US plans tariff-free world

BBC ^ | 11/26/02

[Willie Green]

Bush can't be serious.

It could be why he's so gung-ho on establishing the Department of Homeland security.
Gotta be able to suppress the rebellion that'll start in our nation's ghettos when the economy goes kerput.

[sam_paine]

Globalism and free market fundamentalism are anti-conservative.

"Free Market Fundamentalism"????!!!!

Are you pulling my leg? So state levied Import/Export TAXES (you call them tariffs), designed merely to enhance or punish certain businesses are a conservative concept? Get real.

One need not be a globalist one world ICC supporter to believe in free markets. Sheesh.

[lavaroise]

This is nonsense. You do not promote a priviledge as a right. Barriers are there for a reason, such as preventing the rise of police superstates in favor of the leadership of the military, the only war ending security sensed entity left in this world, since it has an inherent interest in not fighting wars.

All is Bush doing here is giving the right to hostile nations to be normalised as normal trading nations. It's ludicrous.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Did you not notice that the article said "Industrial and Consumer goods"

I am not sure this includes agricultural products. They could techinically be considered a consumer good, but I think that refers to processed materials that are manufactured. So don't worry, you can still pay taxes to subsidize large argicompanies.

(Someone please correct me if I am wrong.)

[sam_paine]

I guess that means we get more crap from China and continue to lose jobs in the U.S.

Cmon, fox. Take Harbor Freight for example. I buy cheapcharlie tools there like oil cans for 50 cents. Do I buy real tools like impact sockets? No. I go buy expensive ones at Sears or Snap-On.

But if there's a cheap alternative where I can fill the rest of my shop with goods and make me more productive, while some union sap loses his job because he want's $37/hr to make 50c widgets, why is that a bad thing?

[lavaroise]

Conservatives by definition are those who want to preserve and protect the existing nations and borders. Globalism and free market fundamentalism are anti-conservative.

Exactly. Conservatives give the right to nations and people to raise barriers to protect their entrepriseses, and they give secondary treatment to priviledges such as the ability to go shoping easily.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

The dogma about a "one-world government" is repeated on FR occassionally, but I've never heard anyone list the reasons they are opposed to it. There seems to be certain assumptions about such an entity of which I am (yet) convinced. For the sake of argument, let's not immediately assume that it would be a liberal-socialist government, but something more democratic.

Also, please spare me the crap about going to DU, I want a dialogue with strong opinions, not insults. Also don't think just by asking the question you know where I stand on the issue.

Now go at it!

[A. Pole]

One need not be a globalist one world ICC supporter to believe in free markets. Sheesh.

You are entitled your beliefs, no matter how illogical they are. This is what the First Amendment is about. But Free Market Fundamentalism is not conservative - it is quite revolutionary. Freemarketeerism and Socialism are related and they feed one on another.

[sam_paine]

no matter how illogical they are

You are confusing this philosophic argument with pure logic. That would require an absolute truth, which is not possible to define between the continuum of conservatism and liberalism/leftist ideology.

If you are really serious, you will realize that I agree with you in the majority of your point about globalism.

All I wish to clarify is the semantic differences we have about a larger issue: conservatism.

In my mind, (As derived specifically from "The Conservative Mind" by Kirk) Conservatism is merely the respect for the traditions of the past that have brought us safely and prosperously to the present. The opposite is the arrogant adolescent liberal attitude that our ancestors were all idiots and that only today's "enlightened" minds have the wisdom to radically create some utopia that has never existed.

So, under that definition, I would agree that throughout history, taxes/tithes/tariffs have been imposed by wise governments as a restraining influence on runaway free trade. Continuing them could be considered a conservative philosophy. Radically dumping them ALL, TODAY in favor of unrestrained trade would be a liberal philosophy.

But I think with our Constitution in -competition- with other worldwide socialist/communist entities, like the EU and China, this is a cold trade war which has to be fought the way Reagan fought the USSR. When he put the US military spending complex up against their anti-freedom systems, we won, but it was a radical strategy. Now we are annexing former Soviet states into NATO. If the fruits of Ronald Reagan's policies are liberal globalism to you, then I'm afraid you can find no "conservatives" in American politics.

Meanwhile, it is possible that Bush could be successful in a radical reform that returns us to the earlier conservative landscape of free international trade that was admired by those folks at the Boston Tea Party and such.

[unixfox]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to buy things made in China, or any other country for that matter. However...the more that we continue to rely on foreign countries for our goods the worse off we will be.

[rightwing2]

Bush can't be serious.

He is. He wants to abolish all US tariffs even if it means shipping all of our strategic manufacturing jobs overseas to Communist China. He wants to set up a Free Trade Area of the World in which US economic sovereignity and self-determination no longer exists.

[Valin]

Wave our agriculture good bye.


Don't have much faith in the American farmer do you?

[sixmil]

The dogma about a "one-world government" is repeated on FR occassionally, but I've never heard anyone list the reasons they are opposed to it. There seems to be certain assumptions about such an entity of which I am (yet) convinced. For the sake of argument, let's not immediately assume that it would be a liberal-socialist government, but something more democratic.

I think it would be something like getting rid of state governments and putting all power into the federal gov't. Sound like a good idea? Think better government through granularity.

[sixmil]

It's interesting that the tarrif-free traders talked us into lowering tarriffs and relying on income taxes. Now they want to make another shift on taxes. Can we admit that you were wrong in the first place before we let you blindly lead us down another path toward failure?

While we are at it, I would like to hear the comparative advantage kool-aid drinkers tell us if there are any industries at all where the US has a comparative advantage. Does national security ever fit into the picture? How about the general welfare of the nation? Do you seriously believe that Europe will accept the notion that we build better aircraft, so they should just deep six Airbus? Free trade is not about us, we have free trade. Free trade is about everyone else. They are not going to give up their sovereignty, so why should we?

And a final point, please show us where products are actually getting cheaper. What happened to all those cheap Japanese cars? The reality is that free trade allows compaines to drive down wages and increase profits. Not a bad idea unless you happen to be one of the many who have lost a job, or your livelihood now that you have to compete against the rest of the world for a job. If that is the kind of country you want to have then fine. Just don't bitch when the dems win seats with class-warfare rhetoric.

[rwfromkansas]

Okay, I am just about tired of this. I am willing to bet that the same people who attacked Bush over the steel tariffs are now going nuts saying no tariffs is a bad idea. Please make up your mind......or you are just a Bush hater.

[-YYZ-]

This is the same pro-free-trade US gov't that has again and again laid tariffs and duties on certain Canadian products, such as softwood lumber, contray to what NAFTA and GATT indicate should be the case? While products produces by prison labour in China continue to pour in unabated? And that continues to subsidize agriculture in a huge way, creating a glut of corn (and thus the ethanol in your gas and corn sugar in your cola), not to mention protecting the US cane sugar industry?

My impression is that the US gov't is beholden to too many special interest groups to ever have really free trade. I'm not saying that free trade is necessarily good or bad, but as a Canadian I can tell you that the impression we get is that the US doesn't follow the rules of the trade agreements it has signed.

BTW, Canadians purchase far, far more US products than do the Chinese.

[arielb]

conservatives are all about using the government to manipulate the economy by imposing taxes on selected goods, right? conservatives joining up with unions whining "we can't compete! we need Uncle Sam to help us!"

This is not conservatism. This about liberals who want low taxes for themselves but not for anyone else. Less regulation if it benefits them but not if it benefits the competition.

[arielb]

Korean cars are cheaper and Japanese cars are better without being too expensive.

[okie01]

"odd turn of phrase....Masonic?"

Romulan.