Posted on 07/28/2012 4:02:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are currently fighting over who is the more patriotic. Obama slams Romney for having outsourced jobs to China during his Bain Capital days. Romney punches back by labeling Obama “Outsourcer in Chief.” The latest is that both John Boehner and Harry Reid are voicing outrage over America’s made-in-China Olympic uniforms. “Burn them!” thunders Reid.
Republicans and Democrats strangely agree that outsourcing is unpatriotic, and that the moral and patriotic thing to do is to “Hire American” and “Buy American.”
Well, no. Not in a thousand years. The fear of outsourcing and international trade is economic nonsense and moral blindness. More than that: this anti-profit attitude is un-American.
Despite the ongoing Europeanization of America, America still symbolizes the land of freedom, entrepreneurship, profit-making, above all, individualism.
But collectivism is the premise of “Hire/Buy American”: we are to view ourselves and others not as individuals, but as units of a nation. Businesses are urged to pay more in labor costs, simply to hire workers who are American; consumers are urged to forgo Walmart’s low prices, pay more, simply because the pricier goods were made by “our guys.” This is not rational patriotism, it is not Americanism, it's primitive tribalism.
American individualism means making buying decisions on the basis of economic merit, giving no regard to the nationality or race of the seller. Let’s not hide behind patriotic-sounding slogans. Let’s name things straight for a change: giving preference to American sellers over foreign sellers is the same mindless injustice as giving preference to sellers who are white over those who are black.
Economic nationalism is as morally outrageous as racism. Buying on the basis of nationality or race is the same collectivist evil: judging men and their products by the group from which they come, not by merit.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
RE: "leading us to . . . the American economy, security, traditional culture, values and its pesky middle class [to be placed] under the tyranny of global communism administered by the WTO, UN, and their affiliates."
The Marxist revolution from the top down. (I think Obama, who has his own agenda, admitted that is his revolution too.)
I believe that the (Clinton) Third Way New Democrats came to realize that only capitalism and free trade can create enough wealth worldwide to "raise all boats"; that is why they advocate such ideas as "rules based free trade" with them setting the rules.
I, a hated "protectionist", do in fact favor free trade -- I do not like attempts to co-opt and use "free trade" by unsavory ideology operating through organizations like you mentioned plus ultra-left government clowns.
The groups you named are all targets plus Davos which -- I believe -- meets once a year to set the agenda for those groups including the U.N. (I think that Clinton has since created his own personal organization to try to compete with Davos. Davos is moving too slow for him.)
Such efforts as the Doha Development Agenda to favor developing nations have emerged inevitably leading to disagreements between the developed and the developing nations; to wit, "developed nations led by the European Union (EU), the United States (USA), and Japan and the major developing countries led and represented mainly by Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and South Africa."
This is way too complicated to be settled here, I see. Personally there's scant chance that I can understand anything close to all the factors.. so IMO:
Stop helping to build the economy and the war-making powers of the Communist Party of Red China..
the bastards have killed an estimated 60 million Chinese citizens and..
Making them millionaires and billionaires ain't working.
The PRC produced 683 Million tons of steel in 2011! It dwarfs the rest of the world combined.
Oh, my. That would be almost 1/20th of our monthly steel production (going from memory, and being very conservative with the figure).
So what if our steel production goes to zero? Could happen in a few generations. This is the end goal of free trade.
Never mind, maybe a month’s worth of production.
Again, a matter of tradeoffs. You want a steel industry 7x larger, and nothing to eat on the shelf at the grocery? (Channeling Hayek, now). Go for it. Think of all those highly-paid steelworkers producing steel that no one will buy, and with nothing to eat.
I suppose we could waste hundreds of billions (trillions?) of dollars by making more steel than we need. Is that what we should do? Can we store a few million tons at your house?
That's not my end goal.
Rough numbers, Steel imports 30 MT, steel exports 15 MT, steel production 85 MT. Doing the math domestic demand is 100 MT per year. So 30% of steel supply comes from imports. In a perfect world I would prefer ALL was produced in the USA.
That would be great.......
Compared to what?
At what cost?
The domestic makers of steel still have to compete with each other. Whatever the price demand curve spells out, without the "dumping". I am good with that.
Yes, and in 2010, it was still a little more than 1/3 that of the U.S. -- with 4 times the population.
The U.S.A has just exploding debt, 16 trillion $ in federal debt, 116 trillion $ in unfunded liabilities, declining cities .
That has absolutely nothing at all to do with trade. It is the result of a half century of liberalism and stupidity [but I repeat myself.] Your statement is a non sequitur and does not bear on this discussion.
History has proved that the U.S. was rising for 200 years with high tariffs and rising for 40 years when a trade embargo was on china.
Your history is wrong. The U.S. certainly did not have high tariffs for 200 years. The founders permitted tariffs [mistakenly in my view] as the federal government's only means of funding so as not to burden the citizens.
That was mistaken thinking, of course, because citizens end up paying the tariffs. Nonetheless, a light across-the-board tariff could have raised revenue without grossly distorting trade. But Alexander Hamilton, our first big-government president, corrupted the tariff system to bestow favors on contributors and cronies.
And that's how tariffs have worked ever since. No tariffs on most items, but high tariffs on goods produced by industries with the most clout or political influence.
The sugar tariff is an excellent example. To protect a couple thousand sugar-producing jobs, we have driven tens of thousands of candy-manufacturing jobs to Mexico where the price of sugar is much, much lower.l
The sugar tariff costs American consumers billions each year and has resulted in the substitution of fructose in products like soda pop resulting in an inferior product.
Then let's talk about the 30% tariff on cheap Chinese tires. That has ended up costing less well-off consumers to fork over even more for inexpensive tires perhaps causing some of them to put off the purchase causing potential safety hazards.
At the same time, not one single American tire manufacturer has decided to enter the low-end market. Even a thirty per cent tariff does not make production profitable here.
Tariffs are a tax on Americans. And, remember, consumers and workers are the same people. What possible good does it do to rob Peter to pay Peter?
Our economic problems are not caused by trade. Trade improves economic situations. Our problems are caused by out-of-control regulation, taxation, inflation, and government over-spending. But you ignore all of those and obsess on trade.
You seem impervious to economic logic, so I don't really expect a specific response.
Watch me say it.
The American economy is three times that of China with one quarter the people.
You seem to be able to look up statistics but are not yet able to put them in context.
And don't call me a traitor. I refrain from calling you an economic idiot. I expect the same courtesy.
United States Free Enterprise, INC.
INVOICE
Capital, Goods and Services (FDI, Intellectual Property, technology, know how) stolen and extorted by the Peoples Republic of China
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2,500,000,000,000.00
Current payments due . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,000,000,000,000.00
Remaining amount due . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,500,000,000,000.00
The U.S. Treasury certificates are your payment receipts. Thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j-ypNuNg8Y
That's BS. The definition of economy (GDP) says that 2/3 of U.S. GDP is consumer spending and then most of the rest is government spending . that is your big U.S. economy consumers spending money on foreign made goods . And that is overvalued inflated dollars that many are borrowed and printed out of thin air. The U.S. doesn't produce real wealth which is why the U.S. borrows so much and debt is exploding and living standards and jobs are declining. A real economy is producing wealth and moving 300 million people out of poverty and into the middle class as china has done in the last 20 years. If you look at real production, a real economy as in number of products produced as in consumer electronics, steel( China produces many times the steel the U.S. does then you see it's not even close : china produces much more.
China is building 1 Chicago a week while the U.S. cities become hellholes and you say the U.S. economy is better . Truly you are insane since you believe an economy with the debt the U.S. is building NOW is the best in the world or better than china.
Binswanger is an idiot.
And the factories are more modern , some factories in china have 200,000 workers. So the workers produce more so it's more than 10
LOL. you have no understanding of how China has undervalued it's currency.
China produces more products than the U.S. does . that is the real economy not what economists say it is ( as in consumer spending in an overvalued currency). The real economy is manufacturing , producing things not consumer spending , government spending as economists define it. It's like saying welfare recipients are the economy . sure they spend so that's an economy? LOL. That's s what we Americans are now welfare recipients. look at the analogy . china gives us discounted goods which we pay for with monopoly money and they get to have the machines ,technology , know how to manufacture. welfare recipients produce nothing and neither do we but we spend so much as if that is production according to stupid economists.
China's economy grew by 19 times in 30 years . You say the U.S. economy is bigger .So by your logic then 30 years ago the U.S. economy was at least 19 times larger than China's ( who has 1 billion people). does that makes sense to any rational being? NO. the fact that china with 1 billion people has grown at 10% per year for the past 30 years proves that it is now by far the biggest economy and will continue this growth into the next few decades . by my estimations China is 10 x the U.S. in real production and in 30 years will be 200 times the U.S. economy
China knows economics. That’s why china has grown 10% per year for the last 30 years. I say the U.S. should copy what China has done. You say I’m stupid for suggesting that. You can quote some economics text or whatever you are saying but I know what works and what china has been doing for 30 years has worked . the trade agreements the U.S. has done have not helped the U.S. but have helped china.
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