[Paul Ross]

Let me change the line of questioning as I appear to have you flummoxed.

Really, you're the one who has no industrial history knowledge, and no one else appears to see any signs of your flummoxing ANYONE here.

If an "industrial base" is so horribly vulnerable that it requires the massive subsidy of onerous, consumer-punishing protectionist legislation (as you yourself argue), or the subsidy of slave labour in the third world to even make it profitable at all (as you yourself argue), does that not suggest to you, ahem, a hiccough in your line of reasoning?

Your reasoning is the one that is circular. The Chinese slave labor is a deliberate contrivance MAINTAINED DELIBERATELY as policy by China's Communist party. It serves them in multiple ways. If you use your reasoning, I think you will see what those are.

Anyways, it becomes clear with your emphasis in this line of argument that your fundamental misunderstanding of economics is the common libertine failure, i.e., that you fail to comprehend that YOUR POLICIES are the ones that " requires the massive subsidy"...can you say Ex-IM Bank and OPIC subsidies? Can you say Chinese currency manipulation of the rmibi-dollar ratio? And also,

"of onerous, consumer-punishing protectionist legislation "...can you say CURRENCY DEBAUCHMENT?

Four years of clear correlation. This is a "tax" a "massive subsidy" and "onerous" and ultimately "consumer-punishing"...to use all your loaded phrases. They apply much more aptly to your policies than a tariff. Tariffs, properly structured, can build the nation up. Your policies tear it down. Note, China still has kept all its tariffs in place, despite its WTO obligations to end them. That is what your policies of outsourcing lead to directly. China is at war with the U.S. and we are simply to stupid as a country to realize it. And China's communist rulers have been delighted beyond belief to find those within the U.S. who continue to spout rationalizing apologetics...economics theories which abet their continued warfare, lest the suckers should ever wake up.

[Asclepius]

Four years of clear correlation. This is a "tax" a "massive subsidy" and "onerous" and ultimately "consumer-punishing"...to use all your loaded phrases. They apply much more aptly to your policies than a tariff. Tariffs, properly structured, can build the nation up. Your policies tear it down. Note, China still has kept all its tariffs in place, despite its WTO obligations to end them. That is what your policies of outsourcing lead to directly. China is at war with the U.S. and we are simply to stupid as a country to realize it. And China's communist rulers have been delighted beyond belief to find those within the U.S. who continue to spout rationalizing apologetics...economics theories which abet their continued warfare, lest the suckers should ever wake up.

Wow. You really are flummoxed. Way to conflate unrelated issues, you poster child for the BEA (Befuddled Amateur Economists of the world, a subsidiary of the Paranoiac National Front).

Our monetary policy is a mess to be sure, another example of attempting to constrain market forces for political advantage that failed. This would be the case with or without tariffs, "properly structured" or not. Our tax policy equally so. Well, maybe more so.

But the question is why we have to "protect" our "industrial base" with trade barriers (a massive subsidy to industry at the expense of consumers) or why other national entities have to subsidize it with slave labour?--why, pray, is the cash value of manufactured goods crashing to the point where most of the cost of what you buy is the freight?--why, pray, if industry is so important, do we have to treat it like a government subsidized jobs program?--why, pray, does everything else in human or natural systems thrive on competition *except* heavy industry?

Anyway, try to stay focused.