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To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (25379)	1/20/2004 8:22:59 PM
From: Bill Ulrich	Respond to of 793708

"Commerce is no other than the traffic of two individuals, multiplied on a scale of numbers; and by the same rule that nature intended the intercourse of two, she intended that of all. For this purpose she has distributed the materials of manufacturers and commerce in various and distant parts of a nation and of the world; and as they cannot be procured by war so cheaply or so commodiously as by commerce, she has rendered the latter the means of extirpating the former." — Thomas Paine

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (25379)	1/20/2004 8:30:45 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793708

You must admit that Thomas Paine belongs to Howard Dean as much as to any other American. The Left think they own Thomas Paine. They conveniently forget that he said - The "Common Good" is nothing more than the sum of the Individual good.

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (25379)	1/20/2004 8:42:44 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793708

I am trying to clue you in on how trade works, Ann. Not the rhetoric you hear, but the facts. The Ricardian Model Suppose that the United States can produce 6 cars per worker per year, and 90 tons of wheat per worker per year. Suppose that the rest of the world can produce 4 cars per worker per year, and 50 tons of wheat per worker per year. The United States is more productive in both industries, which means that the U.S. has an absolute advantage in both. The naive view is that the United States cannot gain from trade, because we are more efficient. But we can show that this view is wrong. Suppose that Americans like to spend half of their income on cars and half their income on wheat, and that we have 100 workers. If we do not trade, then half of our workers will make cars and half will produce wheat. With 50 workers producing cars, we produce 300 cars. With 50 workers producing wheat, we produce 4500 tons of wheat. Next, suppose that we can trade. We can specialize in producing wheat, so that 100 workers produce 9000 tons of wheat. Then, we keep 4500 tons of wheat and trade 4500 tons of wheat in the world market. In the world market, 50 tons of wheat can trade for 4 cars. If a car costs $10,000, then a ton of wheat will cost $800. So our 4500 tons of wheat can trade for 360 cars. With no trade, we produce and consume 4500 tons of wheat and 300 cars. With trade, we produce 9000 tons of wheat, but we consume 4500 tons of wheat and 360 cars. We export 4500 tons of wheat and import 360 cars. The opportunity to trade increases our ability to consume by 60 cars compared with no trade.

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (25379)	1/20/2004 8:55:07 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793708

Why trade barriers are bad ideas - comparative advantage explained by J. Bradford DeLong, a liberal economics prof at Berkeley who knows his stuff: j-bradford-delong.net I can find you sources that prove it with mathematics, if you're interested. The funny thing about intuition is how often it's wrong. I've been reading an article in New Yorker about SUVs that points out that you're actually far more likely to be injured in an accident in an SUV than a minivan, but that's not the way it "feels." Similarly, if we buy cheap goods from China, it "feels" like we're losing American jobs overseas. Actually, a lot of those American workers are busy working overtime making those damned SUVs. The workers on the Ford Expedition floor make as much as $200K with overtime. The poor millworkers in Appalachia are unemployed because they won't move to where the new jobs are and won't learn a new trade. I've learned two major trades in my life and four or five minor ones. Not to mention learning how to touch-type 60 wpm, email, fax, photocopy, install software, network computers, and a couple new software packages every year or so (bankruptcy, divorce, bookkeeping, number crunching, tax).