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To: Tauzero
Regarding point 7 the prosecution for perjury of those who perjured themmselves seems to me to be a fair thing to do. we could either pick a specific target number or go for some of the worst offendors first. We have had crimes committed but no prosecutions. I generally do not like excess laws but in this case we had the law and it was violated and great harm has resulted from that violation.

Regarding point 8 it is in order to open up markets for US goods and service that tarriffs have their most effect. I see no reason for a uniform tarriff if some nations are open to the free access of American businesses and others restrict our right to do business there.
50 posted on 05/16/2003 9:45:54 AM PDT by harpseal (Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown)
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To: harpseal
"Regarding point 7 the prosecution for perjury of those who perjured themmselves seems to me to be a fair thing to do."

Provided the question they are asked has an objective answer that can be determined empirically with little cost. I'm confident the actual effect, once prosecution were vigorously pursued, would be to end all employment based on H1-B -- not because everyone employing someone via H1-B is guilty, but because the standard of culpability will in practice be arbitrary, as well as difficult and costly to defend against. That is almost always the case when government back-seat drives employment decisions.

Affirmative action demonstrates the same mechanism, with the opposite effect. The supporters of the 1964 Civil Rights act assured all that quotas would not result, but those turned out to be the only practical means of enforcement and defense.

"Regarding point 8 it is in order to open up markets for US goods and service that tarriffs have their most effect."

The key modifier there is "in order to". The main effects of laws quite frequently have nothing to do with their stated purpose. It is very difficult, in practice, to remain true to the original purpose once any departure from uniformity has been granted.

I'm not at all concerned whether some country grants us free access or not; they are sovereigns, and it is their business. We are not entitled to reciprocity, and in the aggregate free trade is in the economic interest of the nation, regardless of whether it is reciprocal. However, I am concerned about the distribution of the effects of free trade within our nation. The individual costs attending a free trade policy are not uniformly distributed, but poltical power is, through the franchise. Free trade is therefore politically destablizing and dangerous.

Like the country-specific tariff, the uniform tariff distributes the individual costs of trade policy in a more egalitarian fashion. But the uniform tariff has four great virtues that the country-specific tariff does not.

1) It does not require a mechanism for determining country-of-origin. In the case of raw materials it is typically easy to determine that, but in the case of finished products it frequently is not. If a finished good has parts produced in countries A and B, is assembled in C and passes through country D as its last stop before reaching the USA, what is its country of origin? Any formula to resolve that is going to be arbitrary, arcane, and subject to endless revision -- and revised also for reasons having nothing to do with the original purpose. This fails several tests of good law.

2) By being uniform, there is no hierarchy of angels and devils in trade policy; our trade policy can only serve trade, and not other ends (but exceptions for war are likely prudent.) In peace, our trade policy could only elicit the general, rather than the specific discontent of other nations, and is therefore more conducive to peace than the current arrangement.

3) By being uniform, it can be lower.

4) By being lower and uniform it will be cheaper to enforce. It will be cheaper because the cost attending the discovery and documentation of country origin simply does not exist; voluntary compliance will be much higher; attempts at circumvention or outright smuggling much lower.

IMO, these four advantages are overwhelming.

59 posted on 05/16/2003 11:10:33 AM PDT by Tauzero
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