Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Persephone Kore
You may want to be careful on any platform where people use real names or are identifiable — calling someone a traitor may be libelous under those circumstances.

After 30 years of destructive economic policies that started with with NATFA, anyone who defends the current trade situation at this point is a Free Traitor™. It is a perfect name for them. So are you threatening me? LOL.

89 posted on 04/10/2016 6:49:53 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies ]


To: central_va
You can clearly see from the table below your post is factually challenged.

Factually challenged? I don't think so—it may be Wikipedia that is factually challenged here. The Tariff of 1789 had only a 5% tariff on most items. It's true that tariffs on some items were higher, but I can find no other source saying that the average tariff was anything like 15%.

The general consensus is that the primary purpose of that early tariff was revenue generation, with only a mild protectionist component. (Alexander Hamilton promoted greater protectionism, but that was not the universal view.) That changed in 1816, when the country moved to large-scale protectionism.

By the way, the big lesson in your table is that the income tax has been a disaster, enabling a massive growth in government.

I notice that you still haven't addressed the standard arguments in economics, known since Adam Smith and David Ricardo, that free trade maximizes economic growth and benefits the country as a whole. Protectionism sometimes benefits some small portion of the population, but the total cost to the country far outweighs the potential benefits to people in protected industries.

This is just one example of the general economic principle that government interference in the economy will disrupt pricing signals, distort investment, and reduce economic growth. From a practical point of view, it deprives people of the benefits of comparative advantage and other aspects of a free market, at the same imposing government restrictions on people's natural right to buy from and sell to whomever they choose.

Why don't you point out specifically what is wrong with the well-known economic arguments in favor of free trade?

91 posted on 04/12/2016 7:48:40 PM PDT by Persephone Kore
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson