Posted on 01/24/2014 6:36:50 AM PST by 1rudeboy
I would argue that 10% of anything cannot have a huge affect. It is like the Smoot Hawley lie. Smoot Hawley is the poster child of Free Trade. Well it didn't have much of an impact at all Why? because trade was only 5% of GDP, so it mathematically could not have a huge impact. We made our own stuff back in the 1930's the country hadn't bought into the gloBULLism that today's America has fallen for.
You're talking of course about the lowering of the trade tariffs in the 1960's. That was the government intervention that caused this.
Raising the import tariffs by 10% would fund a $1500 per worker individual income tax cut. Of course you could use the funds to cut corporate taxes if you prefer. That would be a lot more money in American citizens hands to spend in the local economy.
Thanks to the lowered tariff, we now tax domestic producers much higher than we tax foreign producers. Talk about your "hostile environments".
You're talking of course about the lowering of the trade tariffs in the 1960's. That was the government intervention that caused this.
Raising the import tariffs by 10% would fund a $1500 per worker individual income tax cut. Of course you could use the funds to cut corporate taxes if you prefer. That would be a lot more money in American citizens hands to spend in the local economy.
Thanks to the lowered tariff, we now tax domestic producers much higher than we tax foreign producers. Talk about your "hostile environments".
Export Dollars + import poverty = Free Trade
i notice you didn't want to dwell on post 72 and instead are now trying to deflect.
OK then better question: How many Gub'ment bailout tax payer dollars went to each of auto union workers in the GM and Chrysler?
And Remember that money was used to save union jobs!
Re: http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2014/01/24/the-us-chamber-of-commerce-versus-america/?subscriber=1
Thanks.. Good link !
you would argue that but then when you consider the multi-billion dollar taxpayer funded bailout of the auto industry to and I quote "save union jobs" you would look silly doing so.
If 'free trade' existed then our factories and know-how would have been exported to Germany, Japan and China and we would have lost WW II. Thanks to protectionism we won WW II.
Real Free Trade has been practiced successfully for centuries on a bilateral or multilateral basis. It is trade between equal or nearly partners. Canada trading wood pulp to the United States for paper goods. Chile sending grapes to the United States in January and the United States sending grapes to Chile in July. Japan sending us automobiles and we sending them wheat.
The old British Commonwealth of Nations, Benelux, the European Community, and others were all highly successful examples of mutually beneficial free trade.
Like every other institution, the left and the crony capitalist GOP perverted it into Kool-Aid drinking free trade.
Mexico, which lacks basic sanitary standards, has no business being an equal trading partner with the United States, which requires them. China, where pollution and worker abuse are a way of doing business, has no business being treated as an equal trading partner like Japan, which has similar or even more stringent standards that the United States in these matters. Greece, where fiscal irresponsibility is the norm, has no business being treated the same as highly efficient Germany. I could go on, but you get the idea.
Free trade associations are only successful when practiced between member states with similar standards and values. Allowing an outsider into the group before they meet such standards is not going to make them magically adopt them, but it will make the collective weaker by adding more free riders.
hahah of course I notice you gloss over the huge uptick in GPA after such happened and the fact that Government descended on manufacturing with more and more EPA and health and safety regs and more and more compliance red tape and the unions demanded more and more beneifts like huge retirement packages and Health insurance and the Big Three car manufacturers pooh poohed the idea that they were in the car making business but instead in the "money making" business.
You are akin to the geniuses during the polio scare who claimed polio was caused by Ice Cream because the cases reported increased significantly during the summer months when more Ice Cream was sold.
Oh and BTW that very sentiment you posted is straight out of the Union propaganda playbook!
I buy Ford.
And Unionista central va: "Labor is just one component in manufacturing, one of the smallest too."
OK so which one of you is wrong?
Perhaps it is time for a profit and loss statement of its costs and benefits. Undeniably, free trade has been a bonanza for the top 1 percent and many among our top 10 percent.
These are America’s winners from free trade. The losers? Middle Americans. The average U.S. family has not seen a rise in real wages in 40 years.
We are both right. Nothing could be done tax wise or regulation wise to compete with $.25/hr labor rates. My argument is that labor is such a small component of manufacturing cost using first world labor would increase cost but only a few cents on the dollar.. All of which would and could be offset by eliminating income taxes and reduced social spending. It would also a matter of national defense because I consider the industrial base the key to maintaining our freedom.
And you think this is because of Free Trade?
No, not your imagination at all. The implication that you would only post an article with which you agree is somewhat disturbing.
I wish you would tell that to those of us who are find of quoting Marx.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.