Posted on 02/02/2009 10:56:33 PM PST by Tempest
You are all appallingly ignorant of basic economic principles. Reagan himself, a student of Hayek, Friedman, and Bastiat, could have told you himself that it’s stupid to limit trade between nations. It makes as much sense as limiting trade between states, between cities, or between individuals for that matter. The economics are the same for free trade, national borders are illusory. There is nothing “lost” when two nations trade with eachother, both sides gain.
Read Thomas Sowell’s “Basic Economics” for a much more thorough understanding of economics and a debunking of many fallacies.
I’ll close with some quotes from Reagan:
“Here in America, as we reflect on the many things we have to be grateful for, we should take a moment to recognize that one of the key factors behind our nation’s great prosperity is the open trade policy that allows the American people to freely exchange goods and services with free people around the world.”
“Ever since that time, the American people have stayed true to our heritage by rejecting the siren song of protectionism. In recent years, the trade deficit led some misguided politicians to call for protectionism, warning that otherwise we would lose jobs. But they were wrong again. In fact, the United States not only didn’t lose jobs, we created more jobs than all the countries of Western Europe, Canada, and Japan combined. The record is clear that when America’s total trade has increased, American jobs have also increased. And when our total trade has declined, so have the number of jobs.”
It makes me sick as well. We have been infiltrated by a bunch of worthless self promoting bastards. It’s time to burn them out or leave the party and work against them.
I guess you haven’t been paying attention to how loopsided things have been with some our trading “partners”
You seem to be someone who reads.
Consider the root of the word “protectionism”:
To protect.
That’s a good thing. We have allowed ourselves to develop trading relationships which resemble the relationship between a wife-beater and his spouse.
Seriously. We have become complete chumps.
Time to change that.
Of course, you totally ignored Reagan and his efforts to prevent dumping of imports in the US...and did not hesitate to enforce tarriffs when that happened. Unlike most Free Traders he understood the difference between Free Trade and bad trade
It is an absolute waste of time to rehash economic theories, that when applied, do not work. Free Trade does not work...and it surely is not working now. Theories never supplant the facts
Its like the Global Warming debate....the Global Warming theories are being discredited by the facts. Free Trade pretty much is the same thing....a theory with no basis in fact
Here’s some more Reagan quotes for you.
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done — Ronald Reagan
Don’t sell out your country to the free traitors, they have no interst in preserving social conservatism.
Putting people first has always been America’s secret weapon. It’s the way we’ve kept the spirit of our revolutions alive—a spirit that drives us to dream and dare, and take great risks for a greater good — Ronald Reagan
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty — Ronald Reagan
He forgot about Reagan’s protectionism against Japan also. Reagan was a supportor of Free trade. But his priotrity was always for the home team first.
I agree a trade war could ensue, but a Keynesian stimulus should create American jobs, not Chinese or Mexican jobs. If you’re going to follow Keynes, at least do it right! Don’t give free money to foreign countries.
That’s a good thing. We have allowed ourselves to develop trading relationships which resemble the relationship between a wife-beater and his spouse. - Cringing
Such an accurate description regarding the current US trade situation. You wonder if this Free Trade stuff is really “Free Trade”?
Nah- I have been out of the coatings game for at least 7 years now, and I was looking into different specialty "baths" as a means of expansion even back then. One of those was Melonite. It has always been legal up here (MT), to the best of my knowledge. I never did go that way, because the chrome shop I was figuring to buy wound up being too heavily encumbered... Greener pastures, you know.
Don't always suppose things are the same everywhere- My little pre-finish shop took in truckloads from all over the west coast and points east on the rails all the way to Chicago, where oil based coatings, alkyd epoxies, and conversion varnishes were banned.
Perfectly legal here. And I am in the middle of "Eagle flyways", natural preserves, and all sorts of bunny-hugger bullcrap. No unions either so I could always compete, even though they were shipping to me.
Now you’re relying on rhetoric to form an argument, rather than facts or economics.
PLEASE, people, this is why the GOP is in such shambles. We abandoned basic economics.
Duncan Hunter was right.
Reagan wasn’t perfect, he did many things for political expediency rather than for good policy. Probably no President can become perfect.
Please educate yourself on what it is you’re criticizing. Because to be against free trade between nations is the economic equivalent of being a flat-Earther, it really is.
Selling out your country for personal profit (which is the essense of international “free trade”) is not basic economics.
It is treason.
Standing up strongly for Americans first, is not rhetoric.
It is principle. And it is patriotism.
America First.
Those quotes have no bearing on this. Please, pick up an econ textbook or something. You are letting patriotism blind you to economic reality, FREE TRADE IS GOOD. It benefits both parties. I benefit when I buy something produced for cheaper than it could be produced here. It is the same regardless of whether a factory moves to Mississippi from Michigan, or to Mexico from Michigan. In either case the product is being produced more efficiently and thus prices can come down and thus everybody is better off. By focusing ONLY on the person who is temporarily out of work is a fallacy, it ignores the much larger, long-term good to society from free trade by focusing only on the short-term cost imposed on a much smaller group of people.
A thousand people losing their jobs from a single factory closing makes news, but ten thousand people getting hired in different places throughout the economy due to increased efficiency doesn’t make news. Don’t fall for the illusion.
Throughout history, people have railed against the forces of creative destruction and lost. Hand weavers destroyed looming machines. Vaudeville acts railed against the phonograph, radio, cinema, and television. Craftsmen railed against manufacturing machines. Book-keepers and clerks railed against computers. Farmers in America railed against farmers abroad.
And on and on and on, and because some politicians listened to them and did *not* see the larger, long-term benefit to *everybody* (rather than a special interest group of displaced workers), bad policy was put into place. Price supports, tariffs, make-work rules, etc. The Great Depression was in large part prolonged due to such measures.
The application is engine parts for Jaguars, which were originally “Tufftrided” which is another name for ferritic nitrocarburization aka Tennifer/Melonite/ etc.
Since these are intended to be top quality upgrades or replacements, these new parts need to have at least the same heat-treatment/coating as the original.
So far, we haven’t been able to find anyone in the US that can do the inline six crankshaft - but there’s plenty in England that can do it.
The problem with your “creative destruction” rhetoric, is that the world is far larger than America.
Current trends are leading toward the “creative destruction” of the United States of America!
GOP, waving their stupid-baton, at the front of the parade.
Yeah I wouldn’t want patriotism to blind me now would I...
So in summary of your post. 1000 americans losing their jobs equals good as long as 10,000 people from third world countries that don’t demand overtime and are to afraid to ask for more recieve jobs.
Thank God. My Patriotism has blinded me...
I now understnad what your user name means. More slave labor!
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