I Want a President Who Can Teach Us to Accept Capitalism

American Thinker ^ | May 4, 2016 | Christopher Chantrill

[expat_panama]

In last week’s foreign policy speech Donald Trump had this to say about jobs:

NAFTA, as an example, has been a total disaster for the U.S. and has emptied our states of our manufacturing and our jobs. Never again. Only the reverse will happen. We will keep our jobs and bring in new ones. Their [sic] will be consequences for companies that leave the U.S. only to exploit it later.

Okay, I get it: you are running for president, Mr. Trump, and I get that you can’t say that, of course, NAFTA has hurt some people, because after all capitalism is creative destruction, but on balance NAFTA has benefited...

...Thomas Piketty... ...the stupid point that the return on capital is greater than the growth rate. Of course it is. You can make money on lending money to another guy so he can buy a diamond for his mistress, and it does nothing for growth.

Capitalism is not about accumulating gold coins in a sack by stealing bread from the poor...

...we have... ...popularizers, activists, and politicians that cruelly scratch the wounds of the afflicted. They marinate them in their tribal hatreds, trap them in dependency, tax and their wages and then play the Lady Bountiful giving it back years later, and teach them to hate the culture that has raised them, or will raise their children, out of Malthusian oblivion.

...what made America great was that for a season, the elite lacked the power to “keep our jobs” against some nobody with a crazy idea to demolish the status quo and surprise the world with an unlooked for invention, a trade-tested betterment, and the result was the Great Enrichment of the last 200 years.

And it really is about time that presidential candidates could dare to tell us that.

[expat_panama]

Begin the day kicking a hornet’s nest ping

[cba123]

I want a president who will teach our trading “partners” to buy American products.

[Louis Foxwell]

Let this beautiful evening prayer be sounded from the minarets of freedom: Capitalism is not about accumulating gold coins in a sack by stealing bread from the poor...

[2001convSVT]

Trump will cut all the red tape holding back small business.

[AC Beach Patrol]

The economy is for the people, not people for the economy. Heresy to globalists and technocrats but not to people who put America first.

[T. P. Pole]

Their [sic]

Ok, what was the point of that? This was a speech, wasn't it? Was the misspelling in the official transcript or some news report's transcript?

Wouldn't a reasonable person have changed it to [There]?

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"And it really is about time that presidential candidates could dare to tell us that."

The problem is that every candidate that has doesn't get elected. It's the American people that are the problem. We don't intrinsically understand that our jobs for life are not guaranteed. Nor should they be. Until we Americans have the mindset that we are in control of our life and should not depend on the government this will not change. Even many so called conservatives don't understand the principle of capitalism. It's not about protectionism.

[babygene]

“It’s not about protectionism.”

It’s also not about stupid one sided trade deals...

[dila813]

I hope he is elected so you can see it.

[central_va]

Protectionism is conservative if you don't believe me just read about George Washington and the first congress. Protectionist policy conserves our industrial base. A child could understand that.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"It’s also not about stupid one sided trade deals..."

If you are talking about NAFTA, you are incorrect. Looking at the deal, there is no question that Mexico, United States and Canada have all benefitted from the deal. Yes, I'm sure you can look at individual examples of people losing their jobs because of NAFTA and yes unfortunately that has happened. But overall NAFTA has benefitted us more than it has hurt us. One benefit is the free flow of exporting/importing oil between the three countries. There are many others.

[major-pelham]

Great topic for discussion but this article is lousy. With a white sheet of paper we could go back to a Mercantilism of 1895. But we live in a real world. It’s 2016. We have 20 trillion in debt and 100 million Americans not working. That is the problem we have to solve, wistful nostalgia of where it went wrong is less than helpful as it diverts brainpower. Let us roll up our sleeves and begin the repairs or pick someplace and start over.

[central_va]

I am waiting for Carrier to announce across the board price cuts on their A/C products made in Mexico which will be a real boon to the US consumer. /sarcasm

[Just mythoughts]

NAFTA was by and large in the name of capitalism set up to circumvent government sponsored Unions- setting minimum wages. However, since NAFTA those that benefited the most spend huge amounts of their profits to fund political campaigns. Then in return these that get elected pen legislation that transfers that campaign debt over to we the people ... tax payers... sometimes the elected officials will call these campaign debts, mandates.

Meanwhile, government still sets minimum wages for the cost of Union lobbying. Some pigs are more equal than the rest of the animals out there on the farm. Now these crony capitalists seek to give US ‘open borders’ and ‘amnesty’ to all the peoples of the world.. And these pretend conservative, crony capitalists shred our Constitution, coming in the name of our Constitution. And they besmirch Ronald Reagan's name like two bit whores.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Protectionism is conservative if you don't believe me just read about George Washington and the first congress."

I don't even know where to begin with this statement. If you would like history, then I'll give you one. The Smoot/Hawley act. This was unbridled protectionism and is universally credited with taking America from a deep recession into a full blown depression that lasted for the next 12 years.

"This year, we have it within our power to take a major step toward a growing global economy and an expanding cycle of prosperity: the historic free trade agreement negotiated between our country and Canada. And I can also tell you that we're determined to expand this concept, south as well as north. Our goal must be a day when the free flow of trade, from the tip of Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle, unites the people of the Western Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange."

From Ronald Reagan's 1988 state of the union address....

[gr8eman]

If the schools started teaching Capitalism 101, like they should have all along, then this wouldn’t be such a big issue. Instead they teach that Marxist crap which somewhat intelligent people learn is crap eventually.

[central_va]

Globalist pricks can say what they want but radical and destructive “free trade” is being rejected by the electorate. Just in time too because if we let this disastrous situation go on much longer then a guy like Bernie will win one day. More tariffs and less income taxes.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"If the schools started teaching Capitalism 101, like they should have all along, then this wouldn’t be such a big issue."

On that note, my college Macro Economics teacher was a proud socialist. He didn't like me because I went to college in my late 30's, not a young skull full of mush. That made me angry enough. On top of that, he wore suspenders and a belt. That sent me through the roof!

[babygene]

“One benefit is the free flow of exporting/importing oil between the three countries.”

Importing and exporting of oil, assuming that was good for us, could have been accomplished outside the framework of NAFTA.