[RaceBannon]

opinions please.

[egomeimihi]

opinions please.

Umm....zot?

[The Mayor]

I agree with you Race

[Cacophonous]

bump bump and bump

[Cacophonous]

Right on Race. Good post.

[firebrand]

bttt

[Gunslingr3]

"But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive..."
Karl Marx

Yeah, Marx was a fantastic economist, eh?
People against free trade are now quoting Marx?! This is too rich...

[Reactionary]

Aside from the loss of good jobs, the practice of sending jobs overseas has also hit the American family very hard. When my father was working, it was possible for a man to earn a good living for his family, because maunfacturing jobs were still viable. That is no longer the case, I'm afraid, and the authority of fathers has suffered because it's now common for both the mother and father to work. The family has become more democratic in the worst sense of the word: children are now neglected in daycare centers and family life has been replaced by an egalitarian system that doesn't seem to work very well at all.

I don't agree with what's happening, but I'm not sure what can be done about it.

[Alberta's Child]

I work in an engineering field myself, and my company can barely even manage the workload we have.

The one question that nobody ever seems to address is this: What would the U.S. economy look like today if all the things we currently import from overseas were made here?

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Willie Green]

If I remember correctly, Adam Smith believed in Tariffs, and this is one reason why.

Excerpted and condensed from:

Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations, Book 4, Chapter 2

Of Restraints upon the Importation from Foreign Countries
of such Goods as can be produced at Home

"There seem, however, to be two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry...

• The first is, when some particular sort of industry is necessary for the defence of the country....

• The second case, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry is, when some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In this case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like produce of the former....

As there are two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry, so there are two others in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation; in the one, how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods; and in the other, how far, or in what manner, it may be proper to restore that free importation after it has been for some time interrupted....

• The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods is, when some foreign nation restrains by high duties or prohibitions the importation of some of our manufactures into their country. Revenge in this case naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their manufactures into ours....

• The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation, how far, or in what manner, it is proper to restore the free importation of foreign goods, after it has been for some time interrupted, is, when particular manufactures, by means of high duties or prohibitions upon all foreign goods which can come into competition with them, have been so far extended as to employ a great multitude of hands. Humanity may in this case require that the freedom of trade should be restored only by slow gradations, and with a good deal of reserve and circumspection. Were those high duties and prohibitions taken away all at once, cheaper foreign goods of the same kind might be poured so fast into the home market as to deprive all at once many thousands of our people of their ordinary employment and means of subsistence. The disorder which this would occasion might no doubt be very considerable....

[headsonpikes]

Your post has the great virtue of authenticity.

And you're right - the current system is not 'Free Trade' - anything but.

[eternity]

Thanks for the post. Interesting what free trade is doing to the state of Conn. Before a state once in surplus now in a big fiscal mess. A once proud manufacturing city of Meriden now has 35% of it's population on Medicade! I must say the future looks bleak.

[meadsjn]

Have patience. Machine skills are good. We are going to need them to pull the country back out of the coming dark ages. Welding is also a good skill to have regardless.

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.

[wafflehouse]

great post, great rant.. i will pass this on to a few people..

[USMMA_83]

You wrote: What India sees is an opportunity that comes once a millennia, that the technology that rules the world will be handed to them on a silver platter by the west, all they need do is provide the labor to make it run for a few years, gather capital and knowledge, and then use it and make it themselves, prop up their economy as they grow while we wither down to serfdom due to the economic bubble being burst on us. And we GAVE them the technology to do this, they didn’t earn it, they didn’t discover it, they didn’t develop it, they didn’t design it, they didn’t make it, WE GAVE IT TO THEM!!!

Listen you nitwad, who do you think worked on those early IBM mainframes, who was one of the lead design engineers on the Saturn rocket, who is one of the leading chip designers at Intel, who worked on the Shuttle's on board navigation system :- All Indian's!

[clamper1797]

Free Trade would be good if it were really free trade BUT when one does business with countries that engage in slave labor or pay near slave labor wages and others whose government subsidize their markets you have anything BUT free trade

[clamper1797]

You know my opinion Race ... it's pretty much the one you got ...

[american spirit]

Brilliant Race and after seeing some of the responses it's amazing how much rectal/crainial inversion can exist on one thread.

[Captain Beyond]

Bump.

Good Rant. You made some great points on how we need to re-think our economy to re-position ourselves to continue to lead the world. Hope you, I, or someone can come up with something that can stem the tide. It's been awhile since econ101. Thanks for giving me something to ponder.

I hope you find work soon.

[Lazamataz]

I also have come to the conclusion that "free" trade is suicide. Our country became a superpower behind tariff walls. We should return to that model.