Posted on 03/13/2016 9:33:18 AM PDT by impimp
Free trade is again under attack, despite having been, for over a century, the basis of America's wealth. Some groups in the United States blame free trade for the loss of manufacturing jobs, while others blame it for exposing some U.S. producers to foreign competition.
Free trade, however, is good for America, and for a very simple reason: It allows American workers to specialize in goods and services that they produce more efficiently than the rest of the world and then to exchange them for goods and services that other countries produce at higher quality and lower cost.
Specialization and free trade allow the U.S. to become more competitive and innovative. Innovation constantly provides new technologies that allow Americans to produce more, cure more diseases, pollute less, improve education, and choose from a greater range of investment opportunities. The resulting economic growth generates better-paying jobs, higher standards of living, and a greater appreciation of the benefits of living in a peaceful society.
New technologies bring about change, which, as U.S. economic history shows, benefits society as a whole. In the process, however, some sectors suffer until they can adapt to the new changes and begin to benefit from them. Today, Americans are experiencing some of that "suffering" because new technologies are challenging old methods of production.
This change is especially visible in the manufacturing sector, just as it was in the agricultural sector 100 years ago. But in the same way that it adapted then to a new, more industry-based society, America will adapt again to a new, more knowledge-based society.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritage.org ...
exactly
The problem is not that people are losing their jobs because of free trade. There is always going to be change and obsolescence, and there is no divine right of stagnation. The problem is that with a libtard mixed economy, it is hard to find an equivalent new job or a better job after one has lost his old job. But this is the fault of libtardism and not free trade.
Still flogging this dead mule?
Apply a tariff which raises the price of imported goods manufactured by $3/day workers to make the price equivalent to what it would be if they were paid the US minimum wage. Lessen the economic incentive to engage in labor arbitrage.
Likewise a tariff to compensate for the environmental compliance costs of doing business in this country vs. the cost of doing business in less-environmentally-conscious countries, to discourage environmental arbitrage.
This is NOT Free Trade..... It’s RIGGED AGAINST US TRADE.
NOT EVERY ONE IS PLAYING BY THE SAME RULES....
It’s the equivalent of playing a rigged poker game and expecting to win. You can’t if not everyone is not playing by the same rules.
What part of we pay Tariffs and they don’t do you fail to understand?
What part of they manipulate their currency do you not understand?
For the record, the United States was a Super Power in the world for a very long time before these Rigged Trade Deals that were signed in 1996 starting with NAFTA.
Do you really believe our country is heading in the right direction since NAFTA,GATT, etc... and soon to be the TPP?
You need to quit smoking the dope you are selling.
It is hard to compete with unregulated slave labor production. Until, American workers learn to appreciate the benefits of being enslaved they will continue to suffer.
I would urge you to support Trump. He’s not perfect (none of them are) but he’s a step in the right direction. He has demonstrated that he is intelligent enough to learn and actually change his mind and has said he believes in the free market. Whether the value of the free market economy is obtained by his learning or by his predecessor, I’m hopeful for a prolonged change for good in America.
Your mind swings on a hinge - you start with a false premise, argue a false dichotomy, and put words in the mouths of your opponents to beat them over the head with.
It is like Yogi Berra's famous quote, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
In fact we are all for free trade, I would imagine, but free trade is they one thing we don't actually have and are not going to get so long as the other side practices blatant merchanilism and protectionism, and so long as our side does as well, for things that matter to the well-connected cronys, while hyprocritically claiming to be for free trade. No one argues for American protectionism, but you are arguing in a world where the other side gets away with practicing blatant protectionism.
You further seem to take the attitude that those of us opposed to the status quo or those of us supporting Trump are low information voters and do not get free trade theory. But we are high information individuals, those on this forum anyone, who recognize the clear distinction between simplistic theories and the complexities of realities.
The problem is that you think it is about trade, when the rest of the world understands it is about wealth. The Chinese, Japanese, and French are very concerned with wealth - ensuring that the means of production exist on domestic soil, not foreign soil. Because indigenous economic strength is the source of wealth and power and well-being for the people.
So don't peddle your cheap low-information propaganda around a bunch of folks who know better or we are going to take you to be another DC crony insider.
That is a wonderful sentiment. How are you going to win the cooperation of the Chinese government, the European parliament and the world court.
People like you usually found themselves at the end of rope in 1776.
PS: We are Free Trading ourselves in Communism, thanks to you and your ilk.
The central issue in the trade issue is the interference of the federal government that has forced the cost of doing business so high in America, that other countries are now a more favorable location for those businesses. It isn’t the businesses fault and it isn’t the foreign country’s fault, it is the fault of the federal government in imposing the things I listed. Get rid of those things, get the government out of our market economy, and America will soon be humming along economically better than ever with vast opportunities for growth and wealth for the average American.
Your tag line suggests you love freedom. Well so do I and the market economy free from government interference is freedom in action and what made America the greatest, strongest, richest country in the world. Freedom works!
In the second 1992 Presidential Debate, Ross Perot argued: We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor,...have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
...when [Mexico's] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.
It’s important to be clear about what the central issue in the trade issue is: the interference of the federal government that has forced the cost of doing business so high in America, that other countries are now a more favorable location for those businesses.
The cost of doing business in America is the core issue in our economy and will be reversed only by repealing these bone-headed federal government policies and getting the feds out of the way.
If other counties want to shoot themselves in the foot and not avail themselves of the voluntary exchange of supply and demand in the open market bringing the least cost, greatest quality and availability, and higher standard of living, it doesn’t mean we have to shoot ourselves in the foot also.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how poor and backwards closed countries like China have been. The only parts of China that are thriving are those “free trade” zones like Beijing - an overnight wonder really. Such has it always been and such it will always be.
Economic reality isn’t a sentiment - it is a fact, Jack.
Does it ever occur to you Free Traitors™ that China only industrialized recently and protectionism has worked fantastically well for them. The gooks were a backwards nation of dung burning rice pickers 25 years ago.
Prices at Walmart were low back when Sam Walton launched his "Made In America" campaign, consumers still enjoyed low prices without destroying America.
That is a FALSE dogmatic response created from psychological conditioning by the Cheap Labor Cartel.
Multinationals love regulations and taxes. They love them, love them, love them. Why? The reasons are two fold, they love the fact that all of these regulations can be very expensive and keep the riff riff out of the market and starting up and competing from scratch cost prohibitive. Secondly those taxes and regulations are the perfect excuse to off shore and exploit slave labor overseas and re -importing back into the USA duty free -- the real reason for offshoring. For big cap manufacturing it is a win-win.
If a company moves out of our country and their costs and prices don’t go down, then they’ve done something wrong. But lower costs (and resulting lower prices and therefore higher demand and higher profits) is THE reason for the migration of business. It’s not magic, it’s bread and butter economics.
You mention one core issue - nuke the regulations that emit from the unconstitutional Administrative State. That alone will make a huge difference. I’ve also listed other federal polices that need to be nuked.
It’s important to be clear about what the central issue in the trade issue is: the interference of the federal government that has forced the cost of doing business so high in America, that other countries are now a more favorable location for those businesses. The reason imports are so high is because of favorable pricing for the quality which consumers demand.
The cost of doing business in America is the core issue in our economy and will be reversed only by repealing these bone-headed federal government policies, including regulations (most if not all being unconstitutional BTW), and getting the feds out of the way.
The market economy free from government interference is what made America the greatest, strongest, richest country in the world and will again if constitutional restraint is once again imposed on our federal government.
Look at Walmart’s supply chain after decades of “free trade” deals. I teach supply chain and I can assure you that Walmart’s is not loaded with “made in USA” products. The point of my post is that “low prices” are not a great argument for endless rigged trade deals without regard to their effect on US workers.
No problem with your analysis. Trump is my choice to take on this govt interference. I called it regulation and taxes —interference by another name.
I do not see that this rules out a negotiation with another country with control over their currency and labor to the mutual benefit of the people. What Trump has been saying is that these deals do not support the workers in our country. They support the establishment guys giving them what they need to prosper. So this is where the stop Trump movement gets some support.
I don’t think fixing the taxes and regulation will be enough, but maybe it will. Trump’s competitors seem to think that changing to a flat tax or fixing this or that regulation will spur growth and help the jobs situation.
I believe the real interference problem has to do with who is buying influence and Trump is advertising that he will be the guy without special interest control.
And yes, I want the country to be supportive of more freedom. This causes me to have libertarian tendencies, and my support for Trump is based on the idea that he is not funded by people who would take freedom away from all of us. I also know that politicians as a rule are not to be trusted, but what can you do?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.