"B'zzzt! Wrong to the extent of the $700 billion trade imbalance"
B'zzzt-B'zzzt-B'zzzt! I'll take static analysis for $1000 Alex.......
I'm not saying the $700B trade imbalance is a good thing, I'm just saying that your "cure" would likely (we will probably never get to find out) erase far more capital and cause far more job losses than doing nothing.
The $700B trade imbalance doesn't count everything, but not being well versed in the source of the imbalance numbers, I'd look for someone with more expertise to chime in.....I am pretty sure....pretty sure....that this doesn't include services. I'm also pretty sure it's skewed a bit by export/reimportation practices (but admittedly, I'm out on a limb) I'm not saying it makes up for $700B, but that number needs some context.
There is more to consider than trade imbalance......we could reduce it to ZERO by stopping all economic activity - I think you would agree that would be a bad thing. What you suggest comes pretty darn close to that.
And you know this because of what? History? Wrong again. History supports the policy of a 25% general revenue tariff. In fact, we had an embarrasing problem of what to do with the governmental surplusses.
Anyways, boiling your statement down, you in fact have advocated doing nothing. You are being a defeatist.
..we could reduce it to ZERO by stopping all economic activity....What you suggest comes pretty darn close to that.
And how do you figure THAT? Again, empirically invalid. And in the particulars proposed, I surmise a tariff/sales tax approach would likely LOWER net U.S. tax burdens by shifting completely away from the taxes which punish production and savings and investment. I would advocated repeal of the 16th Amendment also, to make sure that the States can't get around the Federal shift away from income and capital gains taxes.
By your adhering to a broken, Socialist edifice dedicated to Marxian principles,...the income tax, and capital gains tax, it is you who are implicitly opposed to U.S. economic growth and activity. And your trade policies are merely siding with those who are parasitically destroying what is left, and calling that "activity." LOL!
Then there is this:
I'm not saying the $700B trade imbalance is a good thing,....[BUT] ...I am pretty sure....pretty sure....that this doesn't include services. I'm also pretty sure it's skewed a bit by export/reimportation practices (but admittedly, I'm out on a limb) I'm not saying it makes up for $700B, but that number needs some context.
No, it doesn't. Those contexts do not countervail. As the economic report of the President, 2002 said, after trying to put a similar good spin on the Chinese and Japanese enabling continued U.S. manufacturing demise by timely subsidization...by buying our T-Bills...the future is worse still, as the report said:
However the current inflow of capital investment could eventually lead to large investment income payments in the near future. The investment income surplus we now enjoy may soon be eroded thus worsening the current account deficit.
And your are wrong about services not being included in the export import numbers. I.e., again from the Official definitions in the BEA/U.S. Census Bureay, December 2005 Report:
U.S. Exports are any goods or services produced in the U.S. and sold to other countries in the international market. U.S. Imports are goods or services produced by other countries and bought by individuals in the United States
If the Chinese, Japanese and a few other Pacific Rim traders had not been buying our debt, manipulating their currency and the trade imbalances thereby (in part), this all would have come crashing to a head 5 years ago. Bush inherited this maelstrom from Xlinton. He could have chosen to oppose it head on, and had an even more bitter, deep, recession, then possibly lost both midterm and '04 elections ("It's the economy, stupid"-James Carville). Or, as he did, take the path of continuing the Xlinton policies...hoping to just ride the tiger.
Power for the simple sake of power is a rather lame basis for asking for our continued support, however, and the true conservatives have had just about all the excuses we can take. The Meiers nomination was the last straw. No more CAFTA, No more NAFTA, and no more FTAA frauds. Ron Paul and Phyllis Schlafly were always right. Those 'laws' (they are not treaties) are blatantly unconstitutional. Not to mention wrong-headed.