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 ...
Dumping is illegal under the WTO.
Thank Welfare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc, etc for that or maybe your one that doesn't realize what the real picture would be without socialist services.
Well, this explains your arguments. Laws are laws whether you want them to be or not. Sowell does an admirable job of relating how many countries have tried, as you do, to pretend that the laws of economics can be disregarded. In every case, that attempt has failed. Laws are like that.
You might consider the possibility that more Americans are becoming aware that we don’t have free trade, that particularly Asian nations intentionally keep their markets mostly closed while taking full advantage of the more open US markets. It’s been so for decades and they have no intention of changing. Many call it the “Asian model” for growth, and most nations follow it, which explains our ever expanding trade deficit.
Are we somehow forced to trade with Asian nations? If not, why, exactly, is it harmful to trade with them voluntarily?
Also, go back to my analogy of my local grocery store. It is a "closed market" with respect to my outputs. In other words, my grocery store doesn't buy anything from me. Nothing at all. Should I be upset? I have a 100% negative "trade deficit" with my grocery store.
But this entire so-called free trade based mostly on notions of comparative advantage assumes that the only value to be considered is the lowest production cost. Maybe that’s your only value, but not for a majority of Americans.
No. Free trade is based on the "notion" that people should be free to buy and sell with whomever they choose, and for what ever reason they choose. If a consumer wants to buy higher priced, higher quality goods, then he is free to do so. If a consumer wants a lower price, and feels that the quality at that price is acceptable, then he is free to buy at that lower price.
Why is that a bad thing?
Why do you want to be able to decide for me what reasons I should use in my decisions to buy and sell?
And we don’t have free trade with these agreements which require thousands of pages of description. Many industries are still protected in the US and Europe and most are still protected in other parts of the world.
OK. It sounds like you'd like to see an increase of free trade. Is that right?
Those are the reasons why unemployment is 4.6% instead of 25%?
I’ve had this idea for some time that I think could save Americans a good chunk of change by reducing the high cost of higher education. I think we should eliminate as many college professorships in the US as possible by outsourcing them to nations such as India and even China. With the internet, modern telecommunications and satellite communications, it would be a simple matter to have Indian or Chinese professors teach most college courses by satellite hookup. I believe qualified professors could be found for around $10,000 - $15,000 per year. Just think of the savings and increased market efficiencies that could be realized.
Jobs such as engineer, accountant, tax preparer, draftsman, radiologists and other professional works has been successfully outsourced and why shouldn’t we make a major effort to outsource college professorships since we all want to achieve the greatest possible efficiencies in every area of our economy.
Slavery is illegal in the US as are many other human rights abuses. When products are created by government owned businesses with workers who have little or no choice but to be there working, the product produced can never be a part of “free trade” as it was not free to begin with.
If you believe in opening the doors wide to the products of these countries/businesses then YOU don’t believe in free trade.
The transaction, though it had no duty involved at US customs, has been unduly influenced by government players. While their is an immediate savings for the consumer. Their is also an unfairly high profit for the manufacturer which happens to be a tyrannical dictatorship dedicated to the DESTRUCTION of our free capitalisitc system in the case of countries like China. The long term cost to us as a nation and people is VERY high.
Sad but true (now thanks to so called "free trade"), the fall of the dollar is bring home the truth of your assertion.
We've sacrificed our quality of life? Are you serious? Oh yes, we had it SO much better in 1955, right? Our quality of life was so much higher!
By the way, what percentage of people owned two or more cars in 1955? What about now? What was the size, in square feet, of a home built in 1955? What about today? How many people owned two or more television sets in 1955? How many today? How many people had a microwave oven in 1955?
How many people went down into coal mines every day--breathing in coal dust and facing serious risk of cave-ins or explosions in 1955? How many people do that today?
What percentage of people had white collar jobs in 1955? What about today? Seriously: by what standard do you believe people before today had a better quality of life?
Free trade is fine. What isn’t is the nonsense we currently have that is called ‘free trade’.
LOL!
Well, you must think pretty highly of yourself to call Milton Friedman "silly", but I didn't know he had said that.
What that analogy does is illustrate just how truly silly a fear of free trade is. Friedman, of course, knew that.
“I miss the good old days when over 50% of our workforce was in manufacturing.”
I miss the good old days when no one would consider posting non sequitor sarcasm.
Only if someone complains. I wonder why American Corporations don't seem to have a problem? Well it doesn't take a doctorate in economics to figure it out.
“While Cleveland certainly has its share of problems, the city is by no means dead. Just because a transition is difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.”
Huh? Cleveland is broke as the day is long. Try driving around the city sometime. The blight has extended to the near suburbs and is growing. One has to go pretty far out of the city to get into a decent suburb, (there are a couple of close by nice suburbs for the doctors at CCF).
Transition... right. Cleveland is transitioning the same way Detroit is transitioning, right into the dumper. But there will always be someone saying:
Go ahead, eat it, really, it’s chocolate pudding, you like it.
Reduced illegal immigration as a result of vibrant local economies and increases in wages in Mexico.
Stagnant wage growth for un/semiskilled labor in the US is a fact which will impact the political scene. Wage earners vote too. It would have made sense to incorporate some percentage level of wage parity in our trade agreements.
Your statement doesn't make any sense. I guess, though, we should tell the Japanese companies who have been fined tens of millions of dollars for violating the dumping laws not to worry--Realism says that no American companies care, so it's cool.
>> Also, go back to my analogy of my local grocery store. It is a “closed market” with respect to my outputs. In other words, my grocery store doesn’t buy anything from me. Nothing at all. Should I be upset? I have a 100% negative “trade deficit” with my grocery store.
First of all, thanks for your meaningful contributions to this thread. Can’t tell you how much I learn from following these FR economics threads... I’m interested in the subject and have strong opinions (worth what they cost ya, $0), but I’ll sure admit to a lack of knowledge, let alone a lack of ability to see into the future.
Having said that... your argument re: the grocery store is disingenuous, IMO.
Sure, you have a 100% negative trade deficit with the grocery (and the mall, and the car dealer, and so on).
But... you balance it with a 100% POSITIVE trade balance with your employer!
Furthermore, if you’re not spending more than you make (and let’s assume you’re not)... your overall net “trade” balance is positive or at least neutral. And your microeconomic world goes ‘round.
It’s not the net negative trade balance with China (or any one country) that is worrysome... it is the net negative trade BALANCE that is a problem in the long haul.
Neither countries nor individuals can go on indefinitely spending more than they make.
My 2c worth.
I live downtown. I see it everyday. Cleveland is broke, mostly because of mismanagement. But as you note, there are plenty of wealthy suburbs. Why? Because the folks at places like Key and Jones Day and the Clinic earn a living in Cleveland.
Free trade is great but we’re running an 850 billion dollar trade deficit. So discipline and tariffs or other measures are in order. Such a level of borrowing for imports is idiotic. No responsible nation does this.
The US dollar is sinking because ——— of the trade deficit, stupid. So work on that before you trumpet these wonderful free trade ideas
“Want to convince Americans of the benefits of free trade?
Get some people who aren’t economists to be proponents of same. Or put up an economist who will LOSE HIS JOB if he’s wrong as a proponent of free trade.”
Excellent post. I couldn’t agree more.
I have an Emerson fan
http://www.hudsonscustommachining.com/Emerson.19044.a.jpg
That is over 50 years old....humming away nearly silently two feet from me right now as I type this. It’s 3 speed... about a foot tall and weighs about 10 pounds
Show me one Electro / mech POS made in China that can be used for 50+ years.
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