China's Prices Undercut U.S. Tire Makers, Causing Plant Closings

You're funny. But you can't read a chart. How does the dollar decrease from 120 dollars to 85 dollars?

Hoist by your own petard. Read the chart, using 1973-trade weighted dollars, the peak is reached in 2002 at just under 120. At the end of the chart in 2005 it is just about 85. A decline of almost a third. This is what you keep running away from. This is the correlation.

This is undeniable. And it is ongoing, continuing, and unabated. Get it? Your preposterous "no correlation" is killing the dollar. Sucker.

[The state interventions in currency of the Chinese, the Japanese, the Pacific Rim, etc "pegging" or ...worse. ]

So interventions can break the "relationship" between the deficit and the dollar? Thanks for admitting your error.

It wasn't my error, but yours. Of course, you'll never admit that, LOL!

If there was a relationship, the dollar would constantly weaken, every year, not just half of the time.

Wrong. Multivariants in the composite relationship don't negate the significance of the core "supply-demand" fundamentals.

You're a source of humor. An object of ridicule.

Projecting again, Todd?

Tell me again how the Fed sets the interest rate on Treasury Bills. That was funny.

Why don't you ask Ben Bernanke or Alan Greenspan? Of course that doesn't sit well with you, does it? You need to go back to school, let's send you to Investment U:

Treasury Rates Set to Rise As Foreigners Stop Buying Our Debt
New York, NY October 3, 2005 /PRNewswire – Foreign governments have been bailing out the U.S. for several years now, buying up 70% or more of our federal debt. At one point, they were financing our ballooning deficit to the tune of $4 billion a day.
Selling our debt to overseas banks, however, is getting harder… all too quickly, says Dr. Mark Skousen, an economist and advisor for http://www.InvestmentU.com.
Debt purchases have started to decline precipitously, from a peak quarterly rate of more than $400 billion in early 2004, to just $100 billion in the most recent quarter. At the same time, the federal deficit is expected to reach more than $500 billion in fiscal 2005. More debt, fewer buyers… a double whammy. Check this out:
http://www.investmentu.com/aboutiu/WorldFinancialSeminars/Images/Treasury.gif
The sharp slowdown in foreign purchases of U.S. debt will force the Treasury to raise interest rates to keep governments from unloading their T-bonds.
Already, central banks from China to Argentina are quietly shifting to non-paper assets, specifically gold and precious metals, to diversify their portfolio.
_______________________________________________________
* Dr. Mark Skousen is an economist who has taught finance and economics at Columbia Business School, Barnard College at Columbia University, and Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. He is editor in chief of Forecasts & Strategies – an award-winning investment newsletter – and three trading services. He recently was nominated as the Chairman of Investment U, a free educational financial e-letter with more than 275,000 subscribers. For more information about our editors, or to set up an interview, please contact Juan Muñoz at 410.223.2693 or jmunoz@oxfordclub.com, or visit http://www.investmentu.com.

When the dollar started its major decline in 2002 it was blunted by the ongoing purchases of the foreign governments of US Treasuries and so forth, but this began to wane after two years of "buying into the teeth" of the dollar decline.

Basta! Four years of data do not make a correlation, when the previous four years show precisely the opposite. Give it up. You're an embarassment to science.

Four years of data do not make a correlation, when the previous four years show precisely the opposite.

And the previous five years before THAT? So yes, it is indeed showing correlation...the last FIVE PLUS YEARS. Give it up. You're an embarassment to science.

You guys are. You must be on the same payroll.

Payroll? You post something from an investment newsletter and compare it to data provided by the Heritage Foundation? I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

You post something from an investment newsletter

Data is data. Disprove it if you don't like it.

and compare it to data provided by the Heritage Foundation?

So what do you want? You want it from the St. Louis Fed., or the Minneapolis Fed., or the Boston Fed.? Or how about from the Comptroller General? I have posted from all these before too.

So have a good cry.

Data is data.

Now that is simultaneously your problem, and the truth.

Hoist by your own petard.

Head up your own a$$.

Read the chart, using 1973-trade weighted dollars, the peak is reached in 2002 at just under 120. At the end of the chart in 2005 it is just about 85.

Yes, the dollar index dropped from 120 to 85, the dollar did not drop from $120 to $85.

Wrong. Multivariants in the composite relationship don't negate the significance of the core "supply-demand" fundamentals.

Like I said before, you just like to hear yourself talk, don't you?

You need to go back to school, let's send you to Investment U:

That's funny!

Treasury Rates Set to Rise

That is not the same as "The Fed Sets Rates"

You were the one attacking Hamilton as "socialist"

I said Hamilton was a proponent of big government just like you. William Sumner closely studied Hamilton's letters and writings and came to three conclusions:

That Hamilton never read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
That Hamilton was a Mercantilist.
That Hamilton believed many things that are not true — that federal bonds were a form of capital; that a national debt was a national blessing; that the existence of banks increased the capital of the country; that foreign trade drained a country of its wealth, unless it resulted in a trade surplus; and that higher taxes were a spur to industry and necessary because Americans were lazy and enjoyed too much leisure.
I believe in the American System
You were already schooled by another poster on this subject. Your American System was a form of wealth redistribution for politically connected special-interests. The American System was big government intervening in the economy on behalf of businesses and farmers through protective tariffs. The tariff of 1828 doubled imports to an average of 44 percent in 1829 and to 48 percent in 1830. The American System was the beginning of big government. Clay was a champion of this "system" who ran and lost on this platform three times. No wonder Lincoln avoided this for the most part and instead campaigned on the issue of slavery. Clay's system protected manufacturers at the expanse of consumers. Fortunately, we've learned our lesson since then
and you run away when you are busted on the War of 1812's impact on the daydreams of Jefferson and Madison...
It's not surprising, in light of everything else you're wrong about, that you'd also misrepresent the impact the war of 1812 had on the FF.
During Napoleon's wars, American merchants and farmers were making lots of money selling goods to both the English and the French. Of course, this trade came with lots of risks and the merchants suffered huge losses at the hands of the English navy and French privateers. The merchants demanded protection from the government but Jefferson refused. Doing so would have been very expensive and risked dragging the country into war. Instead, Jefferson instituted a total embargo on trade with the world. This coercion - by denying both sides American goods - was supposed to show the French and English the value of trade with America and would, in the end, stop the attacks and increase trade. Jefferson couldn't have been more wrong.
The merchants, facing economic ruin, resorted to smuggling in an attempt to save their businesses. Jefferson responded again by sending the military to blockade the coast and he sent the militia to seal the border with Canada. The smuggling continued and by 1809, the New England states were seriously considering secession. Jefferson finally gave in but still forbid trade directly with England and France until these two countries stopped attacking American ships. Madison continued this policy until he went to war with England over "free trade and sailor's rights."
The war of 1812 nearly destroyed American commerce and spawned the manufacturing industries that both Jefferson and Madison had fought to prevent for so long. The measures Jefferson took to implement the embargo brought much of the economy to a standstill and his enforcement of it brought Massachusetts and Connecticut almost to rebellion. It was French and English violation of our shipping that showed them how vulnerable an agrarian based economy was. Jefferson had finally realized that the US could not remain an agrarian economy forever. Madison and Jefferson were never in favor of economic isolationism.
Jefferson never forgave the merchants who defied his attempt to control trade and that fact is made clear in many of his letters. This fiasco brought into question just about every principle of government he believed in and showed that he had two sides. The lessons learned here should be clear. Commercial freedom is always the best policy and cooperation will yield more benefits than coercion. Countries don't have friendships, they have interests, and it is always best to appeal to those interests if you want to remain friendly. Foreign trade should be be free and without barriers.
Self-sufficiency is vital.
The devil is in the definition. You believe that government should determine what self-sufficiency means. I believe the markets provide a much better method for making that determination.
It is clear that they indeed would abhor the Income Taxes you and your apologists have afflicted on U.S. citizens.
Funny, it was genuflecting to protectionists that gave us the federal income tax in the first place. If you're so against taxes why would you raise tariffs (taxes) tomorrow, if given the opportunity, before you've repealed the sixteenth amendment? More big government?
The only free trade is fair trade
What constitutes fair trade and to whom should it be fair? "Fair" is a relative term and can mean all sorts of different things to varying special interests. How would the government know what's "unfair" vs. what is truly a comparative advantage? The domestic sugar industry comes to mind. Do you think we can trust politicians to choose whom to treat fairly? If you do, you could be a big government protectionist.
As for your repeated concerns about the incompetence of government...it is not rocket science to simply counter a foreign government's own tilting of the playing field.
This statement leaves no doubt that you believe government bureaucrats are responsible, capable and reliable when it comes to managing trade when in fact their record is abysmal.Your level playing field is a fantasy. It doesn't exist anywhere in society and it's pollyannish to think that government intervention will create the exception.
I subscribe to what Milton Friedman has to say about this:
I'll side with Friedman on this. You can keep company with the bigger government types.
He knew he needed to restore American industrial supremacy to "transcend" the Soviets.
Reagan didn't believe that protection was the method for accomplishing this. In the 80's the conventional wisdom was that the Japanese were going to own us unless we did something. The protectionists were demanding that something be done. Reagan agreed to these policies only to placate the economically ignorant without hurting the U.S. economy too much. He skillfully navigated through the issue and it is a testament to the quality of his political skills. He did the wrong things for the right reasons. Let's look at how those quotas you extol affected Americans. From The Heritage Foundation
- The cost of saving jobs from foreign competition is higher consumer prices, which harm the economy. For example, when trade quotas were imposed on imported cars in the early 1980s, prices for domestic and imported cars rose by $2,000.3 While these quotas may have preserved some auto workers' jobs, they also passed the cost on to the American consumer. Instead of being able to use this money to send their children to college, pay their mortgages, or put food on the table, American consumers are forced to subsidize the jobs of other Americans who cannot compete internationally. In short, protectionism takes money from the many to support the high wages or jobs of the few.
- When the U.S. imposed import quotas on the auto industry in the 1980s, the price of a new U.S. automobile increased by an average of 41 percent from 1981 to 1984. This was nearly twice the average rate of increase for all consumer prices during that time.
- What is more, the price increases cost the American consumers $17 billion in higher auto prices. To save just one of those 22,000 auto jobs, American consumers had to pay $772,727. It would have been cheaper if the American taxpayer, through the U.S. government, could have given these auto workers a one-time check for $500,000 and then laid them off.
Well done protectionist!
We won the cold war because we have a strong national defense. A strong national defense is predicated on having a strong economy, and a strong economy is possible only with economic freedom. The Heritage Foundation proves this point every year with their Index of Economic Freedom. Your prescription will only weaken our economy which will, in turn, weaken our national defense.
There is no doubt in my mind that you were screaming loudly for protection against the Japanese back in the 80's. More rational people realized that the Japanese model of government working with business, to protect domestic industry, was not nearly the threat the hand wringers wanted us to believe. Look what all that protection got them. Fourteen years of deflation and they still haven't learned their lesson.
Concern over China is warranted but that doesn't mean I'm going to put on a skirt and go running and screaming into the night because they have an economy that is one-seventh the size of ours and a standard of living that still sucks. Many of their joint stock ventures are failures and most of their SOE's are disasters. You're aware of the incredible amount of non-performing loans they have. They have a long way to go and a lot of hurdles to overcome before they become the economic threat you would have us believe exists today.
Reagan said: "Our trade policy rests firmly on the foundation of free and open markets. I recognize ... the inescapable conclusion that all of history has taught: The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations."
I believe Reagan was a man who said what he meant and meant what he said. Gorbachev would undoubtedly agree.
Phyllis Schlafly said one of the three greatest accomplishments of Reagan was defining conservatism as the belief that big government is the problem not the solution.
I believe, like Reagan, that more government control of the economy is not conservative.

..but don't you think your personal comments about him are a little crass at this time?

I..I..I never even stopped to think about how this could be affecting Pat. How could I be so self-centered and insensitive at a time like this?

while he sits in a darkened office, drinking straight from a bottle..

Schnapps?

clutching an autographed photograph of Rachel Corrie to his breast, sobbing...

I feel his pain!

You insensitive jerk!

How could I? After all, didn't he also lose a close relative in WWII?

Basta! Four years of data do not make a correlation, when the previous four years show precisely the opposite.

Wrong. Multivariants in the composite relationship don't negate the significance of the core "supply-demand" fundamentals /random word generator off

LOL!

Every single equivocation by you shows that it is you with a "random term" generator problem. You argue with the index, etc. You lost. All of you did. Despite your lame gang-up attempt.

I wonder if there are any statisticians on this website (or even a "hard" scientist) that will convince you of your error.

Sorry your public school math program let you down.

A graph showing the dollar rising for 4 years while the trade deficit increases does not prove that the rising deficit weakens the dollar.

The larger lesson is that the dollar has no obvious relationship with the trade deficit. The exchange rate rose and fell from 1990 to 2005 on a trade-weighted basis, while the trade balance simply fell and fell further. By calling for the yuan to float, some voices are actually calling for the dollar to fall further, but there is scant evidence this will bring balance to the trade accounts.

Tim Kane Ph.D. who, unlike Paul Ross, did not fail basic math (or reading comprehension).

Tell us again how the Federal Reserve sets interest rates on T-Bills again. At what rate did they set the 10 year Treasury Bond? Maybe you have a press release where they announced the new 10 year rate?

Either of you guys want to show Paul the error of his ways?

I am going to dissect your magnum-opus into several bite chunks, beginning with your first egregious mistake, although virtually everything you say is skewed and erroneous left-wing revisionist clap-trap...if not simply nonsensical:

I said Hamilton was a proponent of big government just like you.

Wrong on both counts. He was a nationalist, trying to establish, from basically scratch, a national entity that could counter state governments undermining national unity, and present a united front against the numerous foreign powers that threatened the country. Today, he would be as much opposed to the size and intervention fueld by the invasive income tax and welfare state it supports...as Ronald Reagan and myself. It is you who are suspect as to your opposition to Big Government, wed as you are to the Income Tax which was not genuflected into being by protectionists. But as a sop to free traders and socialists.

William Sumner closely studied Hamilton's letters and writings and came to three conclusions: That Hamilton never read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

First, in fact, I want to commend you for actually referring to a credible source, an anti-communist source, such as William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), for a change. I have abstracted some really nice reviews pertaining to him below. In a lot of ways, he is at odds with the phoney free traders...the extreme individualists... of today. *(See below attached)

Second, going to his substance, I want to point out that modern scholarship has rejected Sumner's unfortunately mistaken conclusions about Hamilton. E.g., see Ron Chernow's book Alexander Hamilton (2004) wherein he observes a number of times that Adam Smith was relied upon...but criticized and deviated from by Hamilton.

Hamilton, while a "commercialist" was above all, a promoter of national industrial self-sufficiency. But he did in fact explicitly rely on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations a number of times, note at (p. 347):

To tutor himself further about European central banks, Hamilton turned to Malachay Postlethway's Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the latter sent from London by Angelica Church.

It is interesting that in all of your reliance on Sumner, you and he both fail to really understand that it was the practical concerns such as self-sufficiency that undergirded Hamilton's philosophy, as he espoused in his seminal tract, Report on Manufactures. The impetus for the report had been largely military and strategic in nature. President Washington had admonished Congress that a "free people" ought to "promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent [of] others for essential, particularly for military supplies." Remembering the scarcity of everything from gun powder to uniforms on most manufacturing--Hamilton knew that reliance on foreign manufacturers could cripple America in wartime. "The extreme embarassment of the United States during the late war from an incpacity of supplying themselves, are still matters of keen recollection," he noted in his report.

Ron Chernow summarizes the philosophy of Alexander Hamilton as being sympathetic to Smith, but keenly aware of the needs of practical responses to foreign interference (p. 377)

In the best of all possible worlds, Hamilton preferred free trade, open markets and Adam Smith's "invisible hand." He wrote later in life, "In matters of industry, human enterprise ought doubtless to be left free in the main, not fettered by too much prudent aids and encouragement on the part of the government." At this early stage of American history, Hamilton thought aggressive European trade policies obligated the United States to respond in kind. He therefore supported temporary mercantilist policies that would improve American self-sufficiency, leading to a favorable trade balance and more hard currency. For a young nation struggling to find its way in a world o f advanced European powers, Realpolitik trumped the laissez-faire purism of Adam Smith.

He would have definitely felt right at home with late 19th century Republican philosophy that promoted self-sufficiencey, and yet promoted trade with reciprocity agreements. So Sumner's mistakes...and yours...aside, we can conclude that Hamilton indeed read Adam Smith's works, and modified their principles to be practical, now let's look at your other and further mistakes with regard to Hamilton and the other Founders, finishing up your points from Sumner:

[That Hamilton was a Mercantilist.]
That Hamilton believed many things that are not true — that federal bonds were a form of capital; that a national debt was a national blessing;/i>

Let's just stop you right there, first Hamilton sure inherited a lot of "blessings" then when he was appointed as first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury by George Washington. And while we can disagree with the scope of debt today, and we both certainly do, there was also practical reason for it, so long as it was kept internal...once it was externally-held by foreign actors, there was a problem impinging on our national independence. And his economic policies forthrightly addressed that, especially the trade imbalnce...and unarguably cured it.

...that the existence of banks increased the capital of the country;

They are a factor in increasing the fluidity of the exchange, of helping to promote commerce, and to the extent they lubricated the commercial sector they made it a more attractive and capital-productive environment. This made the U.S. a more enticing investment target for foreign capital, and so on.

... that foreign trade drained a country of its wealth unless it resulted in a trade surplus;,

Classical trade deficit theory. Not really disputed by anyone except the Extremists of the last decades, such as Cato, etc. Not much to say here other than their sad devotion to their debunked religion of consumerism is just apostasy. Supply Side economics properly understood focusses on SUPPLY. I.e., production.

and that higher taxes were a spur to industry and necessary because Americans were lazy and enjoyed too much leisure.

Which taxes? Tariffs or internal property taxes? The former increased American production as opposed to foreign dependancy, and the latter we still suffer from as various counties engage in so-called "Pro-Growth" tax policies...perversely setting taxes higher to punish low-productivity uses of land.

[ I believe in the American System]
You were already schooled by another poster on this subject.

LOL! I sent him packing back to school.

Your American System was a form of wealth redistribution for politically connected special-interests.

And that is precisely what PHONEY free trade is too. Politically connected special interests.

There is an old saying that is apropos here. "They may be A-holes...but at least they are OUR A-holes." Phoney free trade...where we don't react to foreign tariffs, trade barriers and subsidy... is controlled by...surprise!...the foreign governments we ignore.

As a practical matter today, you are redistributing wealth into the control of Chi-Comm tyrants. Undermining our own self-rule. And not just when they subsidize the Xlinton's campaigns, either. Are we independent when we need to be? Clearly our over-weening catering to China's communist regime in trade shows we have been internally corrupted...to service these new foreign masters. Hamilton was right about the need for a federal government to safeguard our polity against foreign manipulations, particularly trade, as he discusses at length in Federalist #11

The American System was big government intervening in the economy on behalf of businesses and farmers through protective tariffs. The tariff of 1828 doubled imports to an average of 44 percent in 1829 and to 48 percent in 1830. The American System was the beginning of big government.

Actually we had a surplus revenue problem from those tariffs...that was the problem.

Clay was a champion of this "system" who ran and lost on this platform three times. No wonder Lincoln avoided this for the most part and instead campaigned on the issue of slavery.

Actually, this is revisionist and anti-historical. Lincoln was an unabashed and open advocate for "Clay's system"

I can point you to the free trade dogmatists at the Von Mises institute who corroborate this and even claim that it "made him". Thomas D. Lorenzo says in his book, The Real Lincoln said that "Lincoln, a failed one-term congressman, would never have been elected had it not been for his career-long devotion to protectionism"

... protected manufacturers at the expanse of consumers.

The classic misrepresentation. Once an industry is injured by foreign predation to the point of near or absolute extinction...the foreigners can jack up prices to exploit the monopoly. The phoney free traders' tears for "the consumer" are crocodile tears.

Fortunately, we've learned our lesson since then

No, you phoneys have either never learned, or forgotten the lessons of history, or worse, you do know those lessons, but want everyone else to forget them too.

[and you run away when you are busted on the War of 1812's impact on the daydreams of Jefferson and Madison...] It's not surprising, in light of everything else you're wrong about, that you'd also misrepresent the impact the war of 1812 had on the FF.

As I have shown, chapter and verse, you have been wrong. And not just a little. Your historical understanding is agenda-driven...and frankly erroneous.

During Napoleon's wars, American merchants and farmers were making lots of money selling goods to both the English and the French. Of course, this trade came with lots of risks and the merchants suffered huge losses at the hands of the English navy and French privateers. The merchants demanded protection from the government but Jefferson refused. Doing so would have been very expensive and risked dragging the country into war. Instead, Jefferson instituted a total embargo on trade with the world. This coercion - by denying both sides American goods - was supposed to show the French and English the value of trade with America and would, in the end, stop the attacks and increase trade. Jefferson couldn't have been more wrong.

Yes, Jefferson, the free trade absolutist, was wrong. This ivory-tower free trade solution was anti-trade, not Hamiltonian. Hamilton instead had certainly wanted a first-class navy to do what Jefferson was initially loathe to do. But a big navy was "big government." Aw, gee. Too bad.

Reality doesn't give you a choice.

The merchants, facing economic ruin, resorted to smuggling in an attempt to save their businesses. Jefferson responded again by sending the military to blockade the coast and he sent the militia to seal the border with Canada. The smuggling continued and by 1809, the New England states were seriously considering secession. Jefferson finally gave in but still forbid trade directly with England and France until these two countries stopped attacking American ships. Madison continued this policy until he went to war with England over "free trade and sailor's rights."

Aw, gee, more big governmentism. Guess we can't rely on foreigners to police rules of trade, eh?

The war of 1812 nearly destroyed American commerce and spawned the manufacturing industries that both Jefferson and Madison had fought to prevent for so long. The measures Jefferson took to implement the embargo brought much of the economy to a standstill and his enforcement of it brought Massachusetts and Connecticut almost to rebellion. It was French and English violation of our shipping that showed them how vulnerable an agrarian based economy was. Jefferson had finally realized that the US could not remain an agrarian economy forever. Madison and Jefferson were never in favor of economic isolationism.

So? Looks like you clipped this from somewhere unattributed. And its mostly irrelevant to your thesis. Man, you are lame.

Jefferson never forgave the merchants who defied his attempt to control trade and that fact is made clear in many of his letters. This fiasco brought into question just about every principle of government he believed in and showed that he had two sides. The lessons learned here should be clear. Commercial freedom is always the best policy and cooperation will yield more benefits than coercion. Countries don't have friendships, they have interests, and it is always best to appeal to those interests if you want to remain friendly. Foreign trade should be be free and without barriers.

Some of these lessons "follow" from the war of 1812...when the free traders learned a harsh lesson, a lesson which Washington and Hamilton had already been obviously well aware of before. (The "adults" of their era). And some purported lessons just didn't follow at all. Jefferson himself endorsed self-sufficiency over free trade later.

[Self-sufficiency is vital.]
The devil is in the definition. You believe that government should determine what self-sufficiency means. I believe the markets provide a much better method for making that determination.

Markets don't have a clue as to that. Markets just react to prices...and then usually belatedly. They have no innate counter to foreign governmental interference, nor do they take account of governmental national hostilities. They just try to make money.

That is why Adam Smith supported national defense as an exception to his espousal of free trade. Of course you make an attempt to complicate national defense's definition as well. But it is really simple. As JD Heyworth says, "Whatever it takes." Logistics in depth. And witness the current situation of the impending critical oil supply situation. Price signals to the contrary, we still are not switching over to things such as E-85 and other viable alternatives fast enough to avoid a real disaster if Iran goes for broke in the Mideast. And Venezuela's Chavez breaks its contracts with us to ship its oil only to its Communist buddies in China.

Brazil, using governmental forsight, which you apparently believe to be impossible, has pretty much blazed the path here, and is now not dependant on foreign oil at all, and we are only slowly drifting into following with the market.

______________________________________________

* Some reviews on William Graham Sumner that you may find insightful and informative.

I recommend them to you to better know your source. I agree with their analysis. And find that Sumner is in many ways a kindred spirit: William Graham Sumner was a Yale professor at Harvard, often given the bum rap of being a laissez faire social-Darwinist who advocated free trade, in opposition to the vast majority of Republicans (who believed in the American System), in fact, although he believed in a scientific approach...he retained scruples. A number of them were identified by some reviewers of his work:

So one buys the book for a dollar and heads for the Internet. Turns out there's more than a little by and about him available on-line. Here's some of the book's introduction, by Robert C. Bannister, which, happily, is on-line:

Many critics quoted a few phrases concerning "fittest" and "unfittest" as the sum of his social thought. Focusing on his views of government and the economy, most failed to place his work within the broader context of the effort of several generations of American intellectuals to ground morals and public policy in science rather than Protestant Christianity. A member of the "generation of 1840" who initiated this change, Sumner shared in this enterprise with the sociologist Lester Ward and the jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., among others, even though he did not share their politics. As these intellectuals debated the meaning of science, the charge of misapplied Darwinism (including the epithet "social Darwinist"), as I have argued in Social Darwinism: Science and Myth (1979), was essentially a battle strategy, more caricature than accurate characterization. Critics also assumed that Sumner's ideas remained unchanged throughout his career. Quotations from lectures of the 1870s or from Folkways became interchangeable evidence of a monolithic ideology.
Whatever the reasons, the resulting image of Sumner seriously misrepresents him. Although he launched his career in a decade with more than its share of corruption and fraud--the scandals of the Grant presidency and New York's Tweed Ring, the financial buccaneering of Jay Gould, the "corrupt bargain" that gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency in 1876--he was no less a critic of these developments than were the self-styled "reformers" whose proposals, in his view, only compounded the problems. During the 1880s and 1890s, he continued to defend free markets, individual enterprise, and the accumulation of capital. But he was acutely aware of mounting problems, from the rise of plutocracy (defined broadly as the influence of wealth on politics) to the excesses of consumerism and of democracy. The United States was entering its "glory days," he lamented shortly before his death, referring to the "corruption and extravagance which ultimately have ruined all the republics of the past." In sounding these warnings, he seemed to his admirers to be the epitome of the "old Roman," a defender of the republican tradition of the Founders, not the business "hireling" or the spirit of individualism past.
Sumner's "conservatism" was accordingly complex. As he moved from clergyman to sociologist, he struggled to reconcile two contradictory impulses: a desire for organic community, historical continuity, and traditional values as antidote to unfettered individualism and materialistic progress; and a commitment to individual freedom that fueled this progress. Complicating this dilemma was the specter of cultural relativism wherein all truth appeared relative to conditions. In freeing the individual from past custom and tradition, cultural relativism appeared to rule out any common standard for individual behavior or public policy. In his early sermons, Sumner confronted these issues in repeated attempts to balance "tradition" and "progress." In Folkways, he discussed them in terms of the relation between the "mores" and "science," the former the encoded customs and traditions that shape all human activity, the latter the objective attitude that allows limited escape from them.
In this quest, Sumner's conception of science was crucial. Since the 18th century, science had been seen as a means of freeing humanity from the burdens of the past, while providing for one or another type of social engineering. Inspired by Darwin, many of Sumner's contemporaries found in evolution the basis for an instrumental view of reason that justified governmental activism and a relativism that rejected established institutions and beliefs. Sumner, in contrast, distinguished the "methods" of science from its "speculations," viewing the former in terms of the narrowly inductive procedures of what American intellectuals of his generation termed "Baconian" science (dubiously claiming lineage from the celebrated 17th century English scientist Francis Bacon). Science, so viewed, was not some "ism," but a matter-of-factness that stressed classification over hypothesis. The property of a relatively small minority ("the classes"), the scientific attitude, as Sumner's biographer Donald Bellomy has put it, allowed "a critical, scientific, and modernized elite [to] modify and correct traditional attitudes."
Although on the surface Sumner shared his generation's faith in science, he thus diverged from a majority of his fellow social scientists in rejecting the notion that science taught a conception of truth as merely a consensus of trained observers. Sumner's "expert" was not a credentialled member of a social scientific community that drew up social blueprints to meet changing conditions--the model that was increasingly in American sociology in the decades after Sumner's death. Rather, he was the tough-minded individual who viewed current mores objectively in the light of history. In grasping the essence behind appearance, science provided an absolute standard for individual behavior and social policy, and hence an escape from a debilitating relativism and moral anarchy.
Sumner defended private property, individual enterprise, and laissez faire. But he was not therefore an uncritical "apologist" for American business. Rather he joined a tradition of American thinkers who championed republicanism against democracy, hard work and self-denial over material luxury, and public good over individual gratification. Unlike the Founding fathers, Sumner grounded his conservatism, not in the classical Republicanism of Greece or Rome, but in scientific method and an ethos of professionalism that sought in discipline, denial, and detachment the equivalents, as it were, of public virtue. Although some contradictions remained, he thus took more seriously than many of his contemporaries the problems of change and tradition, cultural relativism and common standards, that continue to dominate our discourse more than a century later.
The great conservative struggle is over how to balance the good of personal liberty against the evil of extreme individualism. The quest of modernist conservatism is to find a grounding for absolutes in science rather than God. Here's a guy who was chin-deep in both struggles over a hundred years ago. Assuming that this has all piqued your interest too, see the links below for more. [At Brothers Judd ]
Meanwhile. William Graham Sumner, in addition to everything else, appears to have been one of, if not the, the first anti-communists:

Developments in the industrial sphere meanwhile shifted the focus of his interest to labor, big business, and finally to Marxism. Responding to the bloody summer of railway strikes in 1877, he penned an angry response meant for but not finally published in the North American Review, following it with several other essays on labor and strikes throughout the 1880s. Although the secretive formation of the Standard Oil trust in 1882 heralded a new phase of industrial combination, Sumner, like most of his contemporaries, realized its implications only gradually. In a series in the Independent in 1887, however, he took direct aim at the emerging "plutocracy," a concept that joined middle class fear of industrial combination and the patrician dislike of vulgar wealth he had earlier expressed in his sermons.
Narrowly defined, plutocracy referred to "a political form in which the controlling force is wealth," he explained. But more generally it enshrined the "increasing thirst for luxury" and the acquisitive appetites of the man "on the make." "The principle of plutocracy is that money buys whatever the owner of money wants," Sumner concluded with disgust.
He also gradually realized that Karl Marx was not just another socialist. Initially he knew Marx only as the leader of the International who wanted "to carry the war into the arena of scientific economy." But Marx's treatment of "capital" was soon at the center of his indictment of the entire socialist movement. When in 1886 the visit of Marx's daughter and son-in-law to the United States stimulated new interest in his theories, Sumner took aim at such concepts as "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie." "No American artisan" can understand these terms, he charged. "Such ideas are a part of a foreign dress of a set of ideas which are not yet naturalized."
Here then his essay, Socialism (or, The Challenge of Facts), which seems especially germane to the recent affirmative action ruling:
Socialists are filled with the enthusiasm of equality. Every scheme of theirs for securing equality has destroyed liberty. The student of political philosophy has the antagonism of equality and liberty constantly forced upon him. Equality of possession or of rights and equality before the law are diametrically opposed to each other. The object of equality before the law is to make the state entirely neutral. The state, under that theory, takes no cognizance of persons. It surrounds all, without distinctions, with the same conditions and guarantees. If it educates one, it educates all-black, white, red, or yellow; Jew or Gentile; native or alien. If it taxes one, it taxes all, by the same system and under the same conditions. If it exempts one from police regulations in home, church, and occupation, it exempts all. From this statement it is at once evident that pure equality before the law is impossible. Some occupations must be subjected to police regulation. Not all can be made subject to militia duty even for the same limited period. The exceptions and special cases furnish the chance for abuse. Equality before the law, however, is one of the cardinal principles of civil liberty, because it leaves each man to run the race of life for himself as best he can. The state stands neutral but benevolent. It does not undertake to aid some and handicap others at the outset in order to offset hereditary advantages and disadvantages, or to make them start equally. Such a notion would belong to the false and spurious theory of equality which is socialistic. If the state should attempt this It would make itself the servant of envy. I am entitled to make the most I can of myself without hindrance from anybody, but I am not entitled to any guarantee that I shall make as much of myself as somebody else makes of himself.
The newest socialism is, in its method, political. The essential feature of its latest phases is the attempt to use the power of the state to realize its plans and to secure its objects. These objects are to do away with poverty and misery, and there are no socialistic schemes yet proposed, of any sort, which do not, upon analysis, turn out to be projects for curing poverty and misery by making those who have share with those who have not.
In the yawning gap between "equality before the law" and the "theory of equality" lies much of the West's former freedom and a couple hundred million victims of the 20th Century's various ultimately indistinguishable totalitarianisms.

Sorry your public school math program let you down.

Not at all. Albeit, my higher degrees come from private schools.

A graph showing the dollar rising for 4 years while the trade deficit increases does not prove that the rising deficit weakens the dollar.

Yes, it does. Anyways, its over four years running now.

You and Tim Kane's "no relationship" is destroying the U.S. currency. I could insert an LOL in at this point, except, I don't think it's a laughing matter, despite your manifest hyena tendancies, Todd .

The larger lesson is that the dollar has no obvious relationship with the trade deficit. The exchange rate rose and fell from 1990 to 2005 on a trade-weighted basis, while the trade balance simply fell and fell further.

You can't read a chart. It appears you have flunked more than math. Logic.

By calling for the yuan to float, some voices are actually calling for the dollar to fall further,

Are these only voices in your head, Todd? Why don't you put a name to them, Todd? Ever heard of Snow? Zoellick? Greenspan? Bernanke.?Etc. The supporters for the Yuan float are not mere "voices" but are the overwhelming tide of U.S. financial experts. There are certainly disagreements between some analysists of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, etc. One of the analysts of Morgan Stanley - in the shape of Andy Xie - believes that the differentials between prices of origin in China and end prices in Europe and the US are so huge that there is bags and bags of room for absorption along the line. So, in part, I would agree that yuan-adjustment to real levels doesn't by itself deal with the U.S.-Chinese import imbalance. China has to end the barriers. And it also has to pay the royalties they scofflaw over. And the U.S. has to seriously think of tariffs.

... but there is scant evidence this will bring balance to the trade accounts.

A universal dollar decline certainly is not in our interest as either individuals or as a country. However, a targetted correction of a specific foreign malefactor, guilitiest of the grossest manipulations certainly can't hurt. Equally clearly, it isn't even being honestly tried as against the pegged currency of China. They're just playing lip-service to it. And many of the Pacific Rim countries are tied to stay near-competitive vis a vis China, as the wage price-setting gorilla.

Tim Kane Ph.D. who, unlike Paul Ross, did not fail basic math (or reading comprehension).

You fail, along with Tim Kane, to have any comprehension of the decline from 120 to 85 that is shown in the chart, that is denoted as "real trade weighted exchange value of U.S. $ versus major currencies. (The baseline of 100 is set from 1973 dollars).

So in fact, the dollar fell with those major currencies in the end of the chart..just as a "relationship" would predict.

And much, much worse for you it has continued since then... as shown by just these 2006 charts:

The previous five year portion of the range which you and Kane so lamely squint at to try and belabor a dispute is easily explained. We can debate cause/effects, certainly there are more than one "cause" but the clear evidence, and logically inescapable conclusion is that trade has impacts on exchange value.

Such impacts may be regulated or countered via Government interferences...by a number of government actors. Can you say pegging, Todd? At some point, these pegs are relaxed, such as Japan, case by case, and the free market is allowed to actually happen.

Tell us again how the Federal Reserve sets interest rates on T-Bills again.

I see you can't read an economist. They set the rates they sell at. That is the prerogative of governments selling governmental issues, Todd. They have delayed, deferred, and reduced sales before based on preliminary indicates they wouldn't get sales at their price.

Most of us don't even read them.

I wouldn't brag on your illiteracy.

Obviously, you can't write anything worthwhile, all by yourself

Obviously, I do, since I have you and your fellow hirelings worked up into such a lather.

so you go off and look for ANYTHING that sort of, sometimes, kinda looks as though it "proves" your position.

Gee, isn't that what associational tools of the internet is for? Anyways, I have often also laboriously typed in text from my copious supply of hardbound books laden on my shelves. But you guys manifestly "don't read" those either. You are just not serious debaters or scholars of economics and history.

Sometimes you've been called on the fact that they don't and then you do a Ralph Kramdenesque "homminah hommmmmmmmminah...."

This sounds like more projection, ala' Todd. T'sk. Shameless of you. If anyone is doint the homminah thing, it is you...since you don't read.

I wonder if there are any statisticians on this website (or even a "hard" scientist) that will convince you of your error.

I took statistics and probability. Got an "A" too.

No error...on my side.

Go to a replacement tire shop these days and try to pronounce the name brand of most of the stuff on the wall....