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 ...
Why do you ask?
ssMy answer is o lock up he antiamerican State Department in a rubber room and send a simple letter to every country stating that as of Monday the tarrifs and restrictions on your goods will be exactly the same as the ones that you impose on ours.
At that point we will achieve fair trade and eliminsate the horrindeous free trade garbage.
“Your response does not demonstrate a careful analysis of higher education. The cost of higher education is high because of the competitive structure of the industry. In its current structure, you cannot outsource faculty. There are many foreign faculty especially in the sciences, medicine, engineering, and business. Foreign faculty do not work for any less than domestic faculty.”
We could absolutely outsource many college teaching jobs, particularly in basic courses, and even advanced courses. And professors teaching FROM India or China would be much cheaper.
Are you saying professors on those nations are paid as much as professors in the US? Stop granting all the work visas and the foreign graduates will return home and be happy to teach US college courses via satellite. Very efficient.
With modern communications, this could and should be done, and business professors who teach all about comparative advantage and market efficiencies should be at the forefront of implementing it. And this very thing is being done on a small scale within the US, often to serve handicapped or remotely located students.
Your answer was very self-serving, but not at all convincing.
Yeah, you’ll be ok, but your neighbors and kids are on their own.
Nice.
I happen to be one of those "losers", and I'm doing fine. In fact, there are lots of IT jobs available. Go take a look at Monster.com or other such services.
Are you unemployed? Do you know any large industry segments that have lost employment that aren't unionized?
Unemployment in the US is currently about 4%, give or take. Between 2 and 7% is considered by most to be "full employment", meaning the unemployed are mostly willingly unemployed, between jobs or unemployable (drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally handicapped, etc.)
The hardest part of selling the horrors of free trade is that it always has and continues to work so well. People just keep getting more and more wealthy in spite of the scary monster.
What do you suppose interest is on 9 trillion? Since we are running a deficit obviously we are paying interest with debt, thats nothing to brag about and we should be concerned.
One other critical point I forgot. One of the first things we’d have to do would be to end the protectionist policies of granting tenure to professors. Why should they be shielded from foreign competition?
I’m shocked that all business, and particularly economics professors, haven’t, with great indignation, voluntarily refused the protectionist advantage of tenure which they enjoy. What could possibly be more anti-competition?
“Yeah, and this free trade thing we’ve been doing is going to bankrupt the United States too. ...any day now. ...still waiting. ...just around the corner.”
In the scope of history, it may just be around the corner. The free trade you advocate, that’s been going on with unequal partners, has been going on for about 13 years, plus or minus. (I’ll use NAFTA as the genesis).
Interesting that you accept economist’s lessons when it suits you. What of Spain, and England, and the unequal free trade that brought them to their economic knees? Doesn’t count? They didn’t do it right? Gee, kind of sounds like Marxists talking about Russia or Cuba.
“Are you unemployed? Do you know any large industry segments that have lost employment that aren’t unionized?”
Many non-union jobs have been lost in textiles and many other manufacturing jobs in the south and other areas that were never heavily unionized. It doesn’t have that much to do with being unionized. Is $1.00 per hour less than $10.00 per hour? If so, that’s plenty to send a factory south of the border or to Asia.
“Unemployment in the US is currently about 4%, give or take. Between 2 and 7% is considered by most to be “full employment”, meaning the unemployed are mostly willingly unemployed, between jobs or unemployable (drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally handicapped, etc.)”
Those percentages only include people actively looking for jobs. A recent article in the NYT discussed two to three million middle aged males who’d dropped out of the job market after being downsized. No one knows how many are out of work, and remain so by getting by on the dole, or savings or early retirement withdrawals. Many can get by as well as they could taking a low wage job, but would return to the job market if wages were higher.
“In the scope of history, it may just be around the corner. The free trade you advocate, that’s been going on with unequal partners, has been going on for about 13 years, plus or minus. (I’ll use NAFTA as the genesis).”
I wouldn’t call it free trade, but legislated trade. It actually started in the 1950s when Congress passed legislation during the Eisenhower administration that assured that most manufacture of electronics products would move to Japan. It did, and such legislation was passed that affected other industries long before NAFTA.
Actually, our trade policies have been our biggest foreign aid program (and still is). A main incentive of aiding Japan in the 1950s was to help them recover economically and become a strong Cold War ally.
“The hardest part of selling the horrors of free trade is that it always has and continues to work so well. People just keep getting more and more wealthy in spite of the scary monster.”
You are living in your own happy place unrestrained by things around you. How nice for you.
I have seen infrastructure decay. I have seen signs of lack of personal wealth on a fairly large scale. When an industry isn’t unionized, you don’t lose whole segments, you lose individual members. But you knew that. You are exteremely disingenuous with your posts.
You point to employment numbers as if it were absolute evidence. But you must know that someone who once was a design engineer who’s now working at Lowe’s is considered employed. Underemployment isn’t a statistic.
I happen to be employed, and I’ll survive the Hillary! presidency. But unlike what I see of your posts, I do have concern for fellow Americans, and my family members.
“You’re going completely outside my analogy. You implied that just by shopping at the grocery store, it could lead to the loss of my job.”
I realize that. Your analogy is overly simplistic. It really has no basis in any discussion about the advantages / disadvantages of trade where the manufacturing standards are different. This is why there is no such thing as “free” trade when dealing with a country where the standards are different.
When the rules for manufacturing are different from one country to another.....there is an “unfair” imbalance....and we get what we have now. Loss of jobs in manufacturing.
Gee, I miss the days when 95% of the people worked in farming.
Idiot.
And with GATT, we started reducing them.
Excellent. I'm glad you realized your error.
My post covered many important issues most of which, for obvious reasons, you've chosen to ignore. The economic system I believe in is based on private property ownership where individuals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain; and free market forces determine the prices of goods and services. My system is based on separating state and business activities as much as possible. My system believes that markets are efficient and should therefore function without interference. The role of the state is to regulate and protect only where necessary.
A consumer’s choice has more than that one factor.
Under your system the consumer's choices will be less and prices will go up. That is always the result of increased regulation. Do you think consumers want more or less of those choices? How do you explain that 125 million people shop at Wal-Mart every week? Is it low prices? Do they want to keep more of their hard earned money or do they want to give it to the government to support well connected industries who want to be protected from competition?
Choice also involves how much buying power one has and what one can afford.
Do we have more per-capita buying power today than we did when we first embraced free(r) trade after WWII, or less? Can Americans afford more today than we could 50 years ago? How is that possible if economics is a zero sum game like you've asserted? Prove what you've claimed.
We still have inflation in this country.
Yes. Would you rather have deflation? Or, do you believe it's easy for the Fed to accurately measure GDP growth and increase the money supply accordingly?
Cheap imported consumer goods have not offset all inflation
So what? It's allowed Americans to keep more of their money. Maybe that's why about 60% of all American workers today are invested in the stock market while only 25% of them were invested in 1980. Are you in favor of the ownership society or not? What impact does increasing productivity have on inflation? How have we managed to innovate and accelerate productivity if what you suggest is true?
but the loss of many jobs has cut the buying power of many Americans.
Is that why per-capita consumption in this country has increased at an average annual rate, in real terms, of 2.3% over the past 30 years and has doubled since 1973? Like I said before, if you could show us that our employment and incomes are dropping as a result of free(r) trade, you would.
Some things are cheaper, others things aren’t.
Some things are made better than they were and cost more as a result. Some things (houses) are bigger than they were before and, therefore, cost more. Some things like the average cost of food as a percentage of income have gone down over the years. That productivity and rising income thing again.
Consumers also need homes to buy or rent. Are they cheap now?
Home ownership is at an all time high. I guess that fact should answer your question. Seventy percent of American families own their own home. What socialist country can match that?
If the lowest possible prices are your only value, then that’s how it is for you.
I value freedom. How about you? History has proven that the greater the economic freedom we have the greater the wealth we will create. I want more choices relating to quantity, quality, price, color, location, etc. and I know most Americans would agree with me. You don't need to look any further than any Wal-Mart for proof.
There other components, not just economic theories, whether you purists like it or not.
This is a meaningless statement. Do you or do you not believe that when it comes to trade all of a sudden government bureaucrats become responsible, reliable and capable? Do you believe they can create "fair trade" whatever the hell that is, by making sure only companies that deserve protection receive it? So, please tell us what your sensible method is for managing trade since you feel so strongly that trade needs to be managed better to create a level playing field. Where else in life is there a level playing field where everything is fair? How does government go about making this happen?
Can you show us we're experiencing declining employment, declining manufacturing, declining wealth and declining GDP?
If the government knows what's best for us when it comes to trade, do they know what's best for us in other areas too? Do they know what's best for us with healthcare? Where does your increased government activism end?
Which is it? Are the near suburbs wealthy or are they poor? You seem to claim both. And what suburbs are you talking about? Parma and Brooklyn are close to town (less than 10 miles) and are decent, nice suburbs for blue collar folks. Cleveland Heights, which is less than five miles to downtown, contains a mix of blue and white collar folks. Avon and Avon Lake are fifteen miles from downtown and again contain a mix of people. Bratenahl. Seven Hills. Independence. Again, all nice suburbs within 10 miles of downtown in which a lot of middle class people make their homes. Really, every suburb is fine with the exception of East Cleveland.
So why don't you be specific? What suburbs are you talking about?
The simple fact of the matter is that while Cleveland itself is poor (although places like Tremont, Ohio City, and downtown are becoming "happening" places to live for wealthier, younger folks), the suburbs are all pretty nice places to live, thanks to the opportunities available in the "defunct" rust belt city.
Yeah. Just look at those soup lines.....
That's exactly my point. You said that "you have to go pretty far out to find a decent suburb." That's not true. Pepper Pike is arguably the best suburb in Cleveland and it is 10 miles from downtown.
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