Yeah, Red China's protectionist trade policies sure killed their economy!
Posted on 07/25/2013 3:24:46 AM PDT by IbJensen
Many, many years ago Congress did things, took actions, that benefited The Republic thereby benefitting their constituents . Those days are long gone and our nation is dying and will be dead like the city of Detroit.
Ross Perot was right about one thing and that was the sucking sound of American Jobs and industries disappearing due to NAFTA. And it just gets worse. Just when America needs a true Conservative leader, the Republicrat Party dishes up Mitt Romney. In only one speech at the end of his campaign he dared to mention a desire of the rebirth of Major American Industry. Too late Mitts, you would have, at that, been a far better choice than retaining the American-hating African. But it gets worse. We are then forced to offer up our children to fight in wars and have those children that survive, to come back and get in line for a tough interview for a job at Walmart… Yet, those who can pull the strings, the Power Players scream about the need for “competition”, waving Adam Smith’s book, The Wealth of Nations, around like Mao’s Little Red Book.
No it gets much much worse. “Our” Government has turned into a Police State Banana Republic without the bananas, and has at its head a phony, un-vetted mystery man who is allowed stay in office, and rule as if he were a King.
Bump for later. Lots of interesting items about a very complex issue, and I’m afraid the author oversimplifies too many things here.
Give it your best shot, the “free” trade gambit has been co-opted by the Fascii aka Crony Capitalist. Time to go full on protectionism!
Protectionism kills
Yeah, China, Korea’s, Japan’s, Mexico’s, Europe’s Protectionism killed US manufacturing. These Fair Trade Treaties are nothing but unfair trade for the US.
Try again!
Blah blah blah yada yada yada brigadier balderdash
Yeah, Red China's protectionist trade policies sure killed their economy!
It never was about free trade.
Then there's this..... what trade can and does do
Wait a second. Japan's trade deficit is soaring--
[click to enlarge]
--along with their GDP:
I mean, a trade deficit is what foreign investment is and Japan's running with it (related thread).
fyi
The same sentiment applies with even more force to the concept of "free trade". As practised today (in the US and virtually everywhere else), "free trade" means, mas o menos, "first hog to the trough, and hogs already there stay put".
"Free trade" (sic) is these days little or nothing other than goobermint-sanctioned rent seeking on the part of established interests.
Hey, Pete -- Panama has a shiny new "free trade" agreement with the US, right? Seen any increase in newly imported products, or any decrease in prices of existing imports? Right, you haven't, with the minimal exception of int'l giants such as Nabisco expanding product lines somewhat.
But you have seen attempts by goobermint to confiscate the land of the peones to build more warehouse space in that wonderful "free trade" zone of Colon (remember the short-lived and widely protested Ley 73?)
Bah! What rubbish.
Not following you here. Are you saying you want to pay higher Panamanian taxes on American goods, and you want Americans paying higher US taxes on Panamanian coffee/chocolate/bananas?
However, that is NOT all there is to it, and you know this perfectly well. Actual free trade agreements would have the very nearly immediate effect of increasing the number and variety of available goods. This agreement has had no such effect, to my observation (based principally on retail shops in Playa Coronado and Ciudad Panama).
The only product -- only the one -- where I have seen new product entries is, oddly enough, pie shells. (?!?) Keebler are now marketing their product(s) to a limited extent.
Electronics? No. Household goods, kitchen items? Not a chance. Dairy products? You're kidding, right -- checked the prices of import cheeses recently? At least we've Toledano Farms right near El Valle, where eggs are very reasonable (and excellent quality, btw). I'll have to check out their cheeses next visit.
Priced dill pickles recently? They're ridiculously high, the more so because cukes are so cheap here. So, I've taken to growing my own dill -- let's face it, making pickles is simply NOT difficult, eh. Have you noted that you can find all the Spanish brands of olives you want...but hardly any Italian or US olives? Have you noticed that paper products -- easily 30% or more above comparable products in other nations -- have stayed exactly where they were. Where are Scott's or Tiger's brands, eh?
"Free trade", my backside.
OK one last time...
The absolute BEST number the unionistas can come up with to support their claim that NAFTA had a net loss of Jobs for the USA is 700,000. And that is a TOTAL Number since NAFTA was put into enforcement.
So NAFTA webt into effect on January 1st 1994, Now using basic math. 700,000 divided by 19 years = 36,842 jobs a year. But I'll be generous and say the Unionistas underestimated the number and we will call it 50K a year. In 2008 Jobs lost in the USA was 2.6 MILLION and that was ONE YEAR.
So do the rest of us FReepers a favor and try not to embarrass us by touting a bunch of BULLSHIT.
OH and for the record the Unionistas run the NAFTA Jobs lost numbers without figuring in jobs gained from goods imported into the USA (Shipping, Customs, Dock Workers and Retail and Warehousing jobs etc.) So figure the unionistas are high by a good 10% - 15% in their Jobs lost claim.
Try to contain yourself. You're sounding like a mad dog. Oh. That's very appropriately your handle here. At any rate you resemble an obtuse Neanderthal with personal attacks such as this. What's your opinion, if indeed you have one, regarding the WTO?
Showing that blaming NAFTA for a current jobless woes is a steaming pile, may be in your book a "personal attack" but in the real world its just BULLSHIT!
I wish the NAFTA jobless numbers were all we had to complain about jobs wise. I will lay you odds that if we were only talking about 40k more or less jobs lost a year we would all be dancing in the streets. But if you want to go on touting NAFTA as the jobs boogieman be my guest. Just know that anyone with an IQ north of 65 can ascertain your argument is full of Barbara Streisand!
“Protectionism kills”
The USA experienced one of the fastest rates of economic and industrial expansion the world has ever seen from the end of the Civil War into the 20th century. Tariffs were very high during the 19th century and early 20th century. In fact, tariffs and duties funded the cost of the federal government until the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1913.
The USA has experienced a significant loss of manufacturing infrastructure, loss of middle class jobs, and a declining standard of living for the first time in its history during the two decades of the globalist free trade experiment (NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, etc.). Plus the deindustrialization of the US has allowed China to emerge quickly as an economic and military rival of the US, threatening our national security.
History shows protectionism worked for the US historically and works for China today. Free trade has been an economic disaster for the middle class and a windfall for the elites in government and on Wall Street.
We’ve tried “free trade” with mercantilist nations for over 2 decades and it has failed to enhance the US economy. Time to go back to high tariffs and more manufacturing jobs.
Trade only creates jobs when we run a surplus? Really?
In 1994, we sold about $51 billion worth of goods to Mexico. In 2012, we sold almost $216 billion to Mexico.
NAFTA was predicted to create 20,000 new U.S. jobs by increasing our exports to Mexico. That turned out to be another pipe dream; by 2010, NAFTA had eliminated 682,900 U.S. jobs, some in every state.
Let's see your math, don't just shove a union "calculated" number down our throat.
Ross Perot was right about one thing and that was the sucking sound of American Jobs and industries disappearing due to NAFTA.
Sorry, Ross was wrong, wrong, wrong.
I didn’t vote for him; however, there are some aspects of the trade agreements, both NAFTA and WTO that I don’t like.
That being said, the reason U. S. manufacturers moved to Asia was due to the onerous taxes levied on them by a clueless central socialist government.
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