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

To: DMaA who wrote (237254)	3/13/2002 2:38:13 PM
From: craig crawford	Respond to of 769667

>> Even now, about 95% of people who want jobs have jobs << my argument does not hinge on proving that free trade causes net job losses. individuals and entire communities who lose their jobs to free trade usually do find other work. but as the article i posted last night pointed out, the statistics show that these jobs are replaced with lower wage service jobs. people that used to earn a decent living in a manufacturing job end up getting a service job in the government or working the cash register at walmart--someone has to sell all the cheap imported goods to our materialistic society. when working in manufacturing you are producing something of value. working for the government is not what i would call a productive endeavor. working for walmart means you are simply a middleman, skimming profits off the flow of goods. tell me something. if consumerism is so productive and beneficial to a society why is it that politicians have to beg and plead with us to rack up more debt in an effort to prop the economy up via wanton spending? we've all heard it. the economy is two-thirds consumer spending. it's all about the consumer. as long as the consumer keeps spending the economy will stay afloat. does it sound logical to you that our economy is structured so that to prosper we need to be self-centered, self-indulgent, materialistic consumers? do you think God would advocate setting up a society based on this type of self-centered, indulgent behavior? do you think the bible would advocate people being productive, as opposed to consumptive? >> but so did the protectionists in the 30's. And no analysis can show they did anything except make things MUCH worse. << i was wondering when this argument was going to surface. i'm surprised it took so long. i guess i am going to have to drag out all the articles, quotes, and analysis that prove that tariffs had nothing to do with causing or prolonging the depression. i will get to it in detail later, but here are a few tidbits for now. nobody will dispute that the famous and influential economist milton friedman is an ardent proponent of free trade. "It played no significant role in either causing the depression or prolonging it." --Milton Friedman on the Smoot-Hawley Tariff here's something i just pulled off the web in a quick search. it seems like it was written from an objective point of view, not from some raving protectionist. Tariffs, Deflation and the Depression of 1930 ak.planet.gen.nz It was the countries that resisted devaluation that turned first to tariff protection (eg USA, which devalued in 1933) or exchange controls (eg Germany). Protection is the third way to ration imports, and there was a wave of protectionism in the 1930s. Tariff protection actually paved the way for the recovery of the international economy. Protectionism was a result of the Depression, not a cause. Even J.M. Keynes, the most famous economist of the era (and, like Krugman, very much an internationalist), favoured "national self-sufficiency" in 1933. He saw that each country had to find its own solution, but that no country could risk a reflation unless it could ensure that the extra spending would lead to domestic employment growth. ....................................................................................................................... In 1998, the world economy is poised to go through a rather painful period of deflation. Will we learn the lesson of history: that, while the growth of tariff protection did not cause the Great Depression, it did enable the substantial recovery? In America's case, the recovery needed much more: the devaluation of 1933 and the expenditure programme of Roosevelt's "New Deal". The Smoot-Hawley tariff acted as a challenge to other countries to look to themselves for a domestic solution, rather than relying on America's consumers to get them out of trouble. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` that last point is quite illuminating. flash forward to today. what do we see? countries in asia and latin america who have gotten themselves into trouble and so they sought to export their way out of trouble by devaluing their currencies and flooding our markets with cheap imports. dumping goods on america's consumers hoping we would bail them out of their quagmire. funny how history repeats itself. nice work mr president on steel tariffs, for at least taking the first step in a long journey to making "a challenge to other countries to look to themselves for a domestic solution, rather than relying on America's consumers to get them out of trouble".

To: DMaA who wrote (237254)	3/13/2002 4:00:13 PM
From: craig crawford	Respond to of 769667

copied over from my post on the foreign affairs thread. >> The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 wasn't the first tariff to contribute to the Great Depression. That would be Fordney-McCumber, 1922. << gee, tariffs in 1922. that wouldn't have had anything to do with the roaring twenties now would it? that is what i would have to conclude using your simplistic logic. using your argument that these things are a long time in the making, i could argue that it was woodrow wilson who lowered tariffs dramatically that culminated in the events leading to the great depression. just how far do you want to go back? you went back eight years to blame a modest tariff, why can't we go back another eight and blame wilson's substantial reductions of tariffs? if tariffs lead to great depressions, how come we didn't suffer great depressions in the century leading up to world war one when much of that time we were far more protectionist than in the 20's? Woodrow Wilson multied.com Wilson personally appeared before Congress (he was the first President since John Adams to make such an appearance) to persuade it to pass the Longwood Tariff Act which substantially reduced tariffs. Wilson also helped to establish the Federal Reserve system, the first national banking system since the time of President Jackson. Wilson followed a liberal foreign policy. He ended the policy of Dollar Diplomacy, in which the United States could use force to enforce economic policies. He did not, however, object to the use of force for the sake of democracy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ like i said, we have one of the worst presidents of the 20th century woodrow wilson (i'm being generous to clinton) to thank for this free trade, one-world, utopian nightmare of free trade dogma. >> Smoot-Hawley was just the icing on the cake. This is, IMO, the major problem with tariffs. The consequences are unforeseeable << gee we had more than a century of tariffs protection and the country seemed to be just fine to me. the consequences to unfettered free trade look quite foreseeable if you ask me. woodrow wilson taught us what to expect from free traitors. >> Also, other countries which have lower prices may well be in dire straits themselves, so tariffs further destabilize them, which isn't a good idea if you want them to be a market for your own goods. << give me a frigging break! what has free trade given us? massive destabilization! two-bit third world countries devaluing and trying to export their problems onto us. free trade and these global new world order dopes have brought us to the point where every time some podunk country topples the whole world economy is on the verge of collapse! remember the asian contagion? it started out with tiny thailand and spread like wildfire across the whole globe--all thanks to free trade, and globalization. we taxpayers are asked to spend billions via the IMF to bail out the financial whores of the world like goldman sachs who are profiting from this free trade perversion of capitalism. notice how every bailout gets larger and larger? we were on the hook to mexico for $50 billion, then the IMF spent $120 billion to bail out thailand, indonesia, and south korea, not to mention tens of billions more for russia. now argentina alone wants $132 billion from the IMF! every year or two countries come crying to the IMF about how they need more money because they cannot learn to be self sufficient. of course the politicians and big bankers plead with us that capitalism itself hinges on bailing these countries out and if us taxpayers don't pony up, the whole house of cards is coming down. these are the pernicious effects of this utopian, neo-socialist, global movement towards free trade.