Posted on 03/10/2006 12:33:17 PM PST by groanup
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The New Protectionists - How to create a real security crisis.
Friday, March 10, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
Dubai Ports World finally threw in the kaffiyah on its American operations yesterday, agreeing to sell them "to a U.S. entity." We hope that entity turns out to be Halliburton, if only for the torment that would cause certain eminences on Capitol Hill.
Dubai Ports was susceptible to this political stampede because it was an Arab-owned company buying port operations, which Democrats have played up as uniquely vulnerable. But this is also the second such mugging of a foreign investor in recent months, following last year's demagoguery against a Chinese company's bid to buy Unocal, a middling American oil company. If Members of Congress want a real security crisis--a financial security crisis--they'll keep this up.
What's especially dangerous here is that we're seeing the re-emergence of the "national security" protectionists. They were last seen in the late 1980s, when Japan in particular was the target of a political foreign-investment panic. The Japanese were buying Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center, and so America was soon going to be a colony of Tokyo. A Japanese bid for Fairchild Semiconductor of Silicon Valley was seen as a threat to American defense. Those fears seem laughable now. But here we go again, with new targets of anxiety.
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(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Riiiighhht. I pigeon hole that which I do all day every day except for Sunday when MY religion teaches that I rest. I don't always but, when I do, I watch television (all those networks engaging in commerce).
Once or twice a year I take my commerce to a vacation spot and leave a hell of a lot of it there, bringing back a nice suntan. Some evenings I attend civic events that I suppose could be somehow separated from commerce..., no, it can't because I have to engage in commerce to pay those pesky taxes.
I'm trying to think, other than those hours I'm spending time with my family (except the commerce of eating or watching TV) or going to church or sleeping, I'm engaged in commerce.
So the vast majority of my time and everyone else in our society is used in commerce and you would "pigeon-hole" it. What DO you do all day?
Ahh! Time spent debating on Free Republic could be considered something other than commerce. But you ARE paying your electicity bill aren't you?
8>)
First, I don't believe you ever posted your table to me. Possibly could you be thinking of someone else that got your goat? That could be a very long list.
Second, I have now checked into it and am not persuaded your prior assertions have approached in any way an accurate summary thereof. Note the immense gaps and skips and jumps. Your cherry-picking your data. And since none of these numbers are controlled for any other variables...such as war, peace, domestic inflation, recession, etc...they don't...and can't... give you a story that is useful for projecting macroeconomic trade policy.
There is no control...or comparison...in these numbers for the other variables.
This means most likely that you are confusing causes and effects.
For example in 1988 the U.S. manufacturing jumped but this was attributable not to the Current Account or the trade balance...but to defense sector spending...and their spin-offs. The personal computer industry taking off.
And you are the one running away from the data. The data supplied by your own source...Manckiwics. He explicitly showed that the ever-worsening situation of NX, net exports, was tracked by a decline in the U.S. capital savings rate. Etc. as previously noted, but ignored by you. You are cornered. You can't escape now.
And your umbrage with the moderator is simply weird. If you stayed civil and didn't tick off people with coarse profanity, you likely would not get zotted.
Commerce is simply one element of our pursuit of happiness, One of those rights. Not the whole. Not even the most important. To me, the right of freedom of speech, association, worship, to petition government for redress of grievans and freedom of the press are simply sine quo non. The first Amendment was first for a reason.
If you'll read the DOI I believe the subject is mostly commerce.
The government must also enforce legal contracts that we enter into with each other and provide for defense.
Paul,
It amazes me that with all the facts presented people still will not see that we are selling our country down the drain. All they see are the "profits" and not the price we pay for those "profits"
Freedom to do what, exactly? What do you do all day? I hope you don't just watch TV and respond to the ads that promise you a job if you "take our courses". I hope that you don't just tune in to the shopping channel and buy stuff that you don't need.
What do our freedoms enable us to do? Since we are all born with our freedoms as was stated by our founding fathers (unalienable rights) then are we not free to pursue whatever enterprise that our natural minds would enjoy?
What would you do? What have you done?
I have spent most of my waking life trying to make money in any honest way. What else am I supposed to do?
I could write books about how bad capitalism is. That would be an honest pursuit. It may or may not make me money. I could pray to the government to donate taxpayer money to my enterprise that seeks to somehow tackle societal problems. I could cheat the government by pretending to be something I am not and collect government money as many do. I could start a charitable organization and be blessed by the IRS for my efforts..., and have soooo many wealthy people with something that they call conscience give me the big thumbs up.
Let's see... protectionists are isolationists... isolationists don't want "foreign entanglements"... and you think protectionists want the draft... lol.
Please re-read the comment to which I was responding. If you still don't "get it," let me know and I will explain.
And today protectionists have moved on to claiming that China is buying too much steel.
There are three things that are required for us to exist: food, water and warmth. IF you want to do all of those things you describe in your post it sure helps to have earned some money so you can have the three basics of life.
I think you are right about that; it must be a first for you. Anyhow, I guess I'll ping a select few then that have 'gotten my goat' recently and some who haven't. Some that I believe support trade and who may have had their own goat's gotten by anti-capitalist masquerading as conservatives and then others, like yourself, who really do think that people who engage in trade do so at their own peril - because you very wise people know that trading with someone else, voluntarily, has got to make one worse off than before.
There is no control...or comparison...in these numbers for the other variables.
This means most likely that you are confusing causes and effects.
Post # 15, check it out! Maybe you'll have some other explanation as to why this is the case. There may be a cause and effect issue but you'll be hard pressed at this point to tell me that trade 'deficits' hurt the annual GDP.
Second, I have now checked into it and am not persuaded your prior assertions have approached in any way an accurate summary thereof. Note the immense gaps and skips and jumps. Your cherry-picking your data.
What?! Every year is in there from 1980-2003. The data just happened to be arranged from greatest to least in absolute values in the second column. Nice try, though!
**For those just joining, Paul Ross is disputing the data table found posted in #539 and explained in detail by using the link given in #536**
You are cornered. You can't escape now.
I am? The why did you just whip it out and then step on it...as usual? There's no reason for me to escape while I'm still clubbing you over the head with facts. And while were on this little side tangent, why haven't you answered the true/false questions?
And your umbrage with the moderator is simply weird. If you stayed civil and didn't tick off people with coarse profanity, you likely would not get zotted.
Well, if you weren't such a candy...uh, never mind. I want this post to stay up so that I can reference whenever I feel the need to use it against you and display your ignorance to others. By the way, I believe that you are the only person, in my 2+ years here, to have ever reported me to the moderator. Pretty Cheddar of you.
you can grow your own food, drill your own well and build your own house no money required. Now I agree that money helps it to move along and enables you to increase your standard of living. I'm just saying that as long as you have freedom the money will follow.
All of this is true but let's see how alert you are: just because no money was spent in the activities you provided above, were there costs involved [assuming the drilling equipment, and everything the goes into operating it, was paid for...same goes for the seeds and fertilizer needed for your crops and stuff for your livestock]?
Our government rarely trades with others. Individuals and businesses trade with one another...same principles apply, do they not?
The very nature of the GDP equation states empirical that trade deficits are a negative when figuring up GDP. This is a simple addtion and subtraction equation a 3rd grader could do it. Why are you having such trouble with it?
Yes, when calculating GDP, a negative NX number does subtract from GDP but only initially. A negative NX in one year will almost always lead to increases in I and C that will more than offset the so-called drag that the negative NX number created. Why am I having to explain this for the forth time now to my 'fellow (and junior) elementary school' student? If you doubt this, than look at the data as the NX inches closer to being balanced or was a positive number.
No Sir! In my view, one does not have to pray at all. One only has to live life how one wishes only so long as one observes the rights afforded to everyone else without infringing upon their rights. By the way, I am a Christian and even Jesus of Nazereth believed in trade. Didn't he send his disciples out to teach the Good News to anyone who was receptive in exchange for their hospitality? - talk about a service economy:
8(A)and He instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff--no bread, no bag, no money in their belt--9but to wear sandals; and He added, "Do not put on two [a]tunics."
10And He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town.
11"Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, (B)shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them."
And, lest you think Jesus came only to administer to God's chosen people:
21(O)Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of (P)Tyre and (Q)Sidon.22And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, (R)Son of David; my daughter is cruelly (S)demon-possessed."
23But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us."
24But He answered and said, "I was sent only to (T)the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
25But she came and (U)began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"
26And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
27But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
28Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, (V)your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.
Ask yourself: was Jesus a xenophobic or was He tolerant?
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