Posted on 08/01/2005 11:38:19 AM PDT by Tenacious 1
Becaue it would make most of us much, much poorer.
It is constitutional, it makes foreign products more expensive That is a part of the problem. The other is that it makes some products cheaper and some more expensive. In other words, tariffs create distortions in teh economy, and everybody suffers from that. We would've also lost our competitive edge a long time ago.
and makes American products cheaper. No, it does not: it only makes them relatively cheaper. That is where the problem lies: our products would become even more expensive due to distortions in allocation of resources.
Our tax structure adds a considerable amount to the price of our products. What does that mean? And how?
That works against the stated goals of making our manufactured products more affordable worldwide, Goals stated by whom? Government has no business making our product more or less expensive: we do.
and evening out the trade deficits. What on earth does this all have to do with deficits? If you spend more than you make, it does not matter how expensive what you buy is; you will run a deficit anyway. Just as in the case of people, govn't deficit has something to do with spending habits.
I don't think the economy is in dire straights, but I do think tenecious has a good rant.
Sorry, I am not a commie...you might want to take your anger out on someone else.
Thanks.
North Korea is almost perfectly protectionist.
I surely did not mean to say that you are a card-carrying member of that party.
If a clarification is needed, replace "commie" in my previous post with "commie sympathizer."
If someone listens to a speech by Hitler and finds it to be "a good rant," I think it is justifiable to call that person a Nazi (sympathizer).
And that is what I did: having heard someone "ranting" communist slogans, I called that person a commie (sympathizer).
you might want to take your anger out on someone else.
Nothing personal here. I do find it very frustrating and discouraging, however, that these socialist and in parts commie rants occur on the "conservative" board. If you don't even recognize what made this country prosperous and powerful, if you cannot even realize that you repeat socialist propaganda --- what makes you a conservative?
The right to a job was Article 1 of the Soviet Constitution. But no matter these facts. You will not stop and think, "My G-d, however good my intentions are, I did slide into the socialist abyss." Instead you will declare me "angry." That's your choice. And your loss.
I am not a protectionist fan either...my only comment was tenecious had a good logical rant...didnt say I bought the whole thing.
My point is...if you're gonna gripe...tenacious makes a good gripe. I also think there's some saracasm within his rant that people missed out on.
Jeeeeeez...so, for the record, fair trade, capitalism, democracy, property rights, rights of faith, all those good things are what "In Hoc" stand for.
Jeeez....c'mon, I made the comment that tenecious has a good rant and now I am a communist sympathizer...wow, you love rhetorical fallacies don't you? Stop the hasty generalizations there, chief.
1. I beleive the U.S. economy is in great shape...yada, yada, yada.
2. See my previous post.
Nobody gets sarcasm anymore....
After reading a silly assertion, what's the point in reading further?
A serious question; the massive amounts of SS, Medicare and Income taxation adds the cost of them onto the price of American products. That cost is over 2 trillion dollars. Funding our govt by lowering the cost to business 2T, and raising that much through tariffs seems to me to EVEN OUT the trading field, not distort it.
If the Japanese want to protect their steel industry, let them. Its THEIR country. Too bad we won't protect our industry.
I didn't call for protectionism...Tenecious1 did...and I think his rant was sarcastic.
His point being...countries that impose tarrifs on us are laughing stocks for doing so...if one merely looks at those countries problems...then you could make a comparable case for us imposing tarrifs (arranging the facts to fit the agenda)...again...from a sarcastic POV.
when Japan starts talking tarrifs, I can't help but laugh because of that country dumping cheap steel on US markets
in the 80's, etc.
MY POST WAS FULL OF SARCASM, EXITPURGAMENTUM. READ IT AGAIN. EVERYBODY ELSE GOT IT.
Thank you. "You are spot on."
I will scale back the sarcastic rhetoric in future posts. I had a weak moment.
No, they do not. If you spend $2 on toothpaste, it does not become more expensive if you also by deodorant.
WHen you fund a government, you fund production of public goods. Production of those goods does not make private goods more expensive.
If I hire you at $20/hour and you produce 10 gadgets, the cost of these American goods is $2 per unit. It does not matter whether you pay taxes or not. Now, if you produce 20 units per hour, the cost goes down to $1 and makes that product more competitive.
Unreasonably high labor costs --- especially health benefits and risks associated with tort cases --- is what makes our labor less competitive.
As for distortions, consider an example. Suppose that an efficient allocation of resources is 40% in product A and 60% into product B. Unlike B, product A is also produced in and imported from other countries. Now impose a tariff, making A more expensive. If produced domestically, that product would then generate greater profits than B. So the capital will start to move aways from B to A. The result? A distorted, suboptimal allocation of resources.
In principle one could imagine such application of tariffs on BOTH A and B that distortions would not occur. The problem is, (i) nobody knows what efficient allocation of resources is, whether it is 40-60%, as I merely assumed above, or 50-50 or 10-90; and, (ii) even if one knew what it is today, the ever changing conditions would make the initial guess obsolete. There has never existed a government or any other body that could calculate fully the cost of tariffs.
There is, however, an institution that can do it well: the market mechanism. Think of a market as millions of interconnected computers equipped with sensors that detect the ever changing conditions. They have power to learn and react quickly to the changing environment. If something (government) interferes with that action, you have a case of the dumb teaching the wise. The outcome is predictable.
Look at Europe, where socialism has been practiced widely for decades. Our unemployment is at record lows for over 10 years, while theirs is, by historical standards, high. The overall American participation in the labor force is also much, much better. The worst problem is that they cannot even propose anything that would change that outcome. You know why? The change that is needed is for the government to get out of the way, in which case there is no reason for that big government.
Socialists in this country, including some on this boards, have succumbed to the idea of protectionism. Like all Utopian idea they assume that a calculation of "wise" tariffs is possible, and advocate those tariffs. The devil is exactly in the details: who is going to decide what tariffs should be? on what goods? how they should be adjusted next year? The non-existence of such body is what makes it Utopian. But the costs are well-known: we all get eventually poorer.
Protectionism will not work. There is only one recipe for staying competitive: maintain and increase productivity. Reintroduce discipline and rigorous education in schools. Let adults avail themselves of the fantastic system of community colleges we have. Stop spending on TVs and mansions, save some money on your own medical care --- rather than demanding that it be provided by the employers, the government, G-d himself.
That is what will make our goods competitive, as they have always been before.
Thank you for your clarification.
Number 36 is an outstanding post. Kudos and right on.
The answer is, the best economic situation would be where there are no tarrifs between free markets and let the "free" markets compete.
i guess you didn't read my post. There has NEVER been a case of steel dumping that has been proven until 2002, and that case turned out to be a falsely built case. The dumping is a MSM tactic, and a tactic of the steel industry, to eliminate competition from abroad. Price controls do not work. All they do is make everything we buy more expensive, and that included machinery, automobiles, ships, planes, etc. You want even more people in this country to have jobs, elimiate the protections, and let competition rule the day!!!!!
Well, we reap the benefits of steel protectionism. It's only costing us 50 million in exports this time.
The auto industry is already hurting, and this will only make matters worse.
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