Posted on 01/31/2010 6:42:57 PM PST by ianfletcher
Yeah, competition sucks, doesn’t it?
“Intellectually, I must require you to show that any country can manage the required logistics to win a war with unrestricted free trade. Manufacture and supply of all food, equipment,and fuel in quantity delivered where needed.”
But if we are relying on tariffs on foreign trade to fund our military, we will also run into major problems.
1) it won’t be enough to fund it
2) foreign countries will have easy veto power over our military actions since we are relying on them for revenue.
3) other companies that use steel and other taxed goods will also move overseas. The economy will shrink and that will result in even lower revenue for the military.
I think someone just signed up today and left a deposit on our lawn.
you can’t assume that everyone will love us if we have unrestricted free trade. Al qaeda and other islamofascists groups will always hate us because of their ideology. However, we will have more cooperation from our allies and non-enemies if we piss them off less.
Especially when Obama is the man that will manage the trade system. LOL!
During the second half of the 19th century the tariff funded the federal government and protected American industry from European competition. Our nation became the greatest industrial power in the world during that time.
Wrong.
how things would pan out in war if the entire steel industry moves to Asia.
And just how much steel industry do we need for defense purposes? Should we make steel 3 times more expensive, so the steel industry stays here? Do you have any indication the steel industry is moving to Asia?
Welcome to FR.
There are a good number of ideologues here who will bristle at your assertions. Ready to blow themselves and everyone else in the country to bits at the altar. One thing they ignore - “Free Trade” as currently practiced is not free - not a tiny bit.
Even if it were, we’d be nuts to embrace it. The Law of Diminishing Returns does not favor overdeveloped nations. Lower trade barriers, and capital flows out of the country like water through a broken dam.
The only thing we’ve actually done is lower barriers to competition from overseas without removing any of the burden that comes from operating within US borders. The results have been nothing if not predictable. Our industrial and GDP growth have slowed to a crawl or reversed. Deficits are skyrocketing.
Our economy and national defense capability have been comprimised. Our technological edge is being blunted by piracy and outright surrender. We are rapidly ceding our bargaining power when it comes to foreign policy and resource markets. Thanks to porous borders and non-existent immigration enforcement, we’ve become a welfare sugar daddy for Mexico and Central America. Deficit spending just accelerates things. We’re financing China’s ascendancy from our own Treasury.
This is a bad joke that’s gone on long enough.
I’ll try to check the book out.
Beautiful well thought out answer.
Judging from the comments on this thread, I am not confident anyone else will--they've pretty much drawn their conclusions from the title. At $24.95, I will also wait for the price to fall (free marketeer that I am). That, or I'll see if the local union hall is handing them out for free.
Yes. If there is war.
No. IF the entire steel industry goes to Asia. That’s asinine to begin with
“Your screen name is certainly indicative of the substance of your reasoning”
Someone who takes their screen name from a fictional talking horse has no stones to throw
The Great Depression resulted from a collapse in domestic demand, not demand for US exports. The tariff was passed after the 1929 stock market crash. Exports comprised only 5% of GDP in 1929. World trade declined 66% from 1929 to 1934. Even if you attribute 100% of the decline in trade to Smooth Hawley (an unlikely assumption), the tariff had at most a negative impact of 3.4% to US GDP.
From 1929 to 1933 US GDP declined by 39%. It is difficult to attribute that decline to a tariff affecting at most 5% of GDP. Industrial production fell by 45% from 1929 to 1932. Most of the decline in US exports was farm products, not manufactured goods.
Even under Smoot, 66% of all imports were duty free and the effective tariff rate was 19.8%. From 1821 to 1900 the effective tariff rate on imports into the US averaged 29% with only 8% of imports being duty free.
Federal Reserve action shrinking the money supply by 30% contributed much more to the Great Depression than a tariff impacting at most 3.4% of GDP.
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