Posted on 12/09/2016 12:59:45 AM PST by expat_panama
Depends on your point of view. For Carrier workers it’s a job killer. For those who are working because they are manufacturing goods that go to Mexico and Canada it’s a job creator. The question is what is the net effect?
When the country as a whole experiences a trade deficit year after year, and in the process also loses jobs and factories, then it can reasonably be concluded that the trade deal they are involved is not good for the country as a whole.
With a few well chosen word you demolish all of their castles in the air.
It was not a win for the consumer. It was an opportunity to consume the fabric of our ecomomy. A short term windfall that caused damage by weakening the economy resulting in much more pain down the road than the $ saved buying cheaper goods. An analogy would be a draw down mortgage painlessly consuming the equity in your home, and leaving you in a vulnerable position at the conclusion. In the case of mortgages, a draw down mortgage can be an estate plan, in countries not so much, since we are trustees for the generations that follow.
The consumer doesn’t look down the road and sacrifice immediate savings to protect our factory and skilled labor base but the Government needs to or risk presiding over a hollowed out & weak Nation.
Great article, thanks for linking.
“The consumer doesn’t look down the road and sacrifice immediate savings to protect our factory and skilled labor base but the Government needs to or risk presiding over a hollowed out & weak Nation.”
I understand and appreciate your argument. Each person views the transaction from a purely selfish standpoint; how does this effect me? So, the consumer, who would probably never buy a $500 leather coat buys one for half that and feels and dresses much richer. That individual consumer sees it as a win.
Government is not an entity. It is lots of selfish politicians who would sell their mother’s soul to stay in power. Giving the marginal consumer of leather goods a win may get that person’s vote. The politician is only concerned about that and not about the abstract future of “the country. If politicians were concerned about the future we wouldn’t have pension funds billions of dollars in the hole. We wouldn’t have bridges to nowhere or incredible marble federal buildings in tiny towns were they have little or no value except to feather contractor’s nests.
Occasionally, politicians get it right. Florida, for example, has no pension problems because the fund must be balanced every year. It is one of the few states with no giant looming pension disaster. When I read over the stats I was astonished that they got it right. That “rightness” should be the norm, but it isn’t.
Our problem as a nation is we have a political class of public officials who generally have known no other job. They spend an entire career isolated from reality and with the only goal of returning to office every two or four years. The Founders never intended for this to happen. They thought each official would serve a term or two and then go back to his business or plantation.
We as a nation can not give up trade and maintain our national status as the preeminent country on the planet. We can only hope that the people who negotiate our trade deals will be fair and as just as possible to all parties involved. But in the majority of cases, trade should benefit America and Americans. Tradeoffs will be necessary. For example, GWB rewarded Italy’s support in the Gulf War with a contract to an Italian firm to reequip the entire US military with their side arms. There has to be some wheeling and dealing and we have to elect people we trust to do that in America’s overall interests.
Sorry, I was speaking of treaties
That's why its so important that we are directing a power wash through the stables with the mandate & the cabinet that Trump is assembling. And why electing a consummate deal maker as President leaves me smiling every time I think of him.
Trump is pushing for Congressional term limits and a strong anti-lobbying policy as well...I'm not tired of winning yet!
"Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday called for tighter restrictions on Washington’s revolving door, proposing a five-year ban on members of Congress and executive branch officials who want to become lobbyists after leaving government.
Trump also proposed a lifetime ban on senior executive branch officials from lobbying for foreign governments and called on Congress to restructure campaign finance laws to prevent lobbyists who work for foreign governments from raising money for U.S. elections." Link
>> If we are to manage trade according to the results of the last election, we should ask ourselves who should manage it <<
I believe you’re definitely on the right track.
Still, whoever might appoint the members of “GOSPLAN” — that is, the body of folks who will “manage” trade and investment — I say it’s unlikely over the long run to make big differences in the ultimate outcome.
My point is that whether the appointment powers over the planning body might rest in Il Duce, the POTUS or the Supreme Soviet, a planned economy ultimately can’t deliver the goods as well as can an economy that runs on the principles of free markets.
Hayek demonstrated this truth convincingly in 1944, with his “Road to Serfdom” — a book that drew its lessons mainly from the experiences of Germany’s National Socialism and Italy’s Fascism, even though the lessons apply equally to Soviet central planning and to New Deal-type American “Progressivism.” It’s clear that none of these “isms” or ideologies has a track record to beat free-market capitalism.
Moreover, logic and experience should warn us that Hayek’s critique of the planned-and-managed economy is likely to apply more or less in the same fashion to a system of Trumpistic crony capitalism if the latter really gains a serious foothold.
Last but not least, the fact that a former conservative eminence like Mike Pence would openly show contempt for the free market, while flirting rhetorically with crony capitalism, is a disappointing — nay, a sickening — commentary on the intellectual state of American leadership in today’s turbulent world.
Free Traitors™ want us to turn a blind eye to reality. The de industrialization over the last 30 years of the USA is a disaster. Lost jobs and lost technical know how all to fatten corporate bottom lines and stockholder dividends. The consumer saw very little benefit, lower quality goods and huge deficits and tax bills.
Tariff Act of 1789:
"Whereas it is necessary for that support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares and merchandise:"
The only way a country runs an $800B+ / yr trade deficit and keeps tariffs at < 1.3% is via a corrupt government. So what we have NOW is crony capitalism a Uniparty™ that has been bought off by the globalists. So what Trump is doing is destroying that strangle hold. Long time coming.
There probably have been a number of peace treaties that were forced upon the loser of a conflict, but then again it could be argued that a bad peace treaty was preferable to the conflict it ended.
It’s hard to imagine any trade treaty in history that was entered into under duress, tho there may have been some. Since most U.S. trade treaty negotiations were initiated by the U.S. in the first place, it’s hard to see how we could consider that the U.S. was forced to comply with something it didn’t want.
Earth is not a single country.
The premise of those pushing for “free trade” of all goods across all borders is that the Earth should be treated as a single country.
And we have seen over and over again the logic of global free trade is to remove sovereignty and self-government from individual countries and place it at a global level or supranational level.
This is what happened with the European Union. The evolving structures designed to serve free trade eroded the ability of people within their own countries to govern themselves. The British people finally rebelled and demanded the right to govern themselves, and thus Brexit. We may see other countries follow suit.
Purty words. Would you like to explain what it means in the real world, in English?
Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,200 consumer technology companies...
Their entire business model is built upon trade, design jobs for Americans (a few) and manufacturing jobs for China (a lot.) Because, you see, we don't want those dirty jobs...they pollute, energy consuming, etc...
I think you will find it fairly well explained in the rest of the reply if you read it, just Overlook the”sickening sophistry.”
Huh. Really? No kidding --when the hell did this happen? Dang, I wish to hell I wasn't always the last to hear about this sort of thing.
Inserted into a post filled with sweeping generalizations and vague assumptions. I don't want to guess what you meant, if you can't say what you meant.
Now that you know, spread the word to other ‘free traders’.
When manufacturers move their factories from the USA to countries that allow them to make their goods with pollution that would be illegal here, and then freely import their goods back into the USA under “free trade agreements” as if we were all one big country, that undermines our own people.
The same when manufacturers produce goods in countries under labor conditions that would be illegal here, and then freely import their goods into the USA under “free trade agreements” to compete with goods made here that have to meet our higher labor standards.
When the American government no longer acts as the agent of the American people in negotiating our international arrangements, but rather as the agent of global business interests against the American people, then the government has failed to uphold the compact between the government and the people that is the basis for self-government.
When you import product from the 3rd world you are importing their standard of living and draining our wealth.
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