[Destro]

I am against protectionisim but I am for enforcable parity and equitable trade conditions but have no catchy phrase like "protectionist" to explain that position yet.

[Destro]

bump

[BCrago66]

Ever notice that there's an inverse relationship between the length of the whack-job articles on sites like anti-war.com and and lewrockwell.com and the intelligence found therein? That's because people who are not too smart and who have nothing to say tend to go on and on, trying to fake their way through.

[Destro]

bump

[isthisnickcool]

While I am admittedly not a professional economist...

OK. Amateur then?

[DannyTN]

"The flaw in this crazy theory of economics is the willingness of Asians to continue to buy US bonds. The question is quite simple: Why buy a bond with a 1–2% yield when the currency in which the bond is denominated is plunging?"

Why indeed? Because the currency value isn't important. The real wealth is the manufacturing capability. It is in the Asian's interest (maybe not the Japanese, but certainly the Chinese) to keep financing this until they have transferred as much technology and manufacturing capability from the US as they can.

Right now the US is not acting as a whole. Consumers act in their best interest buying the lowest price. Business owners sell out for the value of the projected aftertax cashflows when the real value to America of the firm is not just the owners cashflows but the cashflows to the Employees and the Taxes generated, not to mention that having the industry and the capacity are of immense value in their own right.

Meanwhile government does nothing. Having been raised on the theory of Comparative advantage, Government thinks this will all eventually work itself out. Even though the trend should be apparent by now. In truth, comparative advantage and continued free trade will drive the total wealth of the world will go up even as the US wealth is driven down to the asian levels.

I'm not as concerned about the debt. This is wartime. We were attacked. The debt is still denominated in U.S. dollars so we can inflate out of it. But the loss of production capacity and the transfer of technological knowhow is stupidity beyond measure.

[unspun]

Your concerns seem significant enough to me, D.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Steven LaTulippe is a physician currently practicing in Ohio.

And, he's got the credentials for this article...how?

[ServesURight]

There's nothing wrong with protectionism. We have been a protectionist nation up until the Wilsonian years. President James Madison enacted a 5% across-the-board tariff on imports to protect textile and cotton laborers.

Karl Marx was an advocate of free trade. And we all know who Karl Marx was.

[eskimo]

I am against protectionisim but I am for enforcable parity and equitable trade conditions...

You say you are but you aren't against protecting our trade interests? That's as confused as one can get.

[m1911]

WARNING: Off point post.

I was fascinated by this line: "This president is about to become one of a very few in history to never have vetoed a single bill during a 4 year term in office. ", so I googled "presidential veto". It took me to http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0801767.html, where I discovered that Adams (both of them), Jefferson, W.H. Harrison (< 1 mo in office), Taylor, Fillmore, and Garfield (<6 mo in office) are the other presidents not to have exercised the veto. If he doesn't veto for the remainder of his tenure, however long it may be, he would be the first in 120 years to do so, 150 if you don't count Garfield since he got shot shortly after becoming president.
Of course, how many presidents have had their party control both houses of Congress, as GWB has for half of his first term?

[WOSG]

In a nutshell, the US government is spending money at a heretofore unprecedented pace…and is going into debt at a rate seldom seen before in human civilization.


----

In a nutshell, nonsense! Both spending as a percentage of GDP and the deficit as a percentage of GDP is smaller than it was during the Reagan mid-1980s.

So much that is shades of grey is painted in stark black and white terms. This kinds of false picture only aids the demagogues fool the ignorant.

[dr_who_2]

He's not an economist, but he plays one on LewRockwell.com

[mcgiver38]

This "Jobless recovery" is pure and simple a democrat talking point, open the Sunday paper and look at the employment ads, there are tons of job advertisements on the west coast (southern) and a lot in southern Maryland, I checked two weeks ago when I was there just to see if we were an anomaly, this issue is going to turn on them big time in the coming months, one by one every hysterical issue they bring up is being smashed right before our eyes.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

As with everything else concerning this administration, it leaves one wondering what the hidden agenda is and who is pulling the levers.

From the dems most recent talking points memo.

[Tempest]

"As with everything else concerning this administration, it leaves one wondering what the hidden agenda is and who is pulling the levers."

I stopped reading the moment the author donned his tin-foil hat and revealed his true disposition.

[EagleMamaMT]

Read later.

[AmericanVictory]

The fact that OPEC continues to accept only dollars for oil purchases is a biggie. If America was any other nation, the recent plunge in the value of our currency would result in a gigantic surge in the price of oil. This alone would short-circuit the recovery and slump the economy back into recession…shutting off our ability to import and thus bringing the trade deficit to balance. But since the dollar is the medium of oil purchases, OPEC gets hosed when the dollar drops, while we continue to import oil at the same price. One might ask why OPEC goes along with this charade. In fact, some oil-exporting nations have discussed switching to the Euro, to gold, or to a basket of currencies. But this would undoubtedly raise the ire of some very heavily armed people. The last guy who switched from dollars to Euros for oil purchases was Saddam Hussein. He changed over in 2000, and found himself in a jail cell just a couple of years afterwards (as to whether these two events are connected in any way, I’ll leave it to the reader to decide).

Bump!

[Fledermaus]

Pure crap written by an idiot.

It comes down to one simple fact...productivity and temp hiring.

Businesses are hiring full time employers simply because they are still unsure about the short term.

Tax rates and incentives are set to expire in 2006, unemployment insurance goes up because they keep extending them.

It's easier and cheaper to fill gaps in growth with temp workers (doubt this? just look at the temp agencies listing jobs compared to businesses doing the hiring) when you aren't sure you are going to continue.

Hiring full time costs too much these days with all the regulations and taxes and laws. So unless they are totaly convinced they are going to grow in real terms, they aren't going to hire new employees for the long term.

And many companies are getting more efficient and finding that in the heyday of the 90's they over hired and have bloated middle management and staffs.

It's not rocket science. 2003 saw a GDP growth rate of 3.1% after a mild recession. But until that turns into 3-4% for 2004, 2005 and 2006, it's going to be a while before serious hiring goes on.

It has almost nothing to do with illegal aliens or outsourcing or moving jobs overseas.