Posted on 03/09/2016 3:43:27 AM PST by expat_panama
...when making laws or economic decisions, it is imperative that we examine not only what is seen but also what is unseen. In other words, examine the whole picture...
...A concrete example was the Bush administration’s 8% to 30% tariffs in 2002 on several types of imported steel. They were levied in an effort to protect jobs in the ailing U.S. steel industry.
Those tariffs caused the domestic price for some steel products, such as hot-rolled steel, to rise by as much as 40%....
...there is no such thing as a free lunch...
...steel-users — such as the U.S. auto industry, its suppliers, heavy construction equipment manufacturers and others — were harmed by higher steel prices.
It is estimated that the steel tariffs caused at least 4,500 job losses in no fewer than 16 states, with more than 19,000 jobs lost in California, 16,000 in Texas and about 10,000 each in Ohio, Michigan and Illinois.
In other words, industries that use steel were forced to pay higher prices...
...back in 2002, the typical hourly wage of a steelworker ranged between $15 and $20, in addition to fringe benefits — so we might be talking about an annual wage package averaging $50,000 to $55,000 — how much sense did it make for American consumers to have to pay $800,000 in higher prices, not to mention lost employment in steel-using industries, to save each job?
It would have been cheaper to tax ourselves and give each of those 1,700 steelworkers a $100,000 annual check...
...When Congress creates a special privilege for some Americans, it must of necessity come at the expense of other Americans...
...Congress ought to get out of the miracle business and leave miracle-making up to God.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
I hate to break this to you, but Trump has no “multi-dimensional strategy” at all. He has a series of incoherent, disconnected ideas (depending on the political audience) that would work far better in theory than in practice.
Maybe for Togo this is true, but that is not true across the board. If it was, then nobody would ever manufacture something overseas because the productivity differential is proportional but the transportation costs weigh heavily in favor of domestic manufacturing.
More likely, what you have with advanced Asian nations is a scenario where the U.S. worker is 3x more expensive but is only 1.5x more productive. In some cases (and this is getting more common almost by the day), the foreign worker is even MORE productive than the U.S. worker.
That’s an excellent anecdote. I’m going to “borrow” it for future discussion, if you don’t mind!
“Bill Clinton comes to mind first and foremost”
Al Gore also lied when “he didn’t have to” — all the time. But Cruz makes Clinton and Gore look like pikers when it comes to the lying game.”
Actually he does, but you will never be allowed to see it cause your master does not want you to know the truth. Go on and keep drinking the Cruz kool aid...but, know this...when Cruz says his constant lies they are for you personally...not for me or Trump but for Cruz supporters because more and more are seeing exactly who he is and we find him despicable.
Maybe "protectionism" created the USA's manufacturing base, but what made us the most dominant industrial power in the world was this minor historical event called World War II that decimated all of the other major industrial nations in the world.
Most of what people remember as the height of U.S. manufacturing dominance was nothing more than a historical anomaly tied to these events.
Another falsehood. The main threat to manufacturing in the USA is from Asia and Mexico. With exception of Japan, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Thailand and Korea were industrial midgets up to 1980. We shipped our factories to them. World War II had nothing to do with it.You're not intelligent enough to rewrite history. That takes a Limbaugh.
What a stupid answer. The answer is not every decision in life is made based on economics.
By 1980, the biggest threat to U.S. manufacturing was U.S. manufacturers. The Big Three U.S. companies, for example, were building complete pieces of sh!t by that time. Ford, GM and Chrysler were the best sales force Toyota and Honda could have dreamed of.
In the last 30+ years, much of the growth in manufacturing in places like Indonesia, Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand has been at the expense of other Asian manufacturing centers (Taiwan, Japan and even China).
Then why are you so pathologically concerned about U.S. trade policy?
Think of Apple, for example -- a company that is a common "bad guy" in these discussions because they manufacture most of their products in Asia. Apple never moved any U.S. jobs overseas. The products they make today didn't exist even ten years ago. They never manufactured them in the U.S. in the first place.
That's just one example that you can replicate thousands of times in almost every manufacturing sector -- especially in computers, telecommunications and other technology-based products.
You won't defend your nonsense, or you can't? Like Trump, do you believe that the trade deficit represents lost cash and serves as a deadweight loss on the economy? Trump obviously doesn't know the first thing about the balance of payments. Do you?
It's instructive that you believe that the freedom to trade is responsible for crumbling cities and lost industries rather than lame brained leftist policies focused on onerous regulations, punitive taxation, and trial lawyer run amok. Yeah, freedom killed those cities and industries rather than the ills of liberalism and the creative destruction that is so important to a competitive economy. You sound like a liberal pleading with the public that with just a little more government these wrongs can be righted. This is the same kind of thinking that causes people to believe that government can create a level playing field or fair trade. The only form of fair trade is free trade.
Trump will return America to prosperity
But will he make the trains run on time? What a contrast, your idol worship vs. Reagan telling us that the American people will make America great again. Another eight years of a narcissist/populist. What could possibly go wrong? Will he also heal the planet and stop the seas from rising?
I only hope Trump, along with his acolytes, come to realize at some point that it isn't the freedom to trade that causes the problems you cite, but anti-growth and anti-capitalist policies from government. Trump is clearly flexible on every issue so let's hope he hires and then listens to some people who actually understand economics and that solving the problems requires less government, not more.
Try not to speak.
For later. Thanks
“It’s instructive that you believe that the freedom to trade is responsible for crumbling cities and lost industries rather than lame brained leftist policies focused on onerous regulations, punitive taxation, and trial lawyer run amok. “
Here right there above shows how stupid you really are. You just take a one dimensional view of everything because you are not intelligent or experienced enough to view the world as it is. I have stated that this is a multi-dimensional problem you simply agree with one part at a time, except in terms of trade. You dogmatically (support without evidence) that we have free trade when we do not. The other nations are granted free trade...our employers do not enjoy that. Hell yes, the combination of factors have decimated the labor market in the US. Listen dummy, try to actually read up on this subject before writing here. Your ignorance shows...but then again it never ceases to amaze me how proud some are of their ignorance...
I have you free traitors down as Hillary voters this November.
If you buy what Trump is selling on trade you're a complete fool and an economic moron. First, Trump's plans are an incoherent mess of half baked ideas and ever changing thought designed to appeal to people who don't know any better. To claim here that he has a strategy for making our trade agreements better is laughable. Second, to pretend that you have some idea of what you're talking about here, when you don't even know the difference between a current account deficit and a capital account surplus, and why that isn't bad for us, makes you uniquely unqualified to be hectoring anyone about the topic.
Yeah, you have a multi-dimensional view of the economy but can't explain how that translates into a strategy for making it so we get tired of winning. Great. I'm sure you're nuanced as well. Trump will make us great again, not the people. Greatness flows from the leader down, not the other way.
Free(r) trade should always be the goal. Mindlessly whining about the need for "fair trade" - whatever the hell that really means to you - is nothing more than wanting government to come in and pick winners and losers. Only someone with no understanding of how a capitalist economy should work would drone on about the need for a level playing field. Pollyannaish nonsense is nice, but it shows a true inability to see the world for what it is. Good luck with that. Hopefully, you work in the public sector where feelings are more important than facts and results.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.