Founders Not Really for Free Trade!

[TastyWheat]

I just imagine a scenario (outlandish as it may be) where a super intelligent alien race comes to earth and makes all of our goods super-duper cheaply. Eventually everyone except the aliens stop making goods. Then one day the aliens just up and leave. We're screwed. No plants, no manufacturing base in the ENTIRE WORLD! Again it is outlandish, but my point is that we can't always depend on other countries to supply our consumption needs.

 

[nate895]

I just imagine a scenario (outlandish as it may be) where a super intelligent alien race comes to earth and makes all of our goods super-duper cheaply. Eventually everyone except the aliens stop making goods. Then one day the aliens just up and leave. We're screwed. No plants, no manufacturing base in the ENTIRE WORLD! Again it is outlandish, but my point is that we can't always depend on other countries to supply our consumption needs.

We should always have the ability to become self-sufficient, but we shouldn't become self-sufficient unless we need to.

 

[TastyWheat]

We should always have the ability to become self-sufficient, but we shouldn't become self-sufficient unless we need to.

Self-sufficiency is difficult but we really don't even have co-dependency. Aside from our worthless currency we export jack and shit. Peter Schiff talks about it all the time. America needs to create something of REAL VALUE that the rest of the world can buy.

 

[Dr.3D]

We should always have the ability to become self-sufficient, but we shouldn't become self-sufficient unless we need to.

Becoming self-sufficient takes time and resources. If all of the manufacturing base has been exported, then it would take years to become self-sufficient again. When there is a national emergency, like war, then there is not enough time to suddenly acquire the manufacturing base needed to sustain the building of weapons and equipment necessary to wage a war. It isn't like we would be able to buy what we needed from our enemys.

 

[tonesforjonesbones]

Well..it seems to me that everything is about trade..everything is set up for the marketers...wars for land grabs and resources..etc. So...free markets..GLOBAL free markets scream for a New World ORder, erasing borders..no sovereignty, no tarriffs..this is all for trade purposes. They don't give a DOODLY SQuat about our sovereignty as a nation. Is that what the libertarians want? You can't have it both ways folks. You either exercise free trade within YOUR boundaries so you can maintain your sovereignty...or you sell your soul to the devil for free global market economy. In reading about Adam Smith...he was still quite the nationalist..and was concerned with making sure the British military was preserved..and tarrifs. He wasn't such the purist free marketer that the libertarians claim he was. TONES

 

[Number19]

Well..it seems to me that everything is about trade..everything is set up for the marketers...wars for land grabs and resources..etc. So...free markets..GLOBAL free markets scream for a New World ORder, erasing borders..no sovereignty, no tarriffs..this is all for trade purposes. They don't give a DOODLY SQuat about our sovereignty as a nation. Is that what the libertarians want? You can't have it both ways folks. You either exercise free trade within YOUR boundaries so you can maintain your sovereignty...or you sell your soul to the devil for free global market economy. In reading about Adam Smith...he was still quite the nationalist..and was concerned with making sure the British military was preserved..and tarrifs. He wasn't such the purist free marketer that the libertarians claim he was. TONES

I would caution to always read early writers in the context of their time. Adam Smith was the earliest economist to advocate capitalism and free trade.

Almost all the discourse on free trade is focused from within the context of a statist world economy, and is actually regulated trade. Trade, free or otherwise, is not conducted by nations, or governments. It is individuals, businesses and corporations who see the opportunity to bring trade goods into the country from outside sources, (edit) or to sell your goods outside the country. All impediments to that movement of goods are simply part of that overhead which impacts profit. Any discussion on "global free trade" by definition, is not libertarian because the focus is always political power.

The libertarian way of influencing global trade is to lead by example.

 

[tonesforjonesbones]

Well number 19...I guess the libertarians always seem to be guided by the utopian views of the CAto Institute intellectuals. I consider all these "think tanks" to be Utopian. Sure, looks great on paper, but they leave out the factor of Human element..and free will. Humans are inherently greedy...RELIGION helps to keep this reigned in, so to speak..moral compass. That is one reason that promoting religion is so important. Greedy humans bastardize religion also to control the masses..but the religion itself , is not bad. These think tank intellectuals MUST factor in the human element of GREED ...and if they were to do that, it would blow their theory. You must have a MORAL society to make a true free market economy work. That's why ya get managed trade...human greed. So, what ends up happening is that the human element of greed FORCES government FORCE (creating regulations and legislation) TONES

 

[Number19]

I guess I'm having a bit of difficulty in finding the point of your comments. I don't have any major disagreement with anything you wrote.

Everything is about trade, for the past 30,000 years. Specialization, and the trade of labor, is a fundamental argument explaining how mankind advanced to where we are today.

The libertarian movement is all about moving away from a statist government/society and back toward a more free society. From this perspective, my point was that, were we to eventually achieve our goals, our influence on other nations and governments should properly be through example.

 

[Contumacious]

It doesn't appear that the Founders were for true free trade! Look at this! Thomas Jefferson is talking about PROTECTIONISM...

HUH?

Where/when did Thomas Jefferson suggest that the government manipulate trade on behalf of particular interest groups?!?!?

 

[ArrestPoliticians]

Ricardo came after the revolution, of course they weren't for free trade. Regardless, I am still for free trade. The founders were largely free market to the extent that free market capitalism had been developed ideologically and would have undoubtedly continued promoting it as new theories formed.

 

[tonesforjonesbones]

I don't profess to be an expert on free markets or any other economic plans...I just read Thomas Paine's Common Sense..and anything "free" is based on having a moral society, otherwise, you have to create government force. I believe that in a utopian world, free market is best...unfortunately, we live in an immoral society..and there must be some oversight. This "free trade" that we have now manages to keep the wealth in the hands of a few people. I'm certainly not for communism where the "state" controls everything...I think there must be some level of protectionism..to kind of keep a level playing field, and to try to remain sovereign...or else we get a global New World ORder and lose our civil rights. tones

 

[Andrew-Austin]

I don't profess to be an expert on free markets or any other economic plans...I just read Thomas Paine's Common Sense..and anything "free" is based on having a moral society, otherwise, you have to create government force. I believe that in a utopian world, free market is best...unfortunately, we live in an immoral society..and there must be some oversight. This "free trade" that we have now manages to keep the wealth in the hands of a few people. I'm certainly not for communism where the "state" controls everything...I think there must be some level of protectionism..to kind of keep a level playing field, and to try to remain sovereign...or else we get a global New World ORder and lose our civil rights. tones

Cuz free trade has always been in the New World Order's best interest.

 

[tonesforjonesbones]

Well of course...everything is about money and power and a competition on who holds most of it..that is immoral. tones

 

[Number19]

..I think there must be some level of protectionism..to kind of keep a level playing field, and to try to remain sovereign...

Of course we wouldn't know how it would play out, but I believe a "level playing field" is achievable by simply removing the bureaucratic regulation that burdens our economic production. Take our chains off and then let's see how well we can compete.

 

[tonesforjonesbones]

WEll..I'm ok with that..but you realize that the huge economic success of the USA didn't occur through pure free market economics dont' you? Hamilton's way is what made us successful, you know, high tarriffs on imported goods and manufacturing goods to be sold to our own folks ..that's what really made us prosperous. tones

 

[Bossobass]

America needs to create something of REAL VALUE that the rest of the world can buy.

Try as i may, it just doesn't seem to get through.

Americans create something of value constantly (check the USPTO patent apps), and most all of it is desired by the rest of the world.

The problem is that this intellectual property immediately falls into the hands of the Globalists in one of several categories:

1. The Glo-balless pukes offer to buy the idea to be manufactured in the plants they've built in our competitors' countries, or to shelve the idea altogether.

2. They simply steal the idea. Blatant theft of intellectual property and violation of international patents is a daily occurrence.

3. They move to block capital flow, lobby the goobermint to impose regulatory hurdles, demonize the idea, pretend to be on the verge of delivering the same product shortly to buy enough time to starve the entrepreneur out, or worse.

Anyone who believes the above is a description of "Free Trade" is insane. Anyone who isn't familiar with the woeful lack of creativity in competitor nations needs to bone up on the subject.

In a $2,650,000,000,000.00 federal budget (fiscal 2009), the Small Business Administration budget is $400,000,000.00. That's 1/6,000th of the total budget for the group that represents more than 1/2 of GDP and more than 1/2 of total employment, and what's left of the $400 million after the SBA consumes the cost of its existence requires the hiring of a consulting firm just to properly fill out the application for a loan.

Yet Paulson gets a supplemental trillion bucks to dole out according to his own wishes, with no oversight and no review by ANYONE.

Tariffs are one of the few defense mechanisms against bogus Free Trade. Reciprocity facilitates real Free Trade and negates the possible bad effects of tariffs.

Our trade deficit is nearing a trillion dollars a year. Our national debt is over 10 trillion. Our tax base is about to shrink dramatically as unemployment rises. None of this scenario came about as a result of Free Trade.

And, here we sit, debating the veracity of our few choices to do anything about it instead of doing everything we can about it as the whirlpool and sucking sound around the drain gets bigger and closer.

"Free Trade", "Global Economy", Social Security "Trust" Fund, "Health Care", "Death Tax", "National Defense", "Border Security"...

Pfffffft. They're all just advertising slogans.

Bosso

 

[Brian4Liberty]

It doesn't appear that the Founders were for true free trade! Look at this! Thomas Jefferson is talking about PROTECTIONISM...they didn't tax the people they didn't tax businesses because they imposed TARRIFFS! That is where they got the money to run government. tones


"The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States? These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts as places at a short day their final redemption, and that redemption once effected the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the States and a corresponding amendment of the Constitution, be applied in time of peace to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within each State. In time of war, if injustice by ourselves or others must sometimes produce war, increased as the same revenue will be by increased population and consumption, and aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet within the year all the expenses of the year without encroaching on the rights of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. War will then be but a suspension of useful works, and a return to a state of peace, a return to the progress of improvement." Thomas Jefferson

I believe it was Hamilton that proposed and advocated tarriffs. Jefferson reluctantly agreed, as it was the least intrusive method of funding on the average American. It would be a vast improvement if we could go back to a flat, untargeted tarriff, instead of the joke we have today with an incomprehensible tax code that no one can understand, yet every single American has to deal with. Jefferson would lead a revolt against what we have today.

 

[tonesforjonesbones]

Yes I agree...i wish free trade worked...it's a wonderful concept..but immorality blocks it. I think there MUST be some sort of protectionism..rather than lassiz faire economics. Yes Hamiltonian..even though he was a big government dude...he was right on this issue. tones

 

[Conza88]

Sorry. Free trade works.

Try again.

 

[tonesforjonesbones]

Conza? It does? where? tones