America Needs Smart Trade Not Free Trade!

[JimofPennsylvan]

Robert Zoellick wrote an editorial article in the Wall Street Journal published today advocating for free trade and the globalization model. What an utter fool and dangerous ideology he seeks to sell. In selling the globalization model he focuses on if we only take down barriers in foreign countries American exporters will be able to sell more. Fools like Mr. Zoellick never focus what America loses in such deals the manufacturing companies, industries and middle class jobs. He picks and chooses the statistics he wants to cite to defend his position but ignores the critically important big picture statistics. This statistic is that America's trade deficit over a year is around $500 billion dollars, if the American economy was spending that money in the U.S. instead of sending it outside the country that would create a lot of middle class jobs frankly if it was permanently spent here it would permanently solve America's disintegration of the middle class and American dream problem. Zoellick does what the other fools like him do painting their opponents as protectionists. Protectionism isn't a bad word it is elected officials duty it is their duty to protect their country's jobs protectionism doesn't mean isolationism it doesn't mean no trade it all what it means first a country is to take care of providing jobs for their own people and once they do this then they can open their economy up to international trade. If one wants to just taste the greatness of governments erecting prudent trade barriers look at the benefits of just trade tariffs against Chinese steel manufacturers for the US steel industry, it is in heaven. Prudent trade barriers ideally shouldn't be done with tariffs but rather with quotas so as to reduce the problem of U.S. consumers paying more what America really needs is American Universities to create a regulatory model that protects domestic manufacturing industries and protecting their jobs and allowing a prudent portion of these industries open to foreign manufacturers. Essentially, that will give America smart trade which is what America should be after!











steel and



Europe electronics

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Robert Zoellick wrote an editorial article in the Wall Street Journal published today advocating for free trade and the globalization model. What an utter fool and dangerous ideology he seeks to sell. In selling the globalization model he focuses on if we only take down barriers in foreign countries American exporters will be able to sell more. Fools like Mr. Zoellick never focus what America loses in such deals the manufacturing companies, industries and middle class jobs. He picks and chooses the statistics he wants to cite to defend his position but ignores the critically important big picture statistics. This statistic is that America's trade deficit over a year is around $500 billion dollars, if the American economy was spending that money in the U.S. instead of sending it outside the country that would create a lot of middle class jobs frankly if it was permanently spent here it would permanently solve America's disintegration of the middle class and American dream problem. Zoellick does what the other fools like him do painting their opponents as protectionists. Protectionism isn't a bad word it is elected officials duty it is their duty to protect their country's jobs protectionism doesn't mean isolationism it doesn't mean no trade it all what it means first a country is to take care of providing jobs for their own people and once they do this then they can open their economy up to international trade. If one wants to just taste the greatness of governments erecting prudent trade barriers look at the benefits of just trade tariffs against Chinese steel manufacturers for the US steel industry, it is in heaven. Prudent trade barriers ideally shouldn't be done with tariffs but rather with quotas so as to reduce the problem of U.S. consumers paying more what America really needs is American Universities to create a regulatory model that protects domestic manufacturing industries and protecting their jobs and allowing a prudent portion of these industries open to foreign manufacturers. Essentially, that will give America smart trade which is what America should be after!











steel and



Europe electronics

free trade is smart trade.

Here's the golden rule for beginners:

The more with whom you trade the richer you get whether they are across the street or across the globe. The fewer with whom you trade the poorer you get. Imagine how poor you'd be if you had to trade with 1000 people only, or, imagine if there was no trade and you had to make everything yourself. This is Econ 101 class one day one

Also, you learn that Hawley Smoot Tariff trade wars helped cause the Great Depression and World War by collapsing world trade.

Now you know why we have free trade and why virtually all economists find it about the only thing upon which they can agree.

 

[phoenyx]

Robert Zoellick wrote an editorial article in the Wall Street Journal published today advocating for free trade and the globalization model. What an utter fool and dangerous ideology he seeks to sell. In selling the globalization model he focuses on if we only take down barriers in foreign countries American exporters will be able to sell more. Fools like Mr. Zoellick never focus what America loses in such deals the manufacturing companies, industries and middle class jobs. He picks and chooses the statistics he wants to cite to defend his position but ignores the critically important big picture statistics. This statistic is that America's trade deficit over a year is around $500 billion dollars, if the American economy was spending that money in the U.S. instead of sending it outside the country that would create a lot of middle class jobs frankly if it was permanently spent here it would permanently solve America's disintegration of the middle class and American dream problem. Zoellick does what the other fools like him do painting their opponents as protectionists. Protectionism isn't a bad word it is elected officials duty it is their duty to protect their country's jobs protectionism doesn't mean isolationism it doesn't mean no trade it all what it means first a country is to take care of providing jobs for their own people and once they do this then they can open their economy up to international trade. If one wants to just taste the greatness of governments erecting prudent trade barriers look at the benefits of just trade tariffs against Chinese steel manufacturers for the US steel industry, it is in heaven. Prudent trade barriers ideally shouldn't be done with tariffs but rather with quotas so as to reduce the problem of U.S. consumers paying more what America really needs is American Universities to create a regulatory model that protects domestic manufacturing industries and protecting their jobs and allowing a prudent portion of these industries open to foreign manufacturers. Essentially, that will give America smart trade which is what America should be after!

I essentially agree with you. Here's an excerpt from an article written a few years ago that I believe gets to the gist of the matter:

**Congress could vote any day now to strike a new blow against already-battered U.S. workers and the unemployed.

Committees in the House and Senate recently marked up the Colombia, Panama, and South Korea Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The Obama administration is urging passage of all three relics of the Bush administration before the summer recess.

The full-court press on the FTAs represents a reversal for a president elected on a trade reform platform. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama proclaimed his opposition to the NAFTA-style FTAs and boasted of his stance against the devastating North American and Central American agreements. As candidate Obama, he carefully distanced himself from the open-market, pro-corporate policies of his predecessor, calling for significant changes to the NAFTA model, including enforceable labor and environmental standards, and consumer protections.

The Global Crisis
In the three years since Obama wooed voters with talk of bold changes in trade policy, the need for reforms has reached crisis proportions. The global economic crisis left the United States with skyrocketing un- and under-employment rates. The government paid billions of dollars in bailout money to the corporations who caused the crisis. These corporations then turned around to post record profits and hand out astronomical executive pay bonuses. The evidence that FTA-fueled outsourcing benefits those corporations while putting Americans out of work has piled up, and polls show that a majority of U.S. citizens oppose NAFTA-style FTAs.

Abroad, labor violations and increasing inequality have exacerbated the plight of poor and working people in FTA countries, while creating a new class of mega-rich that often control national economies.

This would seem to be precisely the moment to make good on the promises to fix trade and investment policy, and to give workers everywhere a fair shake in a globalized economy that has been severely skewed toward the interests of powerful corporations — to devastating effect.

Instead, the Obama administration has gone from the audacity of hope to the audacity of presenting three pro-corporate trade agreements to a public suffering from a nearly 10 percent unemployment rate. As United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard concludes in aletter to Congress opposing the trade agreements, “Trade deals force working Americans to assume all the risk and encourage big multinationals to reap all the rewards.”

NAFTA Look-alikes
The new agreements look nearly identical to the NAFTA model, despite some tweaks and promises of advances that are mostly left outside the actual text of the agreements. Some of the most noxious elements that persist in the FTAs before Congress are: prohibitions on financial sector regulation and capital controls, foreign investment incentives that encourage off-shoring, separate legal regimes in which corporations can sue governments in specialized tribunals, weak environmental standards, vague and toothless labor standards, and intellectual property rules that monopolize knowledge needed for the public good.

The Economic Policy Institute calculates that the South Korean FTA alone will cost 159,000 U.S. jobs. Department of Commerce data shows that over the past decade of free trade policy multinational corporations cut their U.S. workforce by 2.9 million and increased overseas employment by 2.4 million. Under these trade and investment regimes, U.S. workers clearly suffer, which is why voters have supported candidates critical of NAFTA-style free trade. Although job displacement is frequently viewed as a zero-sum system where workers of different nations compete, the reality is that decent jobs — with dignified working conditions and real labor rights — are lost everywhere. FTAs turn the world into a global labor bazaar for corporations to bargain-hunt.

Labor unions in the countries purportedly hungering for a U.S. FTA overwhelmingly oppose them. Colombian labor organizations have consistently taken a stand against the Colombia FTA, asserting that it creates binding terms between two vastly unequal economies; would negatively affect agriculture, manufacturing, medicines and other vital sectors; would generate few if any net jobs; and would place thousands of local businesses in jeopardy. Agroup of Korean unions, farmers, and civil society groups traveled to Washington last January to “prevent the negative consequences that the Korea-US FTA will have on both of our countries.”

Both groups have presented their testimony to the U.S. Congress, exploding another myth: that FTAs are a “reward” to be bestowed on deserving allies. Powerful economic interests in these nations – typically over-represented by their governments — have brought tremendous pressure to bear in favor of the agreements. Meanwhile, the poor, workers, small farmers, the displaced, and indigenous and ethnic organizations nearly unanimously oppose them...**

Read more at: The Audacity of Free Trade Agreements - FPIF

 

[AdvancingTime]

It is not rational to think that increased trade creates a lot more jobs. While it expands ones market allowing a company to grow, the area where the goods are shipped does not enjoy the creation of jobs for making that product. Trade often is no more than a glorified "job shifter." The article below delves deeper into this issue.

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/01/trade-may-not-be-great-job-creator.html

 

[Tehon]

Robert Zoellick wrote an editorial article in the Wall Street Journal published today advocating for free trade and the globalization model. What an utter fool and dangerous ideology he seeks to sell. In selling the globalization model he focuses on if we only take down barriers in foreign countries American exporters will be able to sell more. Fools like Mr. Zoellick never focus what America loses in such deals the manufacturing companies, industries and middle class jobs. He picks and chooses the statistics he wants to cite to defend his position but ignores the critically important big picture statistics. This statistic is that America's trade deficit over a year is around $500 billion dollars, if the American economy was spending that money in the U.S. instead of sending it outside the country that would create a lot of middle class jobs frankly if it was permanently spent here it would permanently solve America's disintegration of the middle class and American dream problem. Zoellick does what the other fools like him do painting their opponents as protectionists. Protectionism isn't a bad word it is elected officials duty it is their duty to protect their country's jobs protectionism doesn't mean isolationism it doesn't mean no trade it all what it means first a country is to take care of providing jobs for their own people and once they do this then they can open their economy up to international trade. If one wants to just taste the greatness of governments erecting prudent trade barriers look at the benefits of just trade tariffs against Chinese steel manufacturers for the US steel industry, it is in heaven. Prudent trade barriers ideally shouldn't be done with tariffs but rather with quotas so as to reduce the problem of U.S. consumers paying more what America really needs is American Universities to create a regulatory model that protects domestic manufacturing industries and protecting their jobs and allowing a prudent portion of these industries open to foreign manufacturers. Essentially, that will give America smart trade which is what America should be after!











steel and



Europe electronics

free trade is smart trade.

Here's the golden rule for beginners:

The more with whom you trade the richer you get whether they are across the street or across the globe. The fewer with whom you trade the poorer you get. Imagine how poor you'd be if you had to trade with 1000 people only, or, imagine if there was no trade and you had to make everything yourself. This is Econ 101 class one day one

Also, you learn that Hawley Smoot Tariff trade wars helped cause the Great Depression and World War by collapsing world trade.

Now you know why we have free trade and why virtually all economists find it about the only thing upon which they can agree.

The more with whom you trade the richer you get whether they are across the street or across the globe.

If we were actually trading we wouldn't have a trade deficit of 37 billion dollars. All we are doing is allowing American manufacturers to exploit cheap labor.

What is the benefit to getting richer if we destabilize our society in the process?

 

[Supposn]

JimOfPennsylvania, I’m a proponent for USA’s adopting a trade policy described by Wikipedia’s article entitled “Import Certificates”.

People such as Edward Baimao perceive no differences between Import Certificate or tariff policies, but their consequences significantly differ. That contributor to this tread continues expounding his canard of the Hawley Smoot Tariff trade being among the causes for our great depression. The stock market crash of 1929 is the generally accepted indicator that the depression had already begun. The Hawley Smoot Tariff Act was passed in 1930.



The described Import Certificate proposal’s a substantially market driven unilateral trade proposal that would extremely reduce if not entirely eliminate USA’s chronic annual trade deficits of goods. It also serves as an indirect but effective subsidy of USA’s exported goods. The federal government’s entire direct net costs due to this policy are passed on to USA purchasers of imported goods].



[Trade deficits are a drag upon their nations’ GDPs and are a particular drag upon their numbers of jobs. Anything that’s a drag upon numbers of jobs also drags upon job wages’ purchasing powers.


There’s a symbiotic relationship between the nation’s production and their experience, knowledge, and discovery of improved handling materials, tools, and methods for production. If a nation doesn’t produce, it reduces their ability to resume production without greater cost and effort and their motivation to research and develop new production methods and products.

The total net economic and social cost of USA’s squandered production facilities and industries must be huge but they’re incalculable.


USA’s adoption of the Import Certificate proposal would be to our net economic and social benefit

Refer to Wikipedia’s article entitled “Import Certificates”.



Respectfully, Supposn











steel and



Europe electronics[/QUOTE]

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

If we were actually trading we wouldn't have a trade deficit of 37 billion dollars.

100% idiotic and confused!! Of course we are trading!!! Do you think the Chinese burn our dollars to heat their homes or do you think they trade so they can have our dollars to spend???????? $37 billion to a $20 trillion economy is .000004%. now do you understand???

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

All we are doing is allowing American manufacturers to exploit cheap labor.

100% stupid confused and liberal of course !! how is it exploitation when the high wages allow the Chinese workers to be far richer and grow far faster than ever before in their history. If they are exploited by high wages that are making them rich what were they when liberalism slowly starved 60 million of them to death? OMG!!!!

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

It is not rational to think that increased trade creates a lot more jobs.

amazingly ignorant and liberal of course !!! If one country say invents modern farming equipment and can then feed most of the world, most of the world no longer has to be farmers and thus most of the world gets billions of new jobs outside of farming thanks to trade. 1+1=2

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The Hawley Smoot Tariff Act was passed in 1930.

yes but stupid stupid liberals had turned against free trade before Smoot Hawley was passed. The Smoot Hawley trade wars began sooner than the law caused the Great Depression. Liberals are so brain dead that they would have you believe that when we tarriff Chineses goods so they impoverish Americans with higher prices the Chinese will say thank you!!

Why does supposin want a trade war and depression???

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

USA’s adoption of the Import Certificate proposal would be to our net economic and social benefit

trade wars cause depression not benefit.

 

[Tehon]

If we were actually trading we wouldn't have a trade deficit of 37 billion dollars.

100% idiotic and confused!! Of course we are trading!!! Do you think the Chinese burn our dollars to heat their homes or do you think they trade so they can have our dollars to spend???????? $37 billion to a $20 trillion economy is .000004%. now do you understand???

The Chinese invest in our debt and buy real assets like businesses and real estate, neither of which is that beneficial to the prosperity of our society. We have eliminated tariffs for the benefit of our corporations so they could take advantage of cheap labor at the expense of our own workforce. Since we don't produce enough tangible goods to balance trade, Americans have to subsidize the difference through interest payments on the debt. I can only wish they were burning the dollars to heat their homes, we haven't yet factored in the social costs of offshoring.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

We have eliminated tariffs for the benefit of our corporations so they could take advantage of cheap labor at the expense of our own workforce. .

1) obviously if we used tariffs American goods would be more expensive and impoverish American consumers plus American industry would be non competitive and our standard of living would go down and down with the level of protection.

2) tariffs would result in trade wars and depression and possibly real wars which is why economists on both sides support free trade. It is a peace policy to civilize the world. Imagine if Republicans had not turned China capitalist??

see why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

We have eliminated tariffs for the benefit of our corporations.

totally liberal stupid of course. Eliminating tariffs exposes them to international competition. 1+1=2

 

[Supposn]

Transscribed from

USA’s chronic trade deficits

I’m among the proponents of the trade policy described in Wikipedia’s “Import Certificates” article.


The unilateral trade policy would eliminate or almost eliminate USA’s chronic annual trade deficits of goods and their drags upon our GDPs. (anything that’s a drag upon our GDP is also a drag upon our numbers of jobs which in turn is somewhat of a drag upon their wages’ purchasing powers.


We all benefit from cheaper imported products but they do not compensate for our chronic annual trade deficits’ net detriments to our economy.



A unilateral USA Import Certificate policy can induce goods (for which production costs were marginally too high), to become viable candidates for USA production and sales in USA’s domestic markets; additionally, those USA produced goods can then be viable candidates for global sales.


In the cases of products that are now produced in the USA, that’s precisely what would soon occur after the USA enacts the Import Certificate policy. In the cases where the cost of products imported into the USA are no longer less than the estimated cost of USA production, it’s expected that sooner or later those products will be produced in the USA.



An Import Certificate policy can be of some advantage to or reduces the disadvantage of any USA enterprise, (i.e. including USA subsidiaries of foreign enterprises) that compete or aspire to compete with foreign goods. This is particularly true of USA goods producing enterprises that compete with foreign products within USA’s domestic markets.


Refer to Wikipedia’s “Import Certificates” article.



Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Tehon]

1) obviously if we used tariffs American goods would be more expensive and impoverish American consumers plus American industry would be non competitive and our standard of living would go down and down with the level of protection.

American growth prior to the free trade era belies your BS.

2) tariffs would result in trade wars and depression and possibly real wars which is why economists on both sides support free trade. It is a peace policy to civilize the world. Imagine if Republicans had not turned China capitalist??

Can you cite an example of a trade war caused by tariffs?

 

[TNHarley]

Free trade isn't regulating your country to death, while legislating we can trade with countries that don't have environmental laws or use slave labor. I have no problem freely trading with other countries. But I hate FTAs.
Free trade is about being able to trade with a country without worry from the government. Not setting up trade deals with countries that put pollution in their water sources. OF COURSE it's going to be cheaper there!!
It's like they do it on purpose

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Can you cite an example of a trade war caused by tariffs?

Yes dear, the Smoot Hawley tariffs caused trade wars that collapsed world trade, and caused the Great Depression and WW2 1+1=2

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Transscribed from

USA’s chronic trade deficits

I’m among the proponents of the trade policy described in Wikipedia’s “Import Certificates” article.


The unilateral trade policy would eliminate or almost eliminate USA’s chronic annual trade deficits of goods and their drags upon our GDPs. (anything that’s a drag upon our GDP is also a drag upon our numbers of jobs which in turn is somewhat of a drag upon their wages’ purchasing powers.


We all benefit from cheaper imported products but they do not compensate for our chronic annual trade deficits’ net detriments to our economy.



A unilateral USA Import Certificate policy can induce goods (for which production costs were marginally too high), to become viable candidates for USA production and sales in USA’s domestic markets; additionally, those USA produced goods can then be viable candidates for global sales.


In the cases of products that are now produced in the USA, that’s precisely what would soon occur after the USA enacts the Import Certificate policy. In the cases where the cost of products imported into the USA are no longer less than the estimated cost of USA production, it’s expected that sooner or later those products will be produced in the USA.



An Import Certificate policy can be of some advantage to or reduces the disadvantage of any USA enterprise, (i.e. including USA subsidiaries of foreign enterprises) that compete or aspire to compete with foreign goods. This is particularly true of USA goods producing enterprises that compete with foreign products within USA’s domestic markets.


Refer to Wikipedia’s “Import Certificates” article.



Respectfully, Supposn

an import certificate is simply a libsocialist tariff that will protect and cripple American industry, and start trade wars and perhaps real wars

 

[Supposn]

I’m among the proponents for USA adopting the proposed trade policy as described within Wikipedia’s “Import Certificates” article.


Opponents contend that such a policy to entirely or almost entirely eliminate USA’s chronic trade deficits of goods is unnecessary because, (as they believe), annual trade deficits are not detrimental to their nation’s GDPs. Some of these opponents contend that trade deficits affect upon their nation’s economies are neutral, others contend that trade deficits are actually of net economic benefit to their nations.

But those opponents are unable to logically argue their cases.


Some opponents contend that the Import Certificate policy would significantly reduce competition; shielding enterprises from consequences of their incompetence. Some opponents contend that the policy favors some enterprises to the disadvantage of their competitors. But those opponents are unable to adequately and logically respond when their objections are challenged.


There’s no doubt that to some marginal extent the Import certificate policy does favor USA enterprises.

An interesting characteristic of the policy is its acting as an indirect but effective subsidy of USA exported goods at no additional cost to any USA person or enterprise.
It would be of some advantage to any enterprise, (even a subsidiary of foreign enterprise) that produces goods within the USA and competes or aspires to compete with foreign produced goods anywhere in the world.

But that marginal extent of advantage is limited to the global market price rate of Import certificates and only to that extent can it defend USA products from the products of lower wage rate nations.

USA employees cannot support their families on Chinese Wage rate’s purchasing powers and cheaper imported goods do not fully compensate for our chronic annual trade deficits drag upon our GDP, numbers of jobs and our wage’s purchasing powers.


The import certificate policy is substantially driven by markets rather than by the government. If USA purchasers prefer paying the marginal price difference, (i.e. Import Certificates global market price rate) for any particular imported items, market forces will impel those items to be imported into the USA.


If we consider importing and exporting as a single global trade industry, the Import Certificate policy does not discriminate among industries; it does not discriminate among enterprises within any nation and it does not discriminate among foreign nations.


Respectfully, Supposn