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Our founders understood that America could not be independent and strong if we relied on other nations for our manufactured goods. They understood the United States had the natural resources…
Is what is considered "free trade" these days an actual good policy or are we hampering our own economic prosperity to the advantage of our enemies?...one glaring example in particular.
Brother, what planet are you living on?
I am arguing for a forced decoupling from China and that we start looking at fair trade as opposed to free trade. Did you read the article? The guy kind of lays it all out in the article and supports his thesis.
It wouldn't be artificially raising them. It would be instituting some form of punishment on countries that exploit their workers making the trade not fair or free. China has barriers to entry into their economy. They steal and then use basically slave labor to sell a junkier version of the product back to you. Let them produce their shlock and people would be free to buy their shlock, but it would come at an increased cost because they use slave labor which puts domestic workers out of business. Countries like Germany wouldn't have to worry about the tariffs because they operate on a more level playing field.
wtfhappenedin1971.com
Increased tariffs = higher costs for producers = higher costs for consumers = lower consumption.It wouldn't be artificially raising them. It would be instituting some form of punishment on countries that exploit their workers making the trade not fair or free. China has barriers to entry into their economy. They steal and then use basically slave labor to sell a junkier version of the product back to you. Let them produce their shlock and people would be free to buy their shlock, but it would come at an increased cost because they use slave labor which puts domestic workers out of business. Countries like Germany wouldn't have to worry about the tariffs because they operate on a more level playing field.
1971 seems to be an inflection point for a bunch of things that went off track for this country. WTF happened in 1971?
WTF Happened In 1971?
"I don't believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can't take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can't stop." - F.A. Hayek 1984
ETA: Free trade as it has been practiced is putting us on a road to political violence. If the difference between the haves and have nots continues to increase to the point where the middle class is squeezed out, we are putting the country on a path to political revolution. The ugly kind where the "rich" get drug out into the street and shot and political leaders get the guillotine. The current path is unsustainable so we have to make some changes. Political orthodoxy be damned.
Lol, not generally. Like I said, there are exceptions that are few and far between.
What changes to the process would you suggest? I can't think of any changes to "free trade" that do not amount to a form of protectionism. Either it is free or it is protected. The minute you move away from the idea that there should be no barriers, you are agreeing that there are protections that can/should be put into place to ensure a balanced market. At that point you are just arguing what level of protection and what types.
Lame. There is a long list of people in the article that run from Jefferson to Lincoln to McKinley to Adam Smith himself that all argue for protecting the wealth of your nation and that there should be limits to "free" trade. Were they all on the slippery slope to autocracy?
www.cfr.org
We went off the Gold standard is what happened. Most of the issues stem from the money is sh#t. Start learning about Austrian economics and it will make sense.It wouldn't be artificially raising them. It would be instituting some form of punishment on countries that exploit their workers making the trade not fair or free. China has barriers to entry into their economy. They steal and then use basically slave labor to sell a junkier version of the product back to you. Let them produce their shlock and people would be free to buy their shlock, but it would come at an increased cost because they use slave labor which puts domestic workers out of business. Countries like Germany wouldn't have to worry about the tariffs because they operate on a more level playing field.
1971 seems to be an inflection point for a bunch of things that went off track for this country. WTF happened in 1971?
WTF Happened In 1971?
"I don't believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can't take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can't stop." - F.A. Hayek 1984
ETA: Free trade as it has been practiced is putting us on a road to political violence. If the difference between the haves and have nots continues to increase to the point where the middle class is squeezed out, we are putting the country on a path to political revolution. The ugly kind where the "rich" get drug out into the street and shot and political leaders get the guillotine. The current path is unsustainable so we have to make some changes. Political orthodoxy be damned.
www.nationalreview.com
Some of the above are purely human faults unrelated (at least nowhere near where I think you're at) to free trade. Fat, high, and stupid is no way to go through life. What happened to personal responsibility?
There are only two real ways to resolve this situation:
Lame. There is a long list of people in the article that run from Jefferson to Lincoln to McKinley to Adam Smith himself that all argue for protecting the wealth of your nation and that there should be limits to "free" trade. Were they all on the slippery slope to autocracy?
The argument is that we have a better standard of living because of our easy access to cheap Chinese junk. Yeah, your wages stagnated but now you can get a refrigerator (that you have to replace every 5 years) for a comparatively lower price than in 1970...granted those 1970 refrigerators are still kicking in some people's garages these days but man it was expensive. Things are awesome now, show your work. We have a bunch of technologically awesome stuff that was usually developed in a developed nation. It was then stolen and poorly copied and now you can get a cheaper (in every way) version of it slapped together by some Chinese schmuck sitting in a sweatshop making a pittance a week. That is how our lives got "better".
"Free" trade (which is really a misnomer) made your life better. You shuffle digital money around and get paid well to do it. For the 60%+ of people with no college degree, it hurt them and their communities. They can watch on their cheap Hisense TV while they pop oxy and thank their lucky stars how easy it is and cheap it is to buy piece of shit toasters and other poor quality shit while eating out of their 7.5 Oz $5 bag of chips.
What leads to autocratic governments is the types of economic inequities we are seeing in this country. The balance is off and it needs readjusted. If you have a free trade way to resolve that, you should really be pressuring the people in charge to hurry up and drop that program for us. There is a middle path that I think gets laid out in the article and then there is the leftist revolution.
The U.S. Inequality Debate
Public policy experts call income and wealth inequality one of the defining challenges of this century. Recent crises have accelerated these divisions, and the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened them fur…
1. You don't have to cut them off. You can restrict market share (like Reagan did) and you can impose tariffs (like Trump) what you cannot do without decreasing the buying power of your people is to have them in a wage spiral against people who live in shanty towns and squalor.
www.google.com
Interesting post1. You don't have to cut them off. You can restrict market share (like Reagan did) and you can impose tariffs (like Trump) what you cannot do without decreasing the buying power of your people is to have them in a wage spiral against people who live in shanty towns and squalor.
2. It isn't money off my back. I do well. It is the acknowledgement that there is a certain level of balance that is desirable to maintain the stability of a nation. We are tilted too far. I also disagree with those who are on a similar political side of the aisle to me who claim that the only way one can be "conservative" is free trade, low taxes, and high deficits in perpetuity.
They keep saying "this works" and I look around and ask how? People are not getting married, having children, buying houses, buying cars, etc. and that issue is increasing as we go younger in population. Where did the workers go and why the shortage? People stopped having kids. Why? Well if you listen to them they say they can't afford them. Mom and Dad have to both work to provide the current middle class standard of living that Dad used to provide. Our higher standard of living is mostly based on cheap consumer electronic bull shit from China.
And yes, the things I mentioned are personal choices but damn if the whole pull yourself up by your boot straps argument (one I wholeheartedly believe in) is a harder sell when economic mobility has decreased for the past 40+ years and is lower than in other developed nations.
Stuck on the ladder: Wealth mobility is low and decreases with age | Brookings
Ariel Gelrud Shiro, Christopher Pulliam and Ember Smith expand on their findings in our new report on intergenerational wealth mobility in the United States by examining when opportunities for wealth occur during working years, and when those opportunities decline.
I was on the free trade yay bandwagon and I do believe that fair trade is a good thing. However, I look at the data and I have a hard time arguing that what we are doing now is doing this country favors. It has been awesome for the countries you listed but I am an unabashed nationalist. **** China. I will pay a few extra dollars when I have to replace my goods or I can buy one less outfit here and there. I have more shit than I know what to do with. Having a functional country again where people can do an honest days work for an honest days wages is preferable to enriching Xi and his asshole friends.
We aren't at war with China because they don't feel they can win.....yet. They are just following their blue print and we foolishly have been playing along.
www.southasiamonitor.org
Nope, you’re just a proponent of the FED that causes most of these issues.
Protecting trade is actually a legitimate function of government. You could argue that our military budget is designed to effectively protect trade for a good portion of the world. The U.S. Navy is basically a giant "free trade" floatilla.
www.statista.com
Birth rate lowers as a country develops, that seems to be the standard around the world. That happened in Japan as long ago as 1980. It is happening in China now even with the one-child policy gone. In 2022 China had its lowest birth rate ever. In the US, it is the poorer people with higher birth rates. People over $200,000, the people who should be able to afford kids, don't have them.
Birth rate by family income in the U.S. 2019 | Statista
In 2019, the birth rate in the United States was highest in families that had under 10,000 U.S.
I don't think it is because people can't afford children, I think they don't want to afford children. The people I know without kids make really good money and travel around the world often. That becomes harder, not just more expensive, with kids.
The solution has been, and is, open up to more immigration. We can pass laws limiting access to the social welfare system for a number of years upon entry.
Pakis run 24/7 without those complaints
Yes father. It is true that we run a terror cell in back of your factory. But please do not let this interfere with our business. Your products must come first. It is my duty.I nearly spit out my coffee.
