Economist/WTO etc sources are shills for the globalist free trade ideology. Try to give some examples of the countries, since time of Ricardo, which were successful over prolonged time with tariffless/free trade. You cannot.
Fine. They publish numbers to back up their claims. So do you have contradictory data? Otherwise, perhaps they are shills for free trade ideology because it's correct.
Try to give some examples of the countries, since time of Ricardo, which were successful over prolonged time with tariffless/free trade. You cannot.
I throw a ton of data demonstrating that free trade is correlated with economic growth, and you petulantly insist on an example of a tariffless society that prospered over a long time. Well, it's asking a lot, since governments simply cannot seem to keep their hands off of stuff they shouldn't touch (you as a conservative, which I guess you are, should know that). But just to please you...
Hong Kong has had a virtually tariffless system since the middle of the twentieth century. It had the most open market on the planet from roughly 1950 to the Chinese takeover in 1997. The result? Let me quote Milton Friedman:
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman notes how close Hong Kong has come to equaling the U.S. in gross domestic product per capita. In 1950, he reports, the U.S. had a per capita GDP nearly six times that of Hong Kong. Last year, ours was only 7 percent higher.
If growth continues in both countries at present rates, Hong Kong will surpass us in GDP per capita in less than five years.
That was penned in 1997. Of course, the Chinese takeover has thrown a crimp in things since then, but I presume a fifty year record of unbroken success by a free trade Hong Kong answers your objection?
So now I've done your research for you - twice. It's time to put up or shut up. If you have information or data, bring it out. Otherwise, quit harping about how you don't like something about the data I have brought to the discussion. It's not a very credible style of argument to keep making up objections to data that's presented, but never take the trouble to find any that supports your position.