Posted on 05/04/2016 4:57:01 AM PDT by expat_panama
Wrong, every founding father was protectionist. I will not stand by and let Free Traitors™ re write history. Idiots like you are doing Marx's bidding by espousing Free Trade. Only a real piece of real < expletive deleted > would call George Washington a Communist.
NAFTA is nothing but a political way to get US taxpayers to subsidize corporate profits. It is corporate welfare.
No, corporate welfare is when the government gives subsidies to corporations, not allowing them to compete freely in the market which is what NAFTA does by eliminating barriers to trade.
Free Traitors™ sound just like the liberal counter parts when they say trade deficits don't matter. Liberal socialist say budget deficits don't matter. Both groups need to be relegated to the dust bin of history. Free Traitors™ are the scum of the earth. Vive Trump!
All correct. The only none ways to end a depression is though debt default or hyper inflation to destroy the bubble(default is much better hence the biblical jubilee).
Thus protectionism is a separate issue from the great depression. Protectionism in Germany resulted in full employment and a rapidly growing indrustry base as it did in America once WW2 was over.
1. NAFTA has not been a major disaster.
2. Illigals were overrunning the border long before NAFTA
3. American farmers are not crony globalists allied with government.
4. To claim that we do not have the industrial capability to sustain a war is just more feelings on your part. Up until 2009, we manufactured more than at any other time in history. And we are almost back to that point today.
5. Welfare and crime due to illegals is caused by our government and the Mexican government. It has nothing to do with a trade deal.Conflating them as you have done is dishonest and shows a serious lack of understanding about trade agreements and trade in general. There isn't a person on this forum who supports free trade that isn't also in favor of building a wall and sending the invaders back. I've found that the ones who scream the loudest against the freedom to trade know the least amount about it.
Delusional. You are mentally ill.
You make no sense to me in this discussion on Germany. You agree that I am correct that their depression ended because of hyper inflation and debt default but then go on to say that protectionism resulted in German full employment and rapidly growing industry. After eliminating the debt, one of the ways that Germany had a growing industry base was to build up their war machine.
And I find that free traders believe everything they read in economics text books and never check the real world results.
Again, read this article and you’ll learn a bit about what’s actually happened with Nafta.
Hopefully Trump will actually work to fix this issue.
Trade products, boot illegals.
For seven years after NAFTA passed, employment and real income increased in this country (until the recession of 2000). Yeah, it was a disaster LOL!. Those same benefits could have accrued to Mexico as well, except for the fact that it is a country mired in corruption. Increased trade between countries is good no matter what the doomers or manipulative politicians tell you. Mexico has increased exports to the US and Canada. To think that a growing economy doesn't benefit a country defies common sense as well as economics. NAFTA may not have been the panacea its promoters said it would be, but there is no doubt that all parties have benefited. You can now go back to you economic ignorance and doom. You will not be alone.
Why do any of us trade at all? Why don't we all grow our own food, make our own clothes, make our own autos, TVs, computers, etc.? Clearly because we are better off trading what we do well for what others do well.
The same holds for international trade. Only some of us are workers. We are all consumers. International trade benefits us all as consumers. Consider: what would you say of someone who claims to want to harm us all in order to benefit only some of us? That's just what those who look only at jobs but not consumption are proposing to do.
But, it will be claimed, American industries are offshoring to take advantage of cheap labor. That destroys jobs. But labor costs are typically less than half the cost of production, and usually much less than half. The rest of the costs are materials, utilities, capital investment, taxes, and similar items. The US has the highest tax rates of any industrialized nation. Offshoring is often to escape taxes and regulations, not to get cheap labor. If we want factories to stay here, we should quit driving the out of the country with unfavorable taxes and regulations.
It will also be claimed that some countries (China, Japan) are "cheating" by manipulating their currencies. Undoubtedly they are manipulating their currencies in a way that subsidizes exports. But there is no magic there. Costs can't be made to disappear by either waving a magic wand or by manipulating the currency. All those costs end up being borne by the citizens of the country doing the manipulation. Put simply, a nation as a whole cannot become rich by selling its exports at less than the cost of production. Yet that is exactly what happens when a nation manipulates its currency to subsidize exports. Or for that matter does anything else to subsidize exports. If the price of an export can't repay the full costs of production (wages, materials, utilities, cost of capital, and taxes), it is a net drain on the economy of the exporting country.
The object, then, should not be to hurt American consumers (i.e., all of us) for the benefit of those who work in industries that compete with imports. The object should be become competitive in the world market.
People like to talk about high-tech industries. I tell them to look at the area around my home and see the soybean fields. The classical measures of a high-tech industry are capital investment per worker, value added per worker, and R&D as a percent of revenue. Agriculture here is high on all three. It's a genuine high-tech industry. Soybeans are a major US export.
There is no reason the US can't be competitive in world trade, earning enough through exports to pay for imports, and ending up with a net job surplus. We just need to quit donig the things that are hurting us.
The destruction of industry takes time while the benefits of outsourcing are immediate. Thus free trade causes a big boom fallowed by slow decline as we've seen in the US.
>Your article doesn't explain why illegals invaded our country before NAFTA nor does it explain how having a wall on our border would have stopped illegal immigration.
It does explain why massively ramped up after the rates had been fairly steady for 30 years. After NAFTA is became an invasion rather than a migration.
>To think that a growing economy doesn't benefit a country defies common sense as well as economics.
Where is all that growth today? All I'm seeing is a decline in quality of life for most and jobs leaving the country. The big growth factors after NAFTA was tech related and those gains are petering out.
Outsourcing doesn't reduce employment immediately?
I heard Trump talking the other night on Hannity. He talked about how easy it will be to keep Carrier from leaving the U.S.
Something like “That’s fine - enjoy the warm weather down there. But if you try to sell your stuff back here we’ll had a 35% tax on everything. And you know what - if they do leave, we’ll makes LOTS of money!”
I suppose that is one way to look at it. I would have preferred hearing about ways to make American companies more competitive around the world including lowering our corporate taxes, getting rid of a bunch of the EPA rules, unions, etc.
I asked my daughter “So who pays the government that extra 35% in taxes?” “Duh Dad - we do - the consumer.”
Capitalism, true free market capitalism, is the purest expression of Human Nature ever devised.
The Good, Bad and Ugly all mixed together, spun around and spat out for each Individual to decide for themselves what may be in their “Best Interest”.
Liberals and many so-called Conservatives hate true free market Capitalism because it leaves them powerless. It runs in complete opposition to their promise to “Make things better”. They have been voted into Office to “DO Something”, not to “UNDO” virtually everything.
In addition, Liberals, in particular, understand that true free market capitalism requires a huge amount of faith or trust in their fellow man. They have been projecting their own insecurities since recorded time. They don’t trust individuals because they ultimately don’t trust themselves. They have co-opted and infiltrated virtually ever aspect of our public lives in what has been a very successful effort to convince people that the “group” has more value than the “individual”. They have and continue to advance the “State” over the individual.
Republicans, and some “So-called” Conservatives have also accepted the over riding concept that “Most people are stupid”. But they take a slightly different tact. They attempt to control things at a higher level. While the liberals what to control virtually every aspect of your life, these “Republicans” are happy to let us play among ourselves as long as they pull the Macro stings.
But what is an “Elected” official or regulator to do?
Fight to put themselves out of job?
Welcome, to the Machine.
Why did manufacturing employment grow for 7 years after NAFTA?
If you were correct, employment should have dropped immediately.
The rise of tech manufacturing masked it. You see the biggest drops when tech starts being shipped to China. It takes a while for the new factories to be built and the workers trained. It’s not an overnight proccess.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.