Posted on 03/26/2016 7:39:18 AM PDT by central_va
The globalists who hijacked both the GOP and Democratic Party subscribe to this “free trade” ideology, and now are worried by grassroots conservative opposition to this destructive doctrine. A Pew Research Center poll for November 4-7, 2010 reported that 63% of professed Tea Party supporters thought that free trade agreements were “bad for U.S.” The Mellman Group and the Alliance for American Manufacturing reported that their poll indicated that 74 percent of self-described Tea Party supporters would support a “national manufacturing strategy to make sure that economic, tax, labor, and trade policies in this country work together to help support manufacturing in the United States.” This poll also revealed that 92% of Tea Party supporters wanted to protect US manufacturing, while 56% supported tariffs on goods from countries with low environmental standards.
(Excerpt) Read more at economyincrisis.org ...
In general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.
Hence, short-sighted free trade is the highway to socialism and the ultimate destruction of the free enterprise system.
We keep doing these deals, and our jobs keep going overseas. Long past time to wake up.
Freedom means freedom to trade.
Freedom to be stolen from?
Note that what exists now is NOT “free trade”, despite all its proponents’ claims.
In fact it’s rather unfair trade, considering many countries (Asia, e.g.) have artificial barriers that restrict our Western goods there, plus low wages and no enviro rules, while we play by all the trade rules and let their goods in. In other words, we’re being played as suckers.
Dig a little deeper before you criticize. There’s a reason trade deficits with China, Mexico et al are so one-sided.
Back in the 1970's, Japan was dumping steel into US markets "at less than cost". So, Congress, with its usual wisdom, levied import quotas and taxes on Japanese steel. So, who won? You and I and millions of other consumers ended up paying substantially higher prices for anything that had steel in it. True, about 5,000 steel workers had their jobs protected, but at the cost of US consumers numbering in the millions. The other winners: An inefficient steel industry that continued to use 1880's technology facing a totally new steel industry in Japan because we destroyed their old plants during WWII. And the biggest winner: The US gov't by collecting tariffs. Tariffs are nothing more than a tax on consumers. If Japan was truly dumping at less than cost, we should have bought all the steel we could from then and, eventually, bankrupt them. Actually, the fact is that Japan was selling steel at less than US steel producers cost...big difference in the story.
The long and the short of free trade: it usually ends up totally butchered by domestic economic policy and has never seen an environment where it could actually be tested.
They are correct. If it's got to have an agreement, it's not free trade. It's some kind of politically compromised nonsense with hidden paybacks and payoffs. Free trade, as a poster above points out, is people buying and selling as they please.
Freer trade leads to more prosperity than tariff wars. But it's hard to keep trade free. Industries want to be able to buy cheaply for themselves from anywhere in the world at the same time as putting tariffs on their own foreign competitors' stuff. As a system, that's physically impossible--unless yours is the only industry in the country.
What a black & white chickenshit post.
Yes, “Free Trade” deals done by the feckless Republicans and evil Democrats should be avoided. Trump won’t allow such deals.
I don’t care about trade deficits. It is still in the interests of the US to have a deal that permits us to buy from another country but we CAN’T sell to them. Completely one-sided...and I don’t care. Just like Milton Friedman wouldn’t care.
I’ll take Milton Friedman trade policies over Kim Jung-un policies any day.
Stolen from who? Is anybody stealing from you? It is only stealing from you if you think you own what other people own (i.e. communist ideology).
I do. That money is going to come back and scoop up real estate and price my descendants out of the housing market and make the USA a land of renters. Like Europe. It's already started.
The old conundrum. One man's terror is another man's freedom. Then there is the concept of fair trade.
But you said the same thing in 1982 in reference to Japan. Have a long vision...China will implode. They have bad demographics. They will be a borrower.
But at least you gave a civil response. Usually when you and I discuss things it descends into mutual name-calling.
“Fair trade” = Obama saying “common sense regulations”. Fair and common sense are euphamisms for loss of freedom.
Freedom would be no income taxes and a fully employed society making and producing things for their fellow Americans.
Tariffs funded FedGov™ for over 130 years. There was no evil income tax. It kept FedGov™ small. Why anyone calling themselves "conservative" wouldn't want to work towards those goals is beyond me. The only thing that I can think of is that such a person is a traitor to his country.
An oversight.
Actually “freedom” means the right to rule ourselves, the rejection of monarchy.
What you advocate is mere anarchy.
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