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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (6308)	3/18/2009 5:14:04 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

You are assuming that all trade wars are bad. I didn't actually state such an assumption, or a statement that would require such an assumption (if they tend to be horrifically bad, or if the vast majority of them, but not all of them, are bad, then my post still made sense). But the idea "all trade wars are bad", isn't far from my opinion. I think there are trade imbalances with China that need to be addressed. Your making the assumption that they need to be addressed, that they have to be addressed by government action, and perhaps that a trade war would be a good way to deal with the situation. but the threat of a trade war is leverage in and of itself. To the extent that your correct here, it would be the threat that would be good not the actual trade war. Similar to (but obviously with less potential destruction then) the idea that a threat of nuclear attack, kept people from nuking us, and also was a major contributor to the fact that we never had a conventional major war with the USSR. But an actual nuclear war would be bad. For folks who don't think twice about going to war with human lives at stake, you guys sure do seem chicken when it comes to trade wars. ;) "Don't think twice" is hardly accurate in my case or in the case of many others who supported the effort in Iraq. Also while shooting wars can be more destructive, they have more hope of achieving positive results. Trade wars are just purely destructive, and in major trade wars people's lives are at stake as well. In addition to all of that, free trade makes real shooting wars less likely.