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 ...
as I have said over and over again, there is a huge difference in free trade and fair trade. I am for trade as much as anyone. I am not xenophobic nor do I think trade is bad. You are proving the theory that all free traders have their blinders on. No one on this thread has suggested that we stop trading and withdraw from the world. What we need to do is understand that free trade is not the answer and our leaders need to grow some balls and have other countries live up to their commitments. Like China and Japan and their monetary policy. Like the EU and their trade barriers.
As it stands right now I can trade with whomever I want. Unseen would not permit that. Unseen is not a friend. That is the whole argument.
Then how about you define both "free trade" and this other concept that you call "fair trade". If you'd like to use a link, that's fine, but just know this: nearly every organization who favors this concept called "fair trade" has socialist/communist ties.
Still waiting for what should be a simple reply.
Still waiting!
Excellent article.
Thanks for posting it.
To: LowCountryJoe Your GDP charts totally fail to include declining U.S. household income. The 70+% of the dislocateds still unemployed or earning substantially less than they were before the destructive outsourcing/importing. I.e., if GDP is going up (questionable when the dollar is not being adjusted to a more stable measure of value, such as Gold), it is not being broadly experienced. The housing bubble which you so drearily brag upon...actually proves we are in an inflationary spiral, soon to burst, as all these bubbles do. A lot of the houses in the $230-250 thousand range in Minnesota today are not intrinsically worth what we paid less than $100,000 for only a decade ago. A lot of home-builders here will confirm that. This bubble was financed...and perpetuated by the low US interest-rates, aided and abetted by a cheap-money policy to try and keep the economy appearing to be buoyant...as it trades away its seed corn. You sophists keep worrying about the tariffs causing the depression. Milton Friedman made his name arguing this. But he has recently come to rethink his thesis: Actually, it was the bubble of the 20's that caused it. Too many businesses too far out on a limb. Global protectionism, not so much US protectionism, hindered US recovery.I take back what I had written about you earlier; about being right about something for once. Still waiting for that first time, Mr. Ross...you're are a phony of the highest order.136 posted on 01/19/2005 11:41:13 AM EST by Paul Ross (Life is NOT like a box of chocolates...) | To 15 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
You are talking about security issues that involve countries who have a designation of terrorist states or sponsors or terrorism. Get a clue.
So! from your argument that the government should stay out of the way of your commerce, trade with Iran, Syria and North Korea should be fine in your book. If it isn't then you do not believe in total free trade. You can't have it both ways. Take China for instance, it is a communist country. It has been known in its history for periods of openness and periods of brutal crack downs. What we trade with them today in a spirit of friendship could turn out to be used against us. But those considerations using your argument should not be taken into the debate with free trade with China.
Maybe they are.
Remember how Japan's steel buying of all scrap material was ramped up prior to WW-II for its armaments and munitions. This is not mere coincidence or an idle comparison.
You sent that post to raybbr. Not me. I posted a reply in a narrow context looking at it from the context of our previous arguments which were related to the faux free traders continuing mistatements about the GDP, the CPI and housing bubble, etc...to which your table was not germane and not responsive. My post pointed it out. I believe that the way GDP is currently reported is suspect. I did not find it essential to argue with any other substantive implications of your table.
So now you posted it to me explicitly, for the first time, demanding I evaluate it. Well, I did. And I see that you still can't grapple with those evaluations. Nor do you grapple with your own contradictions with Manciwics...who does not reach the same over-statements and misrepresentations as you.
Instead you go out of your way to make anhile assertions of mendacity against opponents who long ago bested you. It's your modus operandi.
And those opponents are undoubtedly legion by now.
Sorry. Just came back from a long weekend snow-mobiling. We have a decent amount of snow finally!
You're welcome. Note that a lot of these brokers haven't uttered a peep yet about Merk or this article yet? Probably huddling in some secret online-conclave how to go about it.
In regards to the comments that you posted before you spammed the article in here...would you rather that the United States be running a trade surplus and being the lenders of capital to foreign governments? Or are you still not ready to concede the capital flow issue?
"Narrow" is right on the money for a term that I'd use to describe your views. You talked of incomes, not even fully understanding that GDP is national income.
Instead you go out of your way to make anhile assertions of mendacity against opponents who long ago bested you.
You're correct. I guess I just cannot come to grips that net capital inflows are the very same thing as trading away "seed cord"...whatever the hell "seed corn" is. Maybe it's an agricultural product in need of a subsidy or, at the very minimum, the government intervention of choice by economic-know-nothings, a protective tariff.
The capital flow issue? What issue? you contradicted your own source.
What do the furriners do with the dollars they earn? GDP = Consumption + Domestic Investment + Governmental Spending + Net Exports. Do foreigners add to our domestic investment? Does their purchase of Treasury debt allow higher government spending? Do the lower interest rates caused by foreign investments allow higher consumption?
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