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To: Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
"Tariffs are about the only genuinely constitutional form of revenue for the FedGov"

Yes, originally that is accurate. Your point is, unquestionably, not without merit. Even men who founded a country to, in large part, celebrate free markets, understood that some tariffs were not only allowable, but in some instances, necessary.

13 posted on 02/14/2011 4:53:04 PM PST by OldDeckHand
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To: OldDeckHand

That’s because they understood that free markets only really “work” when you have a more of less even playing field. Free trade between countries that are roughly even in cost/standard of living, wages, etc. works pretty well, and allows for the sort of efficient specialisation that Ricardo theorises. Free trade between us and Canada, the UK, Germany, etc. has and would continue to stimulate economic growth all around, as well as peaceful relations.

Free trade between countries with grossly disparate wage scales, however, always works to the detriment of the higher-wage nation. That’s why Britain losts its edge - it lost a good share of its manufacturing base in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, ironically, to its own colony in India.

“Free” trade between us and a nation like China that not only has a much lower cost of living and wage scale, but that also gets to push that scale down even more artificially lower through currency devaluation and, well, slave labour, is a recipe for disaster, economically. We cannot be so tied to the pretty theory of “free trade” that we blind ourselves to its realities.


15 posted on 02/14/2011 5:00:59 PM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (When evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will believe in abject nonsense.)
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