[JohnHuang2]

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

Quote of the Day by dead

[brat]

"For the first time in two decades the free trade movement is in retreat."

And thats just where it belongs...in retreat! Its dammed near destroyed this once great country!

[Free the USA]

Index Bump

[Willie Green]

In the U.S., import duties rose to about 50 percent of import prices by the late 1930s. The result was a global depression and a plunging of living standards here and abroad.

Looks like the globalist free traitors at the Cato Institute are trying to reinvigorate their convoluted, revisionist and totally discredited theories regarding the Smoot-Hawley tariff.

Smoot-Hawley wasn't enacted until 1930, AFTER the market crash of '29.
Furthermore, trade only amounted to 6% of GNP at the time and declined to 2% of GNP by 1932. The bulk of this decline is directly attributable to the 31% decline in GNP and 25% unemployment rate precipitated by the market crash. The effects of Smoot-Hawley, which only applied to 1/3 of imports, were negligible in comparison.

Of course, as is characteristic of revisionism, the dimbulbs at the Cato Institute prefer to distort facts to suit their own political agenda.

[gcruse]

 One would like to believe that if George W. Bush knew three
months ago what he knows today, he would never have foolishly
agreed to impose 30 percent steel tariffs

I doubt it.  The purpose is to buy enough labor votes
to get back into office.  The fact that, according to
Rush Limbaugh and others, six times as many jobs
were lost in other sectors as were saved in the steel
industry falls on deaf ears.  The job losers won't know
who to blame, labor will still vote democrat, we
pay more for steel, and the stock market tanks.
Not to mention counter-tariffs by our trading
partners that will hurt other industries.

But that's the difference between conservatives
and Republicans.  Conservatives have principles.
Republicans have will to power.