Posted on 08/12/2003 7:04:53 AM PDT by Gothmog
Edited on 04/13/2004 1:41:03 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
For you Bush is the center of the universe. Why people in trouble should give a hoot about him? He does not give about them.
It's a combination. We're sending millions of jobs out of this country but at the same time millions of uneducated, unskilled people are pouring over the border. We're taking in all of Mexico's unemployed and keeping all our own. Somewhere there is a breaking point.
Are you Bob Zoellick?
Or rather "don't buy what you will not be able to afford in the future". You need the gift of clairvoyance of cource.
Really? So what is this "fast track authority" the President takes from Congress to abolish the tariffs established by the Founding Fathers?
Yes, people who lost jobs or are underemployed if numerous enough they will vote through the universal health care and other socialist benefits. Unregulated free market will destroy itself.
Since the US made steel was not selling at below cost prior to the tariff of 30% and the foreign made steel did rise in price while the uS made steel stayed at roughly the same price based onb government figures I really question the factualness of wyour information here.
You can't have it both ways. Either you consider the gov't interference part of the economy consistently or you don't at all.
A tariff is not per se the government inter fereing in the domestic econbomy it is a rspobnse to foreign actions and part of the USA guranteeing a healthy envirornment for a free market>
Unfortunately, you have to consider it. It swallows up a huge part of our economy, and it is what makes us uncompetitive in many markets.I presume foreign tariffs on Americvan goods and services and currency controls have nothing to do with our being competitive in those markets. Typical Cato intsitute troll behavior here.
If a foreign nation subsidized an export, it hurts that industry here, but reduces the cost of the product for the consumers here.
Precisely and that reduced cost of product for those who happen to consume that product inflicts harm on the nation as a whole by reducing tax revenues increasing welfare costs and harming the overall environment to provide good returns on investment in the USA.
If we put a tariff on an import, it helps that industry here, but hurts the consumers here.
it also helps othe rindustries here by providing more people able to consume goods and services.
At this point I would like to go back to your original diatribe trying to explain how tariffs harmed teh appliance industry. Now with most appliances rolled steel is a very small part of the overall cost of the appliance. The big part of the appliance is the electrical systems which are not steel. Sunstituting plastic is something that is routinely done for cist, and weight savings with some durablility issues and would be done where possible even with no tariffs on steel. Aluminum or titanium would add so much to the cost of the appliance it would not be considered unless the special properties of those metals would otherwise apply.
I understand the nat'l defense angle, and I agree with you on that, but in a strictly economic sense, tariffs can and do hurt our economy, though I do prefer that form of taxation over the ones currently in place, which do far more harm. That remains to be proven because even if I conceded every argument on the appliances you mentioned it still remains to be measured the total benefits of the tariff versus the total costs. the regression analysis I have seen make teh tariff much more beneficial.
Thanks for the fight, I've got to go home now and pretend like I did some real work today. Now since I do my own business I can post on the internet when I please and I do not let it interfere with my business but if your were posting on time you were paid for then I would suggest you owe your employer a refund of your wages for the time spent so doing. I guess that a fair days work for a fair days wage is too much a priciple of capitalism for you subscribe to.
I will grant you that institutionalized liberalism, birthed by a thoroughly prostituted educational establishment and fostered by a fourth estate enarmored of political correctness and blind devotion to liberal doctrine, and subsequently nurtured by a venal and corrupt political establishment and it's bastard bureaucracies, has brought us dangerously close to a point where a vast uberclass will be brought into being that will serve as the springboard for these fascists to achieve electoral success in a climate of fear, envy and loathing.
(That was a long sentence, and I'm sorry for that. It's just the way it came out!)
But the fallacy in your historical analysis is that China is NOT to us what we were to Britain. Any success that economy has is due entirely to slave labor. That is not a prescription for success, insofar as national economies go. They have foreign exchange. They have some industrial base. In Manchuria they have natural resources. But they are poor.
They have intellectual capital, yet that capital is not really put to task for building that economy. All markets they serve are overseas markets, designed to bring monetary capital into state coffers, or else put to work to serve the military and/or the state. Their consumer base, as it were, is piddling, and while this country remains a totalitarian communist dictatorship concerned mainly with it's own survival and self-aggrandizement, it will always remain thus. Under this scenario, I feel sorry for those who are waiting for the "billion-plus market" to materialize. It simply is not going to happen.
India? Pakistan? Industrious people. I know a number of them. Very likeable, hard-working, and quite smart. But as long as that area is driven by the caste system, they will suffer a similar fate. An economy that exists to benefit the few cannot work. Never has, never will.
The main reason these countries, these economies, have and utilize this cheap intellectual capital is because we buy it! They don't use this capital because they can't! Those economies are not this economy. They do not have the requisite infrastructure to effectively make use of it. Oh sure, they aspire to it, but they don't have it.
Now, why do we buy it? Why do we need it? Because we have a technologically advanced economy, with established infrastructure, that requires it. A source of cheaper labor has emerged that this economy can consume. Because of the nature of advanced capitalism, the pie will grow to accomodate this new feature in the mix.
It's a fatal mistake to view markets, especially dynamic capitalistic markets, as a zero-sum game. Socialists may view it as such, but they were the last to come around on things like a round earth, so we pretty much expect that from them. Malthusian economics, whether about food, natural resources, or human capital, are not in vogue today because history has already relagated it to it's trash heap.
Because of the incredible economic engine this country is, and because of it's intensely dynamic nature, this economy will find a way to accomodate these changes. If it turns out such an accomodation is not possible, then it likely spells doom for all of us.
David Ben-Gurion once said he thought once China got the technology it would be the only country. We shall see.
CA....
What a bunch of union/statist/socialist crap! I'm a business person. Cutbacks and layoffs hurt, no doubt about it, but they're usually necessary for the long term good of a company. You seem to have a woeful anti-business persecution complex.
Most businesses that I'm familiar with overstaffed during the booming late 90s. Should they keep on the extra baggage of employees whose jobs aren't really needed? It's not the company's fault if you're overextended and living paycheck to paycheck.
It is society's job to think in the long term. That means making sure the economy serves society's goals...
People who talk in these terms - the good of society over the good of the individual - should take their place standing next to the Hillary Clintons, Charles Schumers, and Joe Bidens of the world.
I believe in the free market because it takes care of itself beautifully and does so with a dispassionate lack of artificial influencing factors.
Those who would like to be economic social engineers no doubt have good intentions, but you know the saying about good intentions and the road to hell.
In what fictional world has the Dow stood at 13,000? It's never yet reached 13,000 so this makes the rest of what you're saying look like nothing but a whining anti-business diatribe.
I note in your private e-mail to me you expessed you anger and offense at what you thought I had implied about you personally.
I note that often in this forum apersons words are use dagainst them that is the way it goes here.
In any case I apologize for the personal offense inflicted as there was no such personal offense meant. Will I say I would not do it again? Of course not picking up on such comments is half the fun of posting.
you expessed you anger and offense at what you thought I had implied about you personally.
No anger or offense taken. It just seemed that your conclusion that since I have spare time, I don't understand capitalism was a bit of a cheap shot without any merit.
I note that often in this forum apersons words are use dagainst them that is the way it goes here.
Of course not picking up on such comments is half the fun of posting.
That's the way it should be. I would be disappointed if you didn't. (group of symbols intended to look like smiley face)
Now, I have to go find the boss and give him a handful of quarters......
Agreed.
Now, I have to go find the boss and give him a handful of quarters......
This is almost too tempting but I shall pass.
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