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 ...
I'm talking about the impact on the US, not the impact on China. Try again?
As I said, I benefit from a strong dollar, I benefit from a weak dollar.
Isn’t it great? We buy lots of stuff because we’re wealthy.
National security widgets are a completely different story, and your typical protectionist works overtime to conflate the two.
“Isn’t it great? We buy lots of stuff because we’re wealthy.”
We won’t be if we continue to get screwed by bad trade policies that benefit the other parties but not us. That will have a big impact; it already is with off-shoring, shrinking U.S. manufacturing base, cheaply made products that bust or wear out in two seconds, lower wages for our workers, illegals replacing our workers further lowering wages, our car industry going down the tubes to foreign competition, undercutting of our own U.S. industries by foreign businesses propped up by gov’t subsidies, tariffs on our goods, closed markets to our products, ad nauseum. Oh, but everything is just fine, isn’t it. Free trade is wonderful. Pie in the sky my dear. Open those peepers and see the reality, not the fantasy.
As I said, Communists don't have any experience with "boom and bust" and the social unrest will probably provide a convenient excuse for the Chicoms to crack down, or to pick a war with the US or invade Taiwan, in order to distract from their own domestic failings.
Just like Bill Clinton did with the Lewinsky hearings, and as Dubya has been accused of doing by the left.
Cheers!
What do you propose we do? This crap has been going on for years. I’ll give you a reading assignment. Go look at the “Hawley-Smoot Tariff” and get back with me.
If I posted a thread about the fact that U.S. companies pay the highest corporate income tax rate in the world (or second highest, depending how you calculate), and the fact that they must pay it on their world-wide income actually encourages them to offshore their operations the thread would skyrocket to seven replies . . . and your typical paleo-isolationist would be afraid to show his face there. But post a thread with a suitably-negative headline, and they flood here to whine. You don't have to be very smart to realize what's going on.
Their profit margin is small.
And Wal-Mart sells food, too, including Chinese tilapia, for example.
How much of their total revenue is food, including Chinese tilapia, for example?
How does that compare to a typical grocery store?
And that hurts us how exactly?
I'm interested in the effects on the US of a weak Chinese currency. I'm interested in the effects on the US of a weak dollar.
Their profit margin is small.
But not as small as grocery stores -- groceries get a disproportionate share of their profits from personal care and 'sundries' ; I don't have access to the relative profitability of different product lines or departments at Wally World.
Cheers!
Excellent!
Perhaps you could show how WalMart's profit margins suddenly jumped when they "'encouraged' its suppliers to engage in wage arbitrage, pocketed the bulk of the savings, and passed a bit of the savings on to its consumers"
Since their percentage of foreign goods sold must be getting higher every year, according to some Freepers 100% of their goods are already from China, it should be easy to show that their profit margin is constantly rising.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Pundits always think the American people react to rhetoric and their leading editorials. The American people react to reality. It is ideologues who don't.
Hah!
NAU! NAU!
And it'll only get worse.
Americans buying lots and lots of foreign goods makes Americans think free trade is bad?
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