"So you're suggesting that we're better off if the UAE takes it's billions of dollars and invests it in China instead? WOuld you rather have them spending their money helping Chinese companies build up their infrastructure and fund the development of technology in China?"
I'd rather have someone else funding China than us. At least that way we won't be pointing at ourselves as the source of the proverbial blade that got drawn across our national throat.
"We live in a world economy."
By choice, not by necessity.
"We need to constantly work to improve how we do things. We need to constantly be investing in new technology. We need to always be looking for new markets for our products. We need to always be looking for ways to imporve efficiency."
All of which can be done without extensive dependency upon foreign nations, like was done during the first 170 years of this nation's existence.
"If we don't someone out there will pass us by. They'll be able to make things faster and cheaper. They'll have better technology. They'll be able to do things that we can't."
Sorry, but the majority of that is funded through the purchasing power of US dollars obtained through free trade policies. If we had continued with protectionist economic policies most nations that have surpassed us in many things would still be struggling to catch up.
"In our country the Unions are constantly fighting against this. They oppose new technology because it allows us to manufacture things will less people per item we make."
Correct, they are a major problem since they have become corporations themselves, selling their members to the highest bidder. That's why they also hate Right to Work laws which ends compulsory unionism schemes. That's why it annoys me that Hastert has refused to schedule a roll-call vote on a National Right to Work Law, which would make it illegal to force people to join or pay dues/fees to a union to get or keep a job.
"Isolationism simply leads to irrevalence."
Isolationism and protectionism are entirely seperate entities. This country has been heavily involved internationally during even some of it's most heavily protectionist periods.
"Much of our military lead is a technological one. I don't mean to discount the incredible value of a well trained volunteer military, but our relatively small volunteer army wouldn't be able to do what it does without the technological advantages it has. We wouldn't be able to control battlefields without our complete dominance in air superiority. We wouldn't be able to accurately bomb strategic targets with few to no losses without our technological advantages."
And most of that is being etched away by foreign militaries that are feeding on American free trade policies. US trade dollars and technological investments funds most of the military gap closure between the US and China, which most defense groups are in agreement is closing by at least 2 years for every calendar year that passes. Imagine in 15-20 years a Chinese military with equal capbilities in most of it's military (and numerical superiority) and that'll be end result of penny-wise pound-foolish American free trade policies.
"To feed the American economy, we need trade. We need raw materials."
Then we only do trade treaties specifically with those nations that have raw materials not physically available in the United States.
"There's no way America could have grown to be a superpower without trade and foreign investment, and if we do to much to discourage trade and foreign investment, our power will fade."
That is incorrect. Before 1960 no more than 5% of the US economy was dependent upon foreign trade, and most of that consisted of raw materials and luxury good imports and exports of surplus finished goods. And we were an unmatched, technologically superior world power. Most areas we had fallen behind on were from neglecting the military BY CHOICE (a leftover from the inherent dislike of standing armies), not because of protectionist policies. The basic long-term ability for a nation to remain a world power is industrial infrastructure. For a nation to survive in the long term it has to have a heavy industry base capable of prolonged use for warfare, and as free as possible from enemy interference. China is playing it smart, they practice protectionism at home while encouraging free trade policies by the United States. As a result, their industrial base is rapidly expanding and their technological capabilities are skyrocketing. American free trade policies is the turbo-booster for their protectionist policies. I have no doubt in 10-15 years you'll see a sudden rise in wages across the employment spectrum in China pushed by the Chinese govt, to create a domestic consumer base to replace the US consumer base. Once enough of their economy is no longer dependent on the USA, though damaging it still my be, they will be able to afford a trade cutt-off with United States and war.
I'd rather we attracted the investment here in the US to continue to build our economy rather than having people investing in China. However, our high taxes, inefficient and expensive manufacturing, and to some extent protectionism is making investing elsewhere more attractive.
I'm not suggesting that our workers should work for $2 an hour. However, as long as labor unions keep fighting companies efforts to improve efficiency, we aren't going to be able to be competitive without breaking the unions.
Honda can make cars in the US and make money doing it. Ford and GM can't.
All of which can be done without extensive dependency upon foreign nations, like was done during the first 170 years of this nation's existence.
The United States started out from British Colonies. The US was originally one big British foreign investment. We didn't go our first 170 years without foreign investment. We were a foreign investment that rebelled because we were treated unfairly.
Even after that rebellion and we became the United States, we benefited from foreign investment. A lot of it was simply people from European countries coming here. Some brought with them their life savings, others got money from family or business ties they still had in Europe.
American has ALWAYS benefited greatly from foreign investments.
Sorry, but the majority of that is funded through the purchasing power of US dollars obtained through free trade policies.
You're missing the point. We have done so much trade for a number of reasons. One is we definitely have abundant natural resources. However, in addition to that we invested in being able to harvest those resources efficiently. We built the infrastructure to be able to move those resources where they needed to go quickly and efficiently.
Many, many important inventions have come from the United States because we learned to invest in technology and invest in the people and the resources we needed to continue to improve how we do things.
Much of that investment came from domestic sources. Much came from reinvestment by companies here. However, much also came from foreign investment, and as that foreign investment produced a good return, those foreign investors reinvested their profits in us companies or US branches of foreign companies because we had the world's fastest growing economy.
Without that investment we couldn't have grown nearly as quickly.
The other important point is people with money are going to invest it to make more money. If we tell them they can't invest it in the US, they are going to invest it somewhere else. That money is going to go towards making some other nation's economy strong. It's going to fund advances at other companies in other places.
Correct, they are a major problem since they have become corporations themselves, selling their members to the highest bidder.
They are considerably worse than that. They are artificial and abusive monopolies. They are exactly what they accuse the evil corporations of being.
Isolationism and protectionism are entirely separate entities. This country has been heavily involved internationally during even some of it's most heavily protectionist periods.
They are definitely not entirely separate.
At least after a point the more protectionism you implement the more isolated you will become.
Isolationism also produces protectionism.
They are definitely related.
You can be protectionist in some aspects of your policies while being active internationally in other aspects of your policies.
The results of protectionist policies often take a while to come into play. If you do too much to protect your markets, other countries will do business elsewhere. They will make ties elsewhere, and your ties with those countries will suffer. The end result is similar to being more isolationist even if that isn't the original intent.
And most of that is being etched away by foreign militaries that are feeding on American free trade policies. US trade dollars and technological investments funds most of the military gap closure between the US and China, which most defense groups are in agreement is closing by at least 2 years for every calendar year that passes. Imagine in 15-20 years a Chinese military with equal capbilities in most of it's military (and numerical superiority) and that'll be end result of penny-wise pound-foolish American free trade policies.
So how would you change those trade policies?
Would you impose large tariffs on cheap imported goods so we all pay more for most of what we buy? That means we also need to pay our employees more for them to have the same standard of living.
That means our exports are even less competitively priced. That means we have less to invest in our own economy. This means it costs us more to develop our own advancements.
It costs us more than it helps us. It slows our economy so others can catch up faster. It makes our people effectively poorer because everything costs us more. You can't fix slow economic growth by creating inflation.
If we want to remain on top and preserve our standard of living we need to increase our productivity. We need to reduce the tax burdens that are dragging us down. We need to encourage trade and investments.
That is incorrect. Before 1960 no more than 5% of the US economy was dependent upon foreign trade, and most of that consisted of raw materials and luxury good imports and exports of surplus finished goods.
The US went through isolationist and protectionist cycles. We industrialized our nation faster and more efficiently that most of the world. We built up our infrastructure of roads and railroads. We modernized our manufacturing. You can look at short periods of time and say we didn't rely on trade much during that time. If we scale back military spending and don't choke our economy bu growing the government, we can fund a lot of expansion short term.
However, long term you're either relying on someone else to deal with the problems of fascists and communists. You're assuming that someone else will keep those who would control others through force in check.
A isolationist government can't be a superpower. A protectionist government can be one, but they can't hold onto it unless their competitors are also protectionists and you have more resources than they do.
The basic long-term ability for a nation to remain a world power is industrial infrastructure.
We definitely became a world power because of our industrial power and infrastructure.
For a nation to survive in the long term it has to have a heavy industry base capable of prolonged use for warfare, and as free as possible from enemy interference.
For a prolonged military engagement you must have the heavy industry to support it. Do you have to have it domestically? There's definitely a huge risk if you don't. You'd be relying on manufacturing elsewhere to survive, and that's not reliable unless you're willing to make it reliable by protecting it, or possibly taking control of it.
Our heavy industry is definitely an important strategic asset. However, I want to point out that allowing DB Ports world doesn't take that asset away from us with regards to the ports. The asset is still in our country. The people doing the work are still almost all US citizens. The equipment DB Ports World would be investing in to modernize our ports would be here in the US.
China is playing it smart, they practice protectionism at home while encouraging free trade policies by the United States.
So how are those Chinese policies different than us maintaining ownership of the ports themselves, but having a foreign company invest in modernizing their operation and using their proven expertise to make them run more efficiently?
That's exactly the kind of thing that China is doing to grow their economy. They're being protectionist where they need to be. They're keeping control of assets either by ownership, or by simple location. They are maintaining security. However, they're encouraging foreign investment to modernize their businesses, and not just heavy industry.
I'm not saying that some protectionism isn't necessary. However, killing the BD Ports deal is pure stupidity because it's being done for the wrong reasons.
It's not being blocked for national security reasons. That should be abundantly clear to anyone who's paying attention to the details and who's watching how Congress is not trying to block the deal for things other than national security because the deal is passing muster on issues of security.
With the ports deal we are getting someone else to make our ports more efficient and more valuable while still using US citizens for most of the work. Yet are allowing it to be blocked because of a combination of the labor unions fighting it and what appears to be basically racist fears.
I'm not making claims that racism is playing a role lightly either. There are good reasons to be concerned about Muslims and Arabs when you look those groups as a whole, there are a lot of reasons to be concerned. That's why we need to look closer and see if that concern is really justified. We have looked closer. The treasury department has investigated. Their concerns have been addressed.
However if people are unwilling to look at the facts and continue to hang on to their fears without reason, that's when it goes from being reasonably cautious to being racist.