Thought experiment to show why protectionism damages the economy

[CCTelander]

Right, and I don't see any issue with that. If given a fair offer to secede, and you choose to remain, your participation is voluntary and you are subject to whatever rules you have opted yourself into.

Hold on here, I want to make sure I understand this correctly. What the $#@!, exactly, is “a fair offer to secede”? What does that mean? Sounds an awful lot like “love it or leave lt.”

[Madison320]

Right, and I don't see any issue with that. If given a fair offer to secede, and you choose to remain, your participation is voluntary and you are subject to whatever rules you have opted yourself into.

What happens when I leave my property and enter the US? What rules am I subject to? Would I have to get vaccinated?

[TheTexan]

Hold on here, I want to make sure I understand this correctly. What the $#@!, exactly, is “a fair offer to secede”? What does that mean? Sounds an awful lot like “love it or leave lt.”

What's hard to understand about it? Most divorces are messy, but usually they come to a fair enough compromise.

What's not a fair offer to secede, is saying, if you don't like America, you can get out. E.g. the status quo.

[TheTexan]

What happens when I leave my property and enter the US? What rules am I subject to? Would I have to get vaccinated?

These are terms that would need to be negotiated.

[Swordsmyth]

You're missing the point. We don't have to compete with China. We can just take advantage of the cheap stuff they're selling us. We don't need to sell anything back to them.

The idea that we need the government to ban stuff because we might become "reliant" on it is wrong. Using that logic you'd ban the steel coming out of the ground. What about a company that sells a product cheaper and better than anyone else? Do we need to break them up because we'll become "reliant" on them. Are you in favor of antitrust laws? There's always risk in a free society. It should be up to individuals to decide it they want to take the risk, not a government central planner.

Ultimately I'm offended that anyone would use government force to prevent me from trading with someone else. Maybe the economic argument is hard to understand but the moral one is easy.

We control the steel coming out of the ground.
Enemies hostile to liberty control China.
When the whole world is libertarian we can talk.
We can even talk about free trade with any liberty friendly non-enemies, provided it's not just a temporary anomaly in their politics.
But any free trade will lead to dependence and to a slow but sure merger of the two states involved, so extreme caution must be exercised.

Willingly trading with the enemies of liberty and encouraging such trade through free trade is treason.

[Madison320]

These are terms that would need to be negotiated.

And the terms to enter the US would be the same as the current US residents are living under so you'd still be forced to get vaccinated. So your secession allowance has done nothing except given yourself an excuse for government tyranny.

[TheTexan]

And the terms to enter the US would be the same as the current US residents are living under so you'd still be forced to get vaccinated. So your secession allowance has done nothing except given yourself an excuse for government tyranny.

Well, the world isn't perfect. If the property you're choosing to secede with would be an enclave surrounded by the US you don't have a lot of negotiation power.

Your options at that point are:
1) secede on a large enough property that you don't have to enter the US ever
2) secede with enough people to negotiate a better bargaining position
3) move, purchase, or otherwise secure land so you're not surrounded by the US
4) pretend to agree to US terms and simply don't follow them
5) war with the US

Like it or not, the concept of voluntary associations allows for people to organize into vaccinated only communities. I would much rather live in a world where the right to secession is upheld in the highest regard, than live in a world where people are guaranteed a specific subset of rights e.g. vaccination.

I would also note that there is a difference between "entering" the US, and "passing through".

Even as an enclave, you have a right to travel, but it's not without constraints. To pass through the US as an unvaccinated person it may require you pay an expensive amount to cover whatever safety protocols the US would require to get you through their country in a manner that they consider safe. If it's out of your budget, that may mean you don't get to travel unvaccinated.

[osan]

I've heard a lot of people say the problem with free trade is that it only works when both countries are allowing trade. That's wrong. For example even if China sells to us but doesn't allow us to sell to them, it still benefits us (and hurts China).

Suppose in the US, a strange new volcano started spewing perfectly formed free high grade steel. Should the US ban the free steel because it would hurt US steel manufacturers? Or use that steel to make other products cheaper, like cars for example?

If a foreign country sells us cheap stuff we should say thank you. Not ban it.

Protectionist measures do indeed bring harm to economies, most particularly when all else is normal and cordial between trade partners. But when justified, such properly considered measures lead to lesser evils. Comparatively trivial issues of optimal economic health are secondary to the immediate survival of a people in the face of threats from an external enemy.

The issue you address is not quite as simple as you seem to convey. These sorts of political considerations most often carry subtle difficulties and require wise men to undertake such measures in a manner loosely analogous to the amputation of a gangrenous limb for the sake of saving the life to which it is attached.

AF's example of cutting all economic ties with China, our mortal enemy, is valid.

[CaptUSA]

Protectionist measures do indeed bring harm to economies, most particularly when all else is normal and cordial between trade partners. But when justified, such properly considered measures lead to lesser evils. ...

These sorts of political considerations most often carry subtle difficulties and require wise men to undertake such measures in a manner loosely analogous to the amputation of a gangrenous limb for the sake of saving the life to which it is attached.

Who decides if they are justified? And are these deciders not under the influence of the same perverse political incentives that is causing most of our strife right now? And then, even if these pious planners are righteously justified and have properly considered these measures, don't they then have to be implemented by bureaucrats that have their own incentives?? Or is there some magic I'm unaware of that applies only to selective protectionist tariffs?? How often do we find these wise men who can understand these subtle difficulties and implement them effectively in government?

AF's example of cutting all economic ties with China, our mortal enemy, is valid.

If this is true, then there's a Constitutional remedy - it's called a declaration of war. In times of declared war, there's really no case to be made that our economic ties must continue.

[osan]

Who decides if they are justified?

The perfect is the enemy of the good. I wrote normatively and it is a clearly valid perspective. That the positive reality reeks of numbskulls and douchepigs with malevolent or ineptly conceived agendas, screwing billions of people in their backholes through bad decisions of the sort under discussion here, it does not follow that the notion itself is mistaken.

Or is there some magic I'm unaware of that applies only to selective protectionist tariffs?? How often do we find these wise men who can understand these subtle difficulties and implement them effectively in government?

The magic is competence and good faith, which boils down to trustworthiness. That nearly nary a single living soul involving himself in such matters is worthy of the least shred of our trust, it still does not follow that the idea in itself is unworthy. It only means that either we have the wrong people in such positions of special trust, the issue itself is very difficult to navigate correctly or, most likely, both.

And let us not evade the bigger issue and root of the problem under discussion: people, by and large, are $#@!ing douches, ill-content to live and let live. Quite the contrary, they seek petty drama, the consequences of which tends to be misery heaped upon misery. At the end of the day, there is little to recommend us as a species. Our cleverness, coupled with our eminent corruptibility and our apparent lust for corruption, has far outflanked our wishes to live good lives amid our fellow human beings. Otherwise, we would be living far better lives than we currently enjoy.

If this is true, then there's a Constitutional remedy - it's called a declaration of war. In times of declared war, there's really no case to be made that our economic ties must continue.

Not so fast skipper. This is a simplistic solution which, undertaken with foolish ill-consideration in an age of ICBMS with high-yield MIRVs, leaves us all up the river, burning to the waterline. China is by all means a mortal enemy of ours, but they are waging the battles with economics and information. They may be $#@!s, but they are devilishly clever ones who are patient and subtle, unlike the imbecile American office holders who know nothing but either stick one's head in one's rectum, or go to raging hot warfare with next to no thought, save that the choice be moderated by our view on whether we think we can take the subjects of our ire. Consider that we've not taken on a capable adversary since our proxy war with China in 1950. We lost in Viet Nam because we weren't fighting an actual war. Eye-Rack and Afghanistan we picked on because we saw them as stupid sand fleas to be crushed in short order, which was sort of the case in the former, and nowhere nearly so in the latter. Tens of thousands of. Americans murdered and maimed for absolutely no good reason, as the talking heads go on with their endless blagger about keep us safe and preserving "democracy".

Would you say a declaration of war with Russia would ever come to pass? Russians DO NOT THINK LIKE AMERICANS. Trust me on this point. They think nuke war can indeed be won, the only question for them being whether the price paid to do so is worthwhile. So go ahead and declare war as you suggest, but you'd better have a great plan for the ten thousand high-yield warheads that will be coming our way in short order.

Politics... SANE politics, that is, calls for sane responses to real threats. If it's war for real, the go to war. Otherwise, rational and proportionate responses are the rule and when someone is $#@!ing with you economically, smack 'em in the head economically. Don't issue a $#@!ing launch order, for God's sake.

I hope this makes at least some sense to you.

[acptulsa]

The magic is competence and good faith, which boils down to trustworthiness. That nearly nary a single living soul involving himself in such matters is worthy of the least shred of our trust, it still does not follow that the idea in itself is unworthy.

Oh, of course not. The idea can absolutely be relied upon to be and to remain a useless pipe dream.

https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/s...62580580270495

[osan]

Oh, of course not. The idea can absolutely be relied upon to be and to remain a useless pipe dream.

https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/s...62580580270495

A pipe dream, indeed... but you neglect to say why. WE are the reason. Our rank corruption as individuals who want all the joys and exhilarations of liberty but who have no interest in paying the costs and bearing the fatigues of getting and maintaining the state, make it so. We, the glorious people, are by and large full of $#@!.

So please, let us at least be honest in a sufficiently complete manner with each other here on this site, the way friends should be with one another, and speak circumspectly on such matters. I agree with your assertion, but I add the reason why it is so, which reveals that we could change it. We just don't want to... enough. We want the knight in shining armor - Trump is a good contemporary example - to fix it all so we can go back to masturbating and filling our noses with snow and sticking our tongues up our girlfriends' asses as we shop for swag on our cell phones. Whoopdee flippin' doo...

For the millionth time: WE are the root of all human problems. It ain't the climate; it ain't mass-coronal-ejections; it's not an asteroid about to slam into the earth, or little green men from Andromeda, or mountain lions. It's us. Just us, and nothing or nobody else. Until that changes, there's not that much point in going on about liberty, is there?

[Swordsmyth]

Oh, of course not. The idea can absolutely be relied upon to be and to remain a useless pipe dream.

https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/s...62580580270495

The solution is not to just throw open the gates and let foreign enemies who hate liberty loot and pillage our economy, industry, and liberty.
That's what Free Trade does.

[acptulsa]

The solution is not to just throw open the gates and let foreign enemies who hate liberty loot and pillage our economy, industry, and liberty.
That's what Free Trade does.

Perot said it was not free trade which did that, but government that did it. And Perot was there, watching it done, collecting the details, getting the names. You weren't.

Excuse me if, when you contradict him, I assume he's the one telling the truth and you aren't.

[Swordsmyth]

Perot said it was not free trade which did that, but government that did it. And Perot was there, watching it done, collecting the details, getting the names. You weren't.

Excuse me if, when you contradict him, I assume he's the one telling the truth and you aren't.

Government made it worse.
But Free Trade does it too.
And government did it using Free Trade among other methods.

Perot is not advocating Free Trade.

[Swordsmyth]

Perot said it was not free trade which did that, but government that did it. And Perot was there, watching it done, collecting the details, getting the names. You weren't.

Excuse me if, when you contradict him, I assume he's the one telling the truth and you aren't.

“You implement that NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay people a dollar an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls,” Perot said during the second presidential debate in October 1992, “and you’re going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country.”

The ‘giant sucking sound’ of NAFTA: Ross Perot was ridiculed as alarmist in 1992 but his warning turned out to be prescient


https://theconversation.com/the-gian...escient-120258

[Swordsmyth]

I think we can see who is lying about Perot.

[Swordsmyth]

Ross Perot on Free Trade

https://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Ro...Free_Trade.htm


Not perfect, but far more sane than the Unilateral Free Trade dogmatists.

[acptulsa]

I think we can see who is lying about Perot.

Ross Perot on Free Trade

https://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Ro...Free_Trade.htm


Not perfect, but far more sane than the Unilateral Free Trade dogmatists.

All anyone has to do to see who's lying is to read your own link. Go to it and a person can read many statements by Perot in favor of minimal tariffs and free trade. Nothing there supports Trump's dogma.

And none of it supports your contention that NAFTA=free trade. None of it.

Ultimately, NAFTA is not a trade agreement but an investment agreement. NAFTA’s principal goal is to protect the investment of US companies that build factories in Mexico. This is accomplished by reducing the risk of nationalization, by permitting the return of profits to US businesses, and by allowing unlimited access to the American markets for goods produced in Mexico.

Guaranteeing that American companies won't get new Mexican factories nationalized has nothing to do with free trade. Guaranteeing that American companies can export jobs to new factories in other countries without risking tariffs when American companies bring products into America isn't about trade at all. It's simply what Perot said: Economic treason.

The only giant sucking sound around here is you trying to support every half-baked statement Trump makes.

[Swordsmyth]

All anyone has to do to see who's lying is to read your own link. Go to it and a person can read many statements by Perot in favor of minimal tariffs and free trade. Nothing there supports Trump's dogma.

And none of it supports your contention that NAFTA=free trade. None of it.



Guaranteeing that American companies won't get new Mexican factories nationalized has nothing to do with free trade. Guaranteeing that American companies can export jobs to new factories in other countries without risking tariffs when American companies bring products into America isn't about trade at all. It's simply what Perot said: Economic treason.

The only giant sucking sound around here is you trying to support every half-baked statement Trump makes.

You just can't stop lying:

Where tariff barriers exist, the rates should be roughly equivalent. Where the rates are not equivalent, we should push for it.While tariff barriers can be significant impediments to free trade, non-tariff barriers can prove to be equally or more troublesome. For example, some of our Asian trading partners cause endless delays in approving US-made products. In some cases, they virtually ban our products.

Trade deficit is as bad as budget deficit

It is probably no coincidence that the beginning of the period of sustained trade deficits began in 1975-the same year that the budget deficits increased to a then-record high of $53 billion. By 1995, the accumulated trade deficit totaled approximately $1.1 trillion. This number is analogous to our national debt of $4.9 trillion. Like the national debt, the accumulated trade deficit will have to be paid, either by a lower standard of living or increased productivity and sales.

• Balancing the budget will bring us closer to eliminating the trade deficit. [Some other things are]:
• Train our workforce better.
• Build quality into our products.
• Bring more long-term professionalism to our trade negotiations.
• Persuade other nations to remove non-tariff barriers.
• Become more sensitive to other cultures.
• Pay attention to developing nations. Analyze our potential on an industry-by-industry basis.

We need jobs here, and we must manufacture here if we wish to remain a superpower. We must stop shipping manufacturing jobs overseas and once again make the words “Made in the USA” the world’s standard of excellence.

Buried in the fine print are provisions that will give away American jobs and radically reduce the sovereignty of the US.

A Giant Sucking Sound: One million Mexicans enter the work force each year. They need jobs. To get those jobs, President Salinas and his government have deliberately kept wages down to attract foreign investment. Mexico has vastly expanded its vocational training programs to improve worker skill levels. The Mexican government also offers low-cost loans and tax benefits to companies that build factories in Mexico.
Mexico’s national development strategy is reminiscent of strategies used by Japan, Korea, and Taiwan a generation ago. Like the strategies used by those countries, Mexico’s strategy depends on taking jobs from the US.
The New York Times reports that the skills of Mexican workers already match the skills of 70% of the labor force in the US. Once properly trained, Mexican workers’ productivity and work quality equals that of anyone, anywhere in the world.
Mexico keeps its wages low to attract foreign investment. This strategy has worked.

To encourage US companies to operate in Mexico, the US government subsidizes companies in Mexico that ship products to the US by removing import fees. These factories are known as “maquiladoras.”

US multinationals created almost as many new manufacturing jobs in Mexico under the Maquiladora Program between 1986 and 1990 as they created in the US-92,000 jobs versus 97,000 jobs. Most of the goods produced in the maquiladoras are shipped into the US market. Consequently, most of the so-called trade between the US and Mexico is not trade as trade is commonly understood. Rather, it is primarily US companies shipping their own machinery, components, and raw materials across the border into their Mexican factories and then shipping their finished or semi-finished goods back over the border into the US.

Protect the environment: only allow imports that meet US standards

• Any trade deals with Mexico, or any other nation, must be considered in the context of how they fit into the long-term US trade strategy, reflecting these realities:
• The Cold War is over
• The US does not have enough good jobs
• The US is $4 trillion dollars in debt and must not do anything to damage its tax base
• Every other nation plays by a different set of rules.

The questions, therefore, are: how does the US expand trade with other nations in a way that neither punishes the other nations for their successes nor destroys jobs or industries in America? How do individual agreement, such as a new NAFTA, fit into the overall US trade strategy? And most important, how can trade be used to create more and better jobs in the US? As a nation, the danger of failing to think strategically about trade is measured by the fact that the US trade deficit in 1993 will be close to $100 billion. A trade deficit of this magnitude means a loss of 1.9 to 2 million US jobs.

NAFTA allows prison-made Chinese textiles into US via Mexico

The US apparel market is further opened under NAFTA to producers operating out of Mexico. An exception is that a substantial portion of the apparel made in Mexican factories must use fabric manufactured in North America. The intent is to protect US and Canadian textile jobs. However, Chinese and other foreign textile makers have already figured a way around this provision by building their own factories in Mexico. NAFTA establishes rules that deny preferential treatment for goods produced outside of North America. The way for a Japanese or European company to get preferential treatment, of course, is to build a factory in Mexico. US textile makers who want to be competitive will be forced to move jobs to Mexico or go out of business.
Assume the US could put enough customs agents along the border to inspect every item exported from Mexico to the US. Are those customs agents going to be able to tell the difference between a shirt made by prison labor in China and a shirt made in Mexico

As I said, his position is not perfect (Not the same as mine).
But it is FAR closer to mine than to you and the Unilateral Free Trade cultists.

[acptulsa]

You just can't stop lying:

Do you read the stuff you post?

Like, ever?

Perot agreeing with you that free trade is bad?

While tariff barriers can be significant impediments to free trade, non-tariff barriers can prove to be equally or more troublesome.

Is this not exactly what I said he said?

Consequently, most of the so-called trade between the US and Mexico is not trade as trade is commonly understood. Rather, it is primarily US companies shipping their own machinery, components, and raw materials across the border into their Mexican factories and then shipping their finished or semi-finished goods back over the border into the US.

Do you really consider this a tariff?

Protect the environment: only allow imports that meet US standards

Do you really think he was talking about expanding trade with tariffs?

The questions, therefore, are: how does the US expand trade with other nations in a way that neither punishes the other nations for their successes nor destroys jobs or industries in America?

This is what you consider an argument in favor of government control?

An exception is that a substantial portion of the apparel made in Mexican factories must use fabric manufactured in North America. The intent is to protect US and Canadian textile jobs. However, Chinese and other foreign textile makers have already figured a way around this provision by building their own factories in Mexico.

I suppose I should get upset that you tossed yet another personal insult at me by calling me a liar. It's not easy to do, however, when you prove I was telling the truth in the same post. But none of that is distracting me from the fact that government doesn't ever fix anything. It just screws things up in such a way as to favor those who bribe them the most.

And that's clearly as true of "my bespoke silk ties sold in my name are made in China" Trump as of anyone else.

[Swordsmyth]

Do you read the stuff you post?

Like, ever?

Perot agreeing with you that free trade is bad?



Is this not exactly what I said he said?



Do you really consider this a tariff?



Do you really think he was talking about expanding trade with tariffs?



This is what you consider an argument in favor of government control?



I suppose I should get upset that you tossed yet another personal insult at me by calling me a liar. It's not easy to do, however, when you prove I was telling the truth in the same post. But none of that is distracting me from the fact that government doesn't ever fix anything. It just screws things up in such a way as to favor those who bribe them the most.

No amount of lying will save you:

Where tariff barriers exist, the rates should be roughly equivalent.
Where the rates are not equivalent, we should push for it.

How do you "push for it"? by enacting more tariffs or other barriers to negotiate with the people putting barriers on our products.
And he did not say to eliminate tariffs, just to make sure ours were as high as theirs.
The bit about non-tariff barriers being worse is calling for stronger measures to deal with them. (like the same kind of stronger barriers)

Trade deficit is as bad as budget deficit

It is probably no coincidence that the beginning of the period of sustained trade deficits began in 1975-the same year that the budget deficits increased to a then-record high of $53 billion. By 1995, the accumulated trade deficit totaled approximately $1.1 trillion. This number is analogous to our national debt of $4.9 trillion. Like the national debt, the accumulated trade deficit will have to be paid, either by a lower standard of living or increased productivity and sales.

He wants us to do what is needed to get rid of the trade deficit, that's going to include trade barriers considering places like China's use of slave labor and high pollution etc.

We need jobs here, and we must manufacture here if we wish to remain a superpower. We must stop shipping manufacturing jobs overseas

That's protectionism.
We must keep industry here as a priority over other considerations, whatever it takes.

Buried in the fine print are provisions that will give away American jobs and radically reduce the sovereignty of the US.

Protecting our industries protects out sovereignty against globalism.

A Giant Sucking Sound: One million Mexicans enter the work force each year. They need jobs. To get those jobs, President Salinas and his government have deliberately kept wages down to attract foreign investment. Mexico has vastly expanded its vocational training programs to improve worker skill levels. The Mexican government also offers low-cost loans and tax benefits to companies that build factories in Mexico.
Mexico’s national development strategy is reminiscent of strategies used by Japan, Korea, and Taiwan a generation ago. Like the strategies used by those countries, Mexico’s strategy depends on taking jobs from the US.
The New York Times reports that the skills of Mexican workers already match the skills of 70% of the labor force in the US. Once properly trained, Mexican workers’ productivity and work quality equals that of anyone, anywhere in the world.
Mexico keeps its wages low to attract foreign investment. This strategy has worked.

Mexico and others use economic warfare to steal our industries, as stated above we must do whatever it takes to stop them.

the US government subsidizes companies in Mexico that ship products to the US by removing import fees.

Removing import fees is subsidizing the destruction of our industries and must not be done.

Protect the environment: only allow imports that meet US standards

Simply ban imports from places like China that destroy the world environment as a way to steal an advantage to destroy our industries.

• Any trade deals with Mexico, or any other nation, must be considered in the context of how they fit into the long-term US trade strategy, reflecting these realities:
• The Cold War is over
• The US does not have enough good jobs
• The US is $4 trillion dollars in debt and must not do anything to damage its tax base
• Every other nation plays by a different set of rules.

Trade deals should not be made to reduce trade barriers if they will harm our industries and security.


I still don't know how you think you can point at something red and tell people it is blue and expect people to believe you.

Perot was a protectionist, any difference between Perot and Trump, or myself is minuscule by comparison with the Unilateral Free Trade cult you propagandize for.

[acptulsa]

Don't know what words mean, so anyone can sell you any damned fool thing. Just the same way they fool liberals, and anyone else who wants to maintain their childlike faith that government might do something some day to serve those who don't bribe them.

[PAF]

The Tariff of Abominations and the Era of Good Stealings

Mises Wire
Thomas J. DiLorenzo
04/08/2024

.
.
.
Tariff of Abominations 2.0

The 1833 compromise lowered the average tariff rate to the 20 percent range over a ten-year period. As soon as the ten years was up the MMI cabal garnered enough votes through the new hyper-protectionist Whig party to double the average tariff rate yet again to the 40 percent range. They did this with what came to be known as the Black Tariff. Predictably, imports fell precipitously and some items, such as iron rails used for railroad beds, increased in price by some 80 percent. Politically-connected Pennsylvania iron rail manufacturers profited handsomely at the expense of railroads and their customers.

Southern states were once again being plundered since they had far less manufacturing than the Northern states for one thing, and had to pay significantly more for dozens of items. In addition, whenever imports fell, especially from Europe, Europeans had less ability to buy American products, which were primarily agricultural products. The Southern states at the time sold half to three-fourths of all their cotton, tobacco, rice, and other agricultural products overseas. Southerners believed they were being plundered twice over: First from paying higher prices, and second from a large portion of their overseas business drying up thanks to the protectionist Black Tariff. They also complained quite bitterly that most of the tariff revenue seemed to be spent in the North.

In response, what was probably the very first public meeting in the South to seriously discuss secession was held on July 31, 1844 in the village of Bluffton, South Carolina, adjacent to Hilton Head Island. The organizer of the event, which took place under a large oak tree that to this day is known as the “Secession Oak,” was Robert Rhett, a onetime congressman, U.S. senator, and attorney general of South Carolina. Rhett was a planter and the purpose of the meeting, which attracted several hundred of South Carolina’s wealthiest and most prominent citizens, was to oppose the tariff of 1842. The writing must have appeared to be on the Wall to the so-called “Bluffton Boys,” with the Northern state MMI cabal so obviously hellbent on plundering their fellow citizens with tariffs. For starters. That is why the topic of secession was also under the table under the giant oak tree along the May River. The topic of secession eventually was dropped – for another sixteen years anyway – when John C. Calhoun voiced his disapproval.

South Carolinians were not the only ones incensed by the protectionist Tariff of 1842 and the machinations of the greedy, plundering, Northern MMI class and its new Whig party political vehicle. The Whigs lost so many seats in Congress that the 1842 tariff rates were reversed by the Walker Tariff of 1846 (named after the secretary of the treasury, Robert J. Walker) and settled in the 25 percent range. They were subsequently lowered even further so that on the eve of the Civil War the average tariff rate was in the 15 percent range, the lowest point of the nineteenth century.

Like the character “Jason” in the “Friday the 13th” Halloween movie, the MMI cabal kept resurrecting itself from political death. Using the recession of 1857 as an excuse to prop up politically-connected manufacturing industries, the cabal succeeded in getting the protectionist Morrill Tariff passed during the 1859-1860 session of Congress, prior to the Southern secession movement. It was signed into law by President Buchanan of Pennsylvania (D-Iron and Steel Industries) four days before Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office and more than doubled the average tariff rate to the 32 percent range. Lincoln himself would then sign ten tariff-raising bills during his administrations, after which the average tariff rate was in the 60 percent range. It remained in the 50-60 percent range until the federal income tax was adopted in 1913 after half a century of Republican party/MMI class federal political hegemony.

Protectionist tariffs were not the only tool of plunder during the Era of Great Stealings. The second plank of the old Alexander Hamilton/Federalist “American System” was what we today call “corporate welfare” or “pork barrel spending.” After president after president, beginning with Jefferson and Madison, decided that spending tax dollars on corporations for any purpose was unconstitutional, with Madison vetoing such legislation on his very last day in office, the MMI class focused its efforts at the state level.

During the 1830s numerous states spend millions subsidizing building projects related to roads, canals, and railroads despite the fact that there were already thousands of miles of privately-funded roads (“turnpikes”) and even local railroads in parts of the country. In state after state, very little if anything was ever completed; much of the money was unaccounted for; and taxpayers were burdened with huge government debts that they were responsible for.

As leader of the Whig party in Illinois a young Abraham Lincoln was instrumental in getting the Illinois legislature to allocate $12 million to road and canal building projects in the early 1830s. It was a financial disaster. As Lincoln’s personal secretaries George Nicolay and John Hay wrote: “The market was glutted with Illinois bonds; one banker and one broker after another, to whose hands they had been recklessly confided in New York and London, failed, or made away with the proceeds of the sales. The system had utterly failed . . . and a crushing debt rested upon a people who had been deceiving themselves . . .”

Similar financial debacles occurred in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Iowa, Kentucky, Kansas, California, and Oregon as described by historian Carter Goodrich in Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 1800-1890. In most of these states, wrote Goodrich, nothing was completed! By the 1870s, he wrote, every state except for Massachusetts had amended its state constitution to prohibit the expenditure of state tax dollars on corporations for any reason. The Confederate Constitution of 1861 did the same.

Normal American citizens would look at this and draw the lesson that corporate welfare is a bad idea and an arguably criminal abuse of tax dollars. But to the political class and its MMI cabal benefactors, it was a great idea. Being able to ladle out millions (or billions) in taxpayer dollars to the moneyed classes was always the pipe dream of Alexander Hamilton (and his political heirs like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln) who believed that such gambits were a sure route to perpetually enhancing the powers of government, presumably in the hands of people such as themselves. Consequently, during the Lincoln administration, with the Republican party wedded to the Northern state MMI class, the federal government spent many orders of magnitude more on corporate welfare for the government-subsidized transcontinental railroads than all of the states had previously spent.

As Dee Brown wrote in his classic history of the transcontinental railroads, Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow, when Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Bill into law he “assured the fortunes of a dynasty of American families . . . the Brewsters, Bushnells, Olcotts, Harkers, Harrisons, Trowbridges, Lanworthys, Reids, Ogdens, Bradfords, Noyeses, Brooks, Cornells, and dozens of others.” Predictably, the result was the biggest financial political scandal in American history up to that point, the Credit Mobilier scandal during the Grant administration, with all of its graft, theft, and self dealing by the political class and its MMI class patrons.

The corporate executives of the Credit Mobilier company billed the government for some $44 million more than the cost of building the railroad and pocketed it. And that was after construction costs were hugely inflated. The company president, former Congressman Oakes Ames, bribed members of congress with cash and discounted stock that they were guaranteed to be able to sell at higher prices in return for their votes for additional subsidies. All of this was shocking to the public at the time, but of course today it seems like an almost daily news article. (As far as I know, Oakes Ames never bribed a politician or family member of a politician with Porches or gold bars).


https://mises.org/mises-wire/tariff-...good-stealings

[CaptUSA]

The magic is competence and good faith, which boils down to trustworthiness. That nearly nary a single living soul involving himself in such matters is worthy of the least shred of our trust, it still does not follow that the idea in itself is unworthy. It only means that either we have the wrong people in such positions of special trust, the issue itself is very difficult to navigate correctly or, most likely, both.

Another analogy... Let's say you really need to get across the country for an important family matter. You deem that flying is the best way to get there. But the only planes available were designed by DEI thought leaders, the routes are selected by Fed-influenced bankers not for efficiency but for a sense of moral superiority, and the only pilots are infants who just want their bottle and diaper changed. Still think the idea of taking a flight is the most prudent??

This is how it works when you put politicians and bureaucrats in charge of commerce. The concept might make some sense until you realize who is going to design, implement, and monitor it. And instead of your plane crashing, it's the whole economy and global harmony.

[osan]

Another analogy... Let's say you really need to get across the country for an important family matter. You deem that flying is the best way to get there. But the only planes available were designed by DEI thought leaders, the routes are selected by Fed-influenced bankers not for efficiency but for a sense of moral superiority, and the only pilots are infants who just want their bottle and diaper changed. Still think the idea of taking a flight is the most prudent??

I'm not at all getting your point. Nowhere do I state nor do I imply anything even remotely as you put it here. Where's this coming from? I remain perplexed.

This is how it works when you put politicians and bureaucrats in charge of commerce.

I would not put them in charge of commerce, but the issue at hand is not of trade, but of responses in the face of external threats. I've not said anywhere that such measures are good for trade, but under a very narrowly defined set of circumstances, trade must yield to defense. Trade, for example, makes little difference when the enemy in question is landing troops in all up and down the eastern and western seaboards.

The concept might make some sense until you realize who is going to design, implement, and monitor it.

I've made that distinction very clearly.

And instead of your plane crashing, it's the whole economy and global harmony.

In the case of our current positive reality, you and I agree. I would point out that while designing or applying trade sanctions the wrong way produces problems, not using them when needed can lead to equally bad outcomes, and likely those much worse.

Once again I reiterate that humanity is its own worst enemy. We are, by and large, a scurrilous breed. Perhaps we deserve ever steaming load of liquid feces that lands on us.

[Swordsmyth]

Another analogy... Let's say you really need to get across the country for an important family matter. You deem that flying is the best way to get there. But the only planes available were designed by DEI thought leaders, the routes are selected by Fed-influenced bankers not for efficiency but for a sense of moral superiority, and the only pilots are infants who just want their bottle and diaper changed. Still think the idea of taking a flight is the most prudent??

This is how it works when you put politicians and bureaucrats in charge of commerce. The concept might make some sense until you realize who is going to design, implement, and monitor it. And instead of your plane crashing, it's the whole economy and global harmony.

Which is why we should get domestic politicians out of our domestic economy, AND get foreign politicians out of our economy.

[CaptUSA]

Which is why we should get domestic politicians out of our domestic economy, AND get foreign politicians out of our economy.

??? lol

More of that swordy Orwellian doublespeak. You just spent this whole thread arguing that they need to get MORE involved in managing the economy.

[acptulsa]

??? lol

More of that swordy Orwellian doublespeak. You just spent this whole thread arguing that they need to get MORE involved in managing the economy.

But you see, when the Republicans do it, well then it is not meddlesome micromismanagement.

[CaptUSA]

But you see, when the Republicans do it, well then it is not meddlesome micromismanagement.