Posted on 11/25/2002 8:15:37 AM PST by SAMWolf
I hope they don't kick me out of the Republican Party for this.
But free trade is a bad idea.
For years it hasn't set right with me, and I've tried to figure out why. And now I know. It's because it violates a simple principle of life.
And that is self-reliance.
International free trade, while certainly necessary and useful to an extent, can easily be overemphasized to such a degree that it jeopardizes a country's economic self-interest and national security.
The United States is a good example.
But first, let's look at Mexico.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, all Mexican protections against American or Canadian agricultural imports are about to disappear. That means cheaper Canadian and American farm products are going to flood Mexico.
And Mexican farms are going to close down. The impact on Mexican agriculture is going to be immense.
Which means Mexico is going to be less capable of supplying its own needs. And it means a ton of farm workers are going to be out of work and headed north. And that's not good for anybody.
Just like it's no good that the United States has a dramatic trade deficit, that it buys far more from overseas than it sells. And that there are entire sections of the American economy which are dependent on foreign goods. For whole product lines, there simply are no American manufacturers anymore. From electronic goods to clothing to steel, we don't make things anymore.
And American corporations are closing domestic factories to shift manufacturing overseas.
All of which fits perfectly into the world of free trade.
And all of which screws us royally.
Because independence is good and interdependence is bad. Because interdependence is the same as reliance and that is the opposite of self-reliance.
And history teaches that -- without exception -- prosperity and security require national self-reliance. Americans should eat American agricultural products and use American manufactured products and channel their income back into the economy that produced it -- the American economy. When a nation becomes reliant on foreign products -- as the United States clearly is -- its comfort and peace are held hostage by the producers of those foreign products.
If a nation cannot produce what it needs -- as the United States now cannot -- it is in a precarious position that weakens and enslaves it.
We will be weakened as we exchange our prosperity -- hard currency -- for foreign products, and we will be enslaved as our national policy inevitably must be tailored to preserve our access to foreign goods. These are truths which have been understood and implemented around the world for centuries. To abandon them now is to abandon national self-interest and to doom the United States to premature but certain decline.
And it is to bring the same fate to many nations of the world.
In developing countries, lingering poverty and delayed development are tied directly to a failure to be nationally self-reliant. When nations feed themselves, they do not starve. When they manufacture their own goods, they don't go without.
When they understand that their consumer dollars must be recycled into their own economies, they do not long linger in recession or unemployment.
Free trade serves a very few at the top of international corporations, but it does not serve the average American. Rather, it takes away his job and his nation's strength.
Certainly, the flow of goods and produce around the globe is needful and beneficial, but so is protection, and buttering your own bread first. The sense of national economic identity must not be lost, and neither should the commitment to protecting American prosperity -- even at the cost of limiting free trade.
Our first obligation is to feed, house, clothe and prosper American families. Every thing else comes second. That must be our attitude. Just as Mexico and every other nation must have the same attitude about its people and its economy.
Independence is good, interdependence is bad.
Self-reliance is the key to prosperity -- for individuals and nations.
AMEN!
All of which fits perfectly into the world of free trade.
And all of which screws us royally.
It would be nice if this simpleton would, at least, attempt to learn economics before spouting such nonsense. Why should we pay Americans, who demand higher wages more for a product that we can get far cheaper elsewhere? That opens our resources to actually doing work that IS worth what Americans demand for a salary. You approach communism when you say, "PAY more, so that I can make more than I deserve"
It serves my @$$ just fine when I pay $40 for my shoes instead of $200.
Reminds me of that joke where the consultant says "I have the solution to your problem: Do more work in less time. Take less time and do the same amount of work."
That said, minmizing trade deficit is a good thing, but it should be done by producing and exporting things that others want, not by turning back the clock.
The United States has had a "service economy" even when it was at the height of its agricultural or industrial strength. The major difference back then was that most of the "services" were not included in the nation's GDP because they were "off the books," so to speak. For example, nobody used a laundry service or a dry cleaner because everyone simply washed their clothes at home (by hand).
If there were some way to go back and put a dollar value on the "unpaid" work that family members did in prior generations, you'd find that this nation's status as an industrial power was very overrated.
I think you just quoted the "Union motto"
Cultural conservatives seem to think freedom itself is a bad idea.
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Simpleton? Like many others you want stuff cheap and don't want to pay anything, then wonder why the people her you have replaced with slave labor can'r afford you products or services.
Huh?
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