Posted on 10/04/2007 7:07:18 AM PDT by SJackson
I've seen a lot of opinion polling, but my jaw dropped when I saw this result from our special NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll of Republicans in advance of next week's presidential candidate debate sponsored by CNBC, MSNBC and the WSJ. By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president.
Six in 10 Republicans in the poll agreed with a statement that free trade has been bad for the U.S. and said they would agree with a Republican candidate who favored tougher regulations to limit foreign imports. That represents a challenge for Republican candidates who generally echo Mr. Bush’s calls for continued trade expansion, and reflects a substantial shift in sentiment from eight years ago.
"It’s a lot harder to sell the free-trade message to Republicans," said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with Democratic counterpart Peter Hart.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
>> The US makes (GDP) over $13 trillion a year. How do you figure we’re spending more than that on imports?
That’s a good question. The answer is, “I’m not figuring any such thing”.
Consider the equation:
GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports - imports)
With your question, you are implying that GDP is somehow all “internal production”. That is clearly not the case.
Didn’t a democrat (Clinton) sign NAFTA?
That's why free trade between the US, Europe and Japan after WWII didn't work.
“Should gun manufacturers stop selling in the state of New York? “
Wow, are you in politics? You jump from your analogy to other examples, slip in and out of comparisions willy nilly to support your points. Then you lecture me on a concept of deficit which I clearly understand.
You are entrenched. I’ll take it to the bottom line. Borrowing from NVDave:
***
What Joe Lunchbucket knows about “free trade” is this:
1. He has to worry about his job like he never did before.
2. His wages haven’t increased the way they did in the past.
3. He has illegal aliens coming into the country to take his job, and management trying to figure out how to take the whole job out of the country.
4. And now, he has to worry about “what is in my food, toothpaste, dog food, etc?” and wonder if it is going to kill him.
***
Joe Lunchbucket votes. I live near lots of Joe Lunchbuckets. The free traders are pushing us to a tipping point. That tipping point is that the Joes are going to elect Hillary! as president. Now most Joes I know aren’t too keen on socialism, but they are even less thrilled about the problems they see on a daily basis now.
We are running headlong to becomming a socialist state.
I hope the free trade crowd has enough global investments to make it all worthwhile.
Agreed.
No, not the purpose, but an expected benefit. Too late now relative to Mexico, I'd have supported maintaining some level of tariffs based on wage levels. Require Mexican exporters to pay xx% of US minimum wage to avoid a tariff.
You have an economist who thinks greater government control of our economy would be a good thing?
No I'm not. You equate net imports to spending, I'm continuing your idea and equating GDP to income.
Now if you ask a congresscritter from Iowa, he/she/it, will say we need to open markets for their corn. There are plenty of Texas and Louisiana farmers that would like to sell rice to Asia, but their farmers would have a cat. At the same time they all insist that we buy all of their crap no matter what.
This is just one example, but it shows there is not really Free Trade. The right question for the poll would be for Fair Trade. The people that gripe about losing their jobs to foreigners are low skilled workers or they wouldn't be losing their job in the first place.( Yes, I know their are programmers and engineers overseas also) Do we really need thousands of shoe workers or textile workers in the US? If those jobs stay in the US they will go to illegals anyway.
The ones that have a gripe( programmers and engineers), are really griping because they want more money. If you are a programmer, you didn't go to school to make $30-$40k a year. They all believed they would make $60-$100k. If you really have Free Trade, then why shouldn't the company send the business to India and get programmers for $22k per year?
The terms should really be defined a little better to make a comment on them.
“So you’re saying that my 100% negative trade deficit with the grocery store—buying but not selling there—will somehow cause me to lose my job? Please explain.”
If you’re employed in a field that off-shored your job to a location that pays their workers .05 cents on the dollar and has no “EPA, OSHA” and other US government OR similar international regulations to follow....but is miraculously deemed an “equal” trading partner by mindless drone/ economic geniuses back home....yea, you might run into a problem when you stroll down to your grocery store to buy some dog chow.
But then you already know that. “Free” trade will not be equal trade until we turn the US into a complete turd world shit hole. When we employ 9 year olds in garment factories on 16 hour shifts... then you can come back and talk logically about “free trade”.
>> The risk, and its consequences, should remain with the creditors who extend credit to shaky debtors.
With all due respect, you seem to be saying that it’s OK for the US to continue our current role of “debtor nation” ad infinitum — subject not to any moral or sound economic reason for doing otherwise, but subject only to finding a steady stream of lenders willing to lend.
Alrighty then. Here’s where I get off the bus.
“That may be true in some areas but when these trade deals starting going through and the younger among you didn’t see the writing on the wall and prepare for the 21st. century whose fault was that?”
Oh, you mean all those programmers and engineers who went to school for at least 4 years and now can’t find a job because of H1Bs and offshoring? Yep, those people are morons.
And the anti-NAFTA crowd expected a giant sucking sound. They were wrong.
Require Mexican exporters to pay xx% of US minimum wage to avoid a tariff.
And that would have helped Mexico create more jobs?
Well said
That is not to say we shouldn't do what we can to maintain a better balance of trade, but whatever limits we put on imports, we'd better expect other countries to reciprocate.
“You have an economist who thinks greater government control of our economy would be a good thing?”
You don’t think Hillary has economic advisers? You don’t think all borderline socialists Democrats have their economists who advise them and support them?
You one liners are scarcely worth responding to. And as someone said earlier, Marxism is an economic theory or model.
If we abandon free trade, we’re throwing in the towel on being globally competitive, and taking up protectionism again. Ronald Reagan would be ashamed.
Yes, Cuba's economy is doing great. ;)
“Do we really need thousands of shoe workers or textile workers in the US?”
Just curious....
Who the hell died and left you in charge of making that decision. Not every American kid is college bound.
Remember how left-of-Kucinich Sherrod Brown ran a successful Senate campaign right here in OH last year by successfully exploiting the fears working-class people have over losing their jobs.
Economic theories come and go, but when push comes to shove people are going to look at their own situation and probably vote based on how they perceive that to be. If one has lost their job to outsourcing/offshoring, or sees their neighbor losing his/her job because of it, they're going to be worried. No matter what all the fancy economic theories say, we ignore the politics at our peril. All the free-trading economic theories in the world won't mean much in terms of influencing national policy if we're swept out of office in a landslide.
‘These swings happen from time to time. People suddenly get the brilliant idea that government control of trade is good if it protects “me and mine.” What they are really saying is “I can’t cut the competition, so the government needs to help me.” The people currently fooled by such silliness try to cover themselves by calling such ideas “fair” trade instead of protectionism.’
Please explain exactly what your overall economic interpretation is of outsourcing to India. For instance, let’s say a programmer here in the States was making $80,000/year. His competition in India, at the time, was quite happy to be paid $20,000 a year in a country where the median income was something like $800/year. “Naturally” many US corporations bit the bullet and outsourced, though it certainly didn’t work out well for all.
It is true that in the intervening time the salary of Indian programming talent has risen to perhaps $50,000 a year, while American salaries have remained flat or dipped a bit. In a sense it’s been like foreign aid, transferring wealth to India at the expense of Americans. However, the net effects of this practice and the policies that permitted it seem negative overall:
- Quite a lot of American capital has flowed to India (deficit).
- American workers that would have had high incomes and spent them in the US are unemployed or making less (in general).
- We have created a formidable workforce and infrastructure in India, which will now largely compete with the US.
- There is considerable reluctance on the part of young people to enter the technology field. Who can blame them?
Where’s the upside in that scenario? That we can pay the CEOs 5000x a normal worker’s salary rather than 3000x?
Outsource the CEOs, I say.
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