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.
Good, then I won't have to shoot you. :^)
In any case, the YOU I was talking about didn't refer to you personally, just to people who think like you.
I am a monarchist, not a theocrat.
I'm guessing this is a trick answer with God as the King. Let me know if you mean that you think monarchies headed by human kings is what you prefer.
And history shows us what happens when a culture forgets or opposes God: eventually, revolution. The Irish Famine; the guillotine; regicide; cathedrals sacked by mobs chanting "Freedom!", overturning the altars of God and replacing them with idols of Reason deified; the Soviet dictatorship; Hitler's pagan blood-and-soil cult; the God-Is-Dead '60s; Roe v. Wade; millions of dead babies every year; lust, greed, vulgarity, and decadence everywhere one turns; those are the fruits of the separation of church and state. The theocracies of Cromwell and Khomeni were nightmarish, but their crimes pale in comparison with the horrors dealt out by the thoroughly secular governments of our modern "peoples' republics".
I am taking about free countries, not all the secular countries which have ever existed. They weren't free, only secular. Most of the people you describe as chanting for freedom didn't want freedom, they wanted power. And if you think the rule under the taliban is merely nightmarish and better than others, you are misguided in my opinion.
You prefer a society where power is held by those with a secular, mercantilist worldview;
Nonsense, where you got that idea is anyones guess. I prefer a society that which is God fearing by choice, and where the rightful role of government is to defend rights, nothing more.
Either way, someone's values are going to be enforced at gunpoint - mine, yours, or somebody else's.
No, only my rights will be defended at the point of a gun. Not my values enforced. Under my system, you are free to come or go, worship as you please, and otherwise live your life as you see fit as long as you don't try to violate my rights or force your values on me. Then you get the force that is legimate, that of self defense.
to obey the law and respect the government of our homelands no matter how wicked those governments might be.
That would put you in the catagory of respecting Hitler or Tojo if you lived there. An evil concept if ever there was one. Not to mention a gross distortion of what the bible says.
It is only when Caesar presumes to demand of us that which we rightly offer only to God -- our worship, our obedience to the natural law, and our love -- that we as Christians may rightly refuse to obey.
Which again allows the murder of Jews and others as long as we aren't asked to love and worship the perpetrators. I find that preposterous, and you may have the last post since we will never agree on any of this.
Now I didn't label it as free trade. Keep that in mind. I have never called it free trade.I have been saying all day it is not free trade.
[ Jobs are not 'sent' overseas. They go there in response to marketplace demands, that is a tenet of free trade.]
But since what we have is not free trade, I pose the jobs were sent overseas.The greatest demand that our jobs go overseas was demands made on our politicians by businesses and foreign governments. They used our tax dollars to get it done. It would not have happened as it did and as quickly as it did without the government building the factories, greasing the palms,e tc. To me that is 'sending'. WE could say 'someone paved the way', 'they were encouraged' any way you would like to put it. But the government made it possible. That is not the demands of free trade.
[ 'Taxing workers to oblivion' or creating government subsidies is government interference in the market, and on the opposite end of the spectrum from free trade. Arguments against it are arguments FOR free trade.]
Now that would sound about right. I haven't ever disagreed with free trade. I have disagreed with what we have and I disagree that it is a good thing and that it is free trade. I just know what everyone is calling free trade - what we now have - is definitely not free trade.
Now I didn't label it as free trade. Keep that in mind. I have never called it free trade. In fact, that has been my premise all day. WE are not discussing free trade. What we are discussing is something else altogether.
Now we have 'cussed and discussed' all day. It seems some admit that government interference is not free trade. Since we have government interference in a very big way - what we have is not free trade. Now we have had some attempt to pose that what we have is free trade and it is wonderful - AND If you have been hurt by this government version of free trade it is because you are just an uneducated , lazy, or somehow 'undeserving' clod---- I reject all of that.
All of this just helps you to avoid the questions I asked. Shall I repeat them? Or can you please refer back to the last post? They are simple questions.
But since the entire debate has been clouded with mentioned of free trade which has no place in this discussion.
In case you hadn't noticed, this thread is about free trade. It is the title of the thread in fact.
I am for getting the government out of my pocket. I don't like them using my tax dollars to build factories overseas, pay off foreign politicians so those factories can be built. I am for the government ceasing to make me subsidize the workers for the companies left here in America. The government just needs to get out of business altogether.
This bears repeating. We agree totally on these things. You understand of course that if the government got totally out of business altogether, it would be,,,,ta da,,,,FREE TRADE!
Now when that is done and we have some semblence of sanity back in this country - we can talk about the theory of free trade.
So until or unless that happens, you advocate ,,,what? No trade? Some trade? A little trade? A lot of trade? A trade policy? No policy at all? Just some questions.
Free trade as it is applicable to this thread means trade with less restrictions than before. Do you favor any restrictions? Or more restrictions?
We ALL are.
Here is the secret. That neighbor will provide a service or income their neighbor needs as well. With people providing services and products, you have capital produced.
Now you see you mention guns or thugs - I have mentioned neither. I am advocating no guns thugs, stealing from taxpayers. Where in the world did you get that?
What we have is not good for America or Americans. Now that has been my premise. I have not argued for or against free trade - just what we have which is definitely not free trade.
But let me say this. If you want to build a widget and go market it in outer Mongolia - go for it. If you want to build a widget factory in outer Mongolia - go for it. No government interference. Is that free trade? Yeh, I like that.
If you build that factory, sans tax dollars - completely- no loans, no special deductions, no help or special treatment by the government. You take you own money, or money raised without government aid in any way and you go on your own and build that widget factory. Go for it. Then you do your own marketing anywhere in the world - no trade missions by the commerce department, no diplomatic help - no taxpayer dollars disguised as foreign aid to open the doors, and no tariffs on your products into the US. Is that free trade? Then I like it.
Now if you get put in prison in outer Mongolia - and you don't expect or call on the government to use my tax dollars to come get you or If outer MOngolia decides to nationalize your factories and take all you have, imprison you, or whatever,and you don't expect or call on the government or taxpayers to come get you, protect your factories or revenge you. Yeh, I like that.
Now that is my version of free trade - what's yours?
You are describing what we once had - but no more.
Now even those who are still doing fine in this economy have to just have to recognize the harm that has been done to this country and to the workers of this country.
Well, you don't have to - but if you are honest, y ou will.
"Oh, but that means that our local neighbors can go elsewhere for products and services, like my friend did with software programmers. " Yes, it does, but the part you ignore is that that opens up your client base to the entire world as well. What if you make the best damn crochet there is? Used to, you only had a limited market to sell to. Then, as transportation and technology increased, that market broadened. Today, your market is the entire WORLD. So if, you are truly the best damn crochet maker there is, you can get pretty damn rich.
But you see - we aren't.
Now our little town of 3,000 lost a sewing factory to Mexico. Just 100 jobs - no big deal, right? But that little sewing factory allowed people to remain in this small town - where the worst thing the city council discussed last week kids wrapping a teacher's house with toilet paper. This is the place y ou raise children in a safe environment. Yes, those people got 2 years unemployment - it is probably just about running out. And I said, to this lady - 'But they will train you for whatever you want.' 'Yes, but train me to do what in this town.' Healthcare is the only field for employment here, and that is because of the elderly, and it can't absorb that many jobs.
Yes, you have to make choices - all these families can move into the big cities. They children can learn all the ways of the big cities. Keep in mind these average people won't be doing dot.com work (even if there was any dot.com work left) and won't be living in gated communities. Now tell me these are benefitting from this?
This did not happen as a natural occurance of the changing business patterns. That's one thing and we all have to adjust when that happens. This came about because our government decided it would get involved in free enterprise and make business work in an unatural way.
So, you are telling me you would be happier if it just moved across country and remained in the US? Why?
That wasn't my statement.
But I will answer to the crochet analogy and I understand you don't mean crochet exactly. But you see, in crochet (in fact) and in many, many other things there are millions of people out there than can do it as well or better. That goes for anything. You may be king of the hill in you field right now - but somewhere out there is a person can do it as well or better.
You see all that is well and good, if there is no government involved. When there is government involved - it doesn't matter how well you do something or how many you have - the law of supply and demand doesn't apply. Neither does the law of the best product makes the best money.
It would have been better in that some American would have had a job. But you know and I know you know the reason it moved was because of cheap labor. It can't get that in American - not yet, at least. Just give it more time and we may all be happy to work for $2 a day.
Now taxes certainly had a lot to do with it. You see the government squeezed businesses on one end to make them unhappy and with our tax dollars put the carrot of foreign factories out there.
No I would have preferred the government had stayed out altogether.
But again you question really had no relevancy.
Part of the reasons my responses are getting longer is because you seem to not pick things up the first or second time through. The title of the thread is: FREE TRADE IS A BAD IDEA, hence the discussion of the benefits of free trade. You act as if, since we don't have absolute freedom anywhere in the world it is impossible to discuss the merits of freedom vs. state control. You have repeatedly attributed to free trade aspects of state interference in an attempt to disparage it. I've merely tried to keep up with your fallacies.
In the candle and buggy whip analogy - the jobs did not just go away.
Yes they did. Those jobs vanished. Those displaced workers found something else to do that their neighbors wanted done.
The light bulb and auto manufactures didn't open their factories in Mexico - they did it right here in the gold old US of A, thereby creating jobs.
What hasn't sunk in for you yet is that for each person who finds their jobs no longer needed hundreds, even thousands of consumers save money. This combination of increased real wealth for the consumer, in addition to any real profit gains realized by the business owners, are the foundation of new jobs. The saved money doesn't vanish, it is the capital that funds new and increased production of goods - new jobs.
Food, shelter and clothing is very expensive in America - it has not become cheaper, well cheaper, but not more econimical.
It appears you also know a lot that just isn't true.
"In the United States, a similar acknowledgement was organized by the American Farm Bureau Federation, which marked "food check-out day" on Feb. 8. Americans spend 10.6 percent of their income on food, with farmers earning about 20 cents of every dollar spent on food. The farm bureau stressed that the percentage of income people spend on food has gone down during the last 30 years, and 'the decrease ... is especially notable since trends indicate Americans are buying more expensive convenience food items for preparation at home, as well as more food away from home..'" In 1960 17.5% of income went to pay for food compared to 10% in 2001
Now onto the part about clothes costing more, in 1950 Americans devoted 12% of their income to clothes, but 1997 that had fallen in half to 6%.
Shelter is a little trickier, in that Americans have tended to spend the same portion of their income, but for larger and larger houses with more and more amenities. What kind of value do you place on the increased advent of wiring and plumbing, as well as square footage? Apparently Americans value it more than the money they could save by buying a house that satisfied their grandparents and pocketing the difference (if government code restrictions would allow it...)
The increase in disposable income that accompanied reductions in food and clothing costs allow for the fulfillment of new demands, requiring new jobs.
It will not be as easy to just sell apples to pay the bills as they did in the depression or the miscellaneous jobs my grandfather did to feed three families through the depression. We can't all plant a little garden to help feed us or barter with our neighbors who have a cow. You see the government didn't take 50% of what he made.
Only because the price of apples and menial labor has plummetted. This is a benefit to everyone who wants an apple, or has a yard in need of raking.
You could plant a garden, but since the cost of food is so low your time is better spent earning money to buy food. FDR's NEP approach to the economy managed to put 25% of Americans out of work, not including those who weren't 'employed' planting trees in the woods and other various government make work projects. Afterall, he had to do something with the money he seized. Before he was finally put in his grave he managed to get the tax rate on incomes under $2,000 to 23% and those over $200,000 all the way up to 94%.
Instead of allowing the speculative misallocation of capital from the credit boom of the '20's to wash itself out and allowing the marketplace to align with demands FDR followed Hoovers footsteps of massive taxes on imported goods, excoriation of companies cutting staff to maintain profits (which is the only way a company can stay in business to provide any jobs), and confiscation of wealth from the marketplace to put it under government direction. Let's hope, as we pass into another recession borne of excessive federal reserve credit expansion, that our tax cutting president isn't replaced by a tax/tariff raising president bent of implementing 'plans' for the economy...
Yes a TV in l955 was expensive. That's not a really good example as they were just coming out and in five years they were reasonable.
Why do you just make stuff up? It really looks bad. 10 years later less than 3% of American households had color TVs. Compare that to the accelerating adoption rates of VCRs, CD players, and now DVD players.
To really appreciate the growth of wealth in the world you need to realize how much more could be produced when workers the world over have access the level of capital equipment that Americans enjoy. Today nearly 80% of Chinese are employed in agriculture. I don't know about you, but I don't need anymore rice. As their investments in farm equipment grow their people will be able to make even more things we want, and as they make things we want they can finally begin to afford trading more with us. Until they escape their agrarian tilt we'll always have a deficit with their country in terms of finished goods. Stifling their climb out not only hurts them, it hurts consumers here, retarding the increase in standards of living for everyone.
WE need to face reality and to stop pretending that what we are experiencing is free trade and it will all work out and everyone in the world will suddenly have middle class lifestyles. That's a fairy tale.
Indeed, trade is not nearly free enough. Only by reducing the government interference, and moving in the direction of free trade, can we save the golden goose of human civilization: profits.
[The title of the thread is: FREE TRADE IS A BAD IDEA, hence the discussion of the benefits of free trade.]
You are right there. But when everyone begins to tell me how what we are doing is great and it is free trade - then I had to disagree. Yes, the post was free trade - but the entire discussion had little to do with free trade in principle - it became "What we are doing is wonderful free trade." Just not true. Nothing we see today has anything to do with free trade. But I assumed the poster was also using the government's and some posters' misuse of the term free trade to describe what we now have. In that, technically you are right.
[Yes they did. Those jobs vanished. Those displaced workers found something else to do that their neighbors wanted done.]
No, it does not fit today's situation. The auto maker and the light bulb maker did not set up shop in Haiti and import those items into America. Jobs were here for people to retrain and adapt. Now what we have is jobs disappearing with no new jobs being created, except of course, in the higher echelons of the tech world - which is shrinking.
[What hasn't sunk in for you yet is that for each person who finds their jobs no longer needed hundreds, even thousands of consumers save money. This combination of increased real wealth for the consumer, in addition to any real profit gains realized by the business owners, are the foundation of new jobs. The saved money doesn't vanish, it is the capital that funds new and increased production of goods - new jobs.]
Now yes, new jobs, of course - new jobs for Mexico, China, Indonesia, etc., etc. I am talking about America and American jobs.
But when you look at those jeans in Wal Mart for $20.00 (which by the way is more than I was paying for them before they jobs went overseas), and in a department store - you have to add to that the cost in taxes to support the unemployed - the increase in taxes because more workers are not paying taxes or are paying less taxes. The checkout prices are not cheaper and there are hidden costs to those.]
But does the statistics speak of percentage of disposable, as after tax dollars, or pre tax dollars - that makes a difference. Because you don't have pre tax dollars. They are never yours and should never be used in a statistic. And I mean all taxes - not just one.
Now I will give your color TV. So let me use a statistic from the same time - we paid $600 for our Motorola B & W TV. We were the second in our backwoods to get a TV - in 1956. Within two years 99% of the people had TV's and they no longer cost $600. That was what I was trying to say.
Did you deliberately miss my point about the garden also? My point, we can't raise gardens any more, well most people can't. So if they get without food, they are without food. Not like previous times - it had nothing to do with agriculture or planting trees in the forest or any other thing.
Now I am trying to keep this short - sort of. But we haven't touched on the quality of the merchandise we are being offered these days. It is pathetic. There is also a hidden cost in that the products we are getting are not quality products. They are not that much, if any cheaper, and they are not quality. So cheaper, questionable but much less economical, definitely. So in the long run, more expensive.
By the way, haven't I offended you enough
I see, so if someone decides to do business elsewhere or travel eslewhere, the US government shouldn't do anything at all to defend it's citizens? LOL OK,,,I'll go for it, you leave this soil, you're on your own. Which is pretty darn far afield from trade policy.
The reference to guns and thugs is simply the truth of what governments do when they force their policies on their citizens instead of defending their rights, which is the only legitimate function of government. If you want restrictive laws on freedom and therefore free trade, it isn't a suggestion. It is enforced at gunpoint if necessary. The people who do so become thugs when they cross the line from defending my rights, to usurping them.
But hey, I like your idea about trade. I make what I want, where I want, here or abroad, and sell it to whom I want, here or abroad. As long as I take no government assistance, it's OK by you. And by me. That is called free trade. And the closer we get to it, the better I like it. I see no way to make it an all or nothing proposition in the real world, the one you embrace over so called theoretical world.
So free trade merely means less restrictive than before. (as it applies to this thread) So I guess we agree. You want no government involvement whatsoever one way or the other, and so do I.
OK well maybe I wouldn't leave you in outer Mongolia. But what I am trying to say is if you choose to do business in a part of the world that is unfriendly and you knew it beforehand - then we shouldn't risk American lives to take care of you. Now if you are in a friendly country and it turns unfriendly - maybe the government could get you - if it didn't get us in a war. How's that.
But free trade is free trade - you are own your own.
YOu see, we went all the way around the world and finally came to an agreement - not bad for a days work - and it was a days work.
You nailed it kid. Go to the head of your class.
(and leave an apple on my desk) :^}
G'nite
We are in complete agreement - now probably where we disagree is what we now have is not free trade and the government should get out of it. Since we do not have free trade, there is little danger of the government stopping it.
I haven't heard anyone suppose we shouldn't have 'free trade'. What most people I know, including myself, think we should have is 'real free trade'. We just don't like what we have which bears no resemblence to free trade or free anything.
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