Wow. Great article. I don't support everything Buchanan preaches, but his views on free trade are spot-on. Free trade = subsidizng Nazi China.
And before anyone asks: yes, I am more than willing to pay more for the things I buy in order to keep manufacturing jobs here. I think of it as the price of national security. A nation with no ability to make anything is a colony of those that can.
Karl Marx loved the idea of Free trade. Anything Marx was for, I'm against.
Communists view economics as a zero-sum game (nobody gets wealthy except at the expense of others) which is precisely the same view that protectionists have.
"Karl Marx loved the idea of Free trade. Anything Marx was for, I'm against."
Karl Marx was also a strong believer in a graduated (or progressive) income tax.
So if we stop trading with China, they will become more politically free? Its worked great in Cuba, that's for sure.
In a turn of events that seems to fly against all logic, during the four years that have passed since the U.S. first imposed the tariff on Canadian lumber we have seen a dramatic acceleration in the decline of U.S. lumber producers by all measures (number of mills, production levels, employment, etc.).
A case study like this offers a great example of unintended consequences.
There are three ways of creating real wealth, manufacturing, mining, and agriculture. When we ship our manufacturing plants overseas the corporations do well but the country starts to regress.
Marx was not a believer in free trade, he was for it specifically because of his belief that it would aid in the destruction of capitalist societies. Therefore, if you think free trade will be harmful to our society, you and Karl Marx agree.
It's obvious that real wealth comes from producing goods,not consuming them.We are transferring billions of dollars of American wealth to China in exchange for worthless trash.To make it even worse we are borrowing money at a record pace to continue sending it to China for those goods.The benefit from free trade goes directly to the corporation who uses it to prop up its bottom line.This nation was built using tariffs and it will be destroyed by removing them and allowing cheap goods to be dumped on our markets.
Yes, Karl Marx's communist beliefs make a reliable compass of what "not to do". He also liked the idea of mass 3rd world immigration into 1st world countries. He understood that for communism to take root in a country, chaos, instability, strife and conflict were necessary.