Posted on 07/15/2003 4:09:15 AM PDT by Texas_Dawg
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:49:28 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A group of American makers of wood bedroom furniture is preparing to seek protection from the U.S. government to stem a surge of imports from China that the companies say has ravaged their industry.
John Bassett, president and chief executive of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co., Galax, Va., and a spokesman for the group of 14 furniture makers, said the American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade intends to file an antidumping petition this fall with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Protaagoras, the true free market within America is indeed what made America great, along with the faith in God and a commitment to the foundational moral principles upon which that free marjet is based. Without those, the markets would be no different than any other place.
That great economic boom based on the free market which is itself based on those principles, is what has ultimately attracted foreign interests to our shores economically.
We must apply the free market to the world market, with all the principles it is based upon, for it to remain truly free as compared to its foundation here.
If countries are willing to play by those free market rules, then they become a part of the growing, international free market. If countries do not, then they excluded until they reform and do play by those rules, because their inclusion as they are would destroy the very fabric of what makes the free market work.
This is how it should have evolved. But it did not.
Including countries like Red CHina, and then outsourcing everything we can to them in order to make a quick, short-term buck on the backs of their supressed peoples, particularly when it is patently obvious that the Chinese are doing so in order to enable a perverted and currupt system which has no bearing on "free" markets at all...is a dilusion and perversion itself.
It is like dressing a whore up in a white dress at a wedding and calling her a virgin. It is like covering cow dung in sugar and calling it good. It is in fact a dog that will not hunt...except if we blindly and foolishly empower it to hunt...and then it will be hunting us.
Now, I've really got to go.
Best Fregards.
We are not in that world at present we are in a world where the USA is in competitiopn with other nations and we had best derive strategies that focus America's population and resources towards developing America and fostering freedom.
Tariffs are taxes. If they are uniform, they are taxes. If they change for any reason, they become government control of private business and fundamental freedoms. I'm sure all you so called "conservatives" support that interference. But I do not.
As to religion, if you are a Christian, you would proudly proclaim it. The idea that Christians can treat some people differently from others is absurd. Pagans can do what they wish with a clean conscious.
When you put Country before God, you get horrors that history has recorded time and again.
You keep making the same mistake, namely, confusing people with countries. Countries don't trade with other countries. People trade with other people,the thugs who run their respective countries notwithstanding. And the entire idea of promoting freedom by curtailing it is goofy.
As to ad hominem, better go back and look, I never attacked you, but you attacked me, you called me Clinton.
People trade with other people,the thugs who run their respective countries notwithstanding.
The thugs have guns to the heads of those people. The best way, IMHO, to empower those people to throw off the thugs, is not to funnel money to the thugs. When the people themselves realize that there is no pretense or possibility of improvement under their current system (as our founders did) they will throw off the thugs...as the Russians did (and are still doing).
Allowing the thugs to siphon off the lion's share of the benefit while holding out a pittance to the people they rule over, empowers no one but the thug. IMHO, that's exactly what we are doing with Red China.
Thanks again.
Well that is what we are living with. If one part of government is being inserted into teh trade picture be iut the uS givernment or another government then action must be taken to protect Americans from that.
Now as to religion if you have a need to know it so happens I do believe in Jesus Christ as my savior but that has very little to do with this thread except as it applies to support of policies that are antithetical to very Christian value. If you believe in supoporting the People's Republic of China then you are supporting the polices of that regime. When I cited those policies I stated that I was not the one to inject religion into this discussion. Now it seems to me that as a Christian you would be most concerned with what actually benefits the people of China not with what props up the regime there.
Tariffs are taxes. If they are uniform, they are taxes.
They are taxes even if they are not uniform. Tariffs are taxes taht are also an instrument of international relations and have been since before the founding of the USA. tariffs are a legitamate Constitutional power of Congress and have been since the founding of our nation. For over two hundred years the USA had protective tariffs in place. from its founding tariffs on steel and guns were in place to help develop those manufactures in the USA for national defense. Please check your history.
Now you do not support any government involvement with trade whatsoever. I would go along with that with free nations but clearly there are some things that should not be in the international market place such as defense systems etc. One of the greatest crimes of teh Clinton administration was allowing Loral to export missle guidance technology to the People's Republic of China. In short in thE real world there will be some interference with trade. The fact is there is a great deal of interference with trade and it is harming the American economy.
Now the Chinese government from their standpoint are being quite clever to dump consumer goods in teh USA and only purchase capital goods from the USA all of which is financed from the USA due to the artificially low Yuan. These are specific issues that must be addressed because we live in a real economic world with tax policies that already invade on personal freedoms (see the IRS code).
when you argue against tariffs being imposed you are perforce arguing for the current trade polices and that includes programs such as OPIC and Chinese tariffs and all the rest of it because this is the real world where there are limited actions taht can be taken even by the Federal beheamoth.
Now Jeff Head has given you some information about the long term problems this causes as have I. adress the issues do not talk in a mantra of Free Trade becaus at present we do not have free trade
In the end, the people themselves there in China have to decide that their rulers are bad enough to throw them off. IMHO, we will not help them do that by funding the very thugs who are holing them down. I've worked as a consultant for American firms in the Far East..what's happening on the mainland is sickening...and we are funding it.
The best chance for it to start is probably Hong Kong, and precisely because they are willing to throw it off based on what they see descending on them. I hope they will.
You are naive about how the PRC functions. The curtailment of freedom through taxation is something we live with because it is necessary as some government is necessary. No tax is absolutely uniform that is a fact. America's original tariffs were revenue based on were levied on those goods that could be produced within the USA.
As to ad hominem, better go back and look, I never attacked you, but you attacked me, you called me Clinton.
I pointed out that the current trade envirornment which is falsely called "Free Trade" was a result of teh Clinton administration and the defense you gave of it was what Clinton gave of it including the parts relating to the PRC.
But you are right, there are no easy answers.
The other point that is being missed here is that China seems to be the focus, when in fact, it is the whole world. Steel protectionism and other tariffs are included too. Businesses are generally not interested in freedom or free trade. They are interested in government handouts and government force to help them make money.
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