Posted on 06/12/2018 7:35:09 AM PDT by bitt
One of the greatest gifts President Trump provides through his policy discussion(s) is an awakening to how much U.S. voter perspective has been driven by constructed fallacy.
This is especially true in the discussion of domestic economic policy. There are trillions of dollars at stake; and the stakeholders are growing increasingly angry as President Trump places a spotlight on decades of economic fraud and abuse.
Prior to the 2016 election few people understood that DC politicians don’t actually write legislation, lobbyists do. Politicians don’t write laws, their role is to sell legislation created by lobbyist groups. That is the modern legislative model; that’s how it really works. Unfortunately the same bastardized and manipulated process has happened around trade deals and trade agreements.
In modern trade agreements, before the election of President Donald Trump, corporations would write the actual language within the deal. Corporate lobby groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have fully functioning staff that do nothing except write the trade agreement language.
(Excerpt) Read more at theconservativetreehouse.com ...
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The US economy has become so "financialized" that there is little or no connection between the profits of Wall Street speculators and domestic production of material (or intellectual) goods and services. "Finance" used to exist in order to pay for production. In a global market where production is outsourced overseas, US finance is a stand-alone entity where a very small number of people make a lot of money by moving paper around (i.e. futures trading, shorting currencies) with no economic growth in any other sector.
One of those fallacies, discussed in the article, is the dishonest claim that speculator profits translate into economic growth in other areas.
Other fallacies include:
1. The claim that due to "relative advantage," free trade enriches all countries. The relative advantage argument assumes that capital remains in each country, when in a modern globalized economy it does not. Rather than relative advantage, wind up with a net flow of investment capital from a country with expensive labor to one with cheap labor.
2. Free Traders claim that tariffs invariably make goods and services more expensive. Their arguments are correct in the (very) short term, but then they go on to claim that those prices are permanent because apparently they've never heard (or don't want you to hear about) liquidity and elasticity in supply and demand. If import shortages raise prices due to increased demand, domestic production will increase to raise that demand and bring prices back to an equilibrium. Free traders assume that the increased demand can never be met domestically.
3. Free Traders claim that tariffs cause economic depressions and impoverish nations. That would be news to Americans during most of the 19th and early 20th century, when tariffs were high by today's standards and economic growth was unprecedented.
4. Free traders like to pretend that the whole world except for Trump and his supporters reject tariffs. The fact is the most other nations have protectionist policies, if not through tariffs, then through various regulations that favor domestic production.
From the article:
An example of a fallacy of false choice you might find familiar:
Corporate outsourcing is due to manufacturers looking for cheap labor; … AND … also, job losses are due to automation. See the problem?
If automation replaces labor, then why move the manufacturing process? The argument doesn’t add up. Confused? Don’t worry, you’re supposed to be.
The idea that they are somehow at odds is laughable. Sundance usually does better than this.
The push to reduce costs is always there. But cheap labor costs overseas and increasing labor costs in the U.S. both create pressures to move where there is cheap labor and/or to automate.
sounds like bradman has quietly abondoned his theory that North Korea summit is meaningless because NK totally controlled by China trade issues.
To witness the largest transfer of Capital Stock in the history of mankind, and not see it, makes one a fool.
We need to see a few Free Traitors™ burned at the stake to facilitate a quick change a of heart on the matter.
Great post except they are Free Traitors™ and not Free Traders.
The entirety of “Wealth of Nations” is fiction based upon a world that has never existed. An imagined world.
Adam Smith pretends to analyze something that no man in history has ever witnessed...Free Trade.
There is, and has never been, any such thing as Free Trade.
Trade between nations is always Mercantilist. And always will be.
It’s the nature of man.
Your vapid post does nothing to explain that dichotomy. You lose.
5. That free trade is good for everyone involved.
6. That free trade is fair trade.
The business of America is business
Always has been, always will be.
American business is on an international scale. That is, American business is global. American salesmen travel to the very corners of the earth hawking their goods.
Isolationists that whine “Globlism, Globalism...... I see it under the bed there. It’s gonna get me!” need a night light
Jonah Goldmansachsberg is an idiot. Chis Wallass is liberal globalist hack.
Trump is demand protectionism and fora trade but are you really calling him an isolationist? You don’t even know what it means.
When confronted with facts, people like you come back with bumper sticker slogans and name-calling. I wasn’t expecting any better.
Which has NOTHING to do with the subject of the world protectionism, mercantilism and high import tariffs.
Right on! The Stock Market used to be where Americans could invest their savings in the businesses in our country. To provide them the capital they need and to share in the resulting profits. But ALL OF THAT is in the past. The Stock Market has “evolved” into a Casino with all the “instruments” the “players” have created to bastardize the basic concept. I haven’t owned one share of stock since 2007 when “the market” took 30% of my retirement. Thanks to these crooked a$$holes at places like Morgan Stanley (the firm that f*cked me out of my life’s savings), I still have to earn a living managing commercial property that I would have sold long ago if I hadn’t needed the income.
Of course not. The President is acting very selectively on a global scale.
You and others here are the isolationists withdrawing from the world of commerce that makes America thrive.
The President is working with trading pardners to resolve inequities and improve our ability to trade. The President is facilitating international trade.
He speaks of Fair Trade and is working diligently to remove foreign tariffs that impede sales of American companies trading on an international scale. In addition to Boeing et al, there are many many medium and small American companies that will benefit from such efforts opening closed international markets.
Although dealing global is good, merely dealing internationally for small compaies is very good.
"A policy or doctrine of trying to isolate one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, and generally attempting to make one's economy entirely self-reliant; seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement, both diplomatically and economically, while remaining in a state of peace by avoiding foreign entanglements and responsibilities."
Sounds good to me. It sounds like a definition of patriotism too. Put me down as an isolationist, and proudly so.
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