Posted on 10/16/2017 12:07:04 PM PDT by TBP
Free trade, as an ideal, only exists when all sides are playing by the same rules. But that literally never happens.
The tariff enacted was a REVENUE tariff not a protectionist tariff. Recall the Nullification crisis when a real protectionist tariff was enacted.
Free trade would have clearly benefited the slave owners since it the products they imported were the ones affected most by the tariff. This had been the case from the beginning but the government had to have revenue.
Trump ran on cutting better deals. The prospect of a tariff would produce those deals. It is a tactic.
It was a REVENUE tariff.
Trade barriers reduce income and people’s economic well-being. There are no arguments that show trade barriers produce net positive economic results only political ones.
Tariffs are such a give-away to big government it is difficult to understand its popularity.
Do you really want the government to tell you what price you have to pay for a new car?
Delusional to the end, that is good to see.
“Trade barriers reduce income and people’s economic well-being. There are no arguments that show trade barriers produce net positive economic results only political ones.”
The United States became the worlds’ largest manufacturer by 1940. Certainly “trade barriers” with had insufficient subtraction to slow that, or were a net add.
China practices all forms of trade protection, from tariff to currency manipulation to outright embargo.
They have risen to, at least, the second largest economy in the world since 1950.
That’s two pretty good arguments if you ask to judge results.
“Do you really want the government to tell you what price you have to pay for a new car?”
You just mean “Do I want government to tell me what the tariff will be on a Mercedes or BMW or some other car not manufactured in the US”.
I EXPECT them to. It’s part of their job.
Not according to the Constitution, it’s not. There is nothing in the document which claims that Price Controls are a job for government.
Because of free trade the Mercedes and BMW are manufactured here. And Toyota, and Honda, and Hyundai, and Mazda. Maybe Rolls-Royces are not but it is hard to find a company which doesn’t have manufacturing operations here.
Also because of FT US companies have production operations in countries across the globe.
These are all beneficial to the entire economy.
Tariffs are a political instrument for revenue to fund the government, to protect critical industries (as politically determined) or to punish an offending nation with high trade barriers.
In 1940 the US and world economies were in a state of collapse one of the reasons for that collapse was the passing of the Smoot-Harley Law in 1930 which killed international trade. Our growth prior to that was military based from WW1 and the void left by the destruction of the British Empire in that war.
It is no news that China does not have free trade but restricts the freedom of its citizens and seizes the profits from international trade. Surely that is not what you want.
Tariffs can easily by turned into an instrument of oppression as in a totalitarian society like China.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/tariff-act-1789
Again, a duty of Congress to regulate trade with other nations.
Smoot-Hawley is a red herring. There is no serious scholarship which attributes the collapse of trade in the 1930s to Smoot-Hawley.
Germany saw an 80% reduction in both imports and exports and was nearly completely unaffected by the law. The same applies to most of Europe.
The US suffered a 50% loss, coincident with far greater losses of net trade worldwide.
Serious scholarship says Smoot-Hawley contributed to the deflation of the 30’s, but to contend that Smoot-Hawley precipitated that is not supported by any research that I am aware of.
The world economies were already collapsing in upon themselves when it was enacted.
Although free trade is a useful concept and I have no argument in regard that it is as a principle of economics that protectionism tends to hurt more than it helps in an ideal world where other nations are open to free trade....it is not a comprehensive enough principle to adequately deal with the realities of negotiated trades between nations that play dirty with trade....and not even necessarily to the benefit of their own citizens.
Gravity is a useful concept. And yet airplanes and baloons may defy it...because there is more going on.
I said ONE of the reasons for the collapse was Smoot-Hawley. It clearly did not help matters and made them worse.
Germany went into the 1930s in a state of collapse perhaps even worse than elsewhere. Hitler’s use of monetary controls crimped imports and his use of the Keynesian economic model saw huge state expenditures on infrastructure and the military. Hardly a desirable goal today.
It’s foolish to expect FReepers to be pro-American. Because they are NOT. This website has been suborned.
"Whereas it is necessary for that support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares and merchandise:"[1]
We got a Smoot Hawley lie propagator. LOL.
For anyone that isn't brainwashed Smoot Hawley had little or no impact on the Great Depression. Why? Trade was only 4% of the total GDP in 1930 so it couldn't have great impact.
The great Depression was a financial crises and a banking crises Smoot Hawley had nothing to do with it. It as passed the year AFTER the crash.
FREE TRADE is PROTECTIONISM.
PROTECTIONISM is FREE TRADE.
It is not Free Trade. It is Privileged trade, picking winners and losers is Protectionism.
Protection from bad foreign money, from foreign State monopolies; from rigged rules and bad laws; protection from evil brings liberty & abundance.
Foundation for Economic blah blah blah.
What is frustrating is that Free Traitors™ view trade a religion. Trade good, tariff bad. They are child like in their steadfast false assumptions. This website has indeed been suborned.
So all those people that have been laid off over the decades when a factory closes due to offshoring is an illusion?
If this website is going to continue to be taken seriously then the Free Traitors™ have to be fought on every thread, all the time.
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