Smoote-Hawley Tarriff

[therepublic]

To say that the Founding Fathers liked tariffs is a bit of a stretch, and I do not find where anyone here has actually argued that. They have said the following though:

The Truth is we know:

• tariffs are written in the Constitution as one of the enumerated powers

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts (tariffs) and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

• The Washington administration did use them to sever our dependence on British goods by encouraging American Made
• During this time the Country did suffer very high inflation. The Country came close to collapsing into anarchy several times. But we also gained our freedom.

However, according to Justice Joseph Story (Supreme Court Justice from1811 to 1845, borne 3 years after the American Revolution and who's father fought in the American Revolution):

• George Washington was the one most interested in making sure the Federal Government had restricted powers to collect revenue. The reason for this was that, several times during the American Revolution, he had to leave his starving, scantly clothed troops to beg the Continental Congress for funds. You see the Continental Congress had no power to tax, and that nearly cost us the war.
• The Founding Fathers viewed taxation as one of the powers that could be most abused, yet a necessary evil, if we were going to have a standing army to protect us from invasion by foreign armies.
• Woodrow Wilson added the taxation of labor, which was one the Founding Fathers were opposed to, and is likely more dangerous than any that the Founding Fathers authorized such as tariffs. (See Jace's Post)

Note: one very important point made by some in this discussion is that because of the over reaching powers of the Federal Reserve (known by our Founding Fathers as the Central Bank), all taxes are currently abused. Until we nullify the Fed, we can never return to a Republic (true freedom) . (see Jace's Post. He said several wise things. We are really arguing over the wrong things...shell games to detract us. ).

Ditto: If we want to know what really harms this Country, look closely at what Woodrow Wilson did, and it wasn't tariffs. (see Jace's post....shell games? yes, bait and switch too.

 

[showpan]

I've never seen anyone's silly argument so utterly destroyed as ProIndividual did to you in the other thread. you resort to ad hominems, character assassinations, and logical fallacies after your claims are destroyed. you're correct, math doesn't lie. the problem is that you don't seem to understand the math. stop making these asinine posts, you're embarrassing yourself at this point.

Embarrassment would be selling my country out so that share holders and CEO's can steal the wealth of working Americans who no longer work. Pictures tell a thousand words.

 

[showpan]

One more real fact to add for those who wish to remain in denial.
Brian Wesbury who made this chart you guys seem to think actually means something was made by another neocon globalist FED.
Not only was he one of Cheney's economic advisers...lol...he is a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and CEO of First Trust Portfolios who actually stated in Feb 2008 that:
"We are not in a recession and we are not even headed for one. We should be buying stocks. This whole subprime lending issue. At its worst, and this is using the worst assumptions that I can make, it’ll be about a $250 billion problem. I don’t even think that we’ll get to that level; that’s the worst I can make it. $250 billion is less than .3 percent of all the economy’s assets. We have a $14 trillion GDP. We have $100 trillion in assets. It’s just too small of a problem to take the economy down. So I think we are blowing it out of proportion today and it is causing more fear than it should."

Q: If we get a President Obama or a President Clinton, should we be terrified at what they might do to the economy?

A: Maybe my answer here will surprise you, but I am going to say “No.”
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25189

If you are going to talk charts, then please don't post ones from so called economic experts who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
Try here first.....better study up on your economics lessons so you actually understand them.

 

[Cutlerzzz]

Lol

Just give it up Showpan. The number is 100% valid.

 

[romacox]

Thank You

As some of you know, I am studding early documents and textbooks to find the true history that was never taught in school. I am also posting these articles for free to homeschool families because they (and I) have come to believe that history is important if we are to prevent repetition of past mistakes (like loss of freedoms).

But what you don't know is that often before writing an article, I come here and discuss it with you all. It helps me sort out what is important, what isn't, and how to say it. you have also lead me to many important facts. I find many people on this site to be more analytical in their thinking then on most blogs . So for that I thank you. You are awesome.

You just helped me with two more articles about the Constitution and it's history.

P.S. Something posted by Jace led me to this article from Mises Institute that I think you will like.

http://mises.org/etexts/rootofevil.asp It is about the 16th amendment.

 

[JohnRego]

Showpan is right about one thing. The founders definitely were in favor of tariffs.

 

[mtj458]

xx

 

[showpan]

As some of you know, I am studding early documents and textbooks to find the true history that was never taught in school. I am also posting these articles for free to homeschool families because they (and I) have come to believe that history is important if we are to prevent repetition of past mistakes (like loss of freedoms).

But what you don't know is that often before writing an article, I come here and discuss it with you all. It helps me sort out what is important, what isn't, and how to say it. you have also lead me to many important facts. I find many people on this site to be more analytical in their thinking then on most blogs . So for that I thank you. You are awesome.

You just helped me with two more articles about the Constitution and it's history.

P.S. Something posted by Jace led me to this article from Mises Institute that I think you will like.

http://mises.org/etexts/rootofevil.asp It is about the 16th amendment.

This is an excellent article by Mises.
A few things that are missing however:
Washingotn's whiskey tax. Washington himself bought into a distillary and then enacted an excise tax which caused a rebellion. Many people veiwed this as though he were "taxing" the competition. More people actually died in that rebellion than the revolution as Washington used the militia against them. This is veiwed as a very bad piece of our founding history and often left out. Jefferson later repealed the Tax.
The Depression of 1873 has not been diagnosed properly and some of it's root causes were never mentioned.
Panic of 1873
In 1871, Otto von Bismarck extracted a large indemnity in gold from France and ceased minting silver thaler coins, abandoning the silver standard. The first symptoms of the crisis were financial failures in the Austro-Hungarian capital, Vienna, which spread to most of Europe and North America by 1873. America then encted the Coinage Act of 1873 which basically dropped silver and changed to the gold standard. The Act had the immediate effect of depressing silver prices which hurt Western mining and other interests including investment and bonds. The Panic of 1873 began on September 18 with the failure of the Philadelphia investment house of Jay Cooke. Cooke had played a large role in financing the Union war effort by marketing federal bonds to farmers and workers. Cooke's failure drove panicked banks to demand payment of loans. Investors rushed to sell stocks in order to protect their capital. As stocks on the New York exchanges sunk lower, borrowers had no money with which to pay their debts. Businessmen, many of whom had borrowed money to expand their operations during boom times, released workers. At the same time, investors in Europe, where a depression is already underway, begin to call in American loans. The New York Stock Exchange closes its doors for 10 days The collapse of Jay Cooke's bank sets off the "Panic of 1873" and the ensuing depression during which more than 15,000 businesses fail.
The mises article also fails to point out just who the "socialists" actually were. They were made up primarily of German and other european immigrants who came here to fight for the North on the promise of land and other compensations. If the north had never opened the floodgates, the south would have surely won the civil war. The turning point was on the 3rd day of the Battle of Shiloh in which a million man immigrant army arrived after two days of almost complete annihilation by Southern forces.
Mises misses the whole point in their diagnosis of just what the Civil War actually did. It was a war of greed that paved the way for the reduction of states rights, corporate personahood, corporate takeover and the concentration of power. I have been to Tennessee and viewed a lot of historical records and documents that actually led to the War. It was then that I realized the extent of the lies that we are being taught. There is a lot of information available on the web, much of it is buried and you have to pick through everything to get a complete picture. Even then, a lot of information has never been published, like those documents in Memphis.
The 16th Amendment.
The government has basically rewritten history by ruling the income tax as an "excise" tax authorized by our constitution. Do a search...lol

In order to portray an accurate view of our history, one must research from many, many different sources and sift through them all in order to locate all of the "missing" pieces much like a puzzle. Our history has been rewritten so much, using misinformation and incomplete information in order to sway public opinions, the task of collecting all of this information will be never ending...good luck and happy hunting.

 

[showpan]

Lol

Just give it up Showpan. The number is 100% valid.

I will never just "lay down" like you seem to hope for. You made the asinine comment that I didn't know how to read a chart and yet you still don't know what that chart represents....lol

 

[Cutlerzzz]

I will never just "lay down" like you seem to hope for. You made the asinine comment that I didn't know how to read a chart and yet you still don't know what that chart represents....lol

You've displayed time and time again that you don't understand most of the charts you post. You even gave up arguing and now claim that everybody is neocon disagreeing with you and advocating limited government. Nobody in either topic is defending you, not even your fellow protectionists. Nobody is impressed by your personal attacks, poor arguments, or by your claim that you will never lay down in an eight page internet debate. You're making an ass out of yourself.

It's amazing that you're criticizing a valid statistic because it comes from the Fed, when yesterday you posted charts that came from the Fed and another that came from labor unions. It is impossible to take your criticism of the numbers seriously when you have posted numbers from the same source.

 

[showpan]

1. The Smoote-Hawley Tarriff did not cause or extend the great depression.

2. Tariffs are constitutional and taxes are not.

 

[Danke]

As some of you know, I am studding early documents and textbooks to find the true history that was never taught in school. I am also posting these articles for free to homeschool families because they (and I) have come to believe that history is important if we are to prevent repetition of past mistakes (like loss of freedoms).

But what you don't know is that often before writing an article, I come here and discuss it with you all. It helps me sort out what is important, what isn't, and how to say it. you have also lead me to many important facts. I find many people on this site to be more analytical in their thinking then on most blogs . So for that I thank you. You are awesome.

You just helped me with two more articles about the Constitution and it's history.

P.S. Something posted by Jace led me to this article from Mises Institute that I think you will like.

http://mises.org/etexts/rootofevil.asp It is about the 16th amendment.

http://www.losthorizons.com/comment/WasGrandpaReallyaMoron.pdf

 

[Jace]

..

 

[therepublic]

Obama and most establishment candidates are against free trade?

Obama is a free trader in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson, FDR and Bill Clinton, and so is the entire establishment, on both Democratic and Republican sides. The establishment marches lockstep on this, following economic counsel flowing from Federal Reserve-backed economists.

Obama is no protectionist, that's for sure. He has warned us repeatedly against xenophobia, isolationism and protectionism. Obama just turned over a good portion of our trucking industry to the Mexicans and is aggressively pushing through free trade deals with Korea, Panama and Colombia. He has bipartisan support on this. I understand the anarchist rebuttal is to call this managed trade, but the fact is these deals will increase the flow of American capital into Korea, Panama and Colombia and increase the flow of their goods into our market.

We always hear about the benefits of these free trade deals but few point out the huge downsides. The benefits go to the financial sector, and for the short term, to the consumer as higher cost American producers are eliminated and replaced with low cost government subsidized foreign competition. In my opinion, the downsides far outweigh the benefits. In my own life, I feel the downsides directly in the deterioration of my community, while the benefits go to a handful of people in New York who I don't know. Any drop in the price of goods from these deals is so small that it has no effect on my standard of living.

The fact that Mexican truckers will now deliver to the American market replacing American truckers improves my life how? Wiping out the livelihood of fellow working Americans helps me how? Is saving a few cents at the supermarket worth it? Am I even going to notice any change in prices at the supermarket?

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/e...es/2011/07/10/trade_deals_are_no_deal_for_us/

The Koreans heavily subsidize their industries and have all manner of stealth cultural and non-tariff trade barriers to block the sale of American goods in their market. The Koreans are looking out for their interests, which they see as further capturing American industrial production, market share, and jobs. They are going to milk it for all it's worth. Why wouldn't they? They want a better life for themselves and their children and if that means a decline in the living standards of Americans thousands of miles away, so be it. They will do what they think is best for themselves and their country. If you've ever been to Asia, you'd know they are highly collectivist and nationalistic over there and they are all about increasing their economic development through economic warfare. That's why it's difficult to find Japanese cars in Korea and Korean cars in Japan, but you can sure find both in the USA.

These free trade deals will eliminate more economic production in the United States, drive down American wages, increase our unemployment and increase calls by the struggling American worker for more government assistance, pushing more of our populace into a debased state of government dependency.

The only manufacturing we have left is in the military industrial complex. Our leaders sure are protectionist when it comes to that.

The Founding Fathers never would have agreed to selling out their fellow citizens like this. They understood that in order to preserve political independence, you had to strive for economic independence. They understood that America was uniquely positioned to become prosperous and independent and free. The globalists understand the same thing. That's why for 100 years now they have been aggressively pushing for economic inter-dependence, infiltrating the media, academia and every political movement--left, right and center--to propagandize for free trade and mass immigration. The globalists fear an economically independent United States with a prosperous citizenry that is uninterested in participating in foreign wars and nation building abroad.

Well said.

 

[Paul Or Nothing II]

Showpan is right about one thing. The founders definitely were in favor of tariffs.

Nobody is arguing over that but tariffs just aren't good, they lead to higher prices, favoritism & corporatism. In fact, the Civil War started over the issue of tariffs, which has been a very significant event in American history because it essentially killed the States Rights & turned United STATES of America into United EMPIRE of America.

2. Tariffs are constitutional and taxes are not.

Just because they're Constitutional doesn't mean they're good. And YES, tariffs ARE a tax. When you put tariffs on imported goods, the importers add the tariff-cost to the eventual price that the Americans buy at so ultimately it's the American people that pay tariffs & not only is it a tax but it's a very inequitable form of taxation because not every American buys imported goods neither does every American buy the same amount of foreign goods which means that "tariff-tax" is paid isn't paid by everyone equally so it violates the principle that government should treat all its citizens equally & all should've an equal right to their life, liberty & property.

Further, tariffs lead to favoritism & corporatism as politicians use tariffs to protect those businesses that bribe them, which allows such businesses to eek higher prices & profits out of the American people than they would've had cheaper foreign substitutes were available in the market, you need competition between producers in the markets to drive down prices of goods/services, not tariff-protected monopolies & cartels.

Obama is a free trader

Nope, free trade means people trading with other people without government intervention which is NOT what Obama stands for.

Obama is no protectionist, that's for sure.

Just because he's not a protectionist, does NOT automatically mean that he's a free-trader, he's a socialist-corporatist. Definitely NOT a free-trader.

 

[The Grinning Maniac]

I thought showpan was joking. He really isn't.

"A White House wonk says building a Big Mac is a manufacturing job.
Fast-food jobs should not be considered service sector work because it actually is "combining inputs to manufacture a product" - and should be reclassified as manufacturing work, Gregory Mankiw wrote in the Bush administration's annual economic report.

Democrats accused President Bush's chief economist of trying to mask the fact that 2.2 million high-wage jobs have been lost since Bush took office.

"Unable to stop the hemorrhaging of American manufacturing jobs, the Bush administration is offering up some world-class job creation sleight of hand: Change the definition of what constitutes a manufacturing job," griped Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.)."

Who's to say what the manufacturing statistics now represent? The way they "hedonically" adjust inflation statistics and such, especially. It wouldn't surprise me.

 

[romacox]

Obama is a Free Trader and is against protectionism (tariffs) if you use the modern version of twisted definitions invented by the globalists. IMF website
WTO website

But he is not a true free trader if you use the original definitions.

Partial List of twisted definitions
1. Americans did not like Central banks (central governance of any kind for that matter). So in 1913 they changed central bank to Federal Reserve falsely insinuating it was a branch of the government.

2. root word protect defined:To cover or shield from danger or injury; to defend; to guard; to preserve in safety; a word of general import both in a literal and figurative sense. Walls protect a city or garrison; clothing is designed to protect the body from cold; arms may protect one from an assault; our houses protect us from the inclemencies of the weather; the law protects our persons and property; the father protects his children, and the guardian his ward; a shade protects us from extreme heat; a navy protects our commerce and our shores; embassadors are protected from arrest.

by adding ism to the root word protect, it has been twisted to mean: Government actions and policies that restrict or restrain international trade, often done with the intent of protecting local businesses and jobs from foreign competition. Typical methods of protectionism are import tariffs, quotas, subsidies or tax cuts to local businesses and direct state intervention. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/protectionism.asp

3. Democracy: 1818: Government by the people; a form of government, in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people collectively, or in which the people exercise the powers of legislation. Such was the government of Athens. (Note: Athens collapsed due to mob rule)

Democracy twisted in 1913 Government by popular representation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government; a republic.
http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=democracy&use1913=on&use1828=on

4. Republic 1828 defined: A commonwealth; a state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people. In modern usage, it differs from a democracy or democratic state, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person. Yet the democracies of Greece are often called republics.

Republic defined 1913: A state in which the sovereign power resides in the whole body of the people, and is exercised by representatives elected by them; a commonwealth. Cf. Democracy, 2. &hand; In some ancient states called republics the sovereign power was exercised by an hereditary aristocracy or a privileged few, constituting a government now distinctively called an aristocracy. In some there was a division of authority between an aristocracy and the whole body of the people except slaves. No existing republic recognizes an exclusive privilege of any class to govern, or tolerates the institution of slavery. Republic of letters, The collective body of literary or learned men. <-- Democratic republic, a term much used by countries with a Communist system of government. -->
http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=republic&use1913=on&use1828=on

And these are but a few examples.

It is all done to dumb down our society, to divide us (no longer able to communicate rationally), to prevent us from finding the way back to a republic (unable to understand the Constitution's original meaning).

NAFTA, and other government negotiated "free trade" deals are not free trade by the original definitions, but to the globalists (like the Federal Reserve, IMF and WTO) they are. They feel that to have different currencies, different laws as they cross borders all impede international trade. That is why on their websites they openly talk about "One World Governance", "one world currency", and homogenizing in order to erase "imaginary borders" by using education, labor, religion ext. (see links in the first paragraph)

 

[Jace]

..

 

[Cutlerzzz]

Obama just turned over a good portion of our trucking industry to the Mexicans

How does a president turn over an industry through voluntary exchange?

and is aggressively pushing through free trade deals with Korea, Panama and Colombia. He has bipartisan support on this. I understand the anarchist rebuttal is to call this managed trade, but the fact is these deals will increase the flow of American capital into Korea, Panama and Colombia and increase the flow of their goods into our market.

As you say, these are no free trade agreements.

Any drop in the price of goods from these deals is so small that it has no effect on my standard of living.

The fact that Mexican truckers will now deliver to the American market replacing American truckers improves my life how? Wiping out the livelihood of fellow working Americans helps me how? Is saving a few cents at the supermarket worth it? Am I even going to notice any change in prices at the supermarket?

Truck driving is hardly a great wage, and this will free up American labor to do something else, driving down prices in whatever market they enter. This is how society advances.

The Koreans heavily subsidize their industries and have all manner of stealth cultural and non-tariff trade barriers to block the sale of American goods in their market. The Koreans are looking out for their interests, which they see as further capturing American industrial production, market share, and jobs. They are going to milk it for all it's worth. Why wouldn't they? They want a better life for themselves and their children and if that means a decline in the living standards of Americans thousands of miles away, so be it. They will do what they think is best for themselves and their country. If you've ever been to Asia, you'd know they are highly collectivist and nationalistic over there and they are all about increasing their economic development through economic warfare. That's why it's difficult to find Japanese cars in Korea and Korean cars in Japan, but you can sure find both in the USA.

They aren't raising their living standards, they're driving up prices in their own country to benefit special interest groups, just as you're trying to do here.

These free trade deals will eliminate more economic production in the United States, drive down American wages, increase our unemployment and increase calls by the struggling American worker for more government assistance, pushing more of our populace into a debased state of government dependency.

The only manufacturing we have left is in the military industrial complex. Our leaders sure are protectionist when it comes to that.

This has been debunked multiple times in the last few days and ignoring it will not make it any different. US manufacturing is at by far the highest levels in our history, wages have been rising, and there had been no long term change in the unemployment trend before the 2008.

The irony of this part of your post is that you're speaking of economic dependency on government, while suggesting putting a gun to anyone's head whom wants to pay for goods from other countries and demanding they pay the government, in order to protect special interest groups.

The Founding Fathers never would have agreed to selling out their fellow citizens like this. They understood that in order to preserve political independence, you had to strive for economic independence. They understood that America was uniquely positioned to become prosperous and independent and free. The globalists understand the same thing. That's why for 100 years now they have been aggressively pushing for economic inter-dependence, infiltrating the media, academia and every political movement--left, right and center--to propagandize for free trade and mass immigration. The globalists fear an economically independent United States with a prosperous citizenry that is uninterested in participating in foreign wars and nation building abroad

The system originally created by the Founding Fathers, The Articles of Confederation, had no taxation power. Then in their new system, the one you're promoting, they gave us tariffs, excise taxes, central banking, the Sedition Act, and a Constitution they have ignored since day one.

 

[Cutlerzzz]

Here's what Ron Paul says about the issue in "Liberty Defined" in the chapter titled "Taxes."



So Ron sees tariffs as a regrettable form of indirect taxation that doesn't attack the property rights of citizens directly. I wish all the free trade zealots who attack tariffs would attack the income tax with as much zeal. Obviously, the income tax is way more of a threat to liberty than the tariff. Today, the progressive income tax is a reality while the tariff is nearly non-existent and universally opposed by the establishment. Yet so much energy is put into disinformation about tariffs and about the history of the tariff in our country. Remember that the Progressives under Woodrow Wilson eliminated the tariff and replaced it with the progressive income tax. Opposition to tariffs is rooted in the progressive movement, which gave us the Fed and the income tax.

I am not an anarchist. I want the limited government that the Founding Fathers envisioned--not the no-government borderless utopia that anarchists are selling. I see the tariff as the best means to achieve a limited Constitutional government. Reading about Thomas Jefferson brought me to this conclusion. In his day, he ended direct taxation of citizens and funded the government through tariffs. This increased American economic production and provided enough revenue to fund a limited government. The economy boomed because productive capacity expanded at home and more Americans had money in their pockets. Americans purchased plenty of foreign goods with their extra income and this provided the revenue to fund a Constitutional government. This is the American solution to our trade deficit and to our loss of productive capacity and our unemployment problems. But for tariffs to work, implementation goes hand in hand with eliminating the Fed and the income tax and untangling ourselves from our Empire. My view is what the globalists and warmongers call "isolationism" and "protectionism." Mention this view to conservatives and liberals alike and then out comes the old line about Smoot-Hawley causing for the Great Depression. This kind of arguing is the result of a public school education.

Remember, the tariff that gets blamed for being a cause of the Civil War was violently opposed by slave owners, who are the antithesis of libertarians. Slave owners didn't like tariffs. Go figure.

Today, we are surrendering our productive economy to protectionist countries that have centrally planned economies and strong socialist and collectivist tendencies (Japan, Korea, China, Germany). We are replacing our productive economy with a service economy (lawyers, civil servants, real estate agents, insurance agents, financiers) that does not produce wealth, only siphons it. And even our service economy is being outsourced to foreigners now.

Wealth is created through production. Trade does not produce wealth, only swaps it, usually with a middleman taking a cut of profits. Countries that trade productive capacity for empire fall into economic decline (Spain and Great Britain, notably). The Founding Fathers understood this. Today the Asians understand this. They understand history--our history in particular and the way we developed the greatest productive capacity and the highest living standards in history. The Asian countries are protectionist and are building their means of production while protecting themselves from foreign competition. Meanwhile, we lose our productive capacity to them in exchange for miltary bases and a short term drop in prices at Wal-Mart.

Productive capacity at home leads to political independence. If you are economically dependent on foreigners, you are politically vulnerable to them. Trade embargos become devastating. Americans produce rice much more cheaply than Japan, but the Japanese have trade barriers against American rice because they fear a rice embargo could cut off supply and leave them vulnerable to American political pressure. So they pay a little more for rice in exchange for political independence. Today, America is dependent on foreign oil which leaves our livelihoods vulnerable to decisions made by autocrats in the Middle East. It appears our leaders like this dependency because they do everything in their power to restrict oil production here at home.

In America, political power has fallen away from the producers and into the hands of the financiers. The financiers don't produce and don't care who produces, as long as they can get their cut of the profits through usury. They have seized control of our currency, which they have put to use internationally to skim profits off producers everywhere. They were able to make the American dollar the international reserve currency because of our military dominance. These financiers get the best return on their fiat money where labor costs are lowest and where workers are subservient to the foreign governments that take out the loans. Once the workers demand higher wages, the financiers take their dollars to the next poor nation with a labor surplus (lots of poor people).

The Federal Reserve uses American military power to keep everyone in line with this system. Fall out of line and the bombs start falling, usually under humanitarian pretenses.

The open borders/free trade world that anarcho-capitalists and some libertarians want is utopian. The Chinese will never go along with that vision. The Chinese will continue to use government intervention to capture American productive capacity and market share as long as we let them. They are targeting us sector by sector and moving right up the value chain as they build their knowledge and skills base. Meanwhile, the same free trade utopian rhetoric used by libertarians and anarcho-capitalists is used by progressives to sell us on NAFTA and these other free trade agreements that have hollowed out our economy.

Understanding free trade theory is one thing. But understanding how the world actually works is another. Free trade is great in theory, but like Marxism, putting the theory into practice never works out the way the theory predicts. The results of free trade are seen time after time through history, and the reality of free trade is all around you in America today.

It took a while for the Russians to wake up to the reality of Marxism. Russian Marxists could win every argument with their infallible logic and their zeal. They always had rational reasons when things went wrong. There was always something else to blame. It took nearly 100 years before they finally gave up on the theory. It's interesting that some of the biggest backers of free trade today are the Neoconservatives who are direct descendents of Marxists.

The great thing about the Founding Fathers is that they understood reality. They had to because their lives depended on it. They were keenly aware of human nature and how power corrupts and steals liberty. You don't need Hayek or Mises or other foreign economists from banker financed think tanks to tell you about liberty. We have our own American tradition and we need to return to our roots. I suppose what we really need in our country right now is a fiery guy like Andrew Jackson who can take a bullet and take on the bank and root out the den of vipers that is leading us to ruin.

What little argument you have is based on the fallacy that production has decreased, while it has been at all time highs in reality. Everything else is a sad attempt to slander opposition.

They had to because their lives depended on it. They were keenly aware of human nature and how power corrupts and steals liberty. You don't need Hayek or Mises or other foreign economists from banker financed think tanks to tell you about liberty. We have our own American tradition and we need to return to our roots. I suppose what we really need in our country right now is a fiery guy like Andrew Jackson who can take a bullet and take on the bank and root out the den of vipers that is leading us to ruin

So somehow, Mises and Hayek are evil men, yet we need to listen the murderer politician Andrew Jackson, who killed thousands of innocent civilians?

It took a while for the Russians to wake up to the reality of Marxism. Russian Marxists could win every argument with their infallible logic and their zeal. They always had rational reasons when things went wrong. There was always something else to blame. It took nearly 100 years before they finally gave up on the theory. It's interesting that some of the biggest backers of free trade today are the Neoconservatives who are direct descendents of Marxists.

Communism had lost the argument long ago and been debunked by Mises.

Today, we are surrendering our productive economy to protectionist countries that have centrally planned economies and strong socialist and collectivist tendencies (Japan, Korea, China, Germany). We are replacing our productive economy with a service economy (lawyers, civil servants, real estate agents, insurance agents, financiers) that does not produce wealth, only siphons it. And even our service economy is being outsourced to foreigners now.

Those jobs pay far more and have better working conditions than manufacturing. That is indisputable. To claim that jobs that satisfy human demand, cure ailments, create insurance, help coordinate production are useless only shows off how little you know of economics.

Remember, the tariff that gets blamed for being a cause of the Civil War was violently opposed by slave owners, who are the antithesis of libertarians. Slave owners didn't like tariffs. Go figure.

So anyone opposing tariffs probably supports slavery as well. Genius.

Today, the progressive income tax is a reality while the tariff is nearly non-existent and universally opposed by the establishment. Yet so much energy is put into disinformation about tariffs and about the history of the tariff in our country. Remember that the Progressives under Woodrow Wilson eliminated the tariff and replaced it with the progressive income tax. Opposition to tariffs is rooted in the progressive movement, which gave us the Fed and the income tax.

Wilson did not eliminate tariffs. That is a blatent lie, but I would expect nothing less.

So Ron sees tariffs as a regrettable form of indirect taxation that doesn't attack the property rights of citizens directly.

Ron has claimed time and time against that he supports free trade. Tariffs do attack property rights directly. They are a tax.

I am not an anarchist. I want the limited government that the Founding Fathers envisioned--not the no-government borderless utopia that anarchists are selling. I see the tariff as the best means to achieve a limited Constitutional government. Reading about Thomas Jefferson brought me to this conclusion. In his day, he ended direct taxation of citizens and funded the government through tariffs. This increased American economic production and provided enough revenue to fund a limited government. The economy boomed because productive capacity expanded at home and more Americans had money in their pockets. Americans purchased plenty of foreign goods with their extra income and this provided the revenue to fund a Constitutional government. This is the American solution to our trade deficit and to our loss of productive capacity and our unemployment problems. But for tariffs to work, implementation goes hand in hand with eliminating the Fed and the income tax and untangling ourselves from our Empire. My view is what the globalists and warmongers call "isolationism" and "protectionism." Mention this view to conservatives and liberals alike and then out comes the old line about Smoot-Hawley causing for the Great Depression. This kind of arguing is the result of a public school education.

The economy tanked and went into a depression under Jefferson.


Do you have any actual economic arguments? Anything factual? Any evidence to suggest that manufacturing is in a decline? Or are you just going to claim that the Founding Father, a group of Gods, decided to give us tariffs over a decade after the revolution, and claim that anyone opposed to these taxes is just a probably a communist slave owner, owned by banks, and that Austrian economists are no different?