Posted on 08/29/2015 6:23:47 PM PDT by dennisw
If China let their currency float, it would probably tank, not rise.
You don’t get it. Tariffs (in this case) are intended to allow domestic producers to jack-up their prices so that they can pay higher wages to their employees. You don’t actually have to pay that money, it’s just created out of thin air, like the Fed creates it.
Guess what happened the very next day? All three U.S. automakers raised the list price on their small trucks by $495.
Thanks for deflating the moronic claim that tariffs don't increase the cost of domestic goods.
Is that another example of Reagan's senility? Starting to add up, now.
I believe there is still a 25% tariff on imported pickups, which is why there are no smaller, cheaper ones available in the US.
Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.But it all depends where the pickup is made. If it's made in Mexico or Canada (again, thanks to Ronald Reagan), then there's no tax. Probably. (I'm not a trade attorney, and don't keep up with specifics).
Chinese made goods. For a while, Japanese autos.
Again, just looking for specifics. A Chinese-made good does not magically change its origin when it is shipped to Mexico. Japanese autos? If they are built in Mexico or Canada, I guess.
Another non answer speaks volumes. Me thinks you are chicom.
Oh boy, here we go. Reagan helped establish the WTO. Pointing out that fact does not make me a Chicom.
Your response is infantile if your grown up I might engage you in a conversation.
Government should not, in my view, be using either fiscal or monetary policy, to include QE and ZIRP, to manipulate, stimulate, soften or rein in the economy. Those who to use these methods and wish to expand them, are the ones focusing on consumers and aggregate demand. Classical economists would focus on capital formation, which tariffs and consumption taxes encourage. Though Ted Cruz has not expounded on this topic, a few of his comments have reflected this view. He has left me encouraged.
"Late in 1988? A few weeks before the end of Reagan last term as president when he was suffering from early Alzheimer's disease? Really that's your evidence? Bush Clinton did NAFTA not Reagan."
Read back in this thread jpsb. I've also argued Reagan wasn't responsible, but that post you replied to was my response to 1rudeboy at #40 where he produced a Reagan quote from the State Of The Union in 1988.
That would be one year before he left office. I couldn't recall him ever talking about NAFTA ( and he does not use that exact terminology ), but that quote shows he was at least tacitly onboard with the idea.
My whole point was that it was Bush41 and Clinton who actually wrote the thing and passed it. But it sure looks like Reagan ( or maybe those infiltrators in his admin ) inspired it.
So don't hammer me. Talk to 1rudeboy who is insisting that Reagan invented it. I do NOT agree on that point. But I am not surprised that it emerged during his 2nd term, which was mostly a disaster IMHO.
Cheers.
"Oh boy, here we go. Reagan helped establish the WTO. Pointing out that fact does not make me a Chicom."
I had to re-read this entire thread to get a handle on your point. Tell me if I understand you correctly ...
Are you are trying to tie NAFTA around Reagan's neck in order convince Conservatives into rejecting any future tariffs that might come about in a populist Trump administration? This is kind of an elaborate psyop? Hell, that ain't gonna work. Not with the devastation wreaked upon the USA manufacturing base.
Most smart people are intuitively pro free trade because the alternative reeks of Communism and other rottenisms. However, free trade is not some sacred trust enshrined in the Constitution or Declaration or Federalist Papers. (R)epublicrat shills and New World Order and Open Border types would love to convince people of this nonsense but it is not why Washington crossed the Delaware and not why we divorced England.
Free Trade as implemented in the past two decades is more like a mathematical formula, an algorithm that reduces all values to the lowest common denominator. Corporations hire abroad and then layoff at home, this has been proven inevitable because human beings pick the lowest hanging fruit. One quick way to jack up your stock price is to do exactly that, then they report successful cost cutting measures to the Wall Street financial press sheeple and everyone goes "Awesome!".
These free traders are quiet when this happens because they have no solutions, it is as I said, inevitable. Like water finding its level, or electricity finding the shortest path to ground, human beings will sell out America in a heartbeat because they have no loyalty to her in the first place.
If that was your purpose here, good luck. But you should prepare yourself for some bitter medicine, should a populist Trump administration occur. I doubt there will be any across the board Tariffs or kneejerk actions, but I expect highly targeted and effective measures to stem the bleeding like tourniquets.
I can't imagine what it is that "free traders" can possibly be arguing for, now, after all the destruction they have helped cause. If this describes you, do you mind telling me what on Earth reason you have to argue for more of the same? You've had it your way for a long time and the nation is far worse from it. What the heck is in it for you?
I'll vote for Trump if he gets the nomination, even if he is a bonehead on tariffs, and his supporters misrepresent Reagan's legacy to my face.
"LOL--I'm not trying to "tie NAFTA around Reagan's neck." And so far, the only counter-argument I've seen on this thread is that he was "senile." LOLOLI'll vote for Trump if he gets the nomination, even if he is a bonehead on tariffs, and his supporters misrepresent Reagan's legacy to my face."
Okay, there's a bit of a communication breakdown, but with all due respect it is mostly your fault because of your mostly terse and enigmatic comments. For example I still don't really understand what you meant in #42 ...
"But Perot gets a pass. LOL"
... I think you are assuming your comments are crystal clear but they really are not.
Your characterization of Reagan as the father of NAFTA isn't jiving with what others like myself recall. I remember him battling Communism and free trade was little more than a fraction of the conversation. It was the 10 pound lemur in a room full of 800 pound Gorillas.
Due to that quote from his 1988 State Of The Union I conceded he was clearly onboard, well, at least his 2nd term team which consisted of lots of malcontents. The more I think about it, we had Milton Friedman and his followers getting lots of face time in those years, and these guys all were uber free traders. But we can't forget the context of Reagan having an extremely hostile Congress, perhaps the most Communist ever except for the Redi-Pelosi era. Each and every budget was a fight, and they even managed to roll back some of the tax cuts.
I didn't like how things were going in the 2nd term at all. It sure looked to me like Reagan became more of a puppet as the administration rolled towards the end. I mentioned before that I was mortified that he let North, Poindexter, and Secord fend for themselves, and let Bork die on the vine. So that 1988 SOTU speech kind of fits the pattern.
I personally didn't think the Alzheimer's had set in yet because he would do speeches and appear fine, but you just never know. We've all encountered similar in our own lives with loved ones and we all know the good day / bad day thingie. Hence, these folks in this thread that mentioned it as a possibility cannot be categorically dismissed.
Your last comment implies, as I suspected, that you are for some reason worried about "free trade", as was I for a very long time. Maybe I'm getting senile as well because I am finding myself asking just what the heck was it about "free trade" that I used to find so important? With all this clear recent history of the destruction of the Reagan economy, and offshoring of jobs, and crushing of native manufacturing, employment and wages in the rear view mirror, I really have to face the fact that I was mesmerized by the Friedman theology to the detriment of our nation.
This is not to say that some crazy protectionist tariff scheme is the magic bullet. More like a targeted attack on those who are raping us, which in turn will force the others to behave. But you have to admit, "free trade" between 1st world and 3rd world is a lie. It is only going to benefit them and never us, unless by "us" you mean a handful of companies that play the game well, pleasing their shareholders at the expense of their country. The United States wasn't founded in order to spread the wealth and to give a helping hand to destitute countries. Nor is it here to be pilfered and picked clean by foreign buzzards and domestic robber barons. We are not suckers, well, at least not all of us.
What say you?
And I am an unabashed free-trader. And I'm not worried a bit. The market, free or not, wins every time. No government official can do a darn thing about it.
In passing, I will leave you with this:
In 1985, Roger [Milliken] had come to the White House to persuade me to convince [President Reagan] to sign a bill to slow the flood of textiles into the country. No way, I told Mr. Milliken. I’m the biggest free-trader in the building, except for the fellow down the hall, who was Ronald Reagan. Roger went away disappointed. Reagan vetoed the bill. And I supervised the writing of the veto message.
Patrick J. Buchanan, Requiem for a Patriot, January 4, 2011.
"Oh yeah, I'm terse. Especially with people who "don't recall.""
Now there you go again, ;-) with that terseness.
Someday my FRiend I pray you also live long enough to not recall things. I assure you that it's not done on purpose.
That Buchanan quote must've knocked you off balance. You became terse. Ha.
Wait, what? You're assuming again. Buchanan is no surprise to me or anyone. I've read him for years, since he left the *Nixon* White House. During the dark days of 1974-1980 he was one of the very few Conservative voices published in the media back when they had a total monopoly. His would be the only column worth reading in an entire newspaper. It was that bad. I had to subscribe to newspapers from around the country just to get certain columnists ( e.g., Don Feder in the Boston Herald ) and get them in the mail several days late. The best thing we had in those days was Human Events, thank God for them.
Anyway, you cannot cherry pick "free trade" positions and papers from the Cold War and make assumptions about those people as if they were in a theoretical new timeline, sans anti-Communism. History is history, it is the product of all preceding events. And you certainly cannot project those cherry picks to this current era after almost 30 years of experimentation with the pilfering of America.
And let me save you the trouble of dropping quotes from more "free traders" to support your confirmation bias, Levin himself is talking this up as I type this, saying that a Tariff on Ford cars built in Mexico is bad. All I can say is that some people take much longer to learn something, and this includes Mark. For example he's finally come around on the subject of Constitutional Amendments ( well only if he writes them ), but he came around too late. If you can count to 13 leftist States that will refuse to ratify, well then it's all over.
In your previous post you say ...
And I am an unabashed free-trader. And I'm not worried a bit. The market, free or not, wins every time. No government official can do a darn thing about it.
That tells me you have your own battle with cognitive dissonance to wage. You have three decades of evidence to sift through to update that rigid ideology. When huge hi-tech massive employers hire abroad and then layoff at home, that all-important "free market" has indeed won, but can you please answer a question, then who lost?
However, your "No government official can do a darn thing about it" is absolutely wrong. Since you, or Mark Levin, or Rush and also the GOPEe have no real answers, just loyalty to vague principles of free trade, something else will need to be explored. On that latter point is what we are going to find out if Trump or someone similar gets in there. These corporations have their home base in America for a simple reason, personal security, favorable taxes, protection from lawless regimes. I suspect they are going to be asked for something in return.
Your position really is two levels down the ladder to hell. On the first rung are the 'Constitution *is* a suicide pact'ers. But you are pushing something worse yet. This "free trade" theology is NOT part of the Constitution or Declaration or Federalist Papers. At least the suicide pacters try to make a Constitutional argument, you have no such ability. Free Trade suicide is a new phenomenon that comes out of the robber baron era nearly a century beyond the Founding. The first step to recovery is to remember that it is not an American core principle. The next step is to try to think of solutions to the large scale destruction of American jobs and manufacturing base.
If your wife starts a basket weaving business but gets undercut by China/India imports for 10% the cost, what do you tell her? 'Well them's the breaks, honey. They are able to use cheaper supplies and labor so try something else instead.'
There are some simple things to try. For example we should ignore the political correctness and fully embrace the term "jingoism" and start applying a Made In America labeling program. And then we can publicly shame and demonize the traitors. That is a small, easy way to begin. But I'm positively sure that the "free trade" zealots will even cry over that.
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