A Suicidal Country

Townhall.com ^ | 02-26-03 | Paul Craig Roberts

[Norm640]

In my opinion, NAFTA and free trades just benefits those than owns the means of production. No working person--which describes most of us--benefits from free trade, except for when we want to buy something. Unfortunately, we can't buy many things if we don't have money.

We need to repeal NAFTA and usher in some protectionism until the playing field is level.

[sarcasm]

ping

[Cacophonous]

You are right on...

[Arkie2]

Smoot-Hawley. That's all you need to know about tarrifs.

[Willie Green]

Smoot-Hawley. That's all you need to know about tarrifs.

I doubt you know anything about Smoot-Hawley, let alone tariffs.

[Arkie2]

What an intelligent response!

[Buckeye Bomber]

What would ushering in protectionism do? Other countries would trade with each other. They'd get richer and richer, while we sit back in our protectionist cocoon, falling farther and farther behind. If we were actually serious about competing on a global scale, we'd make our economy freer, let the markets do their work, and spend money on research and education rather than subsidies and trade battles.

The American economy needs to be leaner to compete. It won't get leaner in a protectionist country. We might as well throw money at grossly inefficient steel mills and airlines. Oh wait, we do.

[angkor]

The winners are the foreigners with IT educations who live in countries where both the standard and cost of living are very low.

Not so. They're paid local wages, which is why they're competitive in the first place.

A middle class software engineer in Houston lives about the same as a middle class software engineer in Bangalore, despite their huge (10X) salary differentials.

H1B visas are more troublesome, because the lower-paid engineer takes American jobs from his American peers.

[Willie Green]

What an intelligent response!

Thank-you.
I specificly tailored it to a level that you could understand.

[Arkie2]

Oh, sorry. I didn't notice the Go Pat Go tag line. I didn't realize I was dealing with a closed minded isolationist. My apologies for trying to engage in intelligent discourse as I realize it's not possible for you.

[Iscool]

It's interesting that just within a few short years, we went from a handful of "tinfoilers" to a nation that now accepts and embraces this "New World Order" like a new winter jacket...

It makes perfect sense to finance companies that will move in and train Somalians to build Ford transmissions for pennies per hour...Look how we are giving them jobs and raising their standard of living...OF course Ford is dropping the price of their vehicles, right???

Seems to me most Freepers support globalisation...Also seems to me most Americans either build stuff to sell, sell stuff or sell services...I can no longer afford to own some of the things I used to...

Who we gonna sell this stuff to, the Somalies and Chinese???

[Buckeye Bomber]

I picked up this gem in an article about free trade.

"A Harvard study which examined data from developing nations over the period 1970 to 1990 found that those with open trade policies registered economic growth at an average rate of 4.5 percent annually -- compared to only 1 percent among those with closed borders."

Here is the full article I found: http://www.ncpa.org/pd/trade/pdtrade/pdtrade10.html

Would you rather have the lower or the higher growth rate? And if we don't have free trade, and we want a high growth rate, guess who will be footing the bill for investment? That's right, good old Uncle Sam. Keynesianism needs to stay in its grave where it belongs. Free trade will not only make the economy grow faster, it will end the need for wars. The idea is that countries who are rich because of trade will have no reason to try and conquer other nations. Exchange will replace plunder. In fact, it already is. When even a democratic president, in the pocket of the unions, can push free trade legislation through, we're on the right track.

Here is a link to a free online book dedicated to the idea that free trade will end the possibility of major war:

http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jmueller/books.htm

Click on "Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War" to download a free PDF version of the book.

[Willie Green]

My apologies for trying to engage in intelligent discourse

You shouldn't strain so hard, it'll give you hemorrhoids.

[Buckeye Bomber]

http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/obrien.hawley-smoot.tariff.php

All you need to know about Smoot-Hawley.

[Iscool]

The American economy needs to be leaner to compete. It won't get leaner in a protectionist country

Not true at all.....Americans can compete with each other...Like we did before globalisation...We can not compete with China or Indonesia...

How do you expect to keep YOUR standard of living when whatever you sell goes at the price that Costa Ricans will pay???

[al_possum39]

The same thing is happening in China, a country with which the United States is expected to have a $125 billion trade deficit this year due largely to outsourcing. Microsoft alone is spending $1,150,000,000 for R&D and outsourcing in India and China over the next three years. In Microsoft's Beijing research facility, one-third of the Chinese programmers have Ph.D.s from U.S. universities at U.S. taxpayers' expense.

Well, one thing about it. We won't have a trade deficit much longer if they keep outsourcing jobs? We won't be able to buy anything from anybody.

[Arkie2]

Already got em. Guys like you only give me indigestion.

[Buckeye Bomber]

Yes, we will sell it to the Chinese. The Somalis, I don't know about. But the American market is flat. Any major company worth their salt is expanding operations in China and India. Look where McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Ford, Proctor and Gamble, and other major corporations want to expand.

[Buckeye Bomber]

It's funny that you speak as if American consumer spending is in a tailspin. Do you ever pay attention to financial news?