More "Free Trade" Fail.

[Anti Federalist]

I studied that in college too.

Once again, no free trade advocates have stated how a country can trade when it produces very little. The only way to continue trading is to pay for the goods. However, when you don't have any money to pay for the goods, you are forced to print it out of thin air.

Or borrow it from the producing nations until they realize you will never be able to pay them back and they cancel your "national" credit card.

 

[Kregisen]

WHICH DOES NOT APPLY WHEN YOU ARE DEALING WITH A RIGID INDENTURED SERVITUDE CASTE SYSTEM/STATE LIKE INDIA OR A PRISON STATE LIKE COMMUNIST CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no business model that can compete with a state prison that opens up shop right next to yours making the same thing with prison labor.

China subsidizing their products makes the U.S. richer, not poorer. It's more economics you're missing out on.

if you want to keep up the left handed insults, you'll end up being only the second person that I've put on ignore in over three years.

I never meant to insult you personally, just some of your anti-free trade arguments. Sorry if it came out the wrong way. Don't take it personally.



There's nothing else to be said here. The facts have been presented, but no one has to believe them. Have fun everyone.

 

[ClayTrainor]

No, I think many agree in the hypothetical. But do you think the governments are ever going away?

Does it matter? If you lived 300 years ago, and thought slavery was never going to go away, would you compromise your position?

Actually, when you really think about it... slavery is just taxation/extortion at a 100% level.

Do you think they will not always want some form of coercive funding?

Some people always will, but the problem is the state makes it legal for them to do so. You will not be able to "limit" such an organization with some fancy form of taxation. We simply shouldn't be making exceptions for people in fancy government costumes to do things that no rational, moral person should do.

Taxation is extortion, and it shouldn't be legal for some individuals to extort from others. This is the cancer, everything else is just a symptom.

So in that society, how best to fund the government?

You're witnessing it. The US Constitution was probably the greatest attempt at putting limits on government, and look what happened. It's turned into arguably the biggest state in world history. What you're seeing now is the result of the best the world has come up with.

 

[axiomata]

I studied that in college too.

Once again, no free trade advocates have stated how a country can trade when it produces very little. The only way to continue trading is to pay for the goods. However, when you don't have any money to pay for the goods, you are forced to print it out of thin air.

Right now we do trade a lot of worthless paper for real goods. I do not deny this. (If it was sustainable it would be quite a steal for us.) The Walter Williams article I linked to above explains how a trade deficit balances with the forieign capital account investment in the US.

However even if we did have an honest monetary system, it is a fallacy to insist that only goods can be traded for goods. As I mentioned earlier, I pay for my goods with blueprints, this exchange is mutually beneficial. How do you pay for yours? Even if all you do is flip burgers at McDonalds when I freely choose to eat there, and use the time I save cooking dinner to make more blueprints, you end up paying for your Chinese made goods.

 

[Anti Federalist]

I never meant to insult you personally, just some of your anti-free trade arguments. Sorry if it came out the wrong way. Don't take it personally.

Nah nah, it's cool, I snapped too.

I'm in a high state of piss off, about something completely unrelated, tonight.

There's nothing else to be said here. The facts have been presented, but no one has to believe them. Have fun everyone.

Yes, they have, many times.

We'll see what shakes out, won't we?

 

[james1906]

China subsidizing their products makes the U.S. richer, not poorer. It's more economics you're missing out on.

Like how unemployment checks keep the economy moving?

 

[axiomata]

If they came from China and not future US taxes they would, at least in the US.

 

[james1906]

Right now we do trade a lot of worthless paper for real goods. I do not deny this. (If it was sustainable it would be quite a steal for us.) The Walter Williams article I linked to above explains how a trade deficit balances with the forieign capital account investment in the US.

However even if we did have an honest monetary system, it is a fallacy to insist that only goods can be traded for goods. As I mentioned earlier, I pay for my goods with blueprints, this exchange is mutually beneficial. How do you pay for yours? Even if all you do is flip burgers at McDonalds when I freely choose to eat there, and use the time I save cooking dinner to make more blueprints, you end up paying for your Chinese made goods.

Services can be traded. However we don't 'export' services, but we 'import' them plenty.

 

[charrob]

Why do we need imports = exports? That's just mercantilism lite.

We shouldn't compete with a slave-labor, child-labor, sweatshop, environmentally degrading, unsafe working conditions state like China. If we compete w/o tariffs, we drive our lifestyles to be that of the chinese slave laborers. Instead, tariffs should be applied so that we abide by American standards of safety, environmental regulation, workplace hours, child-labor, etc. This not only brings our workers and workplaces to appropriate lifestyles, but also will eventually better the lifestyles of the laborers in China. The question then becomes: how much in tariffs should be applied to China? -we need to take into consideration, again, the workplace safety, environmental regulations, work-place hours/breaks, etc....and somehow come up with a figure. All that sounds like reams of calculations and paperwork. A better solution is to allow all countries to produce what they are best at- and to keep the trade between nations from being imbalanced so that all countries and their citizens can be productive. This seems like the cleanest way.

 

[axiomata]

Services can be traded. However we don't 'export' services, but we 'import' them plenty.

I export my engineering services all the time. Right now I'd designing a plant in Kyrgyzstan of all places.

 

[james1906]

I export my engineering services all the time. Right now I'd designing a plant in Kyrgyzstan of all places.

And how many people in the world do your work?

 

[axiomata]

And how many people in the world do your work?

I don't know exactly what you're asking. Are you asking how many people do the manual labor involved in the construction or how many engineers do what I do?

 

[mtj458]

Why are the jobs of foreigners less important than the jobs of Americans? Why should I care more about strangers in Detroit than strangers in India? Why is it wrong to make laws discriminating against uncontrollable factors such as race but not wrong for uncontrollable factors such as which imaginary lines on the map I was born inside of?

 

[james1906]

I don't know exactly what you're asking. Are you asking how many people do the manual labor involved in the construction or how many engineers do what I do?

You might do highly specialized work.

 

[specialK]

the founders passed a protective tariff in 1789; needed then, needed now

That's how international trade wars get started and everyone ends up becoming more and more protectionistic. This results in more and more losers, including the USA. Ron Paul believes in an excise tax or a VAT. I'm with RP on this one.

 

[dannno]

Articles like these bring me around more and more to Pat Buchanan's point-of-view on trade policy.

Unfortunately we'll never be a nation of 300 million astronauts. Unless we plan to subsidize everyone who'd be a widget-maker in the U.S. (and we're getting there), we need to get some jerbs back to the United States. Some would say "subsidize them using all the corporate profits coming in" but the profiteers will just take their whole operations out of the USA. And of course, creating a nation of dependents is pretty much as anti-American as could possibly be.

I don't know what the answer is. The more we grow the welfare state because it isn't hospitable to create jobs here as opposed to overseas, the further down the path we slide.

Not to be insulting, as you could be correct that protectionist measures might help foster more jobs edit: protect more jobs from being destroyed in our country temporarily, but ultimately it is an economic distortion that leads to decreased total output which results in less overall wealth.. so that argument is similar to the argument that the free market failed so we need more regulations.. We don't have free trade, we have govt. managed trade and central banks in every country around the world printing and manipulating currencies...

Ultimately free trade brings about more prosperity, and with a free market it would be fantastic for our country.

 

[axiomata]

You might do highly specialized work.

Of course I do, and so should you (not necessarily the same kind). Specialization and the division of labor is one of the primary wealth creating features of an economy.

 

[kah13176]

Honestly I think the biggest reason for unemployment is simply uncertainty. There's a good deal of hype over taxes of all kinds - death taxes, payroll taxes, cap and trade, more or less ad infinitum. It's essentially manipulation of market indicators - in this scenario, it is hard for companies and consumers alike to evaluate risk. Should Company X hire 20 new workers? How should they know: cap and trade taxes might be instated and they may thus need the wage money for a "rainy day" instead.

Or consider Consumer Z. He has a little extra money coming in, but what if there's an unexpected change in money supply or income taxes. Obviously, that makes him more hesitant to spend and save money where the markets would best dictate it to go based on risk and reward. Screwing around with economic indicators always brings uncertainty, which makes people more hesitant to do anything, especially taking the risk of hiring some new workers.

Lastly, I think that free trade and the exporting of blue collar jobs does not have any major, negative, long term impact on the average middle-class person. For one, it means that lower income families are able to get goods at cheaper prices. Logically, if foreign countries begin specializing in blue-collar jobs, businesses in the United States can focus on other things, which is why we have seen such an exponential increase in white collar jobs in the last five or so decades.

 

[Cowlesy]

Not to be insulting, as you could be correct that protectionist measures might help foster more jobs edit: protect more jobs from being destroyed in our country temporarily, but ultimately it is an economic distortion that leads to decreased total output which results in less overall wealth.. so that argument is similar to the argument that the free market failed so we need more regulations.. We don't have free trade, we have govt. managed trade and central banks in every country around the world printing and manipulating currencies...

Ultimately free trade brings about more prosperity, and with a free market it would be fantastic for our country.

Ultimately I think a balance needs to be reached. Free trade of course has its benefits, but being nice and letting someone rob your house is just plain stupid. China dumped well pipe on the market and forced Pennsylvania pipe makers to shutdown. The Free Trade argument, I imagine, would be "well if the PA pipe company couldn't innovate to compete with China, then they should shutdown and retrain --- creative destruction, etc." Unfortunately, after China drove the pipe manufacturers out of business, they began to raise prices. Again, I imagine the Free Trade argument would be "Well then the Penn'a pipe manufacturer could start up and compete. Unfortunately, there are tons of fixed costs and risked involve with stopping and starting enterprises including market, financing and many assorted other risks. On a chalkboard it works out perfectly in theory, but in reality if you drive an industry sector to shut down, it's very costly to start it back up.

 

[erowe1]

The article in the OP is nothing but good news. I don't see the problem.