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To: expat_panama
..our import-tax-hike collegues who insist that whenever a foreigner works it means an American can't.

That's not what we insist. It's when foreigners sell to our market but don't buy back products from our market, that foreigners working means unemployed Americans.

Import tariffs served us well for 180 years. It's past time to restore them. We can still trade in needed goods. But we don't have to allow anyone to sell into our markets and get nothing in return.

9 posted on 01/05/2016 8:01:36 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN
It's when foreigners sell to our market but don't buy back products from our market, that foreigners working means unemployed Americans.

That's the pop meme, that all our dollars go to foreigners and we end up broke.  The idea works great for selling op-eds and getting votes because it's an easy thought while the fact that it never happens in real life never seems to catch on.  You may have heard about the balance of payments already, about how when we spend our dollars to buy Canadian shale oil or Columbian coffee that the foreigners can't use dollars for anything but buying stuff from Americans. 

An American can't lose his construction job just because some German decides to build a house in Dusseldorf.  US employers are prevented from hiring when the money they would have spent on wages goes instead to taxes on stuff like imports.  When import taxes are cut then the American construction worker can build a house that can be sold to say, some Canadian who pays w/ money that buys us Canadian shale oil.  That may be a so-called 'trade deficit' but it's still employment.

10 posted on 01/06/2016 2:55:29 AM PST by expat_panama
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