Posted on 07/09/2002 5:09:45 PM PDT by snopercod
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:46:45 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
When they aren't being turned into makeshift pig roasters or Caribbean musical instruments, steel drums play equally important roles in the industrial part of the U.S. economy. Every kind of fluid, from lubricants to yucky food additives, gets shipped in them.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I thought that this sort of thing couldn't happen since Bush signed the Campaign Finance Reform bill.
And this latest attempt to cast more derision on the domestic steel makers by citing the hard times that a domestic steel drum maker is having ; is hypocritical at best, pathetic at worst.
The WSJ more than likely has no love for the USW and is still harboring a view of the steel industry that dates back to the Disco Seventies.
Hey WSJ......Where were you free traders when the Asian Tigers delivered double digit investment returns thanks to their various flavors of protectionist, crony, undemocratic and eventually unworkable econonmies.
Quit crying !!
Hey, I can relate to that. I'm livin' it.
Where's Willie?
Protectionism worked great but they carried it to far. PLUS there because too many Asian copycats. China and Indonesia can produce much cheaper than Japan and Korea as long as the factory can be situated there. The tech markets are flooded. LCD monitors and computer memory (DRAM) being good examples. Too many producers (due to spread of technologies) and not enough buyers.
Free trade works.
Our trade deficit is huge and is coming back to bite us ........ RIGHT NOW!
These deficits are one reason the US dollar is sinking.
Open trade is something that should be encouraged and pursued without any encumbrances. But one sided "free trade" that results in severe economic calamity to individuals and communities is counter productive and could only come from the minds of three types of people.
1). Global megalomanic greed monger corporate chieftain or wannabes(i.e. those ass-kissing corporate ladder climbers )
2). Globe trotting financiers whose specialties include but aren't limited to: a). ruining local customs and communities b). fostering dependance on Gov't and NGOs c). planting the seeds of discontent
3). Pointed headed and cloistered( i.e. tenured ) acedemics whose jobs aren't threatened yet!
Consider this! The " free trade " of today is like reverse discrimination. It dosen't matter what laws we break or ignore as long as the outcome is achieved. Are those environments in foreign nations not as valuable as ours? Are those children different from our own? Is injustice not injustice as long as we have cheap steel?
Nope. It works best that way but it works even if carried out unilaterally. Tariffs are just a specific kind of tax. Has anybody anywhere taxed themselves into prosperity? Two wrongs don't make a right. The answer to unfair trade is to use some other means of persuasion.
I hereby proclaim myself as an Objectivist! Where you got the idea that I'm a "progressive" A word which liberals have pronounced upon themselves when their beliefs lead to anything but actual progress is beyond me.
But the tyranny here is Big Business shifting production knowledge and capacity to low wage and human rights backward countries. We both know that we are not comparing apples to apples when talk about trade between an "emerging economy" and the USA.
Why are there wages lower? Because the average man here , produces more than the average man there. A result of our human and machine capital having built up over the centuries in an atmosphere of FREEDOM, something which Tariffs poison. The only human right which we really have is to own our own body and the things we make with it, say with it or think with it, something which Tariffs hurt since somebody somewhere is now taking something they have not earned from somebody else.
Open trade is something that should be encouraged and pursued without any encumbrances. But one sided "free trade" that results in severe economic calamity to individuals and communities is counter productive and could only come from the minds of three types of people.
Even one sided free trade is better than no sided free trade. It's like gouging your eyes out because the other fellow has gouged out his. If you can get something cheaper than you can make it yourself then buy it, it will leave you with more to spend on other things! Free trade simply does not lead to the things you claim but to its opposite.
1). Global megalomaniac greed monger corporate chieftain or wannabes(i.e. those ass-kissing
corporate ladder climbers )
I find it amusing how much hate there is for corporations when they provide us with most of the good things in life, while we find so much trust in governments when governments lie so often and have brought such evil things into the world .
2). Globe trotting financiers whose specialties include but aren'tlimited to: a). ruining local customs and communities b). fostering dependence on Gov't and NGOs c). planting the seeds of discontent.
Amazing how some people hold "local customs" as more important than the people who have to live by them. If folks want to change because they want a better way of life, than let them change! As for "fostering dependence on Government" don't you do that on an industry when you grant it the tariffs?(And sow discontent when you finally have to yank them away from the nipple?)
3). Pointed headed and cloistered( i.e. tenured ) academics whose jobs aren't threatened yet!
Economists, who spend their lives studying this kind of stuff are in near universal agreement that free trade works. Its almost self evident, if you consider the opposite, slave trade and try and argue how good that is.
Consider this! The " free trade " of today is like reverse discrimination. It doesn't matter what laws we break or ignore as long as the outcome is achieved. Are those environments in foreign nations not as valuable as ours?
Nope. Because we have the prosperity to spend lots of time and money to protect the environment. They don't. If they had the same freedoms we had for the first century or so they'd become rich enough to live with those laws too. So get out of their way and let them.
Are those children different from our own? Is injustice not injusticeas long as we
have cheap steel?
Injustice is stopping people from keeping the fruits of their labors.Injustice is condemning them to a life of poverty because some well meaning pointy headed government official insists on micro managing how to spend the money they earn. Injustice consists of standing in the way of free trade between individuals, whether they live next store or on the other side of the planet!
Why is it that we don't worry about Texas having more trade with California than California has with Texas? Because that trade is FREE. And the books will always balance in the end. They don't just take our money and burn it in a kiln somewhere. Maybe if we started calling it an IMPORT SURPLUS folks would be less intimidated by this boogyman
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