Lies About Free Trade … and the lying liars who tell them

American Outlook ^ | March 10, 2003 | Dennis T. Avery

[quidnunc]

Any politician who opposes free trade — and that includes every current candidate for U.S. President — is against the best interests of the people and wildlife on this planet.

Oh, they'll claim to be "protecting jobs;" or, "keeping America's small farmers on their farms." But the arguments against free trade are fundamentally lies.

Britain's colonial trade regulations forced the American colonies to buy British manufactures instead of building their own workshops. Northern factory owners helped spark the Civil War, by demanding high tariffs that kept Southern farmers from buying British tools.

The U.S. Congress passed the punitive Smoot-Hawley tariffs in 1930, to "protect" American jobs. In the ensuing global tariff war, almost every American job that depended on exports or imported raw materials disappeared. Smoot-Hawley turned a short-term stock market slump into a decade-long Great Depression, with millions of American ex-workers and ex-farmers wandering the streets.

Germany's Depression unemployment was even worse than ours. The desperate Germans turned to Hitler, started World War II — and war industries finally put Americans back to work.

Supposedly, Smoot-Hawley taught us our free trade lesson. After World War II, we set up the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to encourage global free trade. That launched the surge that has been making the whole world richer, more secure, and more peaceful ever since (and doubled our own prosperity).

Free trade even scuttled the Communist empire because central planning couldn't keep up.

President Clinton understood that, if NAFTA didn't create more jobs in Mexico, the Mexicans would all come north.

But political lessons are like Chinese food; the hunger for votes quickly returns.

-snip-

[agitator]

Cue the free traitor hacks....3...2...1...

[taxed2death]

Well, if "Free Trade"....as it is touted was truely free trade....it would be much less of a "problem".

But Since we (US business owners) have OSHA, DEP and the rest of the useless Gubmint business smothering alphabet soup thugs to content with, as well as extreme overtaxation .......the "Free trade" that our fearless leader pontificates about, is hardly "free". It's actually pretty damned expensive.

This is exactly why Tarrifs are vital.....to "Strong-arm"...out overseas competition, either into front-loading their businesses with useless rules and regulations like we do....thus evening out the playing field and / or reduce the tarrifs they impose on our goods and services. Tarrifs do not have to be permanent....but a trade "war" every now and again is actually a healthy thing. We have the "staying power" to win.

Now, combine this BS on this side of the pond, with turd world policies pertaining to their host countries "Free trade"....and you just begin to scratch the surface of what a sham GWB's "Free-Trade" really is.

Case closed.

[taxed2death]

"thugs to content = thugs to contend"

[CyberSpartacus]

Free trade will force the Gubmint to reduce taxes and regulations.

[TomasUSMC]

THE funniest thing ever said about NAFTA was and still is:
President Clinton understood that, if NAFTA didn't create more jobs in Mexico, the Mexicans would all come north.

President Bush understood these reasons also. All 12 million of them.

[brownsfan]

Free trade will force the Gubmint to reduce taxes and regulations.

Wow. Simple, and to the point. I agree with you. I am not a fan of offshore outsourcing, but I do see the benefits. Eventually the government will have to respond to the market pressures in a free trade environment. I have two problems with letting the "invisible hand" guide us.

#1 - In general, things must breakdown significantly before they will be fixed. Government eases on taxes and regulation only under extreme pressure. (Taxes and regulation are the lifeblood of our current government, unfortunately). The form of extreme pressure would be an eroding tax base, and much suffering among the populace.
#2 - There is significant strategic disadvantage in exporting our means of production. We could be on the fast track to sacrificing our national security in the interest of bolstering our portfolios.

I agree that if the third world isn't brought up to our standards, we will be pulled to theirs. But does it have to be done all at once?

[Mortimer Snavely]

Somehow, someway, people have forgotten a fundamental truth: people can only buy stuff if the have money, and they can only have money if they make stuff to sell.

Shipping entire industries and research and development facilities to Red China ensures that folks over here don't make stuff anymore. It matters not a whit how cheap a particular item is if folks can't make more than subsistance wages on jobs which require little more than affability and the ability to smile pleasantly.

Contrary to the notion that Red China will become a liberal-democracy through the blessings of free trade, the Red Chinese use economic strength as a tool to enhance and expand the power of the Communist Party.

Imagining that Red China will become a free country this way requires dealing with them as if they share the same intellectual history as we, as if they share the same notion of what ultimately is "the good," and as if they imagine that the eventually ability of the citizen to govern him or herself is a good thing to pursue.

That means it is a policy made in a conceptual vacuum, ignoring 5,000 years of Chinese history and philosophy.

For a better understanding of this, click here the following link.

JPRI Working Paper: What if Confucianism Becomes the Hegemonic Ethic of the Twenty-first Century?

[#3Fan]

Good article.

[Walkin Man]

President Clinton understood that, if NAFTA didn't create more jobs in Mexico, the Mexicans would all come north.

This is pure 100% free trade BS!

All the government has to do is slap on any and all companies caught employing illegals a huge fine, say at least 100,000 per illegal, and get serious about finding them and the problem would take care of itself.

No jobs, no reason for the invasion.

But of course all of those good republican businessmen would scream bloody murder if the feds did that so...

[taxed2death]

Highly unlikely.....considering the fact that GWB is spending money faster than ex-Mayor Marion Barry in a DC crack-house.

[freebacon]

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1094370/posts -Why Free Trade is good.

[luckydevi]

Watch out

The protectionists will come out in full force

[Shermy]

is against the best interests of the people and wildlife on this planet.

Add to the list "wildlife on the planet".

[kevao]

The American consumer is fueling the movement of jobs overseas by demanding ever cheaper prices, forcing companies to cut expenditures.

I think the worries about all of us in the U.S. being eventually unemployed or working for subsistence wages is overblown. As I said, the American consumer is the power behind the entire world economy: When the U.S. economy sneezes, the world economy catches a cold.

So when the American consumer can no longer afford to buy stuff, who's going to be buying all these products from China or from anywhere else?

[Last Dakotan]

Free trade will force the Gubmint to reduce taxes and regulations.

Care to tell us how?

[kevao]

I think what he means is that in a truly free and fair trade environment, the government would have to reduce the tax and regulatory burdens on U.S. business so that they can compete on an equal footing with foreigners. Without reducing the tax and regultory burdens, U.S. businesses would be slaughtered when the trade barriers came down.

[hedgetrimmer]

In the name of "free trade" the EU through the WTO has forced congress to repeal the tax break they give to US exporters or risk heavy trade sanctions.

So the WTO is forcing our government to take away tax breaks, it is not forcing them to reduce taxes.

[Mortimer Snavely]

"So when the American consumer can no longer afford to buy stuff, who's going to be buying all these products from China or from anywhere else?"

The Red Chinese will have accomplished their primary goal in that case, which is supplanting the USA as the world's superpower.

East Asians and Communists play for geo-political power, not money. The accumulation of wealth in the hands of their individual citizens isn't what they're after, what they want is us to depend on them, with the concomitant ability to impose their political will on us.

This is an old game. North Koreans own most of the pachinko parlors in Japan, which are insanely popular, and every week a boat loaded with ten thousand yen notes sails to North Korea from Japan. Essentially, the Japanese are paying for the missiles aimed at them.

We're doing the same thing buying cheap stuff from Red China, with Wal-Mart's brokering most of the cash flow. Once no one can buy anything from Wal-Mart's, it will go under, but by that time Red China will be able to throw its weight around the world with impunity.

They're not after money in and of itself. Money is merely a tool to further political ends.

[lasereye]

Shipping entire industries and research and development facilities to Red China ensures that folks over here don't make stuff anymore. It matters not a whit how cheap a particular item is if folks can't make more than subsistance wages on jobs which require little more than affability and the ability to smile pleasantly.

You ignore a minor detail: Wages overall are not declining.