Posted on 05/07/2013 11:02:26 AM PDT by DannyTN
Lots of people think American energy independence is within reach thanks to our shale boom.
...
It's been a long time since producing all your own oil actually made you independent. We spent 40 years transforming global markets so they were integrated and flexible, to give us protection from the vagaries of global oil production, and one of the side effects is we're now part of that, even if we produce all our own oil. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
You are not being pro america first, you simply don’t realize it in your econ ignorance.
It’s being pro central planning that makes you a communist. And there are many parts of China’s economy that are now freeer than ours, and your ignorance of that makes you a typical lo fo.
Marx did not like Free Trade - he was “in favor” of free trade beause he thought it was destructive. This is the little detail that the liars don’t ever want to contemplate. Marx has been proven an economic illiterate, and therefore since he thought Free Trade was a bad thing to the countries that did it, to use him in this argument the way they have is to join Marx on the ash heap of economic ignoramuses of all time.
117, 118, 120 and 126. Many questions, none of which you can answer.
Put me in with Reagan and Friedman:
“One voice that is hardly ever raised is the consumer’s. That voice is drowned out in the cacophony of the “interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers” and their employees. The result is a serious distortion of the issue. For example, the supporters of tariffs treat it as self evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number—for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs—jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.
Another fallacy seldom contradicted is that exports are good, imports bad. The truth is very different. We cannot eat, wear, or enjoy the goods we send abroad. We eat bananas from Central America, wear Italian shoes, drive German automobiles, and enjoy programs we see on our Japanese TV sets. Our gain from foreign trade is what we import. Exports are the price we pay to get imports. As Adam Smith saw so clearly, the citizens of a nation benefit from getting as large a volume of imports as possible in return for its exports or, equivalently, from exporting as little as possible to pay for its imports.
The misleading terminology we use reflects these erroneous ideas. “Protection” really means exploiting the consumer. A “favorable balance of trade” really means exporting more than we import, sending abroad goods of greater total value than the goods we get from abroad. In your private household, you would surely prefer to pay less for more rather than the other way around, yet that would be termed an “unfavorable balance of payments” in foreign trade.
The argument in favor of tariffs that has the greatest emotional appeal to the public at large is the alleged need to protect the high standard of living of American workers from the “unfair” competition of workers in Japan or Korea or Hong Kong who are willing to work for a much lower wage. What is wrong with this argument? Don’t we want to protect the high standard of living of our people?
The fallacy in this argument is the loose use of the terms “high” wage and “low” wage. What do high and low wages mean? American workers are paid in dollars; Japanese workers are paid in yen. How do we compare wages in dollars with wages in yen? How many yen equal a dollar? What determines the exchange rate? - MF
“As the leader of the West and as a country that has become great and rich because of economic freedom, America must be an unrelenting advocate of free trade.” - RR
“One voice that is hardly ever raised is the consumer’s. That voice is drowned out in the cacophony of the “interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers” and their employees. The result is a serious distortion of the issue. For example, the supporters of tariffs treat it as self evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number—for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs—jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.
Another fallacy seldom contradicted is that exports are good, imports bad. The truth is very different. We cannot eat, wear, or enjoy the goods we send abroad. We eat bananas from Central America, wear Italian shoes, drive German automobiles, and enjoy programs we see on our Japanese TV sets. Our gain from foreign trade is what we import. Exports are the price we pay to get imports. As Adam Smith saw so clearly, the citizens of a nation benefit from getting as large a volume of imports as possible in return for its exports or, equivalently, from exporting as little as possible to pay for its imports.
The misleading terminology we use reflects these erroneous ideas. “Protection” really means exploiting the consumer. A “favorable balance of trade” really means exporting more than we import, sending abroad goods of greater total value than the goods we get from abroad. In your private household, you would surely prefer to pay less for more rather than the other way around, yet that would be termed an “unfavorable balance of payments” in foreign trade.
The argument in favor of tariffs that has the greatest emotional appeal to the public at large is the alleged need to protect the high standard of living of American workers from the “unfair” competition of workers in Japan or Korea or Hong Kong who are willing to work for a much lower wage. What is wrong with this argument? Don’t we want to protect the high standard of living of our people?
The fallacy in this argument is the loose use of the terms “high” wage and “low” wage. What do high and low wages mean? American workers are paid in dollars; Japanese workers are paid in yen. How do we compare wages in dollars with wages in yen? How many yen equal a dollar? What determines the exchange rate? -Milton F
“As the leader of the West and as a country that has become great and rich because of economic freedom, America must be an unrelenting advocate of free trade.” - RR
The quotes provided in that link, show that they viewed "external" tariffs as preferable to "internal" taxation.
If we restored external tariffs, it would not only raise government revenues from the taxes on foreigners. But it would put Americans back to work, increasing our tax base even as it lowered our safety net payments. That's how to fix our budget problems. We have a much greater chance of lowering taxes internally if we impose import tariffs.
That's as opposed to the current situation where you have democrats arguing for huge internal tax increases and Republicans compromising for smaller ones. While nobody does anything about unemployment.
The world's not that different. And tariffs won't stop globalization, but it will stop the destruction of our industries and put our people back to work. And make our country financially healthier.
Import Tariffs would rebuild our consumer class by employing Americans, before Consumers disappear completely from America.
If it was just about goods accumulation in the short run, I might agree with you. Who care if we trade our paper for their goods. That paper doesn't draw interest and is only good if they come back and spend it here, right?
Unless of course their commmunist government collects all of those American dollars through taxation and then spends it here but only to buy interest bearing debt or to buy more means of production by buying up our companies.
It's about America's industrial base for the long run. it's about making sure American's are employed. It's about reducing our vulnerabilities in times of war.
What good is it to accummulate goods cheaply when it devastates your industrial base and your people end up unemployed? That's not cheap. THAT's EXPENSIVE. It's just not as obvious.
In addition, like the Harley-Davidson tariffs, the steel and auto trade restrictions drew Japanese, German, and Korean investment into the United States. Not only were jobs created; in the case of steel, cutting-edge technology was transferred to joint ventures with American partners set up in the United States.
“Marx did not like Free Trade - he was “in favor” of free trade beause he thought it was destructive.”
Funny.
Still, even if they were using Marx correctly, it doesn’t matter. Just because Marx liked something doesn’t make it bad. Stopped clock right twice and all that.
Hitler liked dogs, after all. Doesn’t make dogs bad.
1985: imposed import quotas on Japanese cars
Japan flooded the U.S. market with high-quality cars that sold far below the price at which the Big Three could afford to build, sell, and survive.
In 1985, the dollar, at 220 to the yen, was still too high to arrest the rising U.S. trade deficit. The Big Three were at death’s door. Refusing to let any of them go under, Reagan intervened to save the industry by imposing import quotas on Japanese cars. Free traders denounced Reagan as a heretic. The death of Ford and Chrysler were of far less concern to them than fidelity to the free-trade gospel of David Ricardo and Adam Smith.
But Reagan’s intervention succeeded. The U.S. auto industry was saved. By now, the boom of the 1980s was underway, propelled by the tax cuts of Reagan and the sound money policy of the Fed.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.201 , Aug 12, 2004
I’m also unsure as to the wisdom of exporting natural gas because cheap gas feeds so many domestic industries. Exporting natural gas would pressure upward US gas prices in the direction of equilibrium with world natural gas prices.
Meanwhile world natural gas prices ten years from now will be much lower because US natural gas fracking techniques will open up much of the enormous enormous natural gas deposits in the rest of the world. So the US competitive natural gas advantages will decline.
The window of US competitive natural gas prices will be relatively short lived.
Meanwhile US oil and gas reserves look like they’ll do nothing but increase during that period.
For example the USGS just doubled the reserve estimates for the Baaken/Three Forks formation
http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/usgs-releases-new-oil-and-gas-assessment-for-bakken-and-three-forks-formations.cfm
These numbers will likely be dwarfed by numbers to come out of west texas oil fields like the cline shale formation. Further there are numerous smaller fields that are ramping up production following higher oil and gas estimates.
10 years from now the world will likely be as different from today as today is different from the world 10 years ago or 2003.
Specifically there’s likely some huge energy revolutions in the wings that will take center stage above and beyond the energy revolution in the oil/gas patch.
Its a wildly rolling deck that everyone is riding on where all assumptions about the future are in fact a total crap shoot.
Oh yeah, the writer of the article sounds like a paid hack of the Saudis.
He’s thinks that he’s talking about the dollar—but he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Today there is a race going on between the chinese russians and several other countries-—and the USA. These countries want to cut the dollar out of international transactions.
For example the Aussies just entered into an agreement with the Chinese to make their currencies convertible rather than use the US dollar. The chinese are signing agreements like this with every country they do business with. Same with the Russians
The result will be that much fewer US dollars will be needed to fund international transactions.
Therefor it is quite fortuitous that the US will need to import roughly 1 million fewer barrels of oil each year for the next 5-7 years. So fewer dollars will be sloshing around the international system to cause inflation.
Don’t jump in late and pretend you know WTF is going on with the conversation. THE other side injected Marx as someone who was in favor of free trade, as in, something he liked, as a way to prove free trade is a commie provision. Thus, my information is DAMNED pertinent.
Thanks for playing .Drive safe. Do come again.
Despite the fact that you are rude and need to apologize, I was actually agreeing with you.
If you read, you can see I stated that “the other side’s” injection of Marx was irrelevant.
Thanks for being a prick and lowering the standard of FreeRepublic. Drive safe. Do learn manners.
Sorry, my bad -
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