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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: craig crawford who wrote (237119)	3/13/2002 12:52:57 AM
From: Dan B.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

I hate to bother you again, but you've just written pretty much exactly what you wrote here last night, RE: "Buy American and you don't have to pay the tax." One more time I tell you you are wrong, i.e. in fact you DO have to pay for the tariff if you buy American. Once a tariff is in place, the low cost option is gone, and all buyers MUST pay more, a reality due solely to the existence of the tariff. Hence your statement is patently false. You admit that an import tariff raises domestic prices, which would seem to be in line with my thinking here. So note that there MUST be money spent over and above what would have been necessary without the tariffs. This money must be accounted for. Already, the tariff has harmed a foreign business and caused us to pay more for the same goods. That extra money spent would have otherwise gone to something else, creating other goods/jobs now never to be known, due to the existence of the tariff. Domestic industry now doesn't need to improve in order to meet the foreign competition, which removes any motivation to improve the product now sellable due only to the tariff on the competition. Without the tariff, the motivation to meet the competition would remain strong, causing potential innovation. What do tariffs give us? Preservation of status quo and stagnancy. Truths such as this are real as the dickens, believe it or not Craig. Running the country like a corporation has nothing to do with it. You persist in imagining that tariffs are a political decision having nothing to do with dollars and cents(not to mention jobs lost), and nothing could be further from the truth of both the functioning and the effect of tariffs, plainly. You don't show any interest in gauging the harm done, and therefore can't possibly offer a credible conclusion as to the long-term harm I'm assuring you tariffs must do, VS the short term limited(exceedingly limited, if I should continue explaining consequences) protection provided. Indeed, when the perceived benefit of tariffs is shown to be far more than offset by the loss of efficiences and overall jobs(as shown above), you rail against the need for efficiency, saying we are not a corporation. Duh...!!!! But we are NOT immune to the actual loss of efficiencies and jobs, especially not in the long run. Hardship is hardship. It is NOT good, and it will add up to much sour ado for us all, if the likes of you have their way. Knuckleheads? You obviously haven't a clue, fool! :-) Dan B

To: craig crawford who wrote (237119)	3/13/2002 9:50:14 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Re: "this dogmatic adherence to free trade above all else has caused us to shoot ourselves in the foot." and "you will never understand why unfettered free trade is destructive." >>> Well, so there ARE still some Buchanan-ites still around! Obviously, like many Dems. and psuedo-conservatives, you'd like to return to the great old days of the Smoot Hawley Act that plunged the world into depression. LOL! >>> Talk about short-sighted and counter-productive actions! America's great success has been largely due to our ability to be one of the most successful trading nations of all. I'm sure that if we just turn inwards and only buy from oligopolistic US-based trade chaebols - hiding behind consumer-soaking tariff barriers - we will all be better off :( >>> ER... that is... the chaebols will be better off as we slowly sink into insignificance and a Japan-style long term decline as a nation. RE: "like everyone else you only focus on the bottom line. jobs in, jobs out. you don't care about the people behind those jobs" >>> Do you dispute that the imposition of steel tariffs will cost far more US jobs than they will 'save'? No! >>> Do you dispute that wages in Germany's steel industry are far higher than in the US steel industry... yet apparently Germany has no problem competing with us? No! So it's not the wages that are the problem. >>> Do you dispute that Bush's tariff tax is aimed mostly at providing welfare for only the LEAST productive, and most antiquated, of our integrated steel mills (in the midwestern states he needs for his re-election)... and provide no price support for the newer American mills (like Nucor) which are competing successfully? No! >>> So what is the basis for your argument? That 'them durn furreners' are eating our lunch? Steel is a heavy product, expensive to ship. Assuming a minimal level of efficiency in the industry, the local producers should have a price advantage over foreign producers... 'cause it costs so much to ship. >>> Yes, there is over-capacity worldwide in the industry (partly because of the current slowdown), and yes we should extract recompense when foreign GOVERNMENTS subsidize their companies... but now (as during Reagan's term) so do we! >>> Times of over capacity and global slowdown is when we should be closing down the least efficient producers so the more modern ones can grow strong by taking the market share. By keeping our weakest, least productive mills in operation (as during Reagan's term) by propping up the weak sisters we don't allow our best steel mills to become stronger. >>> Exactly the same mistake Japan made.