Posted on 01/23/2013 7:24:00 AM PST by Kaslin
Protectionism cheats Americans. Free trade merely puts us in our place.
You are right.
And it will be interesting to see which Freepers agree with Schafly, and disagree with Reagan (and Palin, and Levin, and Sowell, and Williams, etc) on this economic issue.
Many will. Sad.
Oh, while I’m at it, Milton Friedman also gives a brilliantly simple disseration on how free trade allows for incredible efficiency in the markets, benefitting all consumers, and promoting peace among countries - while protectionism raises the cost of everything, reduces the efficiency of everything, and promotes bad feelings among countries.
Milton Friedman 4 Phyllis 0
There aren’t any easy or pat answers about foreign economic policy. Each has risks and costs, as well as benefits.
But the union phenomenon, for whatever good it may once have done, has now run amok and shoots America in the foot. Things are driven overseas that never needed to be.
“manipulates its currency”
Don’t you love it when they throw that in? “What’s a ‘federal reserve system’? Never heard of it.”
Trade can be believed to promote world peace as long as one assumes everyone has their price in terms of messes of pottage.
Reality is that this is not always true! And money itself is an amoral thing, a tool that can be used to do good or evil. And once actually idolized (a step in the spiritual dimension, into which economics can have no insight) it definitely becomes a root of all kinds of evils.
Wait, since when were we talking about love of money? Since when is free trade in closer contact with the evil which lurks in men’s hearts than protectionism? Certainly the political means of earning a living, i.e. stealing, is more prone to greedy exploitation than earning a living through trade.
Isn’t the point of this article that protectionism would materially benefit us? So it’s a technical question, not God against Mammon.
Throw in the coming amnesty, continued global wage arbitrage and other obvious patterns of change.
The American worker will continue to have debasement of salary and will enjoying the fruits of cheap bling. The discussion in the future will be the enjoyment of cheap trinkets or the necessities of having a job.
That group of voters who pulled the lever for Ross Perot has never really gone away (and in some areas of the country I think it’s grown).
We can debate the merits, but this sort of economic populism would be a way out of the woods for the GOP.
Since the bible was written, that’s when? This is a modern essay into a very, very old question. The bible should not be treated as the newcomer here.
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. The price we pay in increased social spending, crime, and taxes as a result of “free” trade must be one we are willing to pay.
Exporting our jobs means that the engine that drove American prosperity is shut down. Those that used to be able to support a family, buy a house, send their kids to college, now can’t. Many of the ills we here on Free Republic complain about (welfare, the housing crisis, the trillion dollar college loan racket, etc.) can be traced to “free” trade.
Don’t get me wrong, I think free trade is the right way to go, but we have to be willing to pay the price.
Those are hardly the result if free trade. Those are political decisions made outside the market and according to different principles.
I have no idea what you mean.
You Free Traders must love Socialism because that’s where it leads.
The country is short 20 Million jobs. People who can’t find a job have to eat and their kids have to have medicine. Your kidding yourself if you think otherwise. Its much better to find jobs for these people.
See how aggressive China is getting. There military is being built on the back of Free Trade.
How expensive do you think WWW3 will be?
The so-called “free trade” currently destroying America is a deliberately constructed one-way mess primarily with COMMUNIST China.
China in no way is liberalizing itself. It is just taking over.
America continues to support this, as the part of the total we receive gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller.
We need a new way.
Not sure exactly how to improve things, but what we have not isn’t it.
Know hoe I know free trade didn’t cause those problems? The solutions popped up before the engine of prosperity was shut down in the manner of which you speak. Back then they blamed free trade, too, among other things. It was the poor farmers, left behind in a cruel new world of largescale manufacturing. There was a Welfare State, then, before free trade was allowed to grind us down as you imagine happening now.
Know how I know free trade didn’t cause those problems? The solutions popped up before the engine of prosperity was shut down in the manner of which you speak. Back then they blamed free trade, too, among other things. It was the poor farmers, left behind in a cruel new world of largescale manufacturing. There was a Welfare State, then, before free trade was allowed to grind us down as you imagine happening now.
Ah, there’s the war drums, right on schedule. Whivh system was it, again, that was more conducive to peace? I’m guessing not the side that begrudges another country getting richer lest it diminish our chances in the war which they assume is inevitable.
Increased welfare spending because we can’t let those that had their jobs exported starve. Increased social stress causing safety concerns because there are no jobs and some feel that crime is their only option. There is no principle that stands alone. Every action causes other things to take place. Pay $1 less for a t-shirt and then pay $1 more in taxes. Enrich the Chinese. I guess those are the sort of decisions that should have been discussed.
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