Posted on 03/26/2016 12:17:19 PM PDT by iowamark
I guess an anti American could be called traitor, but that is just the way I see it.
Let us go to the top historian on US trade ...
Patrick J. Buchanan: Trump Is Right on Trade
http://buchanan.org/blog/trump-is-right-on-trade-124822
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3399142/posts
Column too awsome to chop up fairly, but here is an interesting snippet:
Example: Impose a 20 percent tariff on foreign cars entering the USA. This might raise the cost of a Lexus or Mercedes produced and assembled abroad from $50,000 to $60,000.
However, if Lexus or Mercedes buys or makes all their parts in the USA and assembles all their cars here, no tariff. Their cars could still sell for $50,000. This would be a powerful incentive to shift production here. As an added incentive, all tariff revenue could be used to reduce or eliminate corporate taxes in the USA.
Between the Civil War and World War I, under Republicans, the U.S. became the world’s greatest industrial power and a wholly self-sufficient nation. How? We taxed foreign goods entering the United States, but did not tax the profits of U.S. companies or the incomes of U.S. workers.
The difference between economic patriots and globalists who inhabit corporate-funded think tanks and public policy institutes is that the latter think of what is best for their corporate benefactors and the global economy. The former put America and Americans first.
Academics revere Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Richard Cobden.
But none of them ever built a great nation. Patriots look to Alexander Hamilton and those post-Civil War Republicans who built the greatest national industrial powerhouse the world had ever seen.
Indeed, what great nation did free trade ever build?
As father of a united Germany, Chancellor Bismarck said, when he decided to build Germany on the American and not the British model, ‘I see that those countries which possess protection are prospering, and that those countries which possess free trade are decaying.’
So it is true today. Unfortunately, it is America, now wedded to the fatal dogma of free trade, that is decaying.
[unquote]
I am curious. Do you maintain we did not have free trade under George Washington? We had a tariff, but that does not mean we didn’t have free trade.
The only way that China really is like “how we used to be” is in terms of corporate taxation. The USA has the highest rate thereof on the planet. Otherwise, they run things pretty much in line with Lenin’s New Economic Policy.
I suppose that's true. But it is not true of trade. Benie is a Socialist. His views of Trade are the views of a Socialist. If you agree with him you are accepting the Socialist view of Trade.
[ The only way that China really is like “how we used to be” is in terms of corporate taxation. The USA has the highest rate thereof on the planet. Otherwise, they run things pretty
much in line with Lenin’s New Economic Policy. ]
Yes you are correct, and I should have been more clear, also while we need basic environmental regulations the ones we currently have are too stifling.
No, no, no! Marx, the ultimate socialist, hated tariffs and protectionism. You got it bassackward, 180 degrees off. You stand corrected, now stand down.
Someone wants to tariff a Ford built in Mexico 35%? Fine. Now tell me that my manufacturing job outside of Detroit supplying that Mexico plant (among others) wasn't that important after all.
Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the UN.That is Communist goal #7, for the record. How much more would Red China’ participation in the WTO be a communistic goal, never mind the creation of the WTO itself to essentially replace GATT?
Interestingly, I don’t see blanket tariffs as not allowing “free trade.”
Do we call the US a Communist country because it chooses to tax income instead of imports? After all, income was not expected to be needed when the State withered away (remember, “from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs”). Income is something capitalist countries are fine with, or so you’d think, but yet we have huge taxes on it (and not any income taxes on those getting welfare or other gifts—interesting, is it not?).
Free trade is assuring the government is not picking winners and losers. I do not see a problem with a blanket tariff, as a result, if “free traders” (of which I am one) believe income tax does not make us “communist.”
The best tactic to use against Free Traitors™ is to pin the income tax on them. They own it lock, stock and barrel The income tax replaced tariffs in 1913. They can’t deny it they have to take it or be labeled disingenuous fools (which we know they are anyway).
The “best” tactic is a logical fallacy that would get you kicked-off a high school debate team?
I re-read my post looking, looking, looking for a mention of Karl Marx. I didn't find it. What I did find was a reference or two to Bernie Sanders who is a well known SOCIALIST.
I recognize that agreeing with Bernie Sanders is a hard pill for any honest Freeper to swallow. But Bernie is Bernie and his stupid ideas are just that: Stupid. So draw your own conclusions: If you are right, so is Bernie.
That would be because we used to build stuff...
I’m sorry the rest of us aren’t up to your high level of financial intellect. However, my career as a medical transcriptionist, along with thousands of other MTs, was impacted when my job was sent to India. I was 57 at the time...too young to retire and apparently too old to start another line of work because I have yet to find another job 5 years later.
I graduated from college in 1978 and then took medical transcription classes after that. After I was laid off, I went through the TAA program to become a paralegal (zero interviews or job offers) and now I’m back in school for medical billing/coding, although I don’t hold out much hope I’ll be gainfully employed ever again. If I chose to return to the MT field, I would potentially earn $8 per hour ($0.04/word times 200 lines/hr), which is quite a comedown from the $20/hr. (with benefits, PTO, etc.) I earned in 2010. In fact, I made $8.50/hr in my first MT job in 1984!
So pardon me if I’m not enthusiastically on board the “Yay for Free Trade!” Train. Many lives have been negatively impacted by NAFTA and GATT, and that’s another reason we are so pissed.
We have been through this issue on previous threads and you are correct. But go back and look at the Tariff Act of 1789 and you will find that there was not universal agreement by the Founding Father Types and, in general, between North and South about the use of tariffs.
I believe that generally the tariffs were small, a few percent, and they were about the only revenue source the Federal Government had. So yes, there was some justification for a low level tariff in those days.
We have an easy example of the possible results of tariffs on the consumer and manufacturers; pickup trucks. There’s still a 25% tariff on imported pickups.
Is the relative lack of smaller and cheaper pickups, or even the availability of bare-bones models, related to the tariff? If it is, is the price worth paying? If it’s not, isn’t the argument just philosophical instead of economic?
I apologize, but I meant to include you in on post #30.
The scheduled tariffs were around 8%.
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