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To: BroJoeK
and if by "total trade value with Europe" you delete the values of California gold and Nevada silver exported to balance-up our trade deficits.

Been over this with you before. *SPECIE* is not trade. No nation willingly continues to use specie to purchase imports because it drains their wealth over the long term.

Indeed, years ago you posted all the trade balances from something like 1800 to the 1870s or so, and I went through it and showed how you were deliberately misconstruing the data to support what you wanted to believe.

Specie is a separate category and it is not the equivalent of trade.

But by more honest accounting, Confederate states' cotton in 1860 made up ~50% of total US exports, no more.

I have got you to admit it was as much as 60%, but it would be difficult to show you your post where you admitted this without days of tedious searching through your commentary and mine.

I said at the time, "I've got you up to 60%, so perhaps I will eventually be able to get you up to the actual number of 72%".

But this is just splitting hairs. Even at your unreasonably low value of 50% of the trade, you have 1/4th of the Citizens producing 50% of the total revenue for the nation, while the other 3/4ths are shirking their duty to pay their fair share of the taxes.

The taxation clearly fell excessively on the Southern citizens, and this was by your own admission of 50% of the trade coming from them.

We know this because in 1861, when Confederate cotton was deleted from US exports, Federal tariff revenues fell only ~15%, not 50%, much less 72%.

You claim the value was 50%, yet the loss of tariff revenues only declined 15%?

Well that does not make any sense, because 15 does not equal 50, so now that you make this claim, you need to explain how you can believe it was 50% of the total, and suddenly it was only 15% of the total?

Clearly some sort of "magic" is occurring here, and so you need to explain how you can believe two contradictory things at the same time.

965 posted on 08/25/2021 8:21:51 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp; SoCal Pubbie; x; rockrr; DoodleDawg; jmacusa; Bull Snipe
DiogenesLamp: "Been over this with you before. *SPECIE* is not trade.
No nation willingly continues to use specie to purchase imports because it drains their wealth over the long term."

Of course specie (gold & silver) are counted as exports or imports just like any other raw material -- be it iron ore, copper, oil, coal, etc.
In those days the US exported California gold and Nevada silver because we had large surpluses which helped pay for our trade imbalances.
We also imported smaller but still significant amounts of gold & silver specie as payment for some exports.

DiogenesLamp: "Specie is a separate category and it is not the equivalent of trade."

So declares sovereign King DiogenesLamp on his own authority and nobody else's.
The real truth here is that gold & silver are nothing more than raw materials which could be, and were, used to balance up our trade account books.

DiogenesLamp: "I have got you to admit it was as much as 60%, but it would be difficult to show you your post where you admitted this without days of tedious searching through your commentary and mine."

1860 Cotton exports (~$200 million) were 50% of total exports, including specie exports, and I've never said anything different.

Of course, any dishonest person can play with the numbers -- remove specie and count everything exported from New Orleans as "Southern Products" and you can make the % number as high as you wish.

But the fact remains that Confederate states in 1860 accounted for roughly 15% of the US GDP (then ~$4.5 billion), and 15% (not 60% or 72%!!) was the 1861 loss in Federal tariff revenues as a result of secession.

DiogenesLamp: "But this is just splitting hairs.
Even at your unreasonably low value of 50% of the trade, you have 1/4th of the Citizens producing 50% of the total revenue for the nation, while the other 3/4ths are shirking their duty to pay their fair share of the taxes."

First of all: in 1860 Confederate state citizens were not 25% of the population, they were about 17% and they themselves produced very little -- their non-voting, non-citizen (see Dred Scott) slaves produced most of it, according the the Mississippi "Reasons for Secession" document:

So right off the bat, your claims of "72%+" are bogus to the max.
Those lazy SOBs produced nothing except constant complaints!

Second, Southern exports were never taxed, only imports, and Confederate states citizens imported only a tiny fraction of the ~$400 million total in 1860.
What Southerners did "import" was about $200 million in manufactured products from the North.
These were mainly things like woolen & cotton clothing, shoes, cast iron stoves, railroad iron, soap, candles & farm implements. Tariffs on raw materials for these Northern manufactured goods were not significantly higher under the 1861 Morrill Tariff than they had been previously:

TABLE COMPARING TARIFFS OF 1846, 1857 & MORRILL:

Commodity1846 Tariff1857 TariffMorrill
Woolens30%24%37%
Brown Sugar30%24%26%
Cotton251925
Iron mfg302429
Tobacco403025
Wines403040
Average tariffs:33%25%30%
DiogenesLamp: "Well that does not make any sense, because 15 does not equal 50, so now that you make this claim, you need to explain how you can believe it was 50% of the total, and suddenly it was only 15% of the total?"

I have now explained this to you many times, but of course you can never be bothered to learn, much less remember, anything contrary to your own pro-Confederate propaganda.

1,011 posted on 08/26/2021 4:11:15 PM PDT by BroJoeK (looking for a new tag line...)
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