Posted on 03/05/2002 5:19:23 AM PST by Valin
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:36:16 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON -- President Bush will impose tariffs of up to 30 percent on steel imports in a bid to aid the ailing U.S. steel industry, White House officials said Tuesday of a move certain to draw opposition from American allies.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I agree 100% with this statement, actions regading the steel industry should have been made long ago, and the Clinton administration did nothing... something it was good at.
You're not giving him the benefit of the doubt. You're accusing him of promoting the policy for political gain rather than refusing to oppose it, and appearing to embrace it for political survival. That's a common characterization (I think mischaracterization) of viable political parties by extremists who don't accept that it's inevitable. Are you sure that he actually "pushed" rather than jumped onboard and publicly embraced it?
Well, voluntary union membership and unionization itself does have its advantages in some industries, not only to the union members but even to the company ownership. Collective bargaining with a large work force can save a company a lot of time and money. Compulsory union membership for someone who wants to work without joining the union is anti-freedom, and in my opinion downright un-American.
Not what I intended at all. I am saying that protectionism, which results in higher market prices than would otherwise be achieved, depletes resources that could otherwise be used in more efficient investments.
The exportation of wealth is based in the false assumption that wealth is a zero sum game. Some wealth would be exported but, because the market prices are lower, some would remain to be allocated into better, more efficient investments (such as technology). But to play your game, the case could be made that wealth is exported from the foreign countries in terms that the government subsidies are not allowing for the maximum revenues (and therefore taxes) to be earned from market based pricing. the resulting loss of revenue stays in our pockets.
It is my belief that the government should not subsidize any industry. It should truly be survival of the fittest.
Do those that oppose protecting American interests actually think American industries cannot compete, given a level playing field?
As long as the unions run the show, and our politicians bend over to meet their demands, that is the case.
Its getting to the point where economic security IS national security. I don't have the cite but -- more people work in GOV than the manufacturing industry. I think free trade is getting like computer technology - heaven help you if the system goes down.
-- All right, then let us say that protectionism serves to discourage finite capitol from the efficent,and natural, flow of lesser to greater.
In the current situations you are not talking about all other things being equal. P>-- This is prefaced on the assumption that somehow, somewhere, at some time, things were "equal" to begin with. If you built a steel plant in the US today, that was the most technologically advanced and the most efficient, it could not compete with the foreign dumping... the systems is not "all things being equal".
-- So why then would you want to even build a steel plant? Why would you not take the money ("finite capitol") you would have allocated the construction of said plant and plowed it into another, more efficent, more profitable enterprise?
There is nothing efficient about dumping, you have a system that is subsidizing employment dumping product for less than it costs to manufacture... your argument about efficiency falls apart.
-- To be sure there is nothing "efficent" about dumping. It was/is not done in the name of efficency but in the name of "employment", as you yourself said. Which brings us to the question of how long can these goverments maintain this below-market suport ("dumping") for their steel? A nation that is economically strong doesn't need to employ dumping. A nation that is economically on the ropes can't afford to do it fo long.
As for allocation of capitol, as I have said before, you are exporting your wealth to foreign nations who will use it for whatever purposes they see fit, including nefarious ones...
-- Which is their right. A man buys a house from you. He gives you his money ("finite capitol") and you give him the property deed and the keys. What this man now does with his house is none of anyone's business. It is his house, and unless he breaks the law, he can do with it what he wants-- no matter what you or I or anyone else may think of his decision. You can refuse to sell your house to this man if you feel he will do wrong with/by it, but once money has changed hands...
...do you think China does not use the money they get from trade surplusses with the US to build their military might against us?
-- A little aside, but China, as a matter of fact, makes a rather poor quality grade of steel. Oh, it is useful for thing en grosse (combines, steamshovels, etc.) but is useless for any object more "techo" in demand.
Do you think if the Taliban were making money from the US that money would not have funded acts like those on 9/11? Or that N. Korea or other nations would not do the same?
-- Outside of narcotics and such things, what is it that these countries produce that would be willingly bought by others if they were offered on an open maket? The answer is: Nothing.
If your sole requirement is simply personal greed, and the costs to sovereignty are irrellevant, then yes, your argument has merit... but I do not agree with that assumption.
-- As is your right.
Any economic move that infringes on national sovereignty ALWAYS has a cost far greater than any short term gain. Instead of lifting the world up via such blind free trade policies, we subsidize despots and sell our sovereignty away.
-- By the end of the 1930's America was almost entirely dependent on rubber from Burma (or whatever the heck its called now) and southeast Asia. When WWII struck home, the US was in desperate straights: our supply of rubber was cut off by the Japanese. What did we do? We rolled up our sleeves and invented synthetic rubber. And the rest, as they say, is history. So why this assumption that if we take advantage of dumped steel that if/when the spicket were ever turned off that we as a nation would be a helpless as a turtle on its back?
I agree. Get the unions to back off, get the Feds to back off of their oppressive regs (EPA, OSHA, et cetera), stop foreign dumping, and you have a level playing field.
So, your assumption is the money saved in lower prices, could be allocated to better use with better return.. an interesting view, but I question its real relevance. Lower prices at the costs of infrastructure and employment carry with them higher costs. Unemployment is a cost, and if unemployment is too great, civil unrest occurs which extolls an even greater cost. It seems to me you are participating in the zero sum game, assuming that simply lower retail price means more money available, by ignoring other intrinsic costs associated with the avenues you advocate. Certainly the cost of your retail good is lower, but if the taxes placed on the good are increased to help support the unemployed, or income taxes increased or business tax etc... you don't get a gain
The exportation of wealth is based in the false assumption that wealth is a zero sum game. Some wealth would be exported but, because the market prices are lower, some would remain to be allocated into better, more efficient investments (such as technology). But to play your game, the case could be made that wealth is exported from the foreign countries in terms that the government subsidies are not allowing for the maximum revenues (and therefore taxes) to be earned from market based pricing. the resulting loss of revenue stays in our pockets.
Again see my statements above. Infrastructure depletion and uneployment are costs, and if they occur in large enough scale are huge costs... let alone calculating the end cost of making the nation dependent on foreign production for industrial infrastructure goods such as steel, which could be cut off at any time if a conflict could arise... Can you economically count the cost should the US be in a large scale conflict and be unable to produce munitions and tanks because our supply of steel is cut off? The costs are much higher than your basic model assumes.
It is my belief that the government should not subsidize any industry. It should truly be survival of the fittest.
That is an interesting belief you have there, but reality is government subsidation has had and will continue to have huge impact on industry, both established and new. It is naive to believe otherwise. I firmly believe you cannot put a price tag on sovereignty, and any move that jeopardizes it, is a cost far to high to take. Blind protectionism is not a great policy, and I do not advocate it either, but I will not stand by on this concept of blind "free trade" either.. it is horrible policy.
A nation should act in its own best interests, if it doesn't it will not survive. Survival of the fittest is the mantra of nature, where the young and the elderly are slaughtered without thought... where the deformed are left to die.. We are not animals, we are humans, and I do not subscribe to such simplistic views... we are above such behavior... the murder and the rapist survive, does that mean that we should simply accept it? I will never accept that sovereignty should be traded for a lower retail price.
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IMO the term is mutually exclusive. A strong economy requires freedom, and freedom is not a capstone of "nefarius" national governments
I agree. Get the unions to back off, get the Feds to back off of their oppressive regs (EPA, OSHA, et cetera), stop foreign dumping, and you have a level playing field.
Then we’re all in agreement!
But I don’t think this move by Bush had anything to do with dumping, and everything to do with bribing the corrupt socialist union leadership.
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