Tariff temptations

Washington Times ^ | 11/5/03 | Bruce Bartlett

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee held hearings on legislation to impose tariffs on Chinese imports. While such action is unlikely, it shows the political pressure to do something about growing imports from China is increasing. However, emotion rather than economics is driving the agenda.

[harpseal]

Ping

on or off let me know

[harpseal]

Calling Tausig an economist or an historian is flagrant misrepresenrtation he is just another anti-American hack.

[RiflemanSharpe]

We need to level the playing field if we want to keep good jobs. And if it takes tarriffs then so be it.

[harpseal]

I note that the tariffs the USA had in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries were one of the big encouragements for the net inflow of Capital. It is not as though the USA was the only place such capital could go. Mexico and South America were our competition in this respect and the USA attracted teh capital becuase of its tariffs among other reasons.

[harpseal]

I note that the tariffs the USA had in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries were one of the big encouragements for the net inflow of Capital. It is not as though the USA was the only place such capital could go. Mexico and South America were our competition in this respect and the USA attracted teh capital becuase of its tariffs among other reasons.

[GraniteStateConservative]

This is evident in the fact the U.S. ran a trade deficit almost continuously from 1790 to 1875.

You can run a trade deficit for other reasons than the effectiveness of a tariff. One could argue that the trade deficit would have been even higher without the tariff.

James Madison, Speaker of the House at the time, led the efforts to pass the Tariff Act of 1789. It was signed into law by George Washington. American production of cloth--cut two-thirds by British dumping in 1816--grew an astonishing 1,650 percent within four years of Madison's tariff becoming law.

[sixmil]

Thus when a nation has good economic prospects and attracts foreign investment, it tends to run deficits.

Like China?!

"Rather than displacing domestic production ... rising imports may serve rising demand for some types of goods in the home country. So too, imports can consist of intermediate components that become embodied in domestic production of a final good. To the extent that such components are most cheaply sourced overseas, they may help to keep domestic production competitive for the final goods in the domestic market, or even allow domestic producers to export the final good to third country markets."

The tariff-free traders have been saying this forever, when is it actually going to be true?

In other words, by utilizing China's cheap labor, it actually increases the competitiveness of U.S. businesses. They often export unfinished goods made here to plants they own in China and export them back here or somewhere else. When sold here, much of the gain accrues to those in the retail sector and to consumers, while U.S. investors reap the return to capital. Consequently, the vast bulk of the total gains from final sales accrue to Americans even though most of the work is done in China.

This is the logic of the neocons, indirection. It's a pseudo-intellect where every degree of separation gains you more points since it appears more clever.

[Paul Ross]

Bump. Good analysis of the 'pseudo-cons'.

[dirtydanusa]

TAIZHOU, China The first thing that struck Shen Yunxiang when he descended into the bowels of Hisun Pharmaceutical was the smell, or rather the lack of it. It was as if the sewage system had been scrubbed with ammonia, leaving only a sickly sweet aroma strong enough to overpower the stench of human waste.

. In less than a minute, though, he realized that the company had exposed him to something far more noxious than feces. He had been sent, unwittingly, to release chemical runoff that Hisun had collected haphazardly beneath the factory, possibly to avoid paying fees to dispose of toxic waste.

. Shen's chest constricted. His breathing grew labored, his head faint. Then Feng Huaping, his brother-in-law and fellow migrant worker, who had climbed down first, gasped, "Grab my hand, get me out," before collapsing in a puddle of muck.

. Shen was the lucky one. He emerged with migraines and lung congestion, and doctors are still trying to diagnose the illness that is causing them. Feng died that night. A third migrant worker, Tang Dejun, also died in Hisun's fetid plumbing after he was sent down to finish the job the next day.

. Hisun is one of China's leading exporters of pharmaceutical products, certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European drug commission to sell lifesaving anti-tumor and cardiovascular medications for prices Western manufacturers cannot match.

But the company may pay more attention to fighting cancer in America than to protecting the health of its own workers and neighbors in Taizhou. .

This is a part of an article printed 11/4/03 in my local paper. I'd love to see the steel mill I work for try this. Just dump it in the river, no one will notice !!! The EPA,OSHA and all the other "Watchdog's" would close us down in a heartbeat. How do we compete with this type of behavior?