Posted on 02/07/2017 4:56:55 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
When dealing with protectionist nations, leverage is needed to even the playing field. This can work as a threat or if the nation is not budging on their stance, then real action is necessary.
“Trade by its very nature is labor-saving. I could bake my own bread with my own hands and my own pans in my own kitchen. “
No you can’t. This article conveniently leaves out all the ridiculous regulations, fees, and taxes that shut down thousands of factories and prevents new ones from forming.
Free Traders are essentially Marxists.
Precisely! Trump is using it as a threat more than anything. Take NO option off of the table. That's negotiating in a nutshell.
Have you been to China lately?
I agree with you. The author is talking apples and oranges.
I guess the founders and every generation that followed them until 1945 were Luddites.
Protectionism is not as simple a debate as the purists would like it to be. In theory, free trade is good, but consider steel as just one example:
Suppose the rest of the world modernizes their steel foundries, so that Chinese steel is not competitive, but China can subsidize steel workers for a lower net cost than they can support unemployed former steel workers. China then dumps this cheap steel on the global market to recoup some of the costs of subsidizing those workers to keep their jobs. Ignoring the quality issues with most Chinese steel, should we take advantage of the cheap Chinese steel, to lower consumer costs here, and accept the lost steel jobs in America?
I see some manufacturing jobs, particularly the low-end garment industry, as permanently gone, as they should be. I see other manufacturing jobs as recoverable, and some of those should be returned to the United States. Protectionism is a tricky question based on practical considerations and sometimes subtle details, not just abstract theory.
“Luddites” Way to go Mr. Boudreaux! How to win friends and influence people. He is partially right about advances in technology and innovation leading to increased production but that isn’t the whole of the story.
Further, his analogy of two means of auto production - Detroit (simplistically) and Iowa (grain) - where the grain goes out on ships and comes back on cars is also rather Ludd-ish in nature. It neglects taxpayer subsidies to corporations, entitlement payments to displaced potential autoworkers, and a host of other things.
It’s nice to sit on your keester in a college or university and wax professorially about how the manufacturing world works but the waxing would carry more weight if he ever manufactured anything but words and papers published.
“No, I personally don’t believe protectionists are Luddites, unlike the author, but I do believe protectionist policies will hurt small businesses and consumers by making imports more expensive.”
Let’s just get it out in the open - this is just another article trying to underscore the “Trump is soooo stupid” meme.
Let’s define “Fair Trade”. In my opinion, this is where two countries trade with roughly similar bilateral regulations/limitations.
Sanctions on countries with whom we do not have “Fair Trade” are the only lever we have to achieve “fair trade”, so - let’s remove the “Luddite” moniker from policy with that aim. That’s my read on Trumps trade objective.
Now, lets accept that US regulators put unreasonable demands on domestic production - and lets, for the sake of argument/discussion posit that the regulations are for the “good” of everyone. Shouldn’t foreign producers also be subject to such “goodness”? If not, remove the “goodness” from domestic producers.
No, this article is all about proclaiming the intellectual superiority of all things anti-Trump. Labeling Free, fair trade as the stuff of Luddites is all about the “Stupid Trump” meme that is the last rampart of globalist/big government types that are the only Luddites to be seen on trade, and just about every other issue.
“Free Traders are essentially Marxists.”
So true. Why do they think the dems are all for it? They figured if they crashed the economy hard enough, all the blue collar workers would rise up and take out their enemies for them.
I’m with you on the fungibility of mundane labor.
But, the jobs that are lost that are worth protecting, or phasing out slowly, aren’t (or weren’t) mundane labor—they were skilled.
Clearly the work can move, but the comparative advantage argument says that both sides are better off switching and specializing. But that assumes there aren’t any hidden costs. Look at the deindustrialized parts of the Midwest. Clearly there are some costs that aren’t accounted for in the prices of the various products that have shifted production locale.
“It’s nice to sit on your keester in a college or university and wax professorially about how the manufacturing world works but the waxing would carry more weight if he ever manufactured anything but words and papers published.”
Bravo!
When dealing with complex topics - the easiest (and laziest) thing to do is to simply “remove all variables” and simply declare that your model is correct.
Free, fair trade is a simple concept. It doesn’t require complexity, or name-calling.
” He is partially right about advances in technology and innovation leading to increased production but that isn’t the whole of the story.”
That’s an understatement.
He completely ignores unlimited, unbridled immigration, for one.
Indeed. I was being too kind, actually, and simplified my response as much as he simplified his argument and conclusions.
“...but I do believe protectionist policies will hurt small businesses and consumers by making imports more expensive.”
But it is nice to have a job in order to purchase anything. And you will notice there is no reduction is cost for most items by American companies for items made overseas.
The author still cannot find it within himself to factor into his delusions the fact that American factories have moved out of the country and taken jobs with them.
Ford had intended to take a factory out of the country, which requires employees to operate.
Mexico did not like the fact that Ford canceled its plans for the plant in Mexico. Wonder why, since, in the professor’s world, where the jobs and factories are located matters not one wit. Maybe he should go to Mexico and tell the upset people down there to chill.
Colleges have professors that teach on the internet now. I wonder what he would think if his job were outsourced to an economics professor, say, in India.
Yeah that the thing this is the same argument we’ve been buying for the last 40 years. The world has changed and the other countries cheat and immoral Americans sell out their nations sovereignty and fellow citizens. Free market enterprise is not community killing globalism. Economies serve humanity that have constructed them, otherwise what is the point. This idea that we can either organize the economy around the interests of corporations or the state seems like two sides of the same coin. There are other ways to have free enterprise. I have heard the concepts of a corperation are not even mentioned in Adam Smith’s wealth of nations
The author is committing journalistic malpractice. Luddites are against automation, protectionist are against off shoring. The two things are not related. In the former case jobs are lost to robotics which is good thing in the long run but as long as the factory remains in the USA. In the latter case, jobs are lost due to transfer across international borders which in fact prevents automation because cheap 3rd world labor is still better than spend millions on robotics.
Basically the author is full of < expletive deleted >
A Free Trader is the “useful idiot” of the Marxist.
And yet, manufacturing jobs have exploded in Mexico and China some 1977, and their products are sent here, deflating his globalist argument.
These "professional" economists just throw things against the wall and see what sticks. They are all full of excrement.
Economists are students that couldn't hack engineering....Pseudo science.
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