Posted on 12/14/2002 10:22:42 AM PST by arete
Well, better off than if we based our foreign policy on the French (since 1870) and our police practices on those of the 1933-1945 Germans :o)
Wait for the Gods of the Copybook Headings to climb out from under the rubble...which means waiting for the rubble to form.
Tauzero said (in response to my numbers showing that personal imcome continues to rise):
"median real household income has declined"
raybbr said, (in response to my numbers showing that unemployment was lower than 1992):
"Do these figures take into account those who are no longer counted because after a year they are considered to have stopped looking for work?"
Well, folks, it's like this. I've posted hard numbers. If you wish to disagree with my conclusions, you need to find data of your own. Otherwise you're just blowing smoke.
I don't see any point in doing your research for you. If you believe these claims are false, or there's something wrong with the numbers and data that I supply, then offer something that backs up your position. But just asserting that "there's something wrong with your data", without any evidence besides your own opinions, does not make a very strong argument.
Tauzero went on to say, about the unemployment data:
"On the contrary, unemployment merely continued the decline from the 1992 peak that was already underway -- the Bush I recession ended two years before NAFTA, and the Reagan expansion resumed."
On the contrary to what? I simply asserted that unemployment had gone down under NAFTA, not up. If there was a "giant sucking sound", if GATT costs us jobs, or whatever, then the unemployment figures should show it. They don't. The fact that they continued the decline started by the Reagan expansion is completely correct, but (1) Reagan was also free-trade oriented, and much free trade progress was made in his administration, and (2) the fact that the trend continued in the right direction at least establishes that the spurious claims on this thread about lost jobs are hogwash.
I saw a couple of other points on your posts I would dispute.
Tauzero's said:
"If free trade helps both economies, then less-than-free trade hurts both, yes? Which should make our economy less attractive. Should be a wash -- UNLESS free trade helps other countries more than it helps us."
This confuses absolute differences with relative differences. The difference for us between free trade and protectionism might be the difference between buying a Honda and a Neon. For someone in a third world country, the difference might be between having food and clothes or not having them. I think that difference would have a very large impact on immigration, no matter what the difference for us.
On personal income, raybbr said:
"These numbers take into account the dot-com boom of the '90s when assets were based on stock value. Look at them now. Let's wait and see the numbers now after the correction in the stock market."
Fair enough. But we have to make free trade decisions evidence provided by past experience, not hypotheticals from the future. If we played that game, I remember when we would be out of oil by 1980, because even supposedly informed people believed that. So I can't take someone's opinion about how things might trend differently in the future very seriously against actual trends from the past. And inflation-adjusted personal income has virtually always risen faster during periods of free trade, as long as numbers have been kept (back to just after WWII).
I don't expect something for nothing. And neither should anyone else.
Plenty of history to back me up. Try Tienanmen Square for an instructive example. And that wasn't even about anything as important as money.
Yah cut my statement in half.. sometimes I guess you gotta do what it takes to miss the point. Of course not too many wanted to do a slave's job. Today we have a great deal of automation, no thanks to slavery.
I'm not scooting around anything, although I think the problem isn't nearly as widespread as you seem to think. Anyway, I already gave you the answer - vote with your wallet. Buy American all day every day if it makes you happy. If enough people feel as you do, foreign competition won't be a problem.
Except that I think you know very well that people are already voting with their wallets, and American shirtmakers are losing. But, if we can't rely on people do do the "right" thing voluntarily, then we'll just force them to do the "right" thing, by crackey...
Why shouldnt we make use of slave labor inside our country since it is acceptable outside?
It's against the law, and it's immoral to boot. If you find foreign companies using slave labor, I strongly urge you not to buy their goods, and tell all your friends and family to do the same. If you convince enough people, those companies will see the light right quick.
According to you our society is of no significance anyway.
You argument is weak enough that it doesn't really help your case to weaken it further by lying about what I have and haven't said. If you can't make a coherent argument without misrepresenting my posts, there's little point in continuing this discussion.
Note that, for real free trade to occur, all that is needed is for nations to agree to it. There's no need for all this socialist, internationalist "globalism" which is really regulated trade, not free trade. The problem with "free traders" today is that they have repudiated the idea of sovereign nation states as "economically inefficient" and therefore have fallen right into the laps of the One Worlders and the International Socialists.
So called "free trade" today is nothing more than a rats nest of treaties, globalist bureaucracies, regulations, and red tape, designed precisely to ensure that real free trade doesn't spontaneously break out anywhere unexpectedly.
Free trade today: it's not a policy, it's a religion.
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And additionally if anyone even knows they are there and what their situation is with the passage of time.
By the time Smoot was passed we were already in a nosedive. Try a different argument.
More likely that history will repeat itself, and we will go the way of all the other "free trade" empires that destroyed themselves: Britain, for instance. Once we have sold our technological "seed corn" just to survive, we won't be in a position to dictate terms to anyone, as we are now doing. A more stupid and short sighted policy is hard to imagine.
Because you're not. You have a goods deficit, not a dollar deficit. You send out more goods than you receive, but you make plenty of dollars doing other things besides manufacturing, so you can finance your taste for foreign goods all day long.
I would only want the government to impose tariffs against a country that imposes tariffs on our products l- nothing more and nothing less. So forget tariffs. Not in my discussion.
Okay, fine. You've identified something you think is a problem - what do you propose to do to fix it?
I repeat if what you do for a living does not help pay for the costs of what we have in this country - you are getting a handout. YOu are getting welfare. YOu are living off the work of others. That is worse than a handout - a handout is voluntary - what you are getting is being taken forcibly from other working people.
Oh, please. Why not just call me a "useless eater" and be done with it. I pay my taxes, same as everyone else here, and there my obligation ends. After that, I choose where and when my hard-earned dollars get spent, not you and not anyone else.
WEll, the problem here is I have had the advantage of not reading anyone law of whatever. I have the advantage of seeing things in terms of common sense and what is good for America and its people. I don't need someone to interpret that for me. You see you cannot spend more than you make - just won't work.
I can't help you. How many ways can I say it? The fact that we have a deficit in manufactured goods doesn't mean we're spending more than we earn, any more than you running a goods deficit with your supermarket means that you're spending more than you earn. If you can't or won't separate the concept of money from the concept of goods, there's very little I can do to persuade you. I've told you everything there is to know - Ricardo's Law can sometimes seem to fly in the face of common sense, but I assure you, it's true. 100% absolutely true.
I repeat everyone in the world is not just interested in making money - they want money for what it will accomplish for them.
That's what everyone is interested in. I don't make money because I like making money - I do it because of what money allows me to do and accomplish. You've discovered that the Chinese aren't so different from us after all.
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