Myths of Protectionism

[Toro]

Myth 1: “The cost of protection and its flipside, gains from trade, are negligible.” ...
Myth 2: “Free trade may increase economic prosperity, but it is bad for the working class.” ...
Myth 3: “Free trade requires that other countries also open their markets.” ...
Myth 4: “Paul Samuelson abandoned free trade, and he was the greatest economist of his time.” ...
Myth 5: “Offshoring of jobs will devastate rich countries.”

Protectionist Myths - Project Syndicate

 

[Baruch Menachem]

You need to demonstrate how they are wrong.

We wouldn't be talking about it if the results were negligible. the losses are also a great deal larger than the gains. the losses are waste of resources and costs to consumers.

How making society as a whole better off harms the larges part of the society is a mystery to me.

Just plain false. Doing the right thing is the right thing no matter how stupid anyone/everyone else is.

Paul Samuleson wrote a textbook for sophomores. It was very boring (I had to buy a copy. I hated it) and no one read it if they could avoid it. He never won any prizes. How he was the greatest economist is hard to justify.

Free trade is always offshoring jobs. The jobs that are off shored are jobs that have no justification here anymore.

 

[editec]

Free trade?

Yeahs that's worked out real well, hasn't it?

30,000,000 jobs either lost directly by offshoring, or lost as a result of jobs never having been created here.

A balance of trade that's a disaster.

And the obvious diminuition of real wages for working Americans.

Of course I understand why it seems great to some of you.

But for the working classes generally, the benefits are very small and the outcomes to thye middle class and to the nation overall have been quite detrimental.

 

[Oddball]

Free trade?

Yeahs that's worked out real well, hasn't it?

30,000,000 jobs either lost directly by offshoring, or lost as a result of jobs never having been created here.

A balance of trade that's a disaster.

And the obvious diminuition of real wages for working Americans.

Of course I understand why it seems great to some of you.

But for the working classes generally, the benefits are very small and the outcomes to thye middle class and to the nation overall have been quite detrimental.

Same populist boilerplate was cranked out about Japan...then Hong Kong...then Indonesia...then Taiwan...

Yet, somehow or another, all of those nations and America are better off for the trade.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

The costs of protectionism are usually hidden, spread over the population and hard to quantify.

the benefits to protectionism are in cash, very visible to the recipients, and concentrated in the hands of those who have the ear of the legislature.

During the free trade era, roughly between 1840 and 1910 wars were short and infrequent, economic growth of 6% was the norm.

 

[JBeukema]

Two words: trade deficit

 

[Oddball]

Two words: Silly statistic.

I have the same "trade deficit" with the electric company and grocery store.

 

[JBeukema]

If you shrug off our trade deficit and the loss of American manufacturing by acting as though the nation being as dependent on foreign powers as you are upon your utility company is no problem, it's clear that you shouldn't be taken seriously anyway.

Not that this (that you're an idiot who runs your mouth whilst knowing nothing about anything) is really news; it simply highlights the fact once again. You hate the idea of people being dependent on Big Brother, but see nothing wrong with the entire nation being dependent on China and other nations who aren't exactly our friends. Makes perfect sense

 

[Paulie]

If you shrug off our trade deficit and the loss of American manufacturing by acting as though the nation being as dependent on foreign powers as you are upon your utility company is no problem, it's clear that you shouldn't be taken seriously anyway.

Not that this (that you're an idiot who runs your mouth whilst knowing nothing about anything) is really news; it simply highlights the fact once again. You hate the idea of people being dependent on Big Brother, but see nothing wrong with the entire nation being dependent on China and other nations who aren't exactly our friends. Makes perfect sense

If I know Dude, he's not pleased with our dependence on China either.

Our trade imbalance involves much more than just protectionism or no protectionism.

This is exactly what the powers that be want us arguing over: a microcosm of an otherwise complex problem.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Free trade?

Yeahs that's worked out real well, hasn't it?

30,000,000 jobs either lost directly by offshoring, or lost as a result of jobs never having been created here.

A balance of trade that's a disaster.

And the obvious diminuition of real wages for working Americans.

Of course I understand why it seems great to some of you.

But for the working classes generally, the benefits are very small and the outcomes to thye middle class and to the nation overall have been quite detrimental.

It certainly did work out well, when we actually had a policy of somewhat free trade.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Gentlemen:

You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and have little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry.

We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your — what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us.

Bastiat's famous Candlestick makers' Petition

Bastiat's famous Candlestick Makers' Petition exposes the fallacy behind protectionism.

 

[Dante]

You need to demonstrate how they are wrong.
...

///

I'll take a guess. You didn't follow the link and are shooting from the lip?

 

[Dante]

Myth 1: “The cost of protection and its flipside, gains from trade, are negligible.” ...
Myth 2: “Free trade may increase economic prosperity, but it is bad for the working class.” ...
Myth 3: “Free trade requires that other countries also open their markets.” ...
Myth 4: “Paul Samuelson abandoned free trade, and he was the greatest economist of his time.” ...
Myth 5: “Offshoring of jobs will devastate rich countries.”

Protectionist Myths - Project Syndicate

First Krugman and now ...

Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, is completing a book entitled Terrified by Trade: How to Contain Protectionism Today.

---


Isn't it wonderful to see Dude, the house economist, lecture all these so-called economic experts?

 

[Oddball]

If you shrug off our trade deficit and the loss of American manufacturing by acting as though the nation being as dependent on foreign powers as you are upon your utility company is no problem, it's clear that you shouldn't be taken seriously anyway.

Not that this (that you're an idiot who runs your mouth whilst knowing nothing about anything) is really news; it simply highlights the fact once again. You hate the idea of people being dependent on Big Brother, but see nothing wrong with the entire nation being dependent on China and other nations who aren't exactly our friends. Makes perfect sense

Wow...Dazzled again by yet another stunning fusillade of economic facts, with not a hint of demagoguery or ad hominem attacks.

My cup reuuenth under.

 

[Oddball]

If I know Dude, he's not pleased with our dependence on China either.

Our trade imbalance involves much more than just protectionism or no protectionism.

This is exactly what the powers that be want us arguing over: a microcosm of an otherwise complex problem.

I understand what JBolshevik doesn't... That you cannot sell stuff to someone with no job.

It's also interesting that none of the usual Peanut Gallery of nitwits cares to address that the same brain dead scaremongering was slung about Japan, then Hong Kong, then Indonesia, then Taiwan, and everyone ended up economically better off.

 

[kwc57]

Myth 1: “The cost of protection and its flipside, gains from trade, are negligible.” ...
Myth 2: “Free trade may increase economic prosperity, but it is bad for the working class.” ...
Myth 3: “Free trade requires that other countries also open their markets.” ...
Myth 4: “Paul Samuelson abandoned free trade, and he was the greatest economist of his time.” ...
Myth 5: “Offshoring of jobs will devastate rich countries.”

Protectionist Myths - Project Syndicate

First Krugman and now ...

Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, is completing a book entitled Terrified by Trade: How to Contain Protectionism Today.

---


Isn't it wonderful to see Dude, the house economist, lecture all these so-called economic experts?

Krugman. I don't care what awards he has won. I see the guy periodically on Meet the Press and he is an agenda driven ideologue of the shifty eyed variety. I don't claim to be an economist and I've never played one on TV, but everytime he speaks, I think to myself, "what a ******* clueless moron".

 

[JBeukema]

If I know Dude, he's not pleased with our dependence on China either.

Our trade imbalance involves much more than just protectionism or no protectionism.

This is exactly what the powers that be want us arguing over: a microcosm of an otherwise complex problem.

I understand what JBolshevik doesn't... That you cannot sell stuff to someone with no job.

Who is JBolshevik? I didn't know there were any Bolsheviks on this forum

If you can't sell something to people with no jobs, does it make sense to send jobs out of the country and expect the people who lost their jobs to buy the lead- and cadmium-filled goods coming out of the sweatshops?

 

[Oddball]

Professor Don Boudreaux, chairman of George Mason University's Economics Department, wrote "If Trade Surpluses Are So Great, the 1930s Should Have Been a Booming Decade" {Cafe Hayek ? where orders emerge). According to data he found at the National Bureau of Economic Research's "Macrohistory Database", it turns out that the U.S. ran a trade surplus in nine of the 10 years of the Great Depression, with 1936 being the lone exception.

During those 10 years, we had a significant trade surplus, with exports totaling $26.05 billion and imports totaling only $21.13 billion. So what do trade surpluses during a depression and trade deficits during an economic boom prove, considering we've had trade deficits for most of our history? Professor Boudreaux says they prove absolutely nothing. Economies are far too complex to draw simplistic causal connections between trade deficits and surpluses and economic welfare and growth.

<snip>

The late Professor Milton Friedman said, "Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." Some people justify their calls for protectionism by claiming that they're for free trade but fair trade. That's nonsense. Think about it: When I purchased my Lexus from a Japanese producer, through an intermediary, I received what I wanted. The Japanese producer received what he wanted. In my book, that's a fair trade.

Of course, an American auto producer, from whom I didn't purchase my car, might whine that it was unfair. He would like Congress to impose import tariffs and quotas to make Japanese-produced cars less attractive and available in the hopes that I'd buy an American-produced car. In my book, that would be unfair.

Townhall - Trade Deficits: Good or Bad?

 

[Shogun]

so how is that Irish economy these days?

 

[JBeukema]

The late Professor Milton Friedman said, "Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." Some people justify their calls for protectionism by claiming that they're for free trade but fair trade. That's nonsense. Think about it: When I purchased my Lexus from a Japanese producer, through an intermediary, I received what I wanted. The Japanese producer received what he wanted. In my book, that's a fair trade.

Thanks for lewtting us know Friedman doens't know what Fair Trade is and had to resort to a strawman. Not surprising you'd parrot such things.