Pat Buchanan: Even If Trump Wins, The West Is Doomed

[TheUglyTruth]

Oh and the US doesn't have a free trade agreement with China.

Free Trade Agreements

The United States has free trade agreements in force with 20 countries. These are:

• Australia
• Bahrain
• Canada
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Dominican Republic
• El Salvador
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Israel
• Jordan
• Korea
• Mexico
• Morocco
• Nicaragua
• Oman
• Panama
• Peru
• Singapore

https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements

 

[FSP-Rebel]

The trade deficit w/ China last year was $366B - https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2016. They tariff our stuff on the way in and we mostly don't on this side of the isle.

 

[TheUglyTruth]

The trade deficit w/ China last year was $366B - https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2016. They tariff our stuff on the way in and we mostly don't on this side of the isle.

The trade deficit, for the most part, has actually been a good thing for US consumers and many producers. The goods we receive from China are produced at much lower cost than could realistically be produced in the US, leaving American consumers with more disposable income to spend on other necessities or to save and invest that money.

Some Chinese imports, such as steel, are actually being sold to US manufacturers at a loss! That means that there's actually been a transfer of wealth from China to to US!

 

[FSP-Rebel]

The trade deficit, for the most part, has actually been a good thing for US consumers and many producers. The goods we receive from China are produced at much lower cost than could realistically be produced in the US, leaving American consumers with more disposable income to spend on other necessities or to save and invest that money.

Some Chinese imports, such as steel, are actually being sold to US manufacturers at a loss! That means that there's actually been a transfer of wealth from China to to US!

It's a good thing when increasingly high levels of American society are working for chump wages or are on government welfare programs but that's where it ends. There's no future for most of these people other than to keep buying cheap foreign products just to eek out one's life. Whatever wealth still resides here is gobbled up by the Wall st corporatists and their beltway buddies via the Fed and cheap credit. This is exactly why Trump is getting lopsided support from the poorly educated and some blue collar segments of society. Many wouldn't mind shopping at the likes of Whole Foods if they were making a formerly normal income level. It's not normal for someone to be working for half or less than what they were making ten years ago. The consequences of these trade deals of the past are panning out exactly how the alarmists were saying they would be.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

“Neocons offer nothing more than more wars,” he said, before adding that their support for free trade is “almost a religious belief.

They should have sandwiched "free trade" in quotation marks.

Yeah. "Free trade" is not accurate enough. Their support for "globalism (with the exception of Israel)" would be a better description.

We should note that the term "free trade" was used by the author, not Buchanan. Meant to make neocons look good and hide the truth.

 

[TheUglyTruth]

Yeah. "Free trade" is not accurate enough. Their support for "globalism (with the exception of Israel)" would be a better description.

Israel has free trade agreements with more countries than the US does.

 

[erowe1]

What you wrote is not his position and you have been set straight more than once. Trump's position on tariffs is as a deterrent if China chooses not to balance trade.

How is that not what I said?

 

[erowe1]

That's nice, but that is not what is going on.

What is not what's going on?

I don't see where I said anything about what is going on.

 

[Bossobass]

From this, it must be that the kind of tariffs that you favor are the protectionist kind, since that's what reciprocity is.

N.B. Ron Paul opposes all taxation and all tariffs. It's not that he positively ever favored tariffs as a good thing, just that he favored them as a source of revenue for the federal government over the income tax. But the ideal would be for the federal government not to get any revenue from any coercive means whatsoever.

And even when he did propose tariffs as an improvement over the income tax, he clearly disavowed protectionist tariffs (i.e. tariffs with reciprocity). He favored instead a single rate that applied equally to everything from every other country so as to interfere with the market as little as possible.

Thanks for yet another lecture but you've left out your version of the difference between tariffs and "protectionist" tariffs (which you've incorrectly defined).

 

[otherone]

Pat Buchanan: Even If Trump Wins, The West Is Doomed

Oh noes! Not the West! That's where I keep my stuff!

 

[TheUglyTruth]

Oh noes! Not the West! That's where I keep my stuff!

Chinese bank safe deposit box.

Disclaimer: You won't have the only key to the box.

 

[otherone]

Chinese bank safe deposit box.

Disclaimer: You won't have the only key to the box.

"CHINESE"?
Bwahahahaha! You haven't been paying attention to what's been happening in the awesome "West".

 

[VIDEODROME]

They should have sandwiched "free trade" in quotation marks.

 

[Bossobass]

We don't?

Charts are fun, and… much better when put into perspective:

 

[LibertyEagle]

Oh noes! Not the West! That's where I keep my stuff!

If that is all you think of your country, we are indeed doomed.

 

[otherone]

If that is all you think of your country, we are indeed doomed.

"The West" just means America?

 

[TheUglyTruth]

Charts are fun, and… much better when put into perspective:

Trade is good!!! American consumers have access to cheaper goods and US manufacturers have been able to triple the value of their exports in just 10 years! That's fantastic news for America!

 

[Bossobass]

I was born and raised in the West End of the Steel Capital of the World, the Essen of the West, Pittsburgh, PA.

Here's a pic of just one of the many millions of square feet of steel production plants in the Pittsburgh area, employing half a million extremely skilled blue collar workers. A group of them one day in my shop in the 70s were explaining how they shaved 1/10,000 of an inch from a 10 ton cast aluminum disc.Pittsburgh no longer has the capacity to cast the disc, let alone shave a ten thousandth off it:

Here's the result in downtown Pittsburgh, circa 1930-40:

Here's where my grandfather worked for 47 years and retired with a pension after 2 tours in the Army, including 7 medals earned in the Battle of the Bulge, WWII:

Today, it's ALL GONE and these photos are exactly what the industrial areas of China look like after our best QC engineers spent the last decade of their careers in China and India teaching the indigenes how to build plants, line up raw materials supply and manufacture steel and aluminum alloys. My father-in-law was one of them.

The whole "That's Great!!!! Cheap T-shirts from CHINA… WOO-HOO!!! is, well pathetic. 75% consumer spending, mostly on credit, is not an economy, let alone an economy with a future and post a chart of what China is doing with that mountain of dollars.

Having the world's reserve currency since Breton Woods is what has allowed this ridiculous trade deficit, but the Chinas and Russias of the world are growing ill of watching the US abuse that currency by disgustingly expanding the monetary base. You can't grossly inflate the world's reserve currency and eternally enjoy a consumer spending-based economy that's based on credit expansion and CB-induced bubbles.

Or… everything's peachy-keen and let's vote for Bernie ClintonCruz!!!

 

[erowe1]

Thanks for yet another lecture but you've left out your version of the difference between tariffs and "protectionist" tariffs (which you've incorrectly defined).

I define the difference between protectionist and non-protectionist tariffs the way Ron Paul defines that difference. And since it was his position that you were attempting to co-opt, his definition should be operative here. Your support for reciprocity of tariffs is the opposite what Ron Paul means by non-protectionist tariffs.

 

[erowe1]

I was born and raised in the West End of the Steel Capital of the World, the Essen of the West, Pittsburgh, PA.

Here's a pic of just one of the many millions of square feet of steel production plants in the Pittsburgh area, employing half a million extremely skilled blue collar workers. A group of them one day in my shop in the 70s were explaining how they shaved 1/10,000 of an inch from a 10 ton cast aluminum disc.Pittsburgh no longer has the capacity to cast the disc, let alone shave a ten thousandth off it:

Here's the result in downtown Pittsburgh, circa 1930-40:

Here's where my grandfather worked for 47 years and retired with a pension after 2 tours in the Army, including 7 medals earned in the Battle of the Bulge, WWII:

Today, it's ALL GONE and these photos are exactly what the industrial areas of China look like after our best QC engineers spent the last decade of their careers in China and India teaching the indigenes how to build plants, line up raw materials supply and manufacture steel and aluminum alloys. My father-in-law was one of them.

The whole "That's Great!!!! Cheap T-shirts from CHINA… WOO-HOO!!! is, well pathetic. 75% consumer spending, mostly on credit, is not an economy, let alone an economy with a future and post a chart of what China is doing with that mountain of dollars.

Having the world's reserve currency since Breton Woods is what has allowed this ridiculous trade deficit, but the Chinas and Russias of the world are growing ill of watching the US abuse that currency by disgustingly expanding the monetary base. You can't grossly inflate the world's reserve currency and eternally enjoy a consumer spending-based economy that's based on credit expansion and CB-induced bubbles.

Or… everything's peachy-keen and let's vote for Bernie ClintonCruz!!!

You say this as if that's all a bad thing. What are we supposed to do, prop up a misallocation of resources just to keep these workers doing the same thing for more years, when we could get cheaper steel from China?

And [MENTION=660]LibertyEagle[/MENTION], see what I mean about people saying it would be bad if China literally gave us free steel? You acted like that was a misrepresentation of Trump and Buchanan. It definitely wasn't. And [MENTION=401]Bossobass[/MENTION] is right there with them.