Posted on 04/17/2006 5:46:17 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
So on everything else he's wrong?
I read comment 18 and thought that a ping to 9 was in order.
What you don't seem to understand is when it's with third world countries who pay their workers sometimes only .50 cents an hour as they do in China Americans cannot compete on such a scale. How can they? Trade becomes one way since we can afford to buy their products but not the other way around. Has it dawned on you that maybe it's partly the reason the trade deficit is so high?
In addition to that the cheap foreign labor is encouraging outsourcing, which is costing us good paying jobs. When trade is primarily with those countries that are on relative economic par as the US that doesn't happen so much, which ultimately helps to maintain our middle class and spur investment here at home.
Do you actually believe Free Trade will rise the tide of all boats so the Chinese workers can eventually make $10.00 or 20.00 an hour? If so you're dreaming, that's not why employers are going there.
the phenomena of the kind of trade practices we have now, coupled with the ability to export knowledge jobs instantly via the internet, is not something that any "old guard" economist can comment on theoretically. the game has totally changed, this is a recent phenomena that requires some updated thinking. and then toss in economies like china, who maintain currency pegs to further skew the trade game and provide an artificiailly low cost environment into which investment capital flows.
Central planning is central planning no matter what banner it is hung under. If you believe that bureaucrats can make better decisions on the economy than can millions of people acting in their own private self-interests, then I've got a vote to sell to you, FReeper.
Tariffs raise costs of some goods, but at the same time, jobs remain in t he US instead of going offshore, hence some goods may cost more, but also US workers may have more spending power, also tariffs raise tax revenues as well from sources other than income or capital gain taxes.
The US worked well with fairly high tariffs as another poster stated for 200 years, they were used before the 30s, when the US was essentially ran with a Libertarian ideal. People that say Tariffs are socialistic in nature listen to far too much talk radio.
China's currency peg hurts its interests in other ways that are not talked about - namely inflation and an exchange rate with other currencies that are less advantageous to it. They also invest here, in America, rather than investing there by purchasing our debt and not their own (and not buying their own domestic equity). If you want to cite Friedman, Oceanview, start by discovering what the meaning of TANSTAAFL.
Simply screaming "you cannot trust Govt figures" as the Protectionists do to drown out reality does not change their propaganda into fact.
We're not talking about bureaucrats making decisions, in case you haven't noticed that's what they're doing now with these Free Trade agreements. It's simply about going back to the trade policies we had prior to the 1990s. It worked well as far as I know, giving us the highest standard of living in the world. Why are you so against that, afraid employers might have to pay Americans a decent wage?
The trick is to not have the "losers" become the majorty. Home equity extractions have keept this at bay for the last few years, but that is just about gone now. Anyways, I would say the worst statists are the financial industry, that used every trick in the book to keep the real estate game going, with the govrenmnet looking the other way. But hey, if I go past Limbaughs economic talking points, one may as well be a deer in the headlights.
they invest here? yes, they buy US brand names so they can market their crap products to americans using brands they have become accustomed to.
By lowering all trade barriers and taxes and letting the market work things out? Explain who is in charge of that? Explain who twists the arms of the consumer once the taxation barriers are removed.
Karl Marx:
"Is that to say we are against Free Trade? No, we are for Free Trade, because by Free Trade all economical laws, with their most astounding contradictions, will act upon a larger scale, upon the territory of the whole earth; and because from the uniting of all these contradictions in a single group, where they will stand face to face, will result the struggle which will itself eventuate in the empancipation of the proletariat".
* Writing in the Chartist newspaper, 1847. (Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 6, pg 290).
The people that listen to talk radio have the "free" trade mantra down, saying the depression was because of Smoot-Hawley, and while Smoot-Hawley may have mad ethe situation a bit worse, it wasnt the only or even the main case of the depression. Loose banking standards were the main case of the depression. Here is how it really went down.
""""Many economists at the time argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression. Some also argued that the growing body of economic intervention after 1932 contributed to the markets inability to react to abrupt changes and kept unemployment high in some countries, such as the US. The British Empire promoted trade inside the Empire (and not with the U.S.A.) Germany promoted economic autarky in which countries received benefits (or threats) for trading with Germany.
Most historians and economists assign the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 part of the blame for worsening the depression by reducing international trade and causing retaliation. As for the United States, foreign trade was a small part of overall economic activity; it was a much larger factor in most other countries. [4] The average ad valorem rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921-1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50.0% in 1931-1935. In spite of the objection of more than a thousand members of the American Economic Association, Hoover signed the tariff, for several reasons. It embodied his recommendations of increased agricultural protection, and reorganizing the Tariff Commission. Hoover constantly praised the law for helping American farmers and the American home market; he ignored the threat to exporters. It became a major campaign issue in 1932, but Hoover rejected Roosevelt's charges that "the Hawley-Smoot Tariff is one of the most important factors in the present world-wide depression," and that "it has destroyed international commerce." Hoover responded, "So they would have us believe this world catastrophe and this destruction of foreign trade happened because the United States increased tariff on one-fourth of one-third of one-eighth of the world's imports. Thus we pulled down the world, so they tell us, by increases of less than one per cent of the goods being imported by the world." [Hoover State Papers, II, 343]
In dollar terms American exports declined from $5.2 billion in 1929 to $1.7 billion in 1933; but prices also fell so the physical volume of exports did not decline as much. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. According to this theory, the collapse of farm exports caused many American farmers to default on their loans leading to the bank runs on small rural banks that characterized the early years of the Great Depression""""""""""""""
So the "free" traders now use FDRs arguements. Trade at the time was a very small part of the US economy.
These Free Trade agreements are not as free wheeling give and take as you make it sound. Many of the countries in question like India and those in Central America are allowed to keep their protectionist policies in place while we're forced to open our markets up to goods that were formerly made here.
Not only that their economies are not as consumer oriented as this one and it's doubtful they ever will be if the only wealth they can create is by luring American corporations into their countries.
With very few exceptions, torie being one of them, the advocates of "free" trade, to be blunt, seem to lack the ability to think in an critical manner, just rehash what Rush says, in otherwords, what Marx would call. "useful idiots"
Then maybe you can employ your critical thinking skills and answer the question posed in post #53. Take your time. You'll need it.
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