Posted on 10/23/2014 9:31:04 PM PDT by Intolerant in NJ
Hate to shill for anything PBS, but apparently a group of libertarian organizations put together this special on the life, times, and thinking of Dr. Walter E, Williams which is making the rounds on PBS and I actually caught tonight in prime time on the Philly outlet. Following Williams from his youth in Philadelphia through his time in the army in the late fifties, the program details his introduction to racial discrimination in the military. He was appalled when he discovered that blacks in the army were given only menial assignments; when his lieutenant ordered him to paint a truck he did - headlights, tires, windshield and all. You know what kind of soldier he made. Leaving the army he headed to California for college thoroughly radicalized - he was a follower of Malcolm X, wore a shaorks tooth necklace to his classes, and was rumored to be an enforcer for the Black Panthers. But studying economics because he believed it was the path to his own betterment, he ran across the likes of Hayek and Friedman, and turned to the right side. He gained national prominence with his studies on the minimum wage which he claimed hurt employment opportunities, especially among minority youth. Today he says that the idea that the minimum wage fights poverty is nonsense - otherwise we could abolish poverty worldwide by recommending to countries like Bangladesh that they all simply raise their own minimum wages. In addition to interviews with Williams, we hear form Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Charles Murray, Daniel P. Moynihan, and others. Entertaining, informative, and inspiring - catch it if you can....
zzzz. Protectionist Konformity. You should know better.
All colleges teach this self destructive free trade ideology. Washington DC is full of free trade think tanks like Cato, and lawyers-lobbyists and hack politicians out promoting-profiting from it
You are the conformist to prevailing Anglo-American trade theories. I am the non-conformist who does not accept them. Neither do the great NE Asian manufacturing nations such as China, Korea and Japan. Who are all merchantalists. They are proof that merchantislim can take a poor nation to being rich if they have good human capital. Meaning brains and work ethic.
Mercantilism (sp) was one of the stupidest economic philosophies ever invented and it rightly died out except for Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader.
Are you arguing that free trade is not the ideal, if what you are seeking is maximum economic productivity? Because that claim is economic nonsense.
Or are you arguing that modern globalist mercantilism (that goes under the banner of “free trade”) is an attack on American independence, sovereignty, and liberty? Because that argument is compelling.
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