*sigh*
Only one left to do now:
Posted on 10/20/2004 2:40:59 PM PDT by Willie Green
You are exactly right about Ohio, which is a socially conservative state in which the GOP holds every statewide elected office and controls both houses of the state legislature. Free trade has destroyed the economy in large parts of the state; that's the only reason Kerry even has a chance here.
*sigh*
Only one left to do now:
Note: It is traditional to use 3 exclamation points (!) following "Go Pat Go" in your tagline.
whatever dude...
As an automotive supplier, the Germans and the Japanese are better to work with than Generous Morons....and more profitable.
Are you an auto supplier?
yes
Ok, funny just dang funny....
Toyota is spending large amount of that profit here in North America. They also export parts from here back to the Asia, but then you don't read about that everywhere.
If you spend more money than you earn each month then you have a trade deficit. To swing this this you can:
-deplete your savings
- borrow on credit cards
- mortgage your house
"FAT, DUMB AND STUPID IS NO WAY TO GO THROUGH LIFE"
Are you free to mention what you supply to Toyota? And your firm is American owned, not a joint partnership with Japanese or other foreigners?
The state has a robust economy that is brought down by the huge cities, and the collective pathetic city management (like Detroit) and employee unions. Thank the dems and their 'Great Society' that has really made a perpetual mess of urban areas.
To suggest that job issues here are a direct result of free trade policies is at best myopic. To be sure a few jobs could be affected but it is miniscule by comparison - but open trade brings in more factories (like the Japanese auto companies) than a protectionist mindset would produce.
And don't forget productivity. It is way up along with technology and simply fewer people are needed in many applications. I have considered (and still am) moving my own business to a friendlier state and taking the jobs with it, and it doesn't have a darned thing to do with free trade.
Are you free to mention what you supply to Toyota? And your firm is American owned, not a joint partnership with Japanese or other foreigners?
One of us is using political theory
So all those U.S. companies that set-up overseas flood their profits back here? Cool.
Yup, Canada being our largest trading partner, NAFTA just killed Michigan. LOL
Take your Ritalin crudeboy.
Nice. I never knew you were in favor of off-shoring.
Here's a graph of both our net external debt and our trade deficit, graphed against our GDP, which you can safely treat as equivalent to GNP:
Our debt is clearly "skyrocketing", and it is a growing problem; the question is really how serious is it? There are economists that do indeed go with the panglossian school, such as Federal Reserve Governor Bernanke and Larry Kudlow; some who are concerned, such as Federal Reserve Governor Gramlich (the source of this graph); some who are quite concerned, such as Paul Craig Roberts.
Going by objective criteria such as those published by the World Bank, I believe that we are in the worrisome stage where we are likely to start seeing serious talk about cutting our AAA credit rating, much as was done to Japan because of their very large fiscal debt -- and Japan is our primary lender. My profile has more about this subject.
I would very like to see us adopt trade policies that do not indebt ourselves to pay for manufactured goods and for services. Indebting ourselves to acquire assets, that can indeed be good business; indebting yourself to consume a Mexican lettuce or fire a Chinese firecracker is clearly not.
Actually, due to our tax laws, our companies do not tend to repatriate profits. I've seen an estimate that perhaps $500 billion would return if the "Homeland Investment Act" (aka "Invest in the USA Act") were passed to substantially lower those taxes.
However, I don't believe that we charge any sort of repatriation tax to companies that take money out of the U.S., which is a practice that some countries do engage in to try to keep money in their countries. (I believe that the consensus opinion that it is instead an effective way to keep initial investments out of these countries.)
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