also the two best known Austrian economists. They were great scholars and great men. I was lucky to have them both as my teachers.… Yet it is clear that the world treats them very differently. Mises was denied the Nobel Prize for economics, which Hayek won the year after Mises’s death. Hayek is occasionally anthologized and read in college courses, when a spokesman for free enterprise absolutely cannot be avoided; Mises is virtually unknown in American academia. Even among organizations that support the free market in a general way, it is Hayek who is honored and invoked, while Mises is ignored or pushed into the background.

I want to speculate — and present a thesis — why this is so and explain why I — and I take it most of us here — take a very different view. Why I (and presumably you) are Misesians and not Hayekians.

My thesis is that Hayek’s greater prominence has little if anything to do with his economics. There is little difference in Mises’s and Hayek’s economics. Indeed, most economic ideas associated with Hayek were originated by Mises, and this fact alone would make Mises rank far above Hayek as an economist. But most of today’s professed Hayekians are not trained, economists. Few have actually read the books that are responsible for Hayek’s initial fame as an economist, i.e., his Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle and his Prices and Production. And I venture the guess that there exist no more than 10 people alive today who have studied, from cover to cover, his Pure Theory of Capital.

Rather, what explains Hayek’s greater prominence is Hayek’s work, mostly in the second half of his professional life, in the field of political philosophy — and here, in this field, the difference between Hayek and Mises is striking indeed.

My thesis is essentially the same one also advanced by my friend Ralph Raico: Hayek is not a classical liberal at all, or a “Radikalliberaler” as the NZZ, as usual clueless, has just recently referred to him. Hayek is actually a moderate social democrat, and since we live in the age of social democracy, this makes him a “respectable” and “responsible” scholar. Hayek, as you may recall, dedicated his Road to Serfdom to “the socialists in all parties.” And the socialists in all parties now pay him back in using Hayek to present themselves as “liberals.”

Instant Access to Current Spot Prices & Interactive Charts

Now to the proof, and I rely for this mostly on the Constitution of Liberty, and his three-volume Law, Legislation, and Liberty which are generally regarded as Hayek’s most important contributions to the field of political theory.

According to Hayek, government is “necessary” to fulfill the following tasks: not merely for “law enforcement” and “defense against external enemies” but “in an advanced society government ought to use its power of raising funds by taxation to provide a number of services which for various reasons cannot be provided, or cannot be provided adequately, by the market.” (Because at all times an infinite number of goods and services exist that the market does not provide, Hayek hands government a blank check.)

Among these goods and services are:

protection against violence, epidemics, or such natural forces as floods and avalanches, but also many of the amenities which make life in modern cities tolerable, most roads … the provision of standards of measure, and of many kinds of information ranging from land registers, maps and statistics to the certification of the quality of some goods or services offered in the market.

Additional government functions include “the assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone”; government should “distribute its expenditure over time in such a manner that it will step in when private investment flags”; it should finance schools and research as well as enforce “building regulations, pure food laws, the certification of certain professions, the restrictions on the sale of certain dangerous goods (such as arms, explosives, poisons and drugs), as well as some safety and health regulations for the processes of production; and the provision of such public institutions as theaters, sports grounds, etc.”; and it should make use of the power of “eminent domain” to enhance the “public good.”

Moreover, it generally holds that “there is some reason to believe that with the increase in general wealth and of the density of population, the share of all needs that can be satisfied only by collective action will continue to grow.”

Further, government should implement an extensive system of compulsory insurance (“coercion intended to forestall greater coercion”), public, subsidized housing is a possible government task, and likewise “city planning” and “zoning” are considered appropriate government


functions — provided that “the sum of the gains exceed the sum of the losses.” And lastly, “the provision of amenities of or opportunities for recreation, or the preservation of natural beauty or of historical sites or scientific interest … Natural parks, nature-reservations, etc.” are legitimate government tasks.

In addition, Hayek insists we recognize that it is irrelevant how big government is or if and how fast it grows. What alone is important is that government actions fulfill certain formal requirements. “It is the character rather than the volume of government activity that is important.” Taxes as such and the absolute height of taxation are not a problem for Hayek. Taxes — and likewise compulsory military service — lose their character as coercive measures,

if they are at least predictable and are enforced irrespective of how the individual would otherwise employ his energies; this deprives them largely of the evil nature of coercion. If the known necessity of paying a certain amount of taxes becomes the basis of all my plans, if a period of military service is a foreseeable part of my career, then I can follow a general plan of life of my own making and am as independent of the will of another person as men have learned to be in society.

But please, it must be a proportional tax and general military service!

I could go on and on, citing Hayek’s muddled and contradictory definitions of freedom and coercion, but that shall suffice to make my point. I am simply asking: what socialist and what green could have any difficulties with all this? Following Hayek, they can all proudly call themselves liberals.

In distinct contrast, how refreshingly clear — and very different — is Mises! For him, the definition of liberalism can be condensed into a
single term: private property. The state, for Mises, is legalized force, and its only function is to defend life and property by beating antisocial elements into submission. As for the rest, the government is “the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisonment. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.”

Moreover (and this is for those who have not read much of Mises but invariably pipe up, “but even Mises is not an anarchist”), certainly the younger Mises allows for unlimited secession, down to the level of the individual, if one comes to the conclusion that government is not doing what it is supposed to do: to protect life and property. And the older Mises never repudiated this position. Mises, then, as my own intellectual master, Murray Rothbard, noted, is a laissez-faire radical: an extremist.

The Best of Hans-Hermann Hoppe

[Ender]

I agree with you that the FED, fiat money, no gold standard and crony-capitalism has increased the problems substantially; but we differ in our view of trade deficits which I believe has been a major blow to the middle and working classes.

I believe all the above is the direct cause of this major blow. And I also agree with RP that free trade prevents war.

That said, I appreciate good dialog with you- we don't have to agree on everything but I highly respect your POV and input.

[Danke]

You can try to trade with Floyd the barber, but I'm going to use aggression to stimulate trade with Goober, because I have what's best in mind for you.

That is what you are trying to sell. Nothing more.


never ever go full retard.

[nikcers]

never ever go full retard.
We have to break windows to build windows.

[Anti Federalist]

This, coming from a company that owes its very existence to tariffs enacted over 30 years ago, designed to specifically save its ass.

Not sure how much market share they will retain, selling motorcycles to a demographic getting too old to ride anymore and fat, tattooed lesbians.



Harley-Davidson Warns Against Trump’s Tariffs While Laying Off American Manufacturing Workers

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/07/harley-davidson-warns-against-trumps-tariffs-while-laying-off-american-manufacturing-workers/

Harley-Davidson, the iconic American motorcycle company, is warning against President Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and ten percent tariff on imported aluminum while laying off American manufacturing workers.

This week, Harley-Davidson released a statement on Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports — primarily to protect American industries and jobs from a flood of cheap imported materials from China — saying the motorcycle would be hit, as far as sales, if the tariffs were enacted.

<snip>

Harley-Davidson, though, was protected by tariffs in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, when he raised tariffs on imported motorcycles. At the time, Harley-Davidson was “delighted” by the tariffs.

The New York Times reported in 1983:

The action was exceptional for protecting a single American company, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company of Milwaukee, the sole surviving American maker of motorcycles.

The only comparable trade action by this Administration, the President’s decision last May to impose quotas on sugar imports for the first time since 1974, was aimed at an entire industry.

‘‘We’re delighted,” said Vaughn L. Beals, Harley-Davidson’s chairman. ”It will give us time that we might otherwise not have had to make manufacturing improvements and bring out new products.”

[charrob]

I believe all the above is the direct cause of this major blow. And I also agree with RP that free trade prevents war.

That said, I appreciate good dialog with you- we don't have to agree on everything but I highly respect your POV and input.

Same here Ender. I always enjoy reading and learning from your posts. :)

[TheCount]

This, coming from a company that owes its very existence to tariffs enacted over 30 years ago, designed to specifically save its ass.

Not sure how much market share they will retain, selling motorcycles to a demographic getting too old to ride anymore and fat, tattooed lesbians.

Isn't this an excellent argument against tariffs? A company insulated from its own poor decisions by government fatwa, enabled to sell expensive, inferior products for decades. And yet despite this government assistance, it continues to struggle to stay afloat.

See also: Chrysler.

[Swordsmyth]

Isn't this an excellent argument against tariffs? A company insulated from its own poor decisions by government fatwa, enabled to sell expensive, inferior products for decades. And yet despite this government assistance, it continues to struggle to stay afloat.

See also: Chrysler.

Your whole argument hangs on assertions that are debatable and even if true the problems are caused by government regulations etc. and not by tariffs, America is a large enough country to create many competitors in a given industry if government would get out of the way.

[Anti Federalist]

Isn't this an excellent argument against tariffs? A company insulated from its own poor decisions by government fatwa, enabled to sell expensive, inferior products for decades. And yet despite this government assistance, it continues to struggle to stay afloat.

See also: Chrysler.

The company made good decisions in the wake of that, and went on to become one of the most recognized and sought after motorcycle brands, making millions of dollars and employing thousands of people.

Mushy headed one worlders and Harvard MBA bean counters instead of real motorcycle guys like Vaughn Beals and Willie G. are going to be the downfall of HD.

[johnwk]

I have no problem with your position. But that is not the position of the OP, which instead claims that taxation by way of tariffs is a positive good, and that it would be a bad thing to deprive the federal government of all revenue, since it needs money to advance America's general welfare and common defense.

Johnwk rejects the claim that you and I agree on that taxation is theft.

Federal taxation for functions not authorized by our written Constitution e.g., food stamps, public schools, foreign aid, public housing, etc., is theft. Federal taxation for functions authorized by our written constitution and which follow the constitutional rules which limited federal taxation, e.g., any direct tax must be apportioned, have been agree to, and you are free to call them what you will.


JWK


"To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen [a working person’s earned wage] and with the other to bestow upon favored individuals, to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes [our Washington Establishment’s Solyndra, Chevy Volt, Fisker, Exelon swindling deals] is none the less a robbery because it is done under forms of law and called taxation."____ Savings and Loan Assc. v.Topeka,(1875).

[johnwk]

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/06/hans-f-sennholz/the-great-depression/

You never answered my question. What exactly do you mean Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression? Are you incapable of answering the question in your own words?

JWK

[johnwk]

Overall our country lost $12 trillion in wealth since Bush 1. So-called free trade caused way more lay-offs of good living wage manufacturing jobs than any tariffs ever could; indeed it's gutted entire cities and towns. Those that would be laid off at the beginning because of higher steel prices from foreign imports could become the new employees of a new steel industry in this country.

Your second point is noted, that's why I believe the attempt should be a dynamic tariff to obtain a $0 trade deficit in overall trade with another country which then would create many new manufacturing industries here, not just one industry. Done bilaterally with all countries, we then once again build a working and middle class who then can afford more expensive cars or widgets because the country itself is being lifted up. As I see it, only those not participating in the economy, ie. retirees living on savings and 401K's would be harmed by this because they are living on savings from a less prosperous time. But the country itself as a whole would be able to regain prosperity that has for so many years (since Bush 1) been lost to China and other 3rd world countries.

As Buchanan noted, there will be initial pain. There would need to be buy in from the country as a whole. It will take time to re-build the prosperity lost by most of America's middle and working classes since Bush 1. It's a huge endeavor. But if we stay the course, one day we could again have a working and middle class making living wages instead of living off debt. I think it's worth it. Many do not. And many won't have the patience to go thru the initial years of difficulty. And in that case, we just continue as we have with our country losing it's prosperity to other countries with each coming year.

Pat Buchanan is spot on!


Also, keep in mind "free trade" begins with people being free to negotiate the value of their own labor. China does not engage in free trade.


When a product is produced in China using what amounts to slave labor wages, and America adds a tariff to the product in the amount which the laborer in China ought to have been paid, it levels the playing field and the America consumer can choose to purchase a well manufactured article produced in America or the inferior similar product produced in China under slave labor conditions.

The fact is, there are countless international corporate giants who have no allegiance to America or any country and have aligned themselves with the leaderships of oppressive countries to gain assess to slave labor in order to increase their profits, and have a competitive edge based on slavery which they use to destroy competitors where a fair market wage is paid.


For America to not put a tariff on imports produced under slave labor conditions is tantamount to subsidizing slave labor.


JWK




The unavoidable truth is, our social democrat political leaders’ plan for “free” college tuition will be paid for by confiscating the paychecks of millions of college graduates who worked for and paid their own way through college and are now trying to finance their own economic needs.

[Ender]

You never answered my question. What exactly do you mean Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression? Are you incapable of answering the question in your own words?

JWK

Are you incapable of reading?


The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of June 1930, raised American tariffs to unprecedented levels, which practically closed our borders to foreign goods. According to most economic historians, this was the crowning folly of the whole period from 1920 to 1933 and the beginning of the real depression. “Once we raised our tariffs,” wrote Benjamin Anderson, an irresistible movement all over the world to raise tariffs and to erect other trade barriers, including quotas, began. Protectionism ran wild over the world. Markets were cut off. Trade lines were narrowed. Unemployment in the export industries all over the world grew with great rapidity. Farm prices in the United States dropped sharply through the whole of 1930, but the most rapid rate of decline came following the passage of the tariff bill.

[Superfluous Man]

Federal taxation for functions not authorized by our written Constitution e.g., food stamps, public schools, foreign aid, public housing, etc., is theft. Federal taxation for functions authorized by our written constitution and which follow the constitutional rules which limited federal taxation, e.g., any direct tax must be apportioned, have been agree to, and you are free to call them what you will.


JWK


"To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen [a working person’s earned wage] and with the other to bestow upon favored individuals, to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes [our Washington Establishment’s Solyndra, Chevy Volt, Fisker, Exelon swindling deals] is none the less a robbery because it is done under forms of law and called taxation."____ Savings and Loan Assc. v.Topeka,(1875).


Theft is theft. Putting something in the Constitution doesn't change that.

[johnwk]

Are you incapable of reading?

You still did not answer my question. What exactly do you mean Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression? Are you incapable of answering the question in your own words?


JWK

[Ender]

You still did not answer my question. What exactly do you mean Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression? Are you incapable of answering the question in your own words?


JWK

Is this plain enough?


In 1930, the US economy was in a small recession.
Under Harding, the 1922 recession had recovered quickly.

Under Hoover, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act raised costs & created immense trade barriers.

Because of this:
American farm exports, which had supported American agriculture & been as high as 55% fell to below 1/5 of what they had been previously.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers went bankrupt.
Unemployment shot to 8 million+.

Hoover objected to lowered costs/prices/spending and raised deficit spending & borrowing.
Hoover got the Fed Gov involved in industry & allowed no dropping of prices/wages etc.
He also instilled the Revenue Act of 1932, which doubled income tax, and raised all taxes to a unprecedented high.

Read Murray Rothbard’s: America’s Great Depression.

[johnwk]

Is this plain enough?

No. I'm waiting for you to use your own words explaining what you mean by Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression.


JWK

[Ender]

No. I'm waiting for you to use your own words explaining what you mean by Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression.


JWK

Those are my words.

And, if I had originally posted my "own words" you would have wanted "proof", so to stop all the nonsense, I posted from a reliable source first.

[johnwk]

Those are my words.

And, if I had originally posted my "own words" you would have wanted "proof", so to stop all the nonsense, I posted from a reliable source first.

They still do not explain what you mean by Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression. Are you incapable of explaining what you mean by "confirmed"?


JWK

[Ender]

They still do not explain what you mean by Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression. Are you incapable of explaining what you mean by "confirmed"?


JWK

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression.

Does that help you understand a little better?

[nikcers]

They still do not explain what you mean by Smoot-Hawley "confirmed" the Great Depression. Are you incapable of explaining what you mean by "confirmed"?


JWK
More of a "reaffirm" then confirm. Not sure if he meant that but tarrifs, especially protectionist tariffs and tax cuts during a recession is a last ditch effort for the cronies to steal as much wealth as possible from the dumb populace before a depression ala hungry hungry hippos. Tarrifs create artificial industries to stop people from rising up against a government who takes too much. The next step is the US Government will be forced to start taking from other nations when there is no more to take from ours.

[Swordsmyth]

Smoot-Hawley was the designated scapegoat for the Federal Reserve's deliberate destruction of the economy, yes starting a trade war while you have a trade surplus was stupid but it was inconsequential compared to the actions of the banksters.

Blaming Smoot-Hawley for the great depression is spreading bankster propaganda.

[Ender]

Smoot-Hawley was the designated scapegoat for the Federal Reserve's deliberate destruction of the economy, yes starting a trade war while you have a trade surplus was stupid but it was inconsequential compared to the actions of the banksters.

Blaming Smoot-Hawley for the great depression is spreading bankster propaganda.

Right. Maybe you should listen to that bankster-propagandist, Ron Paul.


http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/myth-busters-the-truth-about-hoover-fdr

[Krugminator2]

Smoot-Hawley was the designated scapegoat for the Federal Reserve's deliberate destruction of the economy, yes starting a trade war while you have a trade surplus was stupid but it was inconsequential compared to the actions of the banksters.

Blaming Smoot-Hawley for the great depression is spreading bankster propaganda.

The Federal Reserve did cause the Great Depression by letting the money supply collapse. That is indisputably true. But why did the "banksters" want to destroy themselves? There were mass bank failures. Why did they want to put themselves out of business? Maybe incompetence is the reason and not something more sinister?

[Swordsmyth]

The Federal Reserve did cause the Great Depression by letting the money supply collapse. That is indisputably true. But why did the "banksters" want to destroy themselves? There were mass bank failures. Why did they want to put themselves out of business? Maybe incompetence is the reason and not something more sinister?

The big fish didn't suffer any damage, they ate the small banks for lunch and went on to increase the power of government which they controlled.

[TheCount]

For America to not put a tariff on imports produced under slave labor conditions is tantamount to subsidizing slave labor.

Should we tariff or outlaw products produced in socialistic or communistic countries because otherwise we are subsidizing communism? What about monarchies? Theocracies? Countries where they drive on the wrong side of the road?

[johnwk]

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression.

Does that help you understand a little better?


The statistical documentation does not confirm your opinion.


The Smoot-Hawley Act did not give us the depression of 1929. The Act became law in the middle of 1930, well after the depression was in progress. When one studies the statistics, Smoot-Hawley had a very small impact on the economy. The cause of the crash was wild speculation on Wall Street and an abundance of cheap paper money. Stop making crap up.

Aside from that, the use of taxes at our water’s edge are a very useful tool to promote America’s general welfare.

In regard to promoting America’s common defense and general welfare under our nation’s first revenue raising Act, our founding fathers imposed an across-the-board tax on imports which was higher for imports arriving in foreign owned foreign built vessels, and discounted the tax for imports arriving in American owned American built ships:



"...a discount of ten percent on all duties imposed by this Act shall be allowed on such goods, wares, and merchandise as shall be imported in vessels built in the United States, and wholly the property of a citizen or citizens thereof." SEE: An Act imposing duties on Tonnage July 20, 1789 (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=150)



This patriotic use of taxing at our water’s edge not only filled our national treasury, but gave American ship builders a hometown advantage and predictably resulted in America's ship building industry to flourish and America’s merchant marine to become the most powerful on the face of the planet.

Additionally, when a product is produced in China under slave labor wages, and America adds a tariff to the product in the amount which the laborer in China ought to have been paid, it levels the playing field and the America consumer can choose to purchase a well manufactured article produced in America or the inferior similar product produced in China under slave labor conditions.

The fact is, there are countless international corporate giants who have no allegiance to America or any country and have aligned themselves with the leaderships of oppressive countries to gain access to slave labor in order to increase their profits, and have a competitive edge based on slavery which they use to destroy competitors where a fair market wage is paid. And this is particularly the case with China and the steel industry.


For America to not put a tariff on imports produced under slave labor conditions is tantamount to subsidizing slave labor. Free trade begins with people being free to negotiate the value of their own labor, which is not the case in China.

When globalists talk about “free trade”, what they are talking about is a managed trade, managed by them and not our representatives in Congress. And this is the case with the NAFTA under which globalists from participating countries, who represent the interests of international corporate giants and are not elected by the American people, are now regulating America’s trade with Canada and Mexico. See: Establishment of Binational Panels (http://www.sice.oas.org/trade/nafta/chap-192.asp#An1901.2)



JWK


The unavoidable truth is, our social democrat political leaders’ plan for “free” college tuition will be paid for by confiscating the paychecks of millions of college graduates who worked for and paid their own way through college and are now trying to finance their own economic needs.

[Ender]

The statistical documentation does not confirm your opinion.


The Smoot-Hawley Act did not give us the depression of 1929. The Act became law in the middle of 1930, well after the depression was in progress. When one studies the statistics, Smoot-Hawley had a very small impact on the economy. The cause of the crash was wild speculation on Wall Street and an abundance of cheap paper money. Stop making crap up.

[/size]

I suggest you study Harding, who saved the US from a what would have been a great depression by doing the exact opposite of Hoover.

And stop with the insults & try to have decent dialog. You can do it-

[nikcers]

I just have to read these posts for motivation to donate to RANDPAC. All of these people begging for new taxes, we need more lovers of liberty fighting these lovers of taxation.

[johnwk]

Should we tariff or outlaw products produced in socialistic or communistic countries because otherwise we are subsidizing communism? What about monarchies? Theocracies? Countries where they drive on the wrong side of the road?

To answer your question, there are various reasons why a tariff could be justified. One reason would be that the product imported was produced in a situation in which the laborer(s) are not free to negotiate the value of their own labor. Keep in mind, "free trade" begins with a working person be able to negotiate the value of their own labor.


JWK




The unavoidable truth is, our social democrat political leaders’ plan for “free” college tuition will be paid for by confiscating the paychecks of millions of college graduates who worked for and paid their own way through college and are now trying to finance their own economic needs.

[Superfluous Man]

To answer your question, there are various reasons why a tariff could be justified. One reason would be that the product imported was produced in a situation in which the laborer(s) are not free to negotiate the value of their own labor. Keep in mind, "free trade" begins with a working person be able to negotiate the value of their own labor.


I can see how laborers not being free to negotiate the value of their labor is a bad thing. I fail to see how it has anything at all to do with forcing us to give more money to the regime in Washington, DC, which has absolutely nothing at all to do with the arrangement those laborers have with their employers, nor with our purchasing of the goods they make.

[johnwk]

I suggest you study Harding, who saved the US from a what would have been a great depression by doing the exact opposite of Hoover.

And stop with the insults & try to have decent dialog. You can do it-

Stop changing the goal posts!

In regard to a dialog, I was absolutely correct when I wrote: "The Smoot-Hawley Act did not give us the depression of 1929. The Act became law in the middle of 1930, well after the depression was in progress. When one studies the statistics, Smoot-Hawley had a very small impact on the economy. The cause of the crash was wild speculation on Wall Street and an abundance of cheap paper money. "


Those who constantly point to Smoot-Hawley as evidence that taxing at our water's edge is destructive to the general welfare of the United States are either ignorant of the statistical facts, or perhaps are opposed to using tariffs in any situation, including those which may benefit the general welfare of the United States.

The irrefutable fact is, the use of taxes at our water's edge is a useful tool to advance America's best interests, an example of which I have already documented when such a tax was used to encourage America's ship building industry.


JWK



“…a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be oppressive to our constituents.”___ Madison, during the creation of our Nation’s first revenue raising Act (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=001/llac001.db&recNum=55)

[johnwk]

I can see how laborers not being free to negotiate the value of their labor is a bad thing. I fail to see how it has anything at all to do with forcing us to give more money to the regime in Washington, DC, which has absolutely nothing at all to do with the arrangement those laborers have with their employers, nor with our purchasing of the goods they make.

Go start your own country where no taxes are necessary.

:rolleyes:

JWK

[Superfluous Man]

Go start your own country where no taxes are necessary.


I already have. But people like you insist on sending thugs from your government to rob me.

[Superfluous Man]

Stop changing the goal posts!

In regard to a dialog, I was absolutely correct when I wrote: "The Smoot-Hawley Act did not give us the depression of 1929. The Act became law in the middle of 1930, well after the depression was in progress. When one studies the statistics, Smoot-Hawley had a very small impact on the economy. The cause of the crash was wild speculation on Wall Street and an abundance of cheap paper money. "


Those who constantly point to Smoot-Hawley as evidence that taxing at our water's edge is destructive to the general welfare of the United States are either ignorant of the statistical facts, or perhaps are opposed to using tariffs in any situation, including those which may benefit the general welfare of the United States.

The irrefutable fact is, the use of taxes at our water's edge is a useful tool to advance America's best interests, an example of which I have already documented when such a tax was used to encourage America's ship building industry.


JWK



You're the one moving the goal posts. Ender didn't say that Smoot Hawley gave us the Great Depression. His said (in a post which you have already quoted in about 6 other posts after that) that it "confirmed" the Great Depression, obviously meaning that the Great Depression was already underway, and Smoot Hawley impeded the recovery that would have otherwise taken place under a more free market.

[Ender]

You're the one moving the goal posts. Ender didn't say that Smoot Hawley gave us the Great Depression. His said (in a post which you have already quoted in about 6 other posts after that) said it "confirmed" the Great Depression, obviously meaning that the Great Depression was already underway, and Smoot Hawley impeded the recovery that would have otherwise taken place under a more free market.

Thank You!

And it doesn't matter what I say- he'll keep changing them as he continues to scream on the forum. ;)

[johnwk]

You're the one moving the goal posts. Ender didn't say that Smoot Hawley gave us the Great Depression. His said (in a post which you have already quoted in about 6 other posts after that) that it "confirmed" the Great Depression, obviously meaning that the Great Depression was already underway, and Smoot Hawley impeded the recovery that would have otherwise taken place under a more free market.

I guess you missed the following post by ender:



The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression.

Does that help you understand a little better?


:rolleyes:


JWK

[Swordsmyth]

I guess you missed the following post by ender:





:rolleyes:


JWK

The leftist tag team doesn't care about facts.

[johnwk]

Thank You!

And it doesn't matter what I say- he'll keep changing them as he continues to scream on the forum. ;)

I addressed your absurd assertion that the Smoot-Hawley "Tariff Act turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression." I wrote:


I was absolutely correct when I wrote: "The Smoot-Hawley Act did not give us the depression of 1929. The Act became law in the middle of 1930, well after the depression was in progress. When one studies the statistics, Smoot-Hawley had a very small impact on the economy. The cause of the crash was wild speculation on Wall Street and an abundance of cheap paper money. "


Those who constantly point to Smoot-Hawley as evidence that taxing at our water's edge is destructive to the general welfare of the United States are either ignorant of the statistical facts, or perhaps are opposed to using tariffs in any situation, including those which may benefit the general welfare of the United States.

The irrefutable fact is, the use of taxes at our water's edge is a useful tool to advance America's best interests, an example of which I have already documented when such a tax was used to encourage America's ship building industry.


JWK




American citizens are sick and tired of being made into tax-slaves to finance the economic needs of millions of poverty stricken, poorly educated, low and unskilled aliens who have invaded America borders.

[johnwk]

The leftist tag team doesn't care about facts.

I gathered that when Ender, instead of addressing my post, he switched the goal posts and subject by bringing up Harding.


The two in question appear to be anarchists.


JWK




There was a time not too long ago in New York when the able-bodied were ashamed to accept home relief, a program created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1931 when he was Governor. Now, New York City and many other major cities are infested with countless government cheese factions, including recent abled bodied immigrants, who not only demand welfare, but use it to buy beer, wine, drugs, sex, and Lotto tickets.

[Ender]

I gathered that when Ender, instead of addressing my post, he switched the goal posts and subject by bringing up Harding.


The two in question appear to be anarchists.


JWK




There was a time not too long ago in New York when the able-bodied were ashamed to accept home relief, a program created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1931 when he was Governor. Now, New York City and many other major cities are infested with countless government cheese factions, including recent abled bodied immigrants, who not only demand welfare, but use it to buy beer, wine, drugs, sex, and Lotto tickets.



Showing how Harding saved the country from a big depression by doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of Hoover and the Smoot Hawley Baloney is NOT changing the goal posts- it is showing you historical facts, that unfortunately most do not know about.

[Superfluous Man]

I guess you missed the following post by ender:





:rolleyes:


JWK

That pretty much says the same thing I said.

[Krugminator2]

I was absolutely correct when I wrote: "The Smoot-Hawley Act did not give us the depression of 1929. The Act became law in the middle of 1930, well after the depression was in progress. When one studies the statistics, Smoot-Hawley had a very small impact on the economy. The cause of the crash was wild speculation on Wall Street and an abundance of cheap paper money. "



Smoot-Hawley exacerbated the Depression but I do agree it wasn't the cause. It was a bad supply side error just like raising income taxes was a error.

However, wild speculation had little to nothing to do with what made the Depression a Great Depression. It is easy to see why that is the case. There was was wild speculation in the mid 80's and the stock market dropped 20%+ in one day. Where was the Depression that followed? The Nasdaq dropped 80% in 2000-02. Where was the Depression? In 2008, you had wild speculation and you had conditions that were probably worse than 1929, why didn't something as bad as the Great Depression follow?

There is a very simple answer. The Fed actively provided liquidity after the three crashes I mentioned. In 1930 the Fed let the money supply collapse which made it so people couldn't service debts which led to a deflationary spiral.

[johnwk]

Showing how Harding saved the country from a big depression by doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of Hoover and the Smoot Hawley Baloney is NOT changing the goal posts- it is showing you historical facts, that unfortunately most do not know about.

Your nonsense has absolutely nothing to do with deterring the impact which Smoot-Hawley had, and which you asserted " . . . turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression."


All you do is make crap up and then switch the subject when you are called upon to substantiate the crap you post.


Carry on. No one with common sense buys into your nonsense.




JWK




American citizens are sick and tired of being made into tax-slaves to finance the economic needs of millions of poverty stricken, poorly educated, low and unskilled aliens who have invaded America borders.

[Superfluous Man]

Carry on. No one with common sense buys into your nonsense.



False.
https://mises.org/library/review-peddling-protectionism-smoot-hawley-and-great-depression-douglas-irwin

Edit: Add Ron Paul to the list of those who buy into Ender's nonsense.
https://mises.org/wire/ron-paul-case-free-trade

In 1930, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, imposing heavy tariffs on imports, with the avowed motive of "protecting" U.S. companies and jobs. Within one year, our 25 major trading partners had retaliated with their own tariffs on American goods. World trade declined sharply, and the depression was made world-wide and longer-lasting.

[acptulsa]

The leftist tag team doesn't care about facts.

As opposed to the collectivist tag team, running around trying to fight reasoned articulation with guilt-by-association and name calling?

What are these "facts" of which you speak--your perception of which "undesirables" you associate certain people with? Because you certainly aren't grappling with any actual facts with this post.

[Ender]

Your nonsense has absolutely nothing to do with deterring the impact which Smoot-Hawley had, and which you asserted " . . . turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression."


All you do is make crap up and then switch the subject when you are called upon to substantiate the crap you post.


Carry on. No one with common sense buys into your nonsense.




JWK




American citizens are sick and tired of being made into tax-slaves to finance the economic needs of millions of poverty stricken, poorly educated, low and unskilled aliens who have invaded America borders.



What the Smoot Hawley Act Can Teach Protectionists Today
Those Who Don't Learn From Smoot-Hawley Are Doomed to Repeat It

•••
BY KIMBERLY AMADEO Updated December 18, 2017
The Smoot-Hawley Act is the Tariff Act of 1930. It increased 900 import tariffs by an average of 40 to 48 percent. Most economists blame it for worsening the Great Depression. That means it also contributed to the start of World War II.

In June 1930, Smoot-Hawley raised already-high U.S. tariffs on foreign agricultural imports. The purpose was to support U.S. farmers who had been ravaged by the Dust Bowl.

Rather than helping, it raised food prices for Americans who were already suffering from the Depression. It also compelled other countries to retaliate with their own tariffs. That forced global trade down by 65 percent.

Smoot-Hawley showed how dangerous trade protectionism is for the global economy. Since then, world leaders advocate free trade agreements that promote increased trade for all participants.

History
America had many characteristics of a traditional economy prior to the Depression. Almost 25 percent of Americans were farmers.

Between 1915 and 1918, food prices skyrocketed as the world recovered from World War I. High demand for food created speculation in farmland. By the 1920s, farmers had taken on debt to fund growth and pay for the land. But as Europe recovered, food prices abruptly returned to normal. Debt-laden farmers faced bankruptcy.

Congress wanted to protect American farmers from the now cheap agricultural imports.

It had proposed other bills to support prices and subsidize food exports, but Calvin Coolidge had vetoed them all. So Congress shifted its strategy. It sought to raise farm tariffs to the same level as tariffs on manufactured goods. Raising tariffs had worked with the Fordney-McCumber Tariff in 1922.

The 1930 Tariff Act is named after its sponsors. Congressman Willis Hawley from Oregon was the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Senator Reed Smoot wanted to protect the sugar beet business in his home state of Utah.

As the bill wound its way through Congress, every legislator wanted to add protections for their states' industries. By 1929, the bill proposed tariffs on 20,000 imported goods.

Economists, business leaders and newspaper editors completely opposed the bill. They knew it would become a barrier to international trade. Other countries would retaliate. The tariffs would also raise import prices.

Congress debated the bill as the stock market crashed in October 1929. During his presidential campaign, Herbert Hoover argued for more tariff equality. As president, he felt compelled to make good on his promise.

How It Contributed to the Depression
The timing of the bill's passage through Congress affected the stock market.

May 28, 1929. Smoot-Hawley passes the House. Stock prices drop to 191 points.
June 19. Senate Republicans revise bill. Market rallies, hitting its peak of 216 on September 3.
October 21. Senate adds tariffs to non-farm imports. Black Thursday stock market crash.
October 31. Presidential candidate Hoover supports bill. Foreigners start withdrawing capital.
March 24, 1930. Senate passes the bill. Stocks fall.
June 17, 1930. Hoover signs the bill into law. Stocks drop to 140 in July.

Tariffs forced import prices up 45 percent. Millions of Americans had just lost everything in the stock market crash. Overnight, imports became unaffordable luxuries for all but the wealthy. It made it harder for those who lost their jobs to afford anything but domestic goods.

Canada, Europe and other nations swiftly retaliated by raising tariffs on U.S. exports. As a result, exports fell from $7 billion in 1929 to $2.5 billion in 1932. Farm exports fell to a third of their 1929 level by 1933.

Global trade plummeted 65 percent. That made it difficult for American manufacturers to remain in business.

For example, tariffs on cheap imported wool rags rose by 140 percent. Five hundred U.S. plants employed 60,000 workers to use the rags to make cheap clothing. U.S. auto manufacturers suffered from tariffs on 800 products they used. At the time, exports comprised 5 percent of gross domestic product.

Smoot-Hawley's Lessons for Today
President Donald Trump advocates a return to trade protectionism to increase U.S. jobs. He immediately withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the biggest trade agreement since NAFTA. He threatened to renegotiate NAFTA if Mexico refused to pay for a $20 billion border wall. He also warned Mexico and China he would raise tariffs by 30 percent to lower the U.S. trade deficit with those countries.

Protectionism would have an even more devastating effect in 2017 than it did in 1929. That's because exports now comprise 13 percent of U.S. GDP. Most of that is oil, commercial aircraft and automobiles. These industries suffer a great deal from a trade war. (Sources: "Smoot and Hawley, the Ghosts of Tariffs Past, Haunt the White House," The Guardian, January 29, 2017. "The Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the Great Depression," CATO Institute, May 7, 2016.)

https://www.thebalance.com/smoot-hawley-tariff-lessons-today-4136667

[CCTelander]

As opposed to the collectivist tag team, running around trying to fight reasoned articulation with guilt-by-association and name calling?

What are these "facts" of which you speak--your perception of which "undesirables" you associate certain people with? Because you certainly aren't grappling with any actual facts with this post.


Isn't it strange how it's always the ones who most loudly declaim others as "leftists," "communist collaborators" or "virtue signaling shills for globalist tyrants" who passionately support the most collectivist, socialistic policies? Just a simple observation.

[Ender]

Smoot-Hawley contributed to the early loss of confidence on Wall Street and signaled U.S. isolationism. By raising the average tariff by some 20 percent, it also prompted retaliation from foreign governments, and many overseas banks began to fail. (Because the legislation set both specific and ad valorem tariff rates [i.e., rates based on the value of the product], determining the precise percentage increase in tariff levels is difficult and a subject of debate among economists.) Within two years some two dozen countries adopted similar “beggar-thy-neighbour” duties, making worse an already beleaguered world economy and reducing global trade. U.S. imports from and exports to Europe fell by some two-thirds between 1929 and 1932, while overall global trade declined by similar levels in the four years that the legislation was in effect.

In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, reducing tariff levels and promoting trade liberalization and cooperation with foreign governments. Some observers have argued that by deepening the Great Depression the tariff may have contributed to the rise of political extremism, enabling leaders such as Adolf Hitler to improve their political strength and gain power.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

[Ender]

Isn't it strange how it's always the ones who most loudly declaim others as "leftists," "communist collaborators" or "virtue signaling shills for globalist tyrants" who passionately support the most collectivist, socialistic policies? Just a simple observation.

TRUTH.

[Ender]

MAY 7, 2016 3:27PM
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the Great Depression
By ALAN REYNOLDS SHARE
[Reprinted with permission from Alan Reynolds, “What Do We Know about the Great Crash?” National Review, November 9, 1979]

Many scholars have long agreed that the Smoot-Hawley tariff had disastrous economic effects, but most of them have felt that it could not have caused the stock market collapse of October 1929, since the tariff was not signed into law until the following June. Today we know that market participants do not wait for a major law to pass, but instead try to anticipate whether or not it will pass and what its effects will be.

Consider the following sequence of events:

The Smoot-Hawley tariff passes the House on May 28, 1929. Stock prices in New York (1926=100) drop from 196 in March to 191 in June. On June 19, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee meet to rewrite the bill. Hoping for improvement, the market rallies, but industrial production ( 1967 = 100) peaks in July, and dips very slightly through September. Stocks rise to 216 by September, hit*ting their peak on the third of the month. The full Senate Finance Committee goes to work on the tariff the following day, moving it to the Senate floor later in the month.

On October 21, the Senate rejects, 64 to 10, a move to limit tariff increases to agriculture. “A weakening of the Democratic-Progressive Coalition was evidenced on October 23,” notes the Commercial and Financial Chronicle. In this first test vote, 16 members of the anti-tariff coalition switch sides and vote to double the tariff on calcium carbide from Canada. Stocks collapse in the last hour of trading; the following morning is christened Black Thursday. On October 28, a delegation of senators appeals to President Hoover to help push a tariff bill through quickly (which he does on the 31st). The Chronicle headlines news about broker loans on the same day: “Recall of Foreign Money Grows Heavier-All Europe Withdrawing Capital.” The following day is stalemate. Stocks begin to rally after November 14, rising steadily from 145 in November to 171 in April. Industrial production stops falling and hovers around the December level through March.

On March 24, 1930, the Senate passes the Smoot-Hawley tariff, 222 to 153. Debate now centers on whether or not President Hoover will veto. Still, stocks drop 11 points, to 160, in May. On June 17, 1930, despite the vigorous protests of a thousand economists, Hoover signs the bill into law, noting that it fulfills a campaign promise he had made, and stocks drop to 140 in July.

The Commercial and Financial Chronicle dated June 21, 1930 led off with the major events of the week –”the signing by the President of the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill” and “a renewed violent collapse of the stock market.” Without ever quite linking the two events, the Chronicle did observe that “if the foreigner cannot sell his goods to us he cannot obtain the wherewithal to buy our goods.” Other sections noted that international stocks were particularly hard hit, that 35 nations had vigorously protested the tariff and threatened retaliation, and that Canada and other nations had already hiked their own tariffs “in view of the likelihood of such legislation in the United States.”

It may be hard to realize how international trade could have so much impact on the domestic economy. For years, in explaining income movements in the Thirties, attention has instead been focused on federal spending and deficits. Yet on the face of it, trade was far more important: exports fell from $7 billion in 1929 to $2.5 billion in 1932; federal spending was only $2.6 billion in 1929 and $3.2 billion in 1932. In 1929, exports accounted for nearly seven percent of our national production, and a much larger share of the production of goods (as opposed to services). Trade also accounted for 15 to 17 percent of farm income in 1926-29, and farm exports were slashed to a third of their 1929 level by 1933.

Even these numbers, however, understate the significance of trade. Critical portions of the U.S. production process can be crippled by a high tax on imported materials. Other key industries are heavily dependent on exports. Disruptions in trade patterns then ripple throughout the economy. A tariff on linseed oil hurt the U.S. paint industry, a tariff on tungsten hurt steel, a tariff on casein hurt paper, a tariff on mica hurt electrical equipment, and so on. Over eight hundred things used in making automobiles were taxed by Smoot-Hawley. There were five hundred U.S. plants employing sixty thousand people to make cheap clothing out of imported wool rags; the tariff on wool rags rose by 140 per cent.

Foreign countries were flattened by higher U.S. tariffs on things like olive oil (Italy), sugar and cigars (Cuba), silk (Japan), wheat and butter (Canada). The impoverishment of foreign producers reduced their purchases of, say, U.S. cotton, thus bankrupting both farmers and the farmers’ banks.

It should be obvious that an effective limit on imports also reduces exports. Without the dollars obtained by selling here, foreign countries could not afford to buy our goods (or to repay their debts). From 1929 to 1932, U.S. imports from Germany fell by $181 million; U.S. exports to Germany fell by $277 million. Americans also had little use for foreign currency, since foreign goods were subject to prohibitive tariffs, so the dollar was artificially costly in terms of other currencies. That too depressed our exports, which turned out to be particularly devastating to farmers-the group that was supposed to benefit from the tariffs.

There had already been some damage done (particularly to farm exports) by the tariff legislation of 1921 and 1922. As Princeton historian Arthur Link points out, however, “its only important changes were increased protection for aluminum, chemical products, and agricultural commodities.” Smoot-Hawley broadened the list to include 3,218 items (including sauerkraut), and 887 tariffs were sharply in*creased, on everything from Brazil nuts to strychnine. Clocks had faced a tariff of 45 percent; Smoot-Hawley raised that to 55 percent, plus up to $4.50 apiece. Tariffs on corn, butter, and unimproved wools were roughly doubled. A shrinking list of tariff-free goods no longer included “junk,” though leeches and skeletons were still exempt.

A crucial consideration is that many tariffs were a specific amount of money per unit rather than a percentage of the price. As prices of many traded goods fell by half (or more) from 1929 to 1933, the effective rate of tariff doubled. If imported felt hats sold for $5, including a tariff of $2.50, a fall in price to $2.50 would confiscate the entire revenue from selling in the U.S. market. Without the dollars from selling in the U.S. market, the foreign hat manufacturer couldn’t buy anything here.

A number of seemingly separate explanations of the Great Crash fit together quite well once the importance of anticipated tariffs is acknowledged. Charles Kindleberger, in Manias, Panics, and Crashes, describes some structural collapse in the financial system: “Lending on import, for example, seems to have come to a complete stop.” But refusal to finance imports makes perfect sense if lenders were correctly anticipating steep tariffs ahead. There were early cancellations of import orders in 1929 that likewise reflected rational expectations, and import prices were among the first to fall.

A lot of stock was being bought on margin-that is, the buyer put up 25 to 50 per cent of the price and his broker went to the bank to borrow enough to cover the rest temporarily. The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board had warned the banks to curb these broker or “call” loans as early as February 1929, and the Fed nearly doubled the discount rate from 1927 to August 1929, partly in the hope of curbing stock market “speculation.” Most of the broker loans in 1928-29 were not from the banks themselves, how- ever, but were instead re-lent to brokers on behalf of domestic business and foreign banks, businesses, and individuals.

The massive withdrawal of foreign lenders from the broker-loan market in early October probably reflected the correctly anticipated decline in the value of the collateral for those loans (stocks), and the fear among foreign capitalists that they would have to liquidate such assets to stay solvent in a world of high tariffs. The process contributed to the crash as both cause and effect. There was a scramble for liquidity by both the lenders and the owners of stocks. As stock prices fell, brokers required that their customers put up more money to meet the margin requirement. If stockholders couldn’t come up with the cash, brokers could sell the securities to raise the money. Either way, owners and brokers were pressed to unload stocks, thus perhaps accelerating (but not causing) the stock market decline.

The market suffered continual policy assaults after 1930. In early April of 1932, the Commercial and Financial Chronicle reports “the market fell into a complete collapse . . . owing to the approval by the House of Representatives of an increased tax on stock sales.” The Dow bottomed on July 8, when (as the Chronicle of the following day reported) there had been some good news –the Tariff Commission had trimmed 18 tariffs, and a House subcommittee was looking into ways to cut taxes by eliminating duplication with states. On Tuesday, September 19, candidate Roosevelt called the tariff “the road to ruin” and pledged to negotiate reductions in tariffs as soon as he took office. The following Saturday, the Chronicle was astounded that the “market again sharply reversed its course, and on Wednesday prices suddenly surged upward in a most sensational fashion.”

https://www.cato.org/blog/smoot-hawley-tariff-great-depression

[Ender]

The Senate Passes the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
June 13, 1930

A memorable scene from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has a high school teacher vainly struggling to get some response from his dazed students. He says: “In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone?... Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.” This amusing scene managed to omit the U.S. Senate, but it was on June 13, 1930, that the Senate passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history.

How did this happen? After Herbert Hoover became president in 1929, he called Congress into special session to deal with a troubled farm economy that had fallen into depression during the otherwise prosperous 1920s. President Hoover proposed a “limited revision” of the tariff on agricultural imports to raise rates and boost sagging farm prices. He then made the tactical error of trying to distance himself from the tariff debates. Republican protectionists, who controlled the House Ways and Means Committee chaired by Representative Willis Hawley, put the farm issue aside and took the opportunity to raise industrial tariffs to new highs. Hoover’s failure to object encouraged other economic interests to lobby the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Utah senator Reed Smoot, for further tariff hikes. In protest, low-tariff Democrats and progressive Republicans slowed the tariff debate over a tedious 15-month process of congressional bargaining.

A thousand economists signed a petition, drafted by a Chicago economist, and future U.S. senator, Paul Douglas, that implored the president to veto the tariff. “Poor Hoover wanted to take our advice,” Paul Douglas mused, but he could not bring himself to break with his own party’s congressional leadership. Ignoring the experts, Hoover signed the tariff on June 17, 1930.

As the economists predicted, the high tariff proved to be a disaster. Even before its enactment, U.S. trading partners began retaliating by raising their tariff rates, which froze international trade. The tariff fight solidified Hoover’s ties with Republican regulars, but it shredded his standing among his party’s progressives. Most of the progressive Republican senators who had campaigned for Hoover in 1928 wound up endorsing Franklin D. Roosevelt for president in the next election. Nor did the tariff sit well with the voters. In 1932 they turned the majority in both houses over to the Democrats, by large margins. The voters also made clear their disdain for the Smoot-Hawley tariff by booting both Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley out of office that year.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Passes_Smoot_Hawley_Tariff.htm

[Ender]

The return of Republicans to national power in 1920 led to a resumption of protectionist legislation. By now a power in the Senate, Smoot was a close economic adviser to Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. In 1923 the Fordney-McCumber Tariff raised rates again, including those on Cuban sugar, a direct competitor with Utah's beet sugar industry. With Smoot's ascension to the chairmanship of the Finance Committee even higher rates were assured. In 1930 President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff which boosted average duties on imports to 53 percent, the highest in American history. While Smoot saw this legislation as the culmination of his protectionist career, most economists then and since have assailed the tariff's disastrous effect on world trade at a time when the domestic economy of the U.S. was already suffering. The higher rates, about one-third greater than previous duties, made it more difficult for foreign nations to purchase American goods and pay off their war debts. In retaliation, some twenty-five nations raised their duties, making American goods more expensive. By the time the Democrats took power in 1932 and lowered the tariffs under the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934 the world economy was in a tailspin.

http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/reedsmootandthesmoot-hawleytariff1930.html

[Ender]

“Economists around the country argued to the Republican Congress that this would only hurt the world economy, and the United States economy,” Barfield says. (Before the political parties realigned in the mid-20th century, the Democrats were the “free trade” party.)

And they were right. Although it did not cause the onset of the Great Depression, it did help extend it. Other countries responded to the United States’ tariffs by putting up their restrictions on international trade, which just made it harder for the United States to pull itself out of its depression.

In effect, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act “prolonged [the depression] and possibly deepened it around the world, not just in the United States but for other countries,” he says.

https://www.history.com/news/trade-war-great-depression-trump-smoot-hawley

[CCTelander]

The return of Republicans to national power in 1920 led to a resumption of protectionist legislation. By now a power in the Senate, Smoot was a close economic adviser to Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. In 1923 the Fordney-McCumber Tariff raised rates again, including those on Cuban sugar, a direct competitor with Utah's beet sugar industry. With Smoot's ascension to the chairmanship of the Finance Committee even higher rates were assured. In 1930 President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff which boosted average duties on imports to 53 percent, the highest in American history. While Smoot saw this legislation as the culmination of his protectionist career, most economists then and since have assailed the tariff's disastrous effect on world trade at a time when the domestic economy of the U.S. was already suffering. The higher rates, about one-third greater than previous duties, made it more difficult for foreign nations to purchase American goods and pay off their war debts. In retaliation, some twenty-five nations raised their duties, making American goods more expensive. By the time the Democrats took power in 1932 and lowered the tariffs under the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934 the world economy was in a tailspin.

http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/reedsmootandthesmoot-hawleytariff1930.html


I'd +rep you for your multiple excellent posts this morning if I could. Sadly, your opponents will almost certainly just ignore the facts and continue propagating their nationalistic mythology.

[Ender]

Ron Paul: The Case for Free Trade


05/22/2015Mises Institute

Although we think of ourselves as a free-trading nation, it takes more than 700 pages just to list all the tariffs on imported goods, and another 400 to inventory all the non-tariff restraints, such as quotas and "orderly marketing agreements."

A tariff is a tax levied on a foreign good, to help a special interest at the expense of American consumers.

A trade restraint or marketing agreement—on the number of inexpensive Taiwanese sneakers that Americans can buy, for example—achieves the same goal, at the same cost, in a less forthright manner.

And all the trends are towards more subsidies for U.S. exporters, and more prohibitions and taxes on imports.

Trade is to be subsidized or restrained, not left to the voluntary actions of consumers and producers.

In 1930, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, imposing heavy tariffs on imports, with the avowed motive of "protecting" U.S. companies and jobs. Within one year, our 25 major trading partners had retaliated with their own tariffs on American goods. World trade declined sharply, and the depression was made world-wide and longer-lasting.

Today the policy of protectionism is again gaining favor in Congress, and in other countries. But it must be fought with all our strength.

Not only does protectionism make everyone poorer—except certain special interests—but it also increases international tensions, and can lead to war.

"If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it," wrote Adam Smith in 1776, "better buy it of them with some part of the pro duce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country will not therefore be diminished... but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed to the greater advantage."

An important economic principle is called the division of labor. It states that economic efficiency, and therefore growth, is enhanced by everyone doing what he does best.

If I had to grow my own food, make my own clothes, build my own house, and teach my own children, our family's living standard would plummet to a subsistence, or below-subsistence, level.

[Ender]

I'd +rep you for your multiple excellent posts this morning if I could. Sadly, your opponents will almost certainly just ignore the facts and continue propagating their nationalistic mythology.

No prob about the rep- just seeing if there are some who actually can read and then WAKE UP. ;)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTL4qIIxg8A

[johnwk]

[B]What the Smoot Hawley Act Can Teach . . . .

It apparently has not taught you anything, or, you are using it to post false assertions in order to disrupt an intelligent discussion regarding the use of taxes at our water's edge to advance the general welfare of the United States.


You asserted Smoot-Hawley " . . . turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression."


JWK





American citizens are sick and tired of being made into tax-slaves to finance the economic needs of millions of poverty stricken, poorly educated, low and unskilled aliens who have invaded America borders.

[Ender]

It apparently has not taught you anything, or, you are using it to post false assertions in order to disrupt an intelligent discussion regarding the use of taxes at our water's edge to advance the general welfare of the United States.


You asserted Smoot-Hawley " . . . turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression."


JWK





American citizens are sick and tired of being made into tax-slaves to finance the economic needs of millions of poverty stricken, poorly educated, low and unskilled aliens who have invaded America borders.



Reading is your friend.

Ron Paul:


In 1930, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, imposing heavy tariffs on imports, with the avowed motive of "protecting" U.S. companies and jobs. Within one year, our 25 major trading partners had retaliated with their own tariffs on American goods. World trade declined sharply, and the depression was made world-wide and longer-lasting.

[Superfluous Man]

It apparently has not taught you anything, or, you are using it to post false assertions in order to disrupt an intelligent discussion regarding the use of taxes at our water's edge to advance the general welfare of the United States.


You asserted Smoot-Hawley " . . . turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression."


What exactly is your objection to what he said? Is it that by 1930 it was already a depression and not just a minor recession?

[johnwk]

I'd +rep you for your multiple excellent posts this morning if I could. Sadly, your opponents will almost certainly just ignore the facts and continue propagating their nationalistic mythology.


Unsubstantiated opinions and assertions are worth rep points? The fact is, economists still, to this date, babble on and on as to what caused the great depression. Additionally, an irrefutable fact is, the Smoot-Hawley Act had a very small, statistically confirmed, impact on the depression.


Another irrefutable fact is, taxes used at our water's edge are a very important tool which can be used to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States.


JWK




The unavoidable truth is, our social democrat political leaders’ plan for “free” college tuition will be paid for by confiscating the paychecks of millions of college graduates who worked for and paid their own way through college and are now trying to finance their own economic needs.

[Superfluous Man]

Additionally, an irrefutable fact is, the Smoot-Hawley Act had a very small, statistically confirmed, impact on the depression.


Another irrefutable fact is, taxes used at our water's edge are a very important tool which can be used to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States.

A lot of people, including the man this website is named after, and those who agree with this website's mission, refute both of the facts you consider irrefutable.

[CCTelander]

A lot of people, including the man this website is named after, and those who agree with this website's mission, refute both of the facts you consider irrefutable.


Since they're capable of being refuted, and many very credible experts do so, calling them "facts" is giving them some. A LOT, actually.

[johnwk]

Reading is your friend.

Ron Paul:

Your adolescent extremely large type font does not change the fact that the S/H Act had a very small impact on the depression.


And, what does your assertion have to do with the fact that taxes at our water's edge are a very important tool which can be used to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States? Is that question too complicated for you to address in an intelligent manner? Are you more interested in obfuscations, deflections and avoiding that subject and prefer to continue with you intended distractions?


JWK




80% of green energy money taxed away from the wages of hard working American Citizens WENT TO (http://www.mrctv.org/videos/80-obama-green-jobs-money-goes-obama-donors-green-energy-7-times-more-expensive-oil-and-coal-financial-numbers-are-stagge) our Washington sewer rat donors!

[Superfluous Man]

Your adolescent extremely large type font does not change the fact that the S/H Act had a very small impact on the depression.


And, what does your assertion have to do with the fact that taxes at our water's edge are a very important tool which can be used to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States?


You keep using the word "fact." I don't think you know what it means.

[johnwk]

A lot of people, including the man this website is named after, and those who agree with this website's mission, refute both of the facts you consider irrefutable.

Now that's odd because when I met with Ron Paul in 1984, he agreed with Congress' use of power to encourage America's ship building industry under our nation's first revenue raising act. At least, that was the impression he gave me and my associate during our meeting.


JWK




“Honest money and honest taxation, the Key to America’s future Prosperity“ ___ from “Prosperity Restored by the State Rate Tax Plan”, no longer in print.

[Superfluous Man]

Now that's odd because when I met with Ron Paul in 1984, he agreed with Congress' use of power to encourage America's ship building industry under our nation's first revenue raising act. At least, that was the impression he gave me and my associate during our meeting.


Unless he changed his position since then, your impression was mistaken. It's interesting that you can't cite any public statements he's made, nor even anything he specifically actually said to you, and have to rely on your impression about some warm fuzzy feelings you had 33 years ago.

Over the lifespan of this website, Ron Paul's consistent position on tariffs has been the diametric opposite of yours.

[Ender]

Your adolescent extremely large type font does not change the fact that the S/H Act had a very small impact on the depression.


And, what does your assertion have to do with the fact that taxes at our water's edge are a very important tool which can be used to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States? Is that question too complicated for you to address in an intelligent manner? Are you more interested in obfuscations, deflections and avoiding that subject and prefer to continue with you intended distractions?


JWK




80% of green energy money taxed away from the wages of hard working American Citizens WENT TO (http://www.mrctv.org/videos/80-obama-green-jobs-money-goes-obama-donors-green-energy-7-times-more-expensive-oil-and-coal-financial-numbers-are-stagge) our Washington sewer rat donors!



Just copying your screaming, dude.

I gave you facts from many sources, that state what the Smoot/Hawley Act did and how it increased and extended the drepression, but you don't care to have a conversation about it- you only want to insult.

[acptulsa]

Now that's odd because when I met with Ron Paul in 1984, he agreed with Congress' use of power to encourage America's ship building industry under our nation's first revenue raising act. At least, that was the impression he gave me and my associate during our meeting.


JWK




“Honest money and honest taxation, the Key to America’s future Prosperity“ ___ from “Prosperity Restored by the State Rate Tax Plan”, no longer in print.



That hardly qualified as a tariff at all. It wasn't imposed on any particular imported good. It was more of a port tax imposed on foreign-built ships using American docks.

It was 1789, and the U.S. was still in the process of building its shipwright industry from nothing. That's hardly analogous to the present day.

[johnwk]

That hardly qualified as a tariff at all. It wasn't imposed on any particular imported good. It was more of a port tax imposed on foreign-built ships using American docks.

It was 1789, and the U.S. was still in the process of building its shipwright industry from nothing. That's hardly analogous to the present day.

So, are you agreeing taxing at our water's edge can be used to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States?


JWK

[johnwk]

Just copying your screaming, dude.

I gave you facts from many sources, that state what the Smoot/Hawley Act did and how it increased and extended the drepression, but you don't care to have a conversation about it- you only want to insult.

You falsely asserted Smoot-Hawley " . . . turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression."


:rolleyes:

JWK

[Superfluous Man]

You falsely asserted Smoot-Hawley " . . . turned the minor recession into the full blown Great Depression."


Again, what part of that do you object to?

When Smoot Hawley became law, the US was already in a recession. After that, the economic downturn continued to last and deepened into a depression. Smoot Hawley was one major factor that contributed to that.

It looks to me like the way Ender said it is pretty unobjectionable.

[Krugminator2]

Again, what part of that do you object to?

When Smoot Hawley became law, the US was already in a recession. After that, the economic downturn continued to last and deepened into a depression. Smoot Hawley was one major factor that contributed to that.

It looks to me like the way Ender said it is pretty unobjectionable.

I don't agree with the statement at all. It was bad policy just like Hoover raising taxes dramatically was bad policy. It was one policy of many bad policies that started with Hoover and then FDR that made America less productive.

Do you honestly believe Smoot Hawley was the major reason for so many businesses going bankrupt and the bank failures? The country had tariffs throughout history. There was never a result like this.

[axiomata]

I don't have a problem with uniform tariffs at waters edge as user fees to fund ports and finance a navy to defend shipping lanes.

[acptulsa]

So, are you agreeing taxing at our water's edge can be used to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States?


JWK

You don't even seem to know whether you're interested in tariffs or beach user fees. Why don't we just tax seashells and clams?

[Superfluous Man]

I don't agree with the statement at all. It was bad policy just like Hoover raising taxes dramatically was bad policy. It was one policy of many bad policies that started with Hoover and then FDR that made America less productive.

Do you honestly believe Smoot Hawley was the major reason for so many businesses going bankrupt and the bank failures? The country had tariffs throughout history. There was never a result like this.

Smoot Hawley significantly increased tariffs. The effects were exacerbated by deflation. And they then caused further harm through the retaliatory increases in tariffs by other countries.

As of 1930, when Smoot Hawley was passed, yes, I think it was probably the major reason (although, notice that I previously only said "one" not "the") for the prolonging of the recession at that point in time. Subsequent to that both Hoover and Roosevelt signed many other interventions into law that did even more damage. But by 1931, it was no longer just a recession, but a depression, and Ender said in the quote that johnwk finds so objectionable.

[johnwk]

You don't even seem to know whether you're interested in tariffs or beach user fees. Why don't we just tax seashells and clams?

:rolleyes:


JWK



There was a time not too long ago in New York when the able-bodied were ashamed to accept home relief, a program created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1931 when he was Governor. Now, New York City and many other major cities are infested with countless government cheese factions from crap hole countries, who not only demand welfare, but use it to buy beer, wine, drugs, sex, and Lotto tickets.

[johnwk]

I don't agree with the statement at all. It was bad policy just like Hoover raising taxes dramatically was bad policy. It was one policy of many bad policies that started with Hoover and then FDR that made America less productive.

Do you honestly believe Smoot Hawley was the major reason for so many businesses going bankrupt and the bank failures? The country had tariffs throughout history. There was never a result like this.

You can't reason with some folks, especially when their mission is to disrupt any productive discussion concerning the use of taxes at our waters' edge to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States.


JWK




The unavoidable truth is, our social democrat political leaders’ plan for “free” college tuition will be paid for by confiscating the paychecks of millions of college graduates who worked for and paid their own way through college and are now trying to finance their own economic needs.

[Krugminator2]

You can't reason with some folks, especially when their mission is to disrupt any productive discussion concerning the use of taxes at our waters' edge to advance the common defense and general welfare of the United States.


To be clear, I don't agree tariffs are good policy at all. I think they are brain-dead. So I wasn't agreeing with what you are saying in the thread outside the narrow point on Smoot-Hawley causing the Depression.

The major cause of the beginning of the Depression was a deliberate policy of letting the money supply collapse. If that doesn't happen, there is no deflationary spiral where people can't service debt which lead to bank failures. The economy immediately started recovering when FDR devalued the dollar when he cut the link to gold.

[fcreature]

So how exactly do the steel and aluminum tariffs advance our "general welfare and common defense"? I'm genuinely curious what you think, johnwk?


while Congress then freely taxes and regulates to death America’s domestic manufactures
I'm not sure that taxing imported goods to level the playing field with our excessively taxed goods here at home is the right approach. Seems it might be better for all parties if we instead reduced our taxes here at home as to match the supposedly less taxed goods from elsewhere.

[johnwk]

To be clear, I don't agree tariffs are good policy at all. I think they are brain-dead. So I wasn't agreeing with what you are saying in the thread outside the narrow point on Smoot-Hawley causing the Depression.

The major cause of the beginning of the Depression was a deliberate policy of letting the money supply collapse. If that doesn't happen, there is no deflationary spiral where people can't service debt which lead to bank failures. The economy immediately started recovering when FDR devalued the dollar when he cut the link to gold.

I didn't suggest you agree or disagree with tariffs. And, I personally would not make a broad brush positive or negative comment concerning tariffs. Each must be judged upon its merits or drawbacks.


In regard to what you posted about the money supply during that time period, contemporary newspapers articles of the time confirm your opinion. I am one who actually researched that time period while at the University of Maryland while engaged in a lengthy project.


JWK