Posted on 10/04/2007 7:07:18 AM PDT by SJackson
I've seen a lot of opinion polling, but my jaw dropped when I saw this result from our special NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll of Republicans in advance of next week's presidential candidate debate sponsored by CNBC, MSNBC and the WSJ. By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president.
Six in 10 Republicans in the poll agreed with a statement that free trade has been bad for the U.S. and said they would agree with a Republican candidate who favored tougher regulations to limit foreign imports. That represents a challenge for Republican candidates who generally echo Mr. Bush’s calls for continued trade expansion, and reflects a substantial shift in sentiment from eight years ago.
"It’s a lot harder to sell the free-trade message to Republicans," said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with Democratic counterpart Peter Hart.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
I have,also. There is a lot of metooism going on as the ‘top tier’ try to shape their campaigns to imitate a real conservative.
You had no DVDs or DVD player. No iPod or mp3 player. What an impoverished life you must have lead!!
You know what our annual trade deficit was 1987? 151 billion according to these numbers (unless I'm reading it wrong)
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/gands.txt
And me.
Japan is overcrowded and has robots for people (they have to think and act alike--there's not enough room for people to freely do what they want when they want in the way they want).
And their once strong traditions of familly and religion and traditional male and female roles, are breaking down.
Not very rich in the things that matter.
Hands off policies = doom
Plus no one adopts hands off policies in their personal lives. That libertarian bullshit gets thrown to the wayside. Example being toddster's foreign currency investments. He's hedged himself against the idiot (government) laissez faire trade policies he advocates on Free Republic
That must have crushed our economy.
Heck, a ‘hired professional’ can’t even affectively mimic him!
;)
When left with a minimum level of governmental interference, individuals pursue what they believe is in their own rational self-interest. That's not libertarian BS. Moreover, it's the statists who think that government's role be expanded and individual liberty curtailed in the name of some amorphous good. In other words, one's rational self-interest should be determined by someone else. That's BS.
And me.
Japan is overcrowded and has robots for people (they have to think and act alike--there's not enough room for people to freely do what they want when they want in the way they want).
And their once strong traditions of familly and religion and traditional male and female roles, are breaking down.
Not very rich in the things that matter.
I don't disagree with these negatives but todd and I were only looking at GDP and Japan has a very good GDP. Only we have a larger one
Japan is very mountainous with little arable (12% according to internet) or livable land. They are a major importer of raw materials. They do very well for their situation
Regurgitated libertarianism. We have a bloated Federal government and it should pursue policies abroad that are in our self interest. Such as lowering our trade deficit to avoid a dollar crash. But instead the Feds are doing all kinds of other things they shouldn't. They won't even defend our Mexico borderer
Yes, I agree it is bad. Why? Becuase it is part of their strategy to attract as much manufacturing away from the US as they can. And we are not talking about shoes and Barbies anymore. Manufacturing MUST remain the backbone of the american economy. If China devalues their currency by 30 to 40%, it becomes a much easier justification for US manufacturers to relocate there. Not alot of relocations to France and England, you may note.
For example, 15 years ago, almost all power tools were made in the USA. I was in Lowes last week. 80% of the power tools were from China. Even such renowned US manufacturer’s like Delta, Milwaukee and Porter Cable now mostly outsource.
Door hardware. Every single lockset, even the fancy ones were from China or Mexico. I will order on line from the last remaining US manufacurer.
I was there to buy a carpet steam cleaner. Guess what, every last Dirt Devil and Bissell was from China, as well as the one Hoover model they had. I went to another store and found a Made in USA Hoover model, which I bought.
You see, the problem is not just that those products come from elsewhere, the problem is that many US factories are closing their doors. That means not just assembly workers, but the IT guys, the electricians and techies that keep the machine tools operating, that means the industrial engineers that modernized plants, that means the corner deli and the water delivery guy all lose out.
Another example:
GE to Pare Manufacture Of Traditional Light Bulbs
Demand Grows for Energy-Efficient Lighting
By KATHRYN KRANHOLD
October 4, 2007 4:48 p.m.
General Electric Co. will accelerate shrinking of its 128-year-old incandescent light-bulb business in response to global pressure to switch to energy-efficient lighting.
GE said it would close seven of the 54 plants and warehouses that serve its incandescent bulb business by November 2008 and lay off 1,400 workers. Over two years, GE will have eliminated 16% of its lighting workforce. GE previously laid off 3,000 workers in the unit.
(snip)
Mr. Campbell said GE is expanding its manufacturing of compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, and other energy-efficient lighting products used in commercial buildings as part of the restructuring. GE manufactures CFL bulbs in China as part of a joint venture with Topstar.
GE’s entire compact fluorescent manufacturing footprint is in China. If they did not have an artificial exchange rate, then perhaps GE would have considered modernizing its plants and let US manufacturing lead the way in light manufacturing. Instead, 3000 manufacturing jobs and the communities that they are in will get hollowed out.
Hunter not only will force the chicoms to relent on their devaluation, he will also withdraw from the WTO if it continues to insist that the US cannot eliminate manufacturing taxes to compete globally.
How do you feel about the recent dip in the value of the dollar?
Similar story for other technology that has been sold off overseas for a quick buck. I was developing advanced sensor technology for nuclear power plants a few years ago and needed some specialty materials that used to be made by a high-tech firm in Oak Ridge. Turns out they sold out to a US conglomerate, which was subsequently bought out by a European firm. They took a look at the business units and right away closed down the US operation for this specialty material and moved everything, lock stock, and barrel (but no people) over to France. I could get the materials shipped here, if I wanted to wait two years, get an export license, and sign an agreement to share the technology. The sponsor pulled the plug on that project. Ironic that it was technology we developed here, sold out, and had to pay a steep price to get back.
This country is selling out a lot of its strategic capability to the highest bidder in the foreign marketplace, just to make a quick buck and put a few more pennies on the quarterly bottom line.
Compliments on your excellent post.
I don't know whether any of the resident free trade cham-peens accepted the gauntlet you threw down (I got as far as page 2 and didn't see anything).
If someone finally did, they surely did so with a non-sequitor sarcasm. Your point was unassailable.
Unfortunately, you are absolutely correct.
I don’t have a big problem with it. It fluctuates up and down, as always. Perhaps the record lows are giving some incentive to keep manufacturing here, but of course, the Yuan is pegged to the dollar, so it is not helping that situation.
I agree. the single best thing we could do to stop that is to rewrite our tax laws to encourage manufacturing here. The WTO is an impediment to that.
But the modern economy is—unfortunately— too large and what it produces too complex, to leave all decisions to the marketplace.
FReeper Paul Ross has a nice graphic that shows the amount of secondary jobs spawned and supported by manufacturing activity, compared with service industries. The manufacturing support jobs are, IIRC, something 7 secondary jobs to each manufacturing job. Service industries are lucky to have a 1:1 ratio. There simply aren't enough things you need to do to run, say, a dentist's office, compared to the things you need to do to keep an electronics plant going. Not to mention the difference in wages.
I would start with taxing imports from countries that employ people practically as slave labor while polluting the earth, sky, and oceans--thereby being a liability to the world and humanity.
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