CDZ Free Trade, Protectionism & Economic Nationalism

[320 Years of History]

We hear the rhetoric over and over:

• "Our country is in serious trouble. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They kill us."
  
• "The leaders of Mexico, China, Japan and all the other countries that we do business with are smarter, more cunning and sharper than our leaders."

Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Sounds like it makes sense to do something to change the trade relationship with China, Mexico, and other countries that have lower production costs than does the U.S. Sounds like "doing something" should be good for U.S. manufacturing and for creating domestic jobs in that economic sector. But is it really? Are we really hearing anything but insouciant demagogic hyperbole, rhetoric and misdirection, that avails itself of the general populace's ignorance of economic principles and parlays that ineptitude into fear and angst that, in turn, generate votes?

It's clear that Mr. Trump, the so-called "outsider," has discovered, like insiders before him, how to use the single greatest force fueling discontent within America: economic nationalism. The politics of economic nationalism have long driven insurgent candidacies, from Ross Perot to Pat Buchanan to Newt Gingrich. Mr. Trump now exploits it, promising to get tough on China, build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and more generally "make America great again."

Economic nationalists score points, of course, with angry and economically unsavvy populists when they suggest foreign countries are cashing in at America's expense. (Trump: Mexico is "killing us on trade"; NAFTA is a "total disaster.") But rarely, if ever, do they ever attempt to actually present what the whole of the professional economics world understands about free trade.

And just what is the economics community's stance on free trade with China and other low cost producers of intermediate and finished goods? Well, taking just one macroeconomics class in high school would give one the answer. Free trade increases prosperity for Americans -- and the citizens of all participating nations -- by allowing consumers to buy more, better-quality products at lower costs. It drives economic growth, enhanced efficiency, increased innovation, and the greater fairness that accompanies a rules-based system. These benefits increase as overall trade -- exports and imports -- increases.

• Free trade increases access to higher-quality, lower-priced goods. Cheaper imports, particularly from countries such as China and Mexico, have eased inflationary pressure in the United States. Prices are held down by more than 2 percent for every 1 percent share in the market by imports from low-income countries like China.
  
  Moreover, poorer Americans suffer more from tariffs than higher-income people. Not only do they spend more of their income on consumption goods, many of the goods they consume are subject to higher tariffs than more expensive goods of the same type. For example, imported cheap sneakers can face a tariff as high as 60%, while men’s leather dress shoes are subject to an 8.5% tariff. Similarly, plain drinking glasses face a tariff of nearly 30%, while expensive crystal glasses are taxed at 3%. (Edward Gresser, Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy Soft Skull Press. Brooklyn, NY. 2007. p 167.)
  
• Free trade means more growth. At least half of US imports are not consumer goods; they are inputs for US-based producers, according to economists from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Freeing trade reduces imported-input costs, thus reducing businesses’ production costs and promoting economic growth.
  
• Free trade improves efficiency and innovation. Over time, free trade works with other market processes to shift workers and resources to more productive uses, allowing more efficient industries to thrive. The result is higher wages, investment in such things as infrastructure, and a more dynamic economy that continues to create new jobs and opportunities. (Bordeaux, Donald J. Globalization. Greenwood Press; 1st edition. Westport, CT. December 2007. pp 55-67.)
  
• Much of the change in the labor force is not the result of free trade but of innovation. New technology, such as apps on mobile devices, has displaced a staggering array of industrially manufactured products. Look at what smartphone apps have replaced for many people: radios, cameras, alarm clocks, calculators, compact discs, DVDs, carpenters’ levels, tape measures, tape recorders, blood-pressure monitors, cardiographs, flashlights, and file cabinets.
  
• The beneficiaries of trade restrictions are the inefficient firms and special interests that secure these protections against competition. The United States’ recent imposition of tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels resulted in China imposing tariffs on American polysilicon, raising the cost of solar equipment and reducing employment opportunities in both nations.

But that's just the obvious effects of free trade. Rarely, if ever, do they stop to concede how truly vulnerable the U.S. has become to what happens when foreign countries suffer due to breakdowns in free trading. Least of all do the economic nationalists countenance how bad things can get even when we're merely the victim of what economists call "knock-on effects" — consequences of consequences. But in our globalized world, that's definitely how it works. Witness the chain reaction of plummeting global markets roiled with fear over China's weakening economy. Or how the world trembled over the eurozone crisis. And so on.

In speech after speech, and during the presidential debates, Mr. Trump argues that China and its supposedly brilliant trade negotiators have been "killing" America. The GOP presidential frontrunner claims that Beijing's superiority over Washington is evidenced by the massive trade deficit between the two nations, as well as the flow of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China during the 2000s. And until American workers have an "even playing field," (What exactly does that mean in this context?) President Trump would slap a big tariff on Chinese exports to America. Mr. Trump would, ostensibly and so he claims, bring back manufacturing jobs and investment. Really? That's not what the preponderance of what I've read or studied suggests be the outcome of his proposed policies.

According to Mr. Trump's website:

In January 2000, President Bill Clinton boldly promised China's inclusion in the World Trade Organization "is a good deal for America. … Since China joined the WTO, Americans have witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens of millions of jobs. It was not a good deal for America then and it's a bad deal now. It is a typical example of how politicians in Washington have failed our country.​

There's some truth to Mr. Trump's argument about the harm from Chinese trade for some American workers. As China became a global factory floor, Chinese living standards rose sharply. But U.S. labor markets haven't adjusted as quickly as economic models suggested they would. Some regions were hit hard and never recovered. As MIT economist David Autor, et al write in their recent paper, "The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," workers in sectors affected by trade "experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income. At the national level, employment has fallen in U.S. industries more exposed to import competition, as expected, but offsetting employment gains in other industries have yet to materialize."

On the other hand, there have been gains to U.S. welfare — especially to that of lower-income Americans — from cheaper imports. Since poorer families spend a larger share of their income on such goods than wealthier families do, their inflation rate has been lower, and their purchasing power higher. A 2008 study taking this differential into account found it offset the rise in measured income inequality from 1994 through 2005.

But set those potential consumer gains aside for a moment. Even knowing what we now know about the possible impact on U.S. jobs, should Washington have somehow limited trade and overseas investment with China — even at the cost of higher global poverty? Certainly the humanitarian answer is "no." Furthermore, what set of plausible public policies could have significantly offset the one-time economic shock to advanced economies of hundreds of millions of low-wage workers fully entering the global trading system?

There's also a longer-term economic benefit to the U.S. and the rest of the world from poor people getting richer, healthier, more educated, and adding their brainpower to the global intellectual stock for new invention and innovation. Yet while we should take into account the well-being of non-U.S. citizens, American workers can't be left to fend for themselves. Clearly we've long needed a stronger, pro-work safety net that helps the "losers" from trade through a variety of means including effective retraining, wage subsidies, and relocation assistance. While trade isn't the zero-sum game Mr. Trump seemingly imagines, there are trade-offs.

Perhaps this is overthinking Trumpism, something of which Mr. Trump himself certainly cannot be found guilty of doing. During one of the Republican presidential debates, Trump criticized air-conditioner maker Carrier for plans to move a plant and 1,400 jobs to Mexico from Indianapolis. He also didn't like the idea of Chinese investors buying the 134-year-old Chicago Stock Exchange, the first-ever purchase of an American exchange by a Chinese company. So Americans shouldn't invest in other nations, and neither should they invest in us? Taken at face value, what Trump's really arguing for is not "free trade" or "fair trade," but no trade at all.

 

[Indeependent]

Neo-Con bullshit.

 

[Fishlore]

We hear the rhetoric over and over:

• "Our country is in serious trouble. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They kill us."
  
• "The leaders of Mexico, China, Japan and all the other countries that we do business with are smarter, more cunning and sharper than our leaders."

Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Sounds like it makes sense to do something to change the trade relationship with China, Mexico, and other countries that have lower production costs than does the U.S. Sounds like "doing something" should be good for U.S. manufacturing and for creating domestic jobs in that economic sector. But is it really? Are we really hearing anything but insouciant demagogic hyperbole, rhetoric and misdirection, that avails itself of the general populace's ignorance of economic principles and parlays that ineptitude into fear and angst that, in turn, generate votes?

It's clear that Mr. Trump, the so-called "outsider," has discovered, like insiders before him, how to use the single greatest force fueling discontent within America: economic nationalism. The politics of economic nationalism have long driven insurgent candidacies, from Ross Perot to Pat Buchanan to Newt Gingrich. Mr. Trump now exploits it, promising to get tough on China, build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and more generally "make America great again."

Economic nationalists score points, of course, with angry and economically unsavvy populists when they suggest foreign countries are cashing in at America's expense. (Trump: Mexico is "killing us on trade"; NAFTA is a "total disaster.") But rarely, if ever, do they ever attempt to actually present what the whole of the professional economics world understands about free trade.

And just what is the economics community's stance on free trade with China and other low cost producers of intermediate and finished goods? Well, taking just one macroeconomics class in high school would give one the answer. Free trade increases prosperity for Americans -- and the citizens of all participating nations -- by allowing consumers to buy more, better-quality products at lower costs. It drives economic growth, enhanced efficiency, increased innovation, and the greater fairness that accompanies a rules-based system. These benefits increase as overall trade -- exports and imports -- increases.

• Free trade increases access to higher-quality, lower-priced goods. Cheaper imports, particularly from countries such as China and Mexico, have eased inflationary pressure in the United States. Prices are held down by more than 2 percent for every 1 percent share in the market by imports from low-income countries like China.
  
  Moreover, poorer Americans suffer more from tariffs than higher-income people. Not only do they spend more of their income on consumption goods, many of the goods they consume are subject to higher tariffs than more expensive goods of the same type. For example, imported cheap sneakers can face a tariff as high as 60%, while men’s leather dress shoes are subject to an 8.5% tariff. Similarly, plain drinking glasses face a tariff of nearly 30%, while expensive crystal glasses are taxed at 3%. (Edward Gresser, Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy Soft Skull Press. Brooklyn, NY. 2007. p 167.)
  
• Free trade means more growth. At least half of US imports are not consumer goods; they are inputs for US-based producers, according to economists from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Freeing trade reduces imported-input costs, thus reducing businesses’ production costs and promoting economic growth.
  
• Free trade improves efficiency and innovation. Over time, free trade works with other market processes to shift workers and resources to more productive uses, allowing more efficient industries to thrive. The result is higher wages, investment in such things as infrastructure, and a more dynamic economy that continues to create new jobs and opportunities. (Bordeaux, Donald J. Globalization. Greenwood Press; 1st edition. Westport, CT. December 2007. pp 55-67.)
  
• Much of the change in the labor force is not the result of free trade but of innovation. New technology, such as apps on mobile devices, has displaced a staggering array of industrially manufactured products. Look at what smartphone apps have replaced for many people: radios, cameras, alarm clocks, calculators, compact discs, DVDs, carpenters’ levels, tape measures, tape recorders, blood-pressure monitors, cardiographs, flashlights, and file cabinets.
  
• The beneficiaries of trade restrictions are the inefficient firms and special interests that secure these protections against competition. The United States’ recent imposition of tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels resulted in China imposing tariffs on American polysilicon, raising the cost of solar equipment and reducing employment opportunities in both nations.

But that's just the obvious effects of free trade. Rarely, if ever, do they stop to concede how truly vulnerable the U.S. has become to what happens when foreign countries suffer due to breakdowns in free trading. Least of all do the economic nationalists countenance how bad things can get even when we're merely the victim of what economists call "knock-on effects" — consequences of consequences. But in our globalized world, that's definitely how it works. Witness the chain reaction of plummeting global markets roiled with fear over China's weakening economy. Or how the world trembled over the eurozone crisis. And so on.

In speech after speech, and during the presidential debates, Mr. Trump argues that China and its supposedly brilliant trade negotiators have been "killing" America. The GOP presidential frontrunner claims that Beijing's superiority over Washington is evidenced by the massive trade deficit between the two nations, as well as the flow of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China during the 2000s. And until American workers have an "even playing field," (What exactly does that mean in this context?) President Trump would slap a big tariff on Chinese exports to America. Mr. Trump would, ostensibly and so he claims, bring back manufacturing jobs and investment. Really? That's not what the preponderance of what I've read or studied suggests be the outcome of his proposed policies.

According to Mr. Trump's website:

In January 2000, President Bill Clinton boldly promised China's inclusion in the World Trade Organization "is a good deal for America. … Since China joined the WTO, Americans have witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens of millions of jobs. It was not a good deal for America then and it's a bad deal now. It is a typical example of how politicians in Washington have failed our country.​

There's some truth to Mr. Trump's argument about the harm from Chinese trade for some American workers. As China became a global factory floor, Chinese living standards rose sharply. But U.S. labor markets haven't adjusted as quickly as economic models suggested they would. Some regions were hit hard and never recovered. As MIT economist David Autor, et al write in their recent paper, "The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," workers in sectors affected by trade "experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income. At the national level, employment has fallen in U.S. industries more exposed to import competition, as expected, but offsetting employment gains in other industries have yet to materialize."

On the other hand, there have been gains to U.S. welfare — especially to that of lower-income Americans — from cheaper imports. Since poorer families spend a larger share of their income on such goods than wealthier families do, their inflation rate has been lower, and their purchasing power higher. A 2008 study taking this differential into account found it offset the rise in measured income inequality from 1994 through 2005.

But set those potential consumer gains aside for a moment. Even knowing what we now know about the possible impact on U.S. jobs, should Washington have somehow limited trade and overseas investment with China — even at the cost of higher global poverty? Certainly the humanitarian answer is "no." Furthermore, what set of plausible public policies could have significantly offset the one-time economic shock to advanced economies of hundreds of millions of low-wage workers fully entering the global trading system?

There's also a longer-term economic benefit to the U.S. and the rest of the world from poor people getting richer, healthier, more educated, and adding their brainpower to the global intellectual stock for new invention and innovation. Yet while we should take into account the well-being of non-U.S. citizens, American workers can't be left to fend for themselves. Clearly we've long needed a stronger, pro-work safety net that helps the "losers" from trade through a variety of means including effective retraining, wage subsidies, and relocation assistance. While trade isn't the zero-sum game Mr. Trump seemingly imagines, there are trade-offs.

Perhaps this is overthinking Trumpism, something of which Mr. Trump himself certainly cannot be found guilty of doing. During one of the Republican presidential debates, Trump criticized air-conditioner maker Carrier for plans to move a plant and 1,400 jobs to Mexico from Indianapolis. He also didn't like the idea of Chinese investors buying the 134-year-old Chicago Stock Exchange, the first-ever purchase of an American exchange by a Chinese company. So Americans shouldn't invest in other nations, and neither should they invest in us? Taken at face value, what Trump's really arguing for is not "free trade" or "fair trade," but no trade at all.

An eloquent summary of the case for "free trade." There are reasons besides ignorance why the American people, a generation after NAFTA and GATT just aren't buying it.

1. Free trade isn't free. Tariffs and protectionism are alive and well in places like China, where the US runs a huge annual trade deficit and has for years. The feeling that the rules aren't fair is based on some real data.

2. Where are the jobs? The claim was made that free trade would increase manufacturing in the US. If that is so, millions of workers across the land haven't seen it. We were promised that, in addition to new and better jobs, the (small) number of displaced workers would be supported and retrained. The tiny effort made in that direction was a complete failure.

3. Where did the money go? The gigantic shift of American investment capital from the USA to low-wage countries was brokered by the Wall St. investment banks. The result: financial services overtook manufacturing as the prime source of America wealth. Wages, except for hedge fund managers, declined, the number of billionaires zoomed and our political system was taken over and utterly corrupted by the new wealth machine.

America has never had free trade, going back to Alexander Hamilton and the George Washington administration. American industry developed under protective tariff. Tariff and trade deals by the hundreds were used to adjust the American economy, making our workers the richest on the planet, and to drive our foreign relations in the direction of our national interest. Our dollar was the world's reserve currency and we were the biggest creditor nation in the world.

Within a decade of our one-way, so-called "free trade," the USA lost millions of manufacturing jobs and beame the world's biggest debtor. Our economy stalled and has never really recovered. Today's young people have a lower living standard and dimmer hopes than their parents -- a first in our history.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

We hear the rhetoric over and over:

• "Our country is in serious trouble. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They kill us."
  
• "The leaders of Mexico, China, Japan and all the other countries that we do business with are smarter, more cunning and sharper than our leaders."

Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Sounds like it makes sense to do something to change the trade relationship with China, Mexico, and other countries that have lower production costs than does the U.S. Sounds like "doing something" should be good for U.S. manufacturing and for creating domestic jobs in that economic sector. But is it really? Are we really hearing anything but insouciant demagogic hyperbole, rhetoric and misdirection, that avails itself of the general populace's ignorance of economic principles and parlays that ineptitude into fear and angst that, in turn, generate votes?

It's clear that Mr. Trump, the so-called "outsider," has discovered, like insiders before him, how to use the single greatest force fueling discontent within America: economic nationalism. The politics of economic nationalism have long driven insurgent candidacies, from Ross Perot to Pat Buchanan to Newt Gingrich. Mr. Trump now exploits it, promising to get tough on China, build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and more generally "make America great again."

Economic nationalists score points, of course, with angry and economically unsavvy populists when they suggest foreign countries are cashing in at America's expense. (Trump: Mexico is "killing us on trade"; NAFTA is a "total disaster.") But rarely, if ever, do they ever attempt to actually present what the whole of the professional economics world understands about free trade.

And just what is the economics community's stance on free trade with China and other low cost producers of intermediate and finished goods? Well, taking just one macroeconomics class in high school would give one the answer. Free trade increases prosperity for Americans -- and the citizens of all participating nations -- by allowing consumers to buy more, better-quality products at lower costs. It drives economic growth, enhanced efficiency, increased innovation, and the greater fairness that accompanies a rules-based system. These benefits increase as overall trade -- exports and imports -- increases.

• Free trade increases access to higher-quality, lower-priced goods. Cheaper imports, particularly from countries such as China and Mexico, have eased inflationary pressure in the United States. Prices are held down by more than 2 percent for every 1 percent share in the market by imports from low-income countries like China.
  
  Moreover, poorer Americans suffer more from tariffs than higher-income people. Not only do they spend more of their income on consumption goods, many of the goods they consume are subject to higher tariffs than more expensive goods of the same type. For example, imported cheap sneakers can face a tariff as high as 60%, while men’s leather dress shoes are subject to an 8.5% tariff. Similarly, plain drinking glasses face a tariff of nearly 30%, while expensive crystal glasses are taxed at 3%. (Edward Gresser, Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy Soft Skull Press. Brooklyn, NY. 2007. p 167.)
  
• Free trade means more growth. At least half of US imports are not consumer goods; they are inputs for US-based producers, according to economists from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Freeing trade reduces imported-input costs, thus reducing businesses’ production costs and promoting economic growth.
  
• Free trade improves efficiency and innovation. Over time, free trade works with other market processes to shift workers and resources to more productive uses, allowing more efficient industries to thrive. The result is higher wages, investment in such things as infrastructure, and a more dynamic economy that continues to create new jobs and opportunities. (Bordeaux, Donald J. Globalization. Greenwood Press; 1st edition. Westport, CT. December 2007. pp 55-67.)
  
• Much of the change in the labor force is not the result of free trade but of innovation. New technology, such as apps on mobile devices, has displaced a staggering array of industrially manufactured products. Look at what smartphone apps have replaced for many people: radios, cameras, alarm clocks, calculators, compact discs, DVDs, carpenters’ levels, tape measures, tape recorders, blood-pressure monitors, cardiographs, flashlights, and file cabinets.
  
• The beneficiaries of trade restrictions are the inefficient firms and special interests that secure these protections against competition. The United States’ recent imposition of tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels resulted in China imposing tariffs on American polysilicon, raising the cost of solar equipment and reducing employment opportunities in both nations.

But that's just the obvious effects of free trade. Rarely, if ever, do they stop to concede how truly vulnerable the U.S. has become to what happens when foreign countries suffer due to breakdowns in free trading. Least of all do the economic nationalists countenance how bad things can get even when we're merely the victim of what economists call "knock-on effects" — consequences of consequences. But in our globalized world, that's definitely how it works. Witness the chain reaction of plummeting global markets roiled with fear over China's weakening economy. Or how the world trembled over the eurozone crisis. And so on.

In speech after speech, and during the presidential debates, Mr. Trump argues that China and its supposedly brilliant trade negotiators have been "killing" America. The GOP presidential frontrunner claims that Beijing's superiority over Washington is evidenced by the massive trade deficit between the two nations, as well as the flow of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China during the 2000s. And until American workers have an "even playing field," (What exactly does that mean in this context?) President Trump would slap a big tariff on Chinese exports to America. Mr. Trump would, ostensibly and so he claims, bring back manufacturing jobs and investment. Really? That's not what the preponderance of what I've read or studied suggests be the outcome of his proposed policies.

According to Mr. Trump's website:

In January 2000, President Bill Clinton boldly promised China's inclusion in the World Trade Organization "is a good deal for America. … Since China joined the WTO, Americans have witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens of millions of jobs. It was not a good deal for America then and it's a bad deal now. It is a typical example of how politicians in Washington have failed our country.​

There's some truth to Mr. Trump's argument about the harm from Chinese trade for some American workers. As China became a global factory floor, Chinese living standards rose sharply. But U.S. labor markets haven't adjusted as quickly as economic models suggested they would. Some regions were hit hard and never recovered. As MIT economist David Autor, et al write in their recent paper, "The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," workers in sectors affected by trade "experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income. At the national level, employment has fallen in U.S. industries more exposed to import competition, as expected, but offsetting employment gains in other industries have yet to materialize."

On the other hand, there have been gains to U.S. welfare — especially to that of lower-income Americans — from cheaper imports. Since poorer families spend a larger share of their income on such goods than wealthier families do, their inflation rate has been lower, and their purchasing power higher. A 2008 study taking this differential into account found it offset the rise in measured income inequality from 1994 through 2005.

But set those potential consumer gains aside for a moment. Even knowing what we now know about the possible impact on U.S. jobs, should Washington have somehow limited trade and overseas investment with China — even at the cost of higher global poverty? Certainly the humanitarian answer is "no." Furthermore, what set of plausible public policies could have significantly offset the one-time economic shock to advanced economies of hundreds of millions of low-wage workers fully entering the global trading system?

There's also a longer-term economic benefit to the U.S. and the rest of the world from poor people getting richer, healthier, more educated, and adding their brainpower to the global intellectual stock for new invention and innovation. Yet while we should take into account the well-being of non-U.S. citizens, American workers can't be left to fend for themselves. Clearly we've long needed a stronger, pro-work safety net that helps the "losers" from trade through a variety of means including effective retraining, wage subsidies, and relocation assistance. While trade isn't the zero-sum game Mr. Trump seemingly imagines, there are trade-offs.

Perhaps this is overthinking Trumpism, something of which Mr. Trump himself certainly cannot be found guilty of doing. During one of the Republican presidential debates, Trump criticized air-conditioner maker Carrier for plans to move a plant and 1,400 jobs to Mexico from Indianapolis. He also didn't like the idea of Chinese investors buying the 134-year-old Chicago Stock Exchange, the first-ever purchase of an American exchange by a Chinese company. So Americans shouldn't invest in other nations, and neither should they invest in us? Taken at face value, what Trump's really arguing for is not "free trade" or "fair trade," but no trade at all.

An eloquent summary of the case for "free trade." There are reasons besides ignorance why the American people, a generation after NAFTA and GATT just aren't buying it.

1. Free trade isn't free. Tariffs and protectionism are alive and well in places like China, where the US runs a huge annual trade deficit and has for years. The feeling that the rules aren't fair is based on some real data.

2. Where are the jobs? The claim was made that free trade would increase manufacturing in the US. If that is so, millions of workers across the land haven't seen it. We were promised that, in addition to new and better jobs, the (small) number of displaced workers would be supported and retrained. The tiny effort made in that direction was a complete failure.

3. Where did the money go? The gigantic shift of American investment capital from the USA to low-wage countries was brokered by the Wall St. investment banks. The result: financial services overtook manufacturing as the prime source of America wealth. Wages, except for hedge fund managers, declined, the number of billionaires zoomed and our political system was taken over and utterly corrupted by the new wealth machine.

America has never had free trade, going back to Alexander Hamilton and the George Washington administration. American industry developed under protective tariff. Tariff and trade deals by the hundreds were used to adjust the American economy, making our workers the richest on the planet, and to drive our foreign relations in the direction of our national interest. Our dollar was the world's reserve currency and we were the biggest creditor nation in the world.

Within a decade of our one-way, so-called "free trade," the USA lost millions of manufacturing jobs and beame the world's biggest debtor. Our economy stalled and has never really recovered. Today's young people have a lower living standard and dimmer hopes than their parents -- a first in our history.

Free trade isn't free. Tariffs and protectionism are alive and well in places like China, where the US runs a huge annual trade deficit and has for years.

We don't have a free trade agreement with China.

 

[Staidhup]

In a capitalist market based economy free trade is essential, the primary dictating issue is punitive taxation, trade restrictions, protectionism, and centralized government control and oversight. For a true open market to exist competition is essential toward remaining competitive in the production of goods and services, regulations and taxation are critical components that determine competitiveness. How can a system that is heavily regulated, one of the top three corporate taxed economies, hope to compete against lower taxed and regulated countries in attracting production and manufacturing? On the other hand US consumers demand the highest quality product at the lowest price which will in itself exclude and place a disadvantage on US produced, manufactured goods being sold at a higher price. The disadvantage is America's achilles heal, in that it is self imposed, resulting from lobbying efforts by special interest groups in support of varying forms protectionism.

 

[TNHarley]

Trump isn't against free trade. He is against unfair trade and manipulation.
He wants to use protectionism to get us back on the right track to real free trade. Just like any responsible, non corporatist capitalist.

 

[Agit8r]

Economic warfare... what is it good for?

 

[Indeependent]

Economic warfare... what is it good for?

Americans.

 

[TNHarley]

Economic warfare... what is it good for?

Americans.

Nobody realizes the leverage we have!

 

[Indeependent]

Economic warfare... what is it good for?

Americans.

Nobody realizes the leverage we have!

We are THE consumers.
Without us the Asian economy collapses.

 

[TNHarley]

Economic warfare... what is it good for?

Americans.

Nobody realizes the leverage we have!

We are THE consumers.
Without us the Asian economy collapses.

Very likely. People will ask "what is trump going to do when china reacts to the rise in tariffs?". My response is, "what can they do?" I mean, they could hurt us and sell off our debt. But they will lose BILLIONS. They are in no shape to lose billions. And Russia wont be there to help them..

 

[320 Years of History]

We hear the rhetoric over and over:

• "Our country is in serious trouble. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They kill us."
  
• "The leaders of Mexico, China, Japan and all the other countries that we do business with are smarter, more cunning and sharper than our leaders."

Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Sounds like it makes sense to do something to change the trade relationship with China, Mexico, and other countries that have lower production costs than does the U.S. Sounds like "doing something" should be good for U.S. manufacturing and for creating domestic jobs in that economic sector. But is it really? Are we really hearing anything but insouciant demagogic hyperbole, rhetoric and misdirection, that avails itself of the general populace's ignorance of economic principles and parlays that ineptitude into fear and angst that, in turn, generate votes?

It's clear that Mr. Trump, the so-called "outsider," has discovered, like insiders before him, how to use the single greatest force fueling discontent within America: economic nationalism. The politics of economic nationalism have long driven insurgent candidacies, from Ross Perot to Pat Buchanan to Newt Gingrich. Mr. Trump now exploits it, promising to get tough on China, build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and more generally "make America great again."

Economic nationalists score points, of course, with angry and economically unsavvy populists when they suggest foreign countries are cashing in at America's expense. (Trump: Mexico is "killing us on trade"; NAFTA is a "total disaster.") But rarely, if ever, do they ever attempt to actually present what the whole of the professional economics world understands about free trade.

And just what is the economics community's stance on free trade with China and other low cost producers of intermediate and finished goods? Well, taking just one macroeconomics class in high school would give one the answer. Free trade increases prosperity for Americans -- and the citizens of all participating nations -- by allowing consumers to buy more, better-quality products at lower costs. It drives economic growth, enhanced efficiency, increased innovation, and the greater fairness that accompanies a rules-based system. These benefits increase as overall trade -- exports and imports -- increases.

• Free trade increases access to higher-quality, lower-priced goods. Cheaper imports, particularly from countries such as China and Mexico, have eased inflationary pressure in the United States. Prices are held down by more than 2 percent for every 1 percent share in the market by imports from low-income countries like China.
  
  Moreover, poorer Americans suffer more from tariffs than higher-income people. Not only do they spend more of their income on consumption goods, many of the goods they consume are subject to higher tariffs than more expensive goods of the same type. For example, imported cheap sneakers can face a tariff as high as 60%, while men’s leather dress shoes are subject to an 8.5% tariff. Similarly, plain drinking glasses face a tariff of nearly 30%, while expensive crystal glasses are taxed at 3%. (Edward Gresser, Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy Soft Skull Press. Brooklyn, NY. 2007. p 167.)
  
• Free trade means more growth. At least half of US imports are not consumer goods; they are inputs for US-based producers, according to economists from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Freeing trade reduces imported-input costs, thus reducing businesses’ production costs and promoting economic growth.
  
• Free trade improves efficiency and innovation. Over time, free trade works with other market processes to shift workers and resources to more productive uses, allowing more efficient industries to thrive. The result is higher wages, investment in such things as infrastructure, and a more dynamic economy that continues to create new jobs and opportunities. (Bordeaux, Donald J. Globalization. Greenwood Press; 1st edition. Westport, CT. December 2007. pp 55-67.)
  
• Much of the change in the labor force is not the result of free trade but of innovation. New technology, such as apps on mobile devices, has displaced a staggering array of industrially manufactured products. Look at what smartphone apps have replaced for many people: radios, cameras, alarm clocks, calculators, compact discs, DVDs, carpenters’ levels, tape measures, tape recorders, blood-pressure monitors, cardiographs, flashlights, and file cabinets.
  
• The beneficiaries of trade restrictions are the inefficient firms and special interests that secure these protections against competition. The United States’ recent imposition of tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels resulted in China imposing tariffs on American polysilicon, raising the cost of solar equipment and reducing employment opportunities in both nations.

But that's just the obvious effects of free trade. Rarely, if ever, do they stop to concede how truly vulnerable the U.S. has become to what happens when foreign countries suffer due to breakdowns in free trading. Least of all do the economic nationalists countenance how bad things can get even when we're merely the victim of what economists call "knock-on effects" — consequences of consequences. But in our globalized world, that's definitely how it works. Witness the chain reaction of plummeting global markets roiled with fear over China's weakening economy. Or how the world trembled over the eurozone crisis. And so on.

In speech after speech, and during the presidential debates, Mr. Trump argues that China and its supposedly brilliant trade negotiators have been "killing" America. The GOP presidential frontrunner claims that Beijing's superiority over Washington is evidenced by the massive trade deficit between the two nations, as well as the flow of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China during the 2000s. And until American workers have an "even playing field," (What exactly does that mean in this context?) President Trump would slap a big tariff on Chinese exports to America. Mr. Trump would, ostensibly and so he claims, bring back manufacturing jobs and investment. Really? That's not what the preponderance of what I've read or studied suggests be the outcome of his proposed policies.

According to Mr. Trump's website:

In January 2000, President Bill Clinton boldly promised China's inclusion in the World Trade Organization "is a good deal for America. … Since China joined the WTO, Americans have witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens of millions of jobs. It was not a good deal for America then and it's a bad deal now. It is a typical example of how politicians in Washington have failed our country.​

There's some truth to Mr. Trump's argument about the harm from Chinese trade for some American workers. As China became a global factory floor, Chinese living standards rose sharply. But U.S. labor markets haven't adjusted as quickly as economic models suggested they would. Some regions were hit hard and never recovered. As MIT economist David Autor, et al write in their recent paper, "The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade," workers in sectors affected by trade "experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income. At the national level, employment has fallen in U.S. industries more exposed to import competition, as expected, but offsetting employment gains in other industries have yet to materialize."

On the other hand, there have been gains to U.S. welfare — especially to that of lower-income Americans — from cheaper imports. Since poorer families spend a larger share of their income on such goods than wealthier families do, their inflation rate has been lower, and their purchasing power higher. A 2008 study taking this differential into account found it offset the rise in measured income inequality from 1994 through 2005.

But set those potential consumer gains aside for a moment. Even knowing what we now know about the possible impact on U.S. jobs, should Washington have somehow limited trade and overseas investment with China — even at the cost of higher global poverty? Certainly the humanitarian answer is "no." Furthermore, what set of plausible public policies could have significantly offset the one-time economic shock to advanced economies of hundreds of millions of low-wage workers fully entering the global trading system?

There's also a longer-term economic benefit to the U.S. and the rest of the world from poor people getting richer, healthier, more educated, and adding their brainpower to the global intellectual stock for new invention and innovation. Yet while we should take into account the well-being of non-U.S. citizens, American workers can't be left to fend for themselves. Clearly we've long needed a stronger, pro-work safety net that helps the "losers" from trade through a variety of means including effective retraining, wage subsidies, and relocation assistance. While trade isn't the zero-sum game Mr. Trump seemingly imagines, there are trade-offs.

Perhaps this is overthinking Trumpism, something of which Mr. Trump himself certainly cannot be found guilty of doing. During one of the Republican presidential debates, Trump criticized air-conditioner maker Carrier for plans to move a plant and 1,400 jobs to Mexico from Indianapolis. He also didn't like the idea of Chinese investors buying the 134-year-old Chicago Stock Exchange, the first-ever purchase of an American exchange by a Chinese company. So Americans shouldn't invest in other nations, and neither should they invest in us? Taken at face value, what Trump's really arguing for is not "free trade" or "fair trade," but no trade at all.

An eloquent summary of the case for "free trade." There are reasons besides ignorance why the American people, a generation after NAFTA and GATT just aren't buying it.

1. Free trade isn't free. Tariffs and protectionism are alive and well in places like China, where the US runs a huge annual trade deficit and has for years. The feeling that the rules aren't fair is based on some real data.

2. Where are the jobs? The claim was made that free trade would increase manufacturing in the US. If that is so, millions of workers across the land haven't seen it. We were promised that, in addition to new and better jobs, the (small) number of displaced workers would be supported and retrained. The tiny effort made in that direction was a complete failure.

3. Where did the money go? The gigantic shift of American investment capital from the USA to low-wage countries was brokered by the Wall St. investment banks. The result: financial services overtook manufacturing as the prime source of America wealth. Wages, except for hedge fund managers, declined, the number of billionaires zoomed and our political system was taken over and utterly corrupted by the new wealth machine.

America has never had free trade, going back to Alexander Hamilton and the George Washington administration. American industry developed under protective tariff. Tariff and trade deals by the hundreds were used to adjust the American economy, making our workers the richest on the planet, and to drive our foreign relations in the direction of our national interest. Our dollar was the world's reserve currency and we were the biggest creditor nation in the world.

Within a decade of our one-way, so-called "free trade," the USA lost millions of manufacturing jobs and beame the world's biggest debtor. Our economy stalled and has never really recovered. Today's young people have a lower living standard and dimmer hopes than their parents -- a first in our history.

Red:
Thank you.

Blue:
I agree, there are data. The question, as always, is are those data relevant and correctly weighted to rationally, logically, support the conclusions being made by the anti-free-trade cabal? Everything I've seen indicates that the answer is "no," the data presented are circumstantial not causal to the observations and claims opponents of free trade make. If one wants to evaluate free trade's pros and cons, then one must do with regard to the prices one must pay for the stuff one hopes to buy, not with regard to the price one expects to be paid for one's productive labor, be that labor applied in manufacturing or services. (Why that's so is in the next section.)

Pink:
That is certainly not the claim I made or that I cited as having been made. Look at the five bullet points I listed identifying the benefits of free trade. Not one of them asserts a gain in manufacturing jobs.

Who made those promises of increased manufacturing jobs? Too, who the hell was fool enough to believe any claim about free trade producing manufacturing jobs without confirming whether it was true or even could have been? I don't really care whom one chooses to blame because there's ample onus on the part of the "speaker" and the "audience" of that message. I do care that now you, others, want me to reject the well understood and well founded principles of economics re: free trade because one or millions of people were too damn lazy to read the ample and widely available scholarly material on the matter in order to determine what the goals and benefits of free trade are? The U.S., its well informed citizens, the rest of the world perhaps, are now supposed to reject free trade because, even accepting that someone made the promise you note, the general public's intellectual circumspection is scarcer than chicken's teeth and they blindly and blithely accepted what they claim to have been told? I don't think I'm going to do that, will I advocate that others do it.

It’s not necessary to go into fancy economic discussions to understand why we trade, what are the benefits of trade. We trade for imports. No one said it better than Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations more than 200 years ago: “It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy….If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them.” That truism has been around for 200+ years; there's no excuse for not being aware of its principle theme, even if one didn't happen upon the specific remark.

Perhaps, however, one isn't keen to read the words of men who lived so long ago. For that crowd, Milton Friedman offered a contemporary version. He wrote years ago: A “fallacy seldom contradicted is that exports are good, imports are bad. The truth is very different. We cannot eat, wear or enjoy the goods we send abroad. We eat bananas from Central America, wear Italian shoes, drive German automobiles, and enjoy programs we see on our Japanese TV sets. Our gain from foreign trade is what we import. Exports are the price we pay to get imports.”

In exchange for imports, we offer other countries the things we produce cheaper or better: computers, chickens, movies, power generators. Or we just offer dollars. They send us cars, we send them little pieces of paper, which are, in effect, non-interest-bearing IOUs that the people who send us imports have to spend in this country, if not on goods, then on investments—on real estate or auto plants in Tennessee or Treasury bonds.

This is quite a deal. We benefit from the lower prices that imports give us, and we can use the money we save to buy things made at home—or invest it. It is just this point—that imports have immense benefits, such as doing much to throttle inflation in the past two decades (and especially in the past few years), forcing U.S. businesses to become more productive (just look at the auto industry), and helping consumers live better—that the Clinton administration and congressional leaders failed to promote in their tardy and confused battle for fast track.

Now, regardless of what one actually thinks about free trade, the fact is that nobody who has a damn clue about what free trade is and its consequences ever proposed that manufacturing jobs would be the result of free trade. How could anyone think that it would when free trade is about imports not exports? Well, maybe they did, and if so, they were just lying from the get go.

I'll ask you what I ask anyone who tells me they oppose free trade. Given that you oppose free trade, do you also oppose having to pay higher prices for the things you want to buy? If you are going to tell me you are okay with paying higher prices at the cash register, I'll say, "Okay, I respect your disapproving of free trade."

Note, however, that if you do tell me that, you'll be the first person to do so. Occasionally, I ask someone that question and in the course of the conversation it becomes clear they don't understand the principle of comparative advantage. Once they do understand it, they all eventually figure out -- some sooner some later -- that free trade is to their advantage overall. (A couple of my rich friends briefly posited that if prices increased that it wouldn't impact their spending behavior, but in the end, even they admit that they'd sooner pay less than pay more.)

FWIW, you may have noticed I use watches as my avatar image. That's because I've for some 35+ years been a hobbyist watch collector. Swiss watches, and the Swissness laws (see also, "Swiss Made"), provide a fine example of the impact of protectionist policies that constrain free trade in the interest of protecting a domestic manufacturing industry. Swiss watches don't do anything any better than any similar non-Swiss watch, but they cost "a ton" more. The average price of a Swiss watch was about $750, several hundred dollars more than the average cost of competing watch made elsewhere. (Even though the reference source I've linked focuses on the high end part of the industry, make no mistake: $750 won't buy one a high end watch of any sort, Swiss or otherwise; however, it will buy one a $750 watch.) For a full picture of the Swiss watch industry and the impact of its protectionism -- short and long term -- see the following:

• From nation-based to global competition in the watch industry (1950-2010)
  
• Swiss Watch Industry
• Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the Watch Industry, 1795-2000
  
• Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler, and the New Economy
  
• The Protectionist
• Markets in Time: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Swiss Watchmaking: Swiss-Made Watches Are the Most Sought After in the World
  
• An economic concept one must understand in order to place certain segments of the Swiss watch industry in the right context
  • Veblen good | Open Access articles | Open Access journals | Conference Proceedings | Editors | Authors | Reviewers | scientific events
  • Veblen, Bourdieu, and Conspicuous Consumption

Purple:
(Forgive me for most of the following comments if you have a solid foundation in economics; I have no way to know if you do or not, but your question/comment suggests you might not. You could well have a good econ understanding, but if that's so, I would have expected a very different sort of rebuttal from you because I'd think you'd know from my OP that I do; thus I'd understand your remarks predicated upon your making that assumption.)

Economic resources consist of land, labor and capital. The land hasn't gone anywhere. The capital -- financial assets or the financial value of assets, such as cash -- hasn't gone anywhere. It's the labor that went somewhere.

(Skip the rest of this "purple" section if preceding statements make sense to you in terms of macroecon.)

Think of it this way....Let's say you are in business and produce something that you in turn sell in the open market.

• If you have $20K in cash and use it to buy a $7K asset, what have you done? You have traded one asset, highly liquid cash, for another asset, whatever you bought. There is no change to your net asset position: you have a $7K asset and $13K in cash.
• When you produce something and you must pay for the labor to produce it so that you can in turn sell it, you can either pay a higher labor rate or a lower one. Since labor is an expense, not an asset, your net asset position goes down by more when you pay higher labor rates. Accordingly, you want to pay less for the labor. Let's say the less expensive (foreign) labor costs you $100 and the total cost of the "thing" you produce is $300, but if you were to use the costlier domestic labor, your total cost would be $400.
• Your laborers have finished producing your product (be it a good or a service) and it is now available to sell to buyers. The price at which you can sell it in the marketplace has nothing to do with how much it cost you to produce it. (Why, because the laws of supply and demand, the principle of substitute (don't get hung up on the use of "perfect" in the term "perfect substitutes" it doesn't mean nearly what it implies to a non-economist), and the principle of elasticity force the selling price in the open marketplace, the equilibrium point, to a specific price, more than which buyers are unwilling to spend, and below which you are unwilling to sell.)** Thus you collect more profit by having a lower cost of goods sold.
• Let's say you sell your "product" in the open market, using a typical retail markup, for $600. What is your net asset position after the sale? It's $20K - $300 + $600 = $20.03K.
  
  Let's say instead that you could not avail yourself of free trade and had to use the pricier domestic labor. Your net asset position after the sale would be $20K - $400 + $600 = $20.02K.
• If you are the sole producer in the economy, has the economy grown or shrunk more as a result of your free trade produced sale or your domestically (non-free trade) produced sale? It has grown more from the free trade one, obviously. You'll note that the money you paid to the domestic laborer isn't boosting the overall value of the economy and surely you're wondering why not. It's not because all your payment to the domestic worker did was move money around in the economy, but doing that won't produce a greater boost to the economy than will your spending less overall to receive the same revenue from your buyer.

Now in the example above, if you were able to convince a domestic worker to accept low enough wages so that your overall cost of production is equal to or lower than that of the foreign laborer, you'd, by all means, revert to using the domestic laborer. Why? Again, because the price at which you can sell your product remains set by the laws of supply and demand, substitutes, and the principles of elasticity.

** Notes (skip this if you understand economics well):

• Economics/economists do not expressly determine what goods are substitutes for other goods, nor do they determine or attempt to define what the equilibrium price is. The same is so re: how elastic or inelastic be a buyer's demand is. The buyer makes those decisions when they evaluate whether to buy a good or not buy it. Economics/economists merely observe buyers' behavior, and based on the observation, state that either a buyer's, or most buyers', elasticity is "such and such" or that one or many or most buyers view "such and such" as a substitute for "some other thing." Thus, conceivably, Consumer A may behave as though Pepsi is a substitute for a hamburger yet no others do; however, A's behavior pattern would be an exception to the typically observed behavior. Thus economic predictions and principles are based on what most rational consumers have been observed to actually do, not on what a few ("a few" being relative given the population sizes in play in major economies) "oddball" consumers may do or have done.
• "Demand" used in an economic context must, unless expressly stated otherwise, be interpreted in terms of the imperative and/or indicative mood, not the subjective mood.

Orange:
Well, if the available jobs shifted from manufacturing to financial services, the rational thing for workers to do in order to sell their labor would be to work in the financial services industry. If they need retraining to do that, well, they just do. Labor is just one of the things sold in the marketplace. What do manufacturers do when nobody wants to buy that which they produce? They switch and produce something else. You've seen this happen every time a maker discontinues a product. Or, they find a new marketplace in which to sell the goods they cannot sell in the "current" marketplace. You've seen this too; it's exactly what happens when a retailer sends/sells goods to an outlet store. Laborers need only apply the exact same concepts to that which they have to sell.

One might respond that workers, unlike businesses, need help "retooling," so to speak. Well, okay, but that's outside the scope of the free market. Market driven principles would say that the workers should have prepared for the potentiality that their labor would at some point become obsolete and thus had a little "something" put away to provide for their retooling needs. Certainly when businesses cannot, for whatever reason, adjust as the market does, they go "belly up." It's no different with providers of labor.

I don't have a problem with, via my tax dollars or personal munificence, helping workers retool. The people who do express having a problem with that are the very same folks who one hand are "on about" one's onus to take personal responsibility for oneself, yet on the other hand are griping about the loss of manufacturing jobs in a free trade, free market economy. Well, I'm sorry, one can't have it both ways. Unlike the folks I wrote of earlier who don't realise the cost of not having free trade is higher prices at the cash register, I'm not among the crowd that doesn't recognize the downsides of that for which I ask.


Green:
??? Say what? I'm no hedge fund manager; the work I do isn't even close or related. At best I've had clients in that industry, but that's it. My wages have done nothing but increase, meaningfully no less, from ~1981 to the present. The starting salary of folks who enter my industry today is comparable, in terms of buying power, to what mine was in the early 1980s. It may be that hedge fund managers today earn more than their peers from the 1980s...okay. That said, "comparable" wages over time is not the same thing as a decline in wages over time. So while it may be that hedge fund managers wages went up, it's certainly not so that everyone else's went down. (again, in terms of buying power) Did some jobs' wages decline? I'm sure some have.

Brown:
Argumentum ad antiquitatemhttp://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/43-appeal-to-tradition

That sort of appeal holds sway when Mother speaks of why I should put nutmeg in the mashed potatoes, but not in a discussion about the merit of an economic principle.

Fluorescent green:
It still is. However, reserve currencies aren't like the planet Earth; there is more than one reserve currency.

Fluorescent blue:
That is just flat out incorrect.




Conclusion:
On the matter of free trade and manufacturing jobs, the solution is simple: produce things that other nations will, due to the principle of comparative advantage, buy. Mr. Trump, or whomever, can mandate all the tariffs they want to, and force manufacturing back to the U.S. if they want to. If, however, nobody is buying it, it's not going to do much good for the U.S. economy because other nations will just keep buying those items from the lower cost producer, which, unfortunately won't be the U.S.

In terms of goods/services in which the U.S. has a comparative advantage and for which there are few to no substitutes, those other nations are already buying it from us. Dragging other manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. isn't going to change that.

 

[320 Years of History]

Neo-Con bullshit.

Oh, yes...however could I have forgotten that Adam Smith was a Neo-Con?

You may surely find folks here on USMB who agree with you. I suspect, however, that the overwhelming majority of them, likely having little to no idea of the similarities and differences among the ideas of Strauss, Wolfowitz, Jackson and Kirkpatrick, would as likely choose "none of the above" as "all of the above" were they asked "Which of the following played a central role in catalyzing and developing Neoconservative ideology" and the available offerings be Powell, Podhoretz, Marcuse, Kirkpatrick, and Bush I & II/Cheney.

Remarks like yours that I've quoted above may play well with such folks, but to me, it's puerile pandering like that, not the economic underpinnings, prudence and practicality of free trade, which of BS issue and be.

 

[Indeependent]

Neo-Con bullshit.

Oh, yes...however could I have forgotten that Adam Smith was a Neo-Con?

You may surely find folks here on USMB who agree with you. I doubt, however, that the overwhelming majority of them, likely having little to no idea of the similarities and differences among the ideas of Strauss, Wolfowitz, Jackson and Kirkpatrick, would as likely choose "none of the above" as "all of the above" were they asked "Which of the following played a central role in catalyzing and developing Neoconservative ideology?" and the available offerings were Powell, Podhoretz, Marcuse, Kirkpatrick, and Bush I & II/Cheney.

Remarks like yours that I've quoted above may play well with such folks, but to me, it's puerile pandering like that, not the economic underpinnings, prudence and practicality of free trade, which of BS issue and be.

Ricardian Free Trade does NOT including selling out one's citizens.

 

[Indeependent]

Neo-Con bullshit.

Oh, yes...however could I have forgotten that Adam Smith was a Neo-Con?

You may surely find folks here on USMB who agree with you. I doubt, however, that the overwhelming majority of them, likely having little to no idea of the similarities and differences among the ideas of Strauss, Wolfowitz, Jackson and Kirkpatrick, would as likely choose "none of the above" as "all of the above" were they asked "Which of the following played a central role in catalyzing and developing Neoconservative ideology" and the available offerings be Powell, Podhoretz, Marcuse, Kirkpatrick, and Bush I & II/Cheney.

Remarks like yours that I've quoted above may play well with such folks, but to me, it's puerile pandering like that, not the economic underpinnings, prudence and practicality of free trade, which of BS issue and be.

The fact that you quote the pompous ass William F Buckley belies your myopic view modern day Oligarchic Capitalism.

 

[320 Years of History]

Neo-Con bullshit.

Oh, yes...however could I have forgotten that Adam Smith was a Neo-Con?

You may surely find folks here on USMB who agree with you. I doubt, however, that the overwhelming majority of them, likely having little to no idea of the similarities and differences among the ideas of Strauss, Wolfowitz, Jackson and Kirkpatrick, would as likely choose "none of the above" as "all of the above" were they asked "Which of the following played a central role in catalyzing and developing Neoconservative ideology" and the available offerings be Powell, Podhoretz, Marcuse, Kirkpatrick, and Bush I & II/Cheney.

Remarks like yours that I've quoted above may play well with such folks, but to me, it's puerile pandering like that, not the economic underpinnings, prudence and practicality of free trade, which of BS issue and be.

The fact that you quote the pompous ass William F Buckley belies your myopic view modern day Oligarchic Capitalism.

So you pontificate, Holy Father.

 

[Indeependent]

Neo-Con bullshit.

Oh, yes...however could I have forgotten that Adam Smith was a Neo-Con?

You may surely find folks here on USMB who agree with you. I doubt, however, that the overwhelming majority of them, likely having little to no idea of the similarities and differences among the ideas of Strauss, Wolfowitz, Jackson and Kirkpatrick, would as likely choose "none of the above" as "all of the above" were they asked "Which of the following played a central role in catalyzing and developing Neoconservative ideology" and the available offerings be Powell, Podhoretz, Marcuse, Kirkpatrick, and Bush I & II/Cheney.

Remarks like yours that I've quoted above may play well with such folks, but to me, it's puerile pandering like that, not the economic underpinnings, prudence and practicality of free trade, which of BS issue and be.

The fact that you quote the pompous ass William F Buckley belies your myopic view modern day Oligarchic Capitalism.

So you pontificate, Holy Father.

Theories don't work in real life over a 40 year period; unless, of course, you live off your Stock Portfolio.

 

[320 Years of History]

Neo-Con bullshit.

Oh, yes...however could I have forgotten that Adam Smith was a Neo-Con?

You may surely find folks here on USMB who agree with you. I doubt, however, that the overwhelming majority of them, likely having little to no idea of the similarities and differences among the ideas of Strauss, Wolfowitz, Jackson and Kirkpatrick, would as likely choose "none of the above" as "all of the above" were they asked "Which of the following played a central role in catalyzing and developing Neoconservative ideology" and the available offerings be Powell, Podhoretz, Marcuse, Kirkpatrick, and Bush I & II/Cheney.

Remarks like yours that I've quoted above may play well with such folks, but to me, it's puerile pandering like that, not the economic underpinnings, prudence and practicality of free trade, which of BS issue and be.

The fact that you quote the pompous ass William F Buckley belies your myopic view modern day Oligarchic Capitalism.

So you pontificate, Holy Father.

Theories don't work in real life over a 40 year period; unless, of course, you live off your Stock Portfolio.

So you say....

 

[Indeependent]

Neo-Con bullshit.

Oh, yes...however could I have forgotten that Adam Smith was a Neo-Con?

You may surely find folks here on USMB who agree with you. I doubt, however, that the overwhelming majority of them, likely having little to no idea of the similarities and differences among the ideas of Strauss, Wolfowitz, Jackson and Kirkpatrick, would as likely choose "none of the above" as "all of the above" were they asked "Which of the following played a central role in catalyzing and developing Neoconservative ideology" and the available offerings be Powell, Podhoretz, Marcuse, Kirkpatrick, and Bush I & II/Cheney.

Remarks like yours that I've quoted above may play well with such folks, but to me, it's puerile pandering like that, not the economic underpinnings, prudence and practicality of free trade, which of BS issue and be.

The fact that you quote the pompous ass William F Buckley belies your myopic view modern day Oligarchic Capitalism.

So you pontificate, Holy Father.

Interesting...you post War & Peace and I'M pontificating?

 

[320 Years of History]

Neo-Con bullshit.

Oh, yes...however could I have forgotten that Adam Smith was a Neo-Con?

You may surely find folks here on USMB who agree with you. I doubt, however, that the overwhelming majority of them, likely having little to no idea of the similarities and differences among the ideas of Strauss, Wolfowitz, Jackson and Kirkpatrick, would as likely choose "none of the above" as "all of the above" were they asked "Which of the following played a central role in catalyzing and developing Neoconservative ideology" and the available offerings be Powell, Podhoretz, Marcuse, Kirkpatrick, and Bush I & II/Cheney.

Remarks like yours that I've quoted above may play well with such folks, but to me, it's puerile pandering like that, not the economic underpinnings, prudence and practicality of free trade, which of BS issue and be.

The fact that you quote the pompous ass William F Buckley belies your myopic view modern day Oligarchic Capitalism.

So you pontificate, Holy Father.

Interesting...you post War & Peace and I'M pontificating?

Yes, you are, because, like the Pontiff, you only make pronouncements and tacitly demand, on the force of your uttering, them that others accept them.