Posted on 06/07/2019 11:52:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Bingo!
Supporter of fair trade it is NOT fair when China places 62% tariffs on pork BT. ( Before Trump)
Unilateral Free Trade with Mercantilists is like leaving your garage open with your keys and wallet in your unlocked car on the south side of Chicago overnight every night of the year. You are going to get robbed without any doubt.
You describe mutual Free Trade, but nobody but us practice Free Trade.
From 1780 - 1942 the US was a textbook mercantile nation. During the same period Britain pursued Smithsonian Free Trade.
The result was the largest store of capital stock in the history of mankind in the US, whilst Britain’s empire collapsed.
Now China has copied that model for 40 years and the result is similar.
That’s REAL LIFE, not the mental masturbation of Austrians and Smithsonians.
Philosophically speaking, if you are a nation with all (or almost all) natural resources, as well as an adequate labor force, tariffs are not bad for society.
“Having” resources is not the issue. Being able to acquire and use them with less expenditure of time and toil is. Would residents of California or Texas, resource-rich states, have a higher standard of living if they erected substantial tariffs against the residents of the other 49 states?
The way I see it, even though prices may inflate, comparatively, due to the reducing in cheap consumer goods. On the opposite side of the coin those tarifs insulate your mean standard of living...
One’s standard of living is what one can and does buy with the resources, substantially time and the specific skills one has. Allowing imports to come in tariff-free (the contrary to your “tariffs”) simply means more producers, domestic and foreign, to compete for consumers’ money. That must be good for consumers.
It is true that domestic firms must compete harder for consumers’ business (as, arguably, they should). It is also true that some domestic workers will lose jobs or have their pay cut to try to keep these firms in business. But most Americans don’t work in firms like this. As of May, 2019, manufacturing employment was 12,839,000. Total employment was 155,539,000. So most workers would be in the position of paying higher prices to allow a much smaller number of workers to be able to compete less. It is unlikely this would be good for the American standard of living,
...from the drain that occurs when all your labor and production is exported.
On labor, see above. Most people are not doing work where jobs are being exported, and never have. On production, without question manufacturing employment has declined substantially since 1980. But manufacturing as a share of GDP has not been affected nearly as much.. How do we reconcile these things? Facing more competition, not all of it foreign, American manufacturers have been continually forced to figure out ways to get more, with fewer workers. In this they are like many other economic activities (farming, e.g.)
...forces your economy to internally satisfy it’s own demand with it’s own supply.
What consumers “demand” depends on price charged, and features of the product offered, relative to the alternatives. It is not a fixed number, unless the government wants to decree a fixed standard of living for all. Other countries tried this; it didn’t work out so well.
To protect particular jobs at any moment in time by limiting competition to a one’s own specific area of the map is to damage consumers by limiting how many sellers can compete for their services. It is not any better for a nation’s residents than a state’s, and indeed is no more reasonable economically than deciding your family’s standard of living will go up if everything they consume will from now on be produced by members of the family.
Economies are dynamic things. This is how we live better, by competition working to better satisfy consumers in ways profit-seeking sellers have incentives to pursue.
Finally note that the argument here does not apply to the national-security argument for not depending on foreigners to provide our military and people with critical goods.
Statement two is stupid - “Capital Stock”?!? Who cares? That is not how a nation is judged. Why not pick an equally meaningless term such as carbon emissions?
Statement three shows poor analysis - China has grown over the past 40 years due to a reduction in the government control/communism in its economy.
Statement four is crass - mental masturbator?
The truth - Over the past 200+ years we have seen a global decline in tariffs as a percentage of goods traded. During that time economies have flourished. Those countries that have dropped tariffs the most have flourished the most - US and U.K. Countries who have removed tariffs less have flourished less - France. Therefore tariff reduction is a cause of, if not it is at least highly correlated with, an increase in national power.
All of these tariff rates as a percentage of total imports may be googled.
For those unfamiliar with the term Capital Stock...It’s a basic reference in Economics 101.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-capital-stock-in-economics
It’s a term smart people care about. And a real measure of wealth.
Additionally, the tables on the right-hand side of this article support my contention that the US had very high tariffs through the 19th century, while England, starting around 1820, had nearly none.
Of note, it was during the period 1820 - 1920 the British Empire essentially collapsed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_in_United_States_history
http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.com/hautcoeur-pierre-cyrille/M1_Histoire/Nye.pdf
It is a myth that the United Kingdom was a free trade nation in the 19th centur. I suggest you examine my source above, as it may change your perception of history.
“These numbers are taken from Albert Imlah’s reworking of the British trade statistics”
And Imlah’s “reworking” is not in agreement accepted data.
Total BS. THE REST OF THE WORLD IS IN LOVE WITH TARIFFS AND PRACTICES BRUTAL UNRELENTING MERCANTILISM. The author is ignorant, and that is being nice.
The American trained economist would tell there are no benefits at all to import tariffs and that the question doesn't make any sense. Also, you'd have to explain what mercantilism means to him/her.
Economic theory in the USA is taught in a political vacuum. Our foreign competitors know too well about politics, trade, tariffs and their effect on strategic economic decisions making.
Long term strategic economic planning is a foreign concept to myopic fools like you.
In your example Company B is a Chinese subsidized company.
Tariff are way better than income taxes. They require no paper work, non intrusive, are not progressive in any way, voluntary and protect American workers. The Marxist income tax does none of those things.
Marx was a devout Free Traitors and wrote extensively about them. Not sure about Lenin.
Can you point out in the US Constitution the right to tariff free trade with other nations? Thanks.
Do they study “real” economics in Korea, the EU, China and Japan? Because all of those places have really high import tariffs.
Hear! Hear!
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