Posted on 01/03/2011 9:44:44 AM PST by FreedomNotSafety
At first blush, the mercantilists' call for "free trade but fair trade" sounds reasonable. After all, who can be against fairness? Giving the idea just a bit of thought suggests that fairness as a guide for public policy lays the groundwork for tyranny. You say, "Williams, I've never heard anything so farfetched! Explain yourself." ___________
Mercantilists have absolutely no argument when we recognize that trade is mostly between individuals. Mercantilists pretend that trade occurs between nations such as U.S. trading with England or Japan to appeal to our jingoism. First, does the U.S. trade with Japan and England? In other words, is it members of the U.S. Congress trading with their counterparts in the Japanese Diet or the English Parliament? That's nonsense. Trade occurs between individuals in one country, through intermediaries, with individuals in another country.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
I can’t imagine what could be “fairer” than free trade?
BTTT.
I am missing your “point”. Do you favor fair trade over free trade?
Need he say it in Spanish so you can understand it? WW and JB are clearly both for freetrade. The problem is ignorance of economics by our own conservatives.
Take NAFTA. It started in the Reagan era as a free trade concept. Without some Buchanan type conservatives it lacked the votes to pass. Eventually with Clinton as president it passed because it was loaded up with protectionism in order to buy votes of the “centrists”. ND’s Dorgan protected the USA from cheap natural gas in Canada (and Alaska which Dorgan considered foreign trade). LA senators protected sugar. etc, etc.
The only free trade left in NAFTA was in the name. NAFTA is protectionism; yet freetrade gets blamed for its failure. The ignorant cry for more of the failed policies of the past.
Interestingly, the biggest US-MEX trade failure had zero to do with NAFTA. Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Rubin imposed colonialist policies on the Mexican monetary system. That monetary policy protected the money laundering of the drug trade. But it destroyed the Maquiladora factory system and sent Mexican jobs to Asia. With no jobs in Mexico, emmigration to the USA rapidly increased.
Bookmark.
How did you get that from JB’s one little sentence? Take it easy there. I am never sure what “...” means.
JW’s brilliance here is to move the debate from the realm of economics to the realm of liberty and freedom. We can keep this at a level that every Freeper can understand and endorse. Are we free or not?
I think this is simple. Free trade does not require an agreement. In order for me to have free trade I only need for my own government NOT to restrict me.
Freepers go off the rails because other governments restrict their citizens from trading freely and it leads them to think we must respond in kind by restricting our own freedoms. They thereby jump into the realm of what is fair which a conservative or libertarian can never win.
How about everyone playing by the same rules???
Wow a free trader finally admiring NAFTA is failure! Although your excuses for it’s failure I do not agree with you.
Our country was prosperous before the first free trade agreement (NAFTA) was ever signed in 1996. It’s now slowly going to $hit thanks to all these so called free trade agreements. Millions of jobs have left the country and are not coming back. Wonderful! (sarcasm off)
Just know this. It’s impossible to have free trade unless everyone is playing by the same rules.
I agree with you. Get rid of all trade agreements. Do you also agree with eliminating our(USA)laws that restrict my freedom to trade?
“Just know this. It’s impossible to have free trade unless everyone is playing by the same rules.”
I am very sure that I can trade freely so long as my government does not place any restrictions on me. “Playing by the rules” is just another name for taking away my freedom to trade.
LOL! I wish it was THAT simple. Too bad it’s not.
We cannot win at rigged poker game. This is where are playing by one set of rules and the other guys are playing another set of rules.
Just think the taxpayer bailed out GM and how do they reward our nation. By opening up two plants in foreign countries. One being Mexico. So we (the U.S. taxpayer) bail their sorry a$$es out and they reward us by building jobs in other nations.
You can’t have true free trade unless everyone is playing by the same rules.
Were is the “we” you keep mentioning? Did you read the article? For the most part there is no “we” when it comes to trade. Governments do not buy buy and sell from each other. Individuals buy and sell from each other. Why do you care or what business is it of yours were and how I spend my money? William’s article is about freedom.
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