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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: craig crawford who wrote (21264)	3/13/2002 4:54:06 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

that's all fine and dandy, but what has that got to do with free trade? we got wealthier and more productive during the times our nation was protectionist as well. Like, in 1930?

To: craig crawford who wrote (21264)	3/13/2002 6:03:27 AM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

in the 1950's a home used to cost twice the annual salary of a couple, and women were not in the workforce nearly as much as today. today it costs four times the average annual salary of a couple to buy a home and women have entered the workforce en masse. Price of housing went up because cost of serviced land went up. The reason for this is that the middle class conspired against their children deciding they were entitled to a capital gain on their homes (despite no income attached to this "asset") and went for restrictive zoning. Every thing else has become relatively cheaper. This is a non sequeter with respect to free trade. >> Because companies adjust in a dynamic ever changeing economy << they are not adapting to a set of circumstances beyond their control. the multinational companies are aggressively pursuing a change in the structure of our economy, in order to enrich themselves. they lobby politicians for free trade agreements so they can continue their exploitation and pad the bottom line. this doesn't happen by accident, it is by design. Companies lobby both for restrictive tarriffs and for lifting tariffs. You aren't making an argument. You're hand waving. The US's growing trade deficit with Mexico and Canada has led to the loss of 766,000 American jobs since 1994. Those affected were primarily non-college-educated workers in manufacturing. Most of them found work elsewhere in the booming 1990s. But these jobs were mostly in the service sector, where the average wage is 77 percent of that in manufacturing. How manymore jobs were created during this time? If a relatively uneducated person wants a wage as high as a more trained person then perhaps they should get further training, don't you think? I think it's time you looked at a few things that don't agree with your POV. The most import restrictive country in the world, Japan, actually has smaller housing than it had a hundred years ago. It's food costs are outrageously high. It has the highest savings rate in the world and has been in a depression for ten years. What the hell do you think they can do with all that money? It was cheaper until a couple of years ago for a Japanese citizen to fly to America and buy high ticket consumer goods than to buy them there. It probably still is cheaper but they're not travelling much these days. See the reason below. You mentioned a few posts back and again here the US balance of payments deficit as if it were some devastatingly important thing and that countries shouldn't be run like companies. You're right about the latter and wrong about the former. A prosperous wealthy country will buy more from smaller less wealthy countries than they can buy from it (Bill Gates almost certainly buys more from his neighbours than they buy from him) - this will go on until the other countries become more prosperous unless, as is the case of Japan, their governments stop citizens from buying imports by imposing tariffs or other barriers. This is not an argument against free trade or an argument for so-called "fair trade". It's an argument for free trade. With regard to difficult position some US workers are in. The most desirable thing that could happen is a very prosperous Mexico. It would suck cars from off the moon. Mexican workers have been screwed by a series of economically incompetent and corrupt mercantilist governments which until very recently kept the action for their supporters and never let the domestic market develop. This has nothing to do with free trade. The maqilladora workers are in a better position than most mexican workers who have their skill levels. You have to demonstrate Mexican and US workers would have been better off without NAFTA and you haven't.

To: craig crawford who wrote (21264)	3/14/2002 1:42:29 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 281500

technology improved the standard of living of americans during protectionism as well. True, but that comment doesn't addres my point. You at least implied that our standard of living is lower. My point was that it is not. Also not all of those improvements that I pointed out are technological in nature. Bigger houses doesn't have a lot to do with new technology, neither does more cars per person. Even when you just consider the new items that technology brings us, if our wealth had been going down we would not have been able to afford as many of them. that's all fine and dandy, but what has that got to do with free trade? we got wealthier and more productive during the times our nation was protectionist as well. The point is simply that we have gotten wealthier. It was made in response to your comments about how we are worse off because of free trade. >> then the typical family could do so on one income at least as well as they did in 1970 << ridiculous. you are mixing apples with oranges. My point is that it is apples and oranges. It takes more labor to maintain a "middle class lifestyle" now because sich a lifestyle includes more then it used to. in the 1950's a home used to cost twice the annual salary of a couple, and women were not in the workforce nearly as much as today. today it costs four times the average annual salary of a couple to buy a home and women have entered the workforce en masse. The average home is bigger and more lavish now, so you are comparing apples and oranges. Build an furnish a house like a typical home in the 50s and the cost measured in years of average annual salary will not have gone up nearly as much. It might not have even gone up at all. The main reasons for the increase in housing costs are the increase in land prices and the increase in housing size. We can't just manufacture more land as the population and the per capita wealth grows it makes sense that housing becomes more expensive in real terms. But many goods have become less expensive when adjusted for the offical inflation rate (another way of stating that inflation estimates may be too high) and most goods have either greatly improved in quality, or become less expensive in terms of hours of labor required to buy them. hey are not adapting to a set of circumstances beyond their control. the multinational companies are aggressively pursuing a change in the structure of our economy, in order to enrich themselves. they lobby politicians for free trade agreements so they can continue their exploitation and pad the bottom line. this doesn't happen by accident, it is by design. Many large comapnies want free trade in general because they think it will help them, but they are unable to predict the exact results. Also it doesn't bother me that it helps them as it helps the economy in general and it helps more people then it hurts. Many other companies oppose free trade (or will make a statement about supporting it, while at the same time calling for protection for their products because they are a "special case", or because foreign companies are "dumping goods", or because they are a "strategic industry") because they don't want to face competition. Look at the steel companies and agribusiness for some of the best examples. Also things like the "voluntary restraints" that were imposed on car imports from Japan. You probably have more lobbying for trade barriers from large companies then you have lobbying to drop our trade barriers. yeah well pre-nafta $6 billion surplus to a now $25 billion deficit sounds like mexico is shipping us a lot more than we are sending down there. Its not a zero sum game. Both countries are richer for the trade. Having a trade deficit with a country does not mean that trade with that country hurts the US. Business frequently threatened to shift manufacturing facilities to Mexico to weaken labor unions in the bargaining process. I don't view that as a bad thing. Surprisingly, NAFTA hasn't delivered its promised benefits to Mexican workers. Mexico's economy quickly recovered from the 1995 peso crisis. And American jobs did move to Mexico. But these primarily went to maquiladora areas just across the border, where working conditions are often grim. So "they are taking all of our jobs", but "it doesn't help them". Now you are not just saying trade is a zero sum game, but that its a negative sum game. The conditions in those maguiladora factories may be grim, but people choose to work there. Why? Because they can't find another job, or because they get more at these factories, or because conditions are even worse elsewhere. Those factories are grim by American standards but not by Mexican standards. The existance of these jobs is a great benefit for Mexicans. Despite this, between 1991 and 1998, the incomes of salaried Mexican workers fell 25 percent. Latin America in general has had problems lately. Mexico has done a lot better then many other countries in the region. Trade with America is a big part of why they haven't done as poorly as many of the other countries. Drop NAFTA and Mexico's economy gets flushed down the toilet. Tim