Today's Free Trade is not about the Free Market

JEFFHEAD.COM ^ | 08/01/2003 | Jeff Head

[Texas_Dawg]

I do hope you didn't take that seriously.

Why wouldn't I?

[Cacophonous]

You know, it's beyond naivety, and it's beyond a mere inability to study history. The Cult of the Free Traders is not stupid, and they don't lack the ability to comprehend. I can only conclude that they are willfully advocating a path that will destroy the US. What their endgame is, I don't know. But no other conclusion makes sense.

[Texas_Dawg]

almost exclusively, the posters here are conservative and republican

From what I've seen there are many here who are Republicans and many here who are not, including some who are right in line with the AFL-CIO on economic issues.

[Cacophonous]

Well, I thought you were smarter than that. Was I wrong?

[Jeff Head]

It appears that this train has already left the tracks and won't stop until it hits the bottom of the gorge.

My friend, I pray that is not the case and that there is enough good sense and virtue left to avoid it.

[Texas_Dawg]

Well, I thought you were smarter than that.

That doesn't really answer my question. Can you show me where the poster was implying his answer was a joke?

[JNB]

Let me guess, you will use that quote in your little anti Paleo-Con quote list, in a game of gotya that high schoolers resort to. As for Tariffs, ye sthey will work, and higher level of trade resitictions will force China to float the Yuan like it forced the Japanese to float the Yen in the 80s when the Reagan admin was sucesssful in getting the dollar knocked doan against the Yen by more than 50%.

The neo-cons who hero worship Reagan forget that the currency agreements that the US had with other industrialised nations that devalued the Dollar 50% against the Yen and 35% against the Mark were de-facto tariffs, and the dollar devaluation helped give US industry time to recove untill Rubin put the strong dollar policy back in place in late 94.

[Texas_Dawg]

It appears that this train has already left the tracks and won't stop until it hits the bottom of the gorge.

Oh, the horror! The doom and gloom and melodrama here is just hilarious. Reminds me of the Dems.

[Cacophonous]

I didn't take the answer seriously because I didn't take the question seriously. You know, ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

Perhaps a little elucidation on your part, as to why you were asking the question in the first place, would have helped.

[Poohbah]

As for Tariffs, ye sthey will work, and higher level of trade resitictions will force China to float the Yuan like it forced the Japanese to float the Yen in the 80s when the Reagan admin was sucesssful in getting the dollar knocked doan against the Yen by more than 50%.

Gosh, that's odd...

Reagan didn't enact any trade restrictions on the Japanese. Hell, folks like you were complaining that he was giving the store away.

[cc2k]

Maybe our citizens need to quit blaming politicians for all their problems and work a little harder if they aren't happy with their economic situation.

Actually, there is a certain amount of truth to Jeff Head's point here.

If it is wrong (and illegal by federal law) for a company to exploit your next door neighbor and pay him less than the federal minimum wage, then it should be just as wrong to exploit the yellow people in China and the brown people in India.

If the EPA won't allow a company to build a factory to make widgets because it will pollute our air (or they want to add billions of dollars to the cost of the factory to keep the air clean), then why is it right to buy cheap widgets from China and India and turn their air brown and poison their rivers?

If the playing field isn't level, if the people aren't equally free and equally protected, then trade isn't fair.

We pay them so little for their work that they can't possibly buy products that we make. We've decided that clean air and clean water is so important that we won't let industry build factories in this country, but we pay the Chinese and the Indians to poison their rivers and pollute their air so bad that occasionally a bit of their "brown cloud" blows over the Pacific ocean and across the entire north american continent and causes pollution alerts in Atlanta.

Plus we tax our workers and our companies so heavily that they have to earn twice what they need to live just so they can give half of it to the ever expanding government. A government which is growing much more quickly with Bush in the whitehouse and Republicans in the Congress.

And then we wonder why so many Americans are unemployed.

[Jim Cane]

When you invite the immoral, totalitarian to play on your field, you undercut and corrupt the very most basic nature of the free market and corrupt it.

The UberRandians imagine that they can polish their wingtips by rolling in the filthy muck with pigs.

[Texas_Dawg]

Hell, folks like you were complaining that he was giving the store away.

Yep. We were all going to have to learn Japanese remember?

[Buckwheats]

Do you have a sister?

P.S. I would only nuke someone who repeatedly asks stupid questions.

[JNB]

The Reagan admin did losen some trade restrictions, though got Japan to agree to export quotas for their cars. And while the Reagan admin did not resport to actual tariffs to protect industry in many cases, the dollar devaluation, while it took a while, did its job, and by 94, US industry was on the mend, Detroit was gaining marketshare, and even the steel industry was profitable again by then. I will be the first to say the Reagan and especially Bush 41 admin should have been far more proactive to ensure fair trade, but again, the dollar devaluation amounted to a large tariff.

[Quix]

In the interests of avoiding unnecessary . . . assault . . . I think I'll just limit myself to saying CHEERS for your courage.

Far too many people are far too ignorant about the EXTENSIVE documentation of such things. And THAT was true 35 years ago and has gotten MORE TRUE month by month since then.

Sigh.

Sure Glad HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD, IN *HIS* HANDS.

Blessings,
Get your NOMEX on!

[Texas_Dawg]

If it is wrong (and illegal by federal law) for a company to exploit your next door neighbor and pay him less than the federal minimum wage, then it should be just as wrong to exploit the yellow people in China and the brown people in India.

It is only "wrong" in that it would be against a ridiculous law we created (the minimum wage). If I raise the price of goods in my store, you are not doing something "wrong" by shopping somewhere else. Americans corporations are not "exploiting" labor in China and India (although the ultra Left would totally agree with you there). The Chinese and Indian people line up out the door to work for these American firms when they come.

[meadsjn]

Thanks for starting such a lively chat - I'll have to check back later.

[Cacophonous]

Don't you hate having to repeat yourself? I could have sworn you said the same thing earlier...

[Poohbah]

Yep. We were all going to have to learn Japanese remember?

Oh, yes, I do. Japan was going to conquer the world.