Posted on 07/28/2003 6:36:40 PM PDT by RaceBannon
There has been a few threads on here where Free Trader enthusiasts have defended their view, and have been responded to by those who feel that Free Trade is not helping the American Economy, in fact, is part of the reason we are NOT going to see a great recovery any time soon.
I am one of the latter. The following is a cut and paste job, taken from my own comments on these threads, which I feel tell my side of the story.
Some of the points are repeatd, 3 and 4 times. That is because I feel they are the forgotten reasons and ideas why we are in what I believe are dire economic straits.
Feel free to comment.
If he can work an ATM he is. If he can manage an IRA electronically he is. Indeed, I wouldn't trust my economy to a bunch of dead guys who couldn't even figure out how to make the time stop flashing on their VCR.
Prior to Y2K, the UN website still had its famous documents on "sustainable development" for the various landmasses around the world. The UN imagined that the US landmass could only support 26 million, or about 10% of its current inhabitants. Somehow, magically, the other 90% would just cease to exist, or disappear, or vaporize, or something like that.
You are correct that most of the people espousing "free trade" on FR are uneducated. Most of them are newbies, not only to FR, but to the real world. Most of them are government employees or retirees, and think (wrongfully) that their income and assets will be secure through this depression. Most of them will end up on a barbeque spit or in a stewpot, right along with their liberal kin.
And it won't take twenty years, or ten years. It may well be within five years. As soon as the welfare checks don't show up, or as soon as the checks won't buy food.
I will be deeply saddened and disappointed.
Now that's a new one. Who is the profit being passed on to, then?
Would you support free trade between free market economies?
It's not even close to being free. In China when a tool and die shop opens, that government provides the building, the electricity and much of the raw materials needed. There isn't a minimum wage and the workers aren't free to bargain for more money ---they take what they get. In the USA when someone tries to open a tool and die shop, our government makes it as difficult for them to make it as possible, it's got building codes, OSHA inspectors, very large taxes, etc. Plus American labor can't work for dirt because we have extremely high taxes to pay, including property taxes.
True, nothing Sowell says is earth-shattering, but it's a different perspective.
A 1.6 year payback period is actually a pretty damn nice ROI. It would be even nicer, of course, if you invested only 75K instead of 200K. But nobody with an IQ over 41 would use your goofy numbers for an example.
They also had a different definition of wealth back then. Today that whiz-kid with the VCR probably thinks he's wealthy because he's got all the latest electronics but hasn't tried to buy a house, lives paycheck to paycheck, "invests" his money in a $25,000 car, and is so far in debt, he may never get out.
You: No.
Well then let me guess.
You support oppression, even murder of people opposed to your point of view.
You are a neocon.
You think globalism is a good thing.
You want America to continue fighting as a proxy in the Middle East.
America First is a concept you hate.
My bad?
Nope doesn't really matter, bother of them were socialists.
At the same time the gentry...including our founding fathers...were engaged in smuggling (the ultimate form of free trade) to avoid paying customs on their products to the English. The funny thing is that those same founding fathers continued to exercise free trade (smuggling) after the war because they didn't want to pay the same customs to their own government. Which prompted the establishment of the Revenue Cutter Service by Alexander Hamilton and an act of Congress...the start of big government.
I'm now in the process of starting a new department at the small company where I work. Part of the problem is that I won't be able to compete in this field without a specific software package that runs for around $65,000 these days. My company will not be buying that software at that price. If we find a comparable software package from an overseas supplier for $25,000 or so, we will probably but it. If it happens, people can complain all they want about how we are "screwing the American worker" by going to a foreign supplier. But I can assure you that this would not be the case -- because we aren't buying it for $65,000 under any circumstances.
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