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We had trade tariffs since the founding of this nation, voted on by congress, to keep the people of their states working and prosperous, to maintain this nations self sufficiency
Historians and then the common man are soon going to learn something that economists and critical thinkers have known for about 200 years...tariffs are generally negative things all the way around, and harm the exporting nation that erects them every single time, and measurably so.
The gospel that tariffs helped build this nation are bunk. The nation got built in spite of them, albeit more slowly than had they not been there.
I don't expect anyone to agree or understand, since 99% of the nation carries Leviathan's water and heeds their master's voice, but tariffs are bad things, and like most forms of government intervention into economics, typically do more harm than good. It's one of the fundamental truths of economics - governments can do very little economic good, but can and often do inflict massive harm.
Historians and then the common man are soon going to learn something that economists and critical thinkers have known for about 200 years...tariffs are generally negative things all the way around, and harm the exporting nation that erects them every single time, and measurably so.
The gospel that tariffs helped build this nation are bunk. The nation got built in spite of them, albeit more slowly than had they not been there.
I don't expect anyone to agree or understand, since 99% of the nation carries Leviathan's water and heeds their master's voice, but tariffs are bad things, and like most forms of government intervention into economics, typically do more harm than good. It's one of the fundamental truths of economics - governments can do very little economic good, but can and often do inflict massive harm.
It gets bad when equality is put in the back seat for protectionism. When they go too far, it does cost us trade partners. A balance is needed to keep our nation working and producing for Americans, with regulation after regulation, making it cost more to produce, to be able to be on the same ballpark as those without the regulations that would increase their cost to produce.
Walked right into what?
Because you can't learn from mistakes, doesn't mean cannot.
I wasn't raised to be that victim you want me to be.
Who cares what nationality someone or where the product is from? As long as they got here legally. Our country was built on the backs of immigrants. I want inexpensive quality items. The more options the better. If someone can do that I dont care where it comes from or who makes it.
China has tariffs against US Goods to protect their economy.
Want to buy a box of Fruit Loops in China?
It will set you back 15 bucks there.
For every 4 items we buy from China, they buy 1 item from us.
We were told these trade policies was going to create millions of jobs in the USA since there are billions of consumers in China. It was all LIES
The only ones that are against tariffs are the ones profiting from our Trade Agreements.
Apples and oranges.
Comparing China's economy to any other in the world is useless. China not only used tariffs to built its economy; the biggest factor in the sudden growth of China was its practice of keeping their currency, the Yuan, artificially low. Cheap money builds economies. The Chinese leaders could use dictatorial ways to keep the Yuan low because they are a dictatorship.
Nowadays, the cheap Yuan is being allowed to gradually float upward on the world's currency market, and its tariffs have been lowered or done away with. They have to do this. If they don't, the world's currency could become swamped in shiploads of cheap Yuans.
And the rest of the world won't allow that to happen. They will decide for themselves what a Yuan is worth vs. the U.S. Dollar, the current world standard currency. If that happens, then the control of their money goes out of their leader's hands.
China is playing catch-up capitalism. It's all new to them. The United States has been in the capitalism game right from the first and is a Grand Master at it. Any Grand Master is going to make mistakes in a game. Very few games are ever perfect. None are always perfect.
The difference is a Grand Master knows how to recover from his mistakes. We made mistakes and then learned how to turn them around on China.
The game is being played right now; it's not over yet, and it's a game that goes slowly. Don't think it is over, because it isn't.
The Chinese need international credit, not Fruit Loops. Once the Chinese learn the rules of capitalism as well as we know them, the price of Fruit Loops in China will go down, along with any tariff that is keeping them artificially higher than Fruit Loops purchased in Korea.
That's the way international credit works.
Why is credit so important? Because its a faster and cheaper way of doing big business than moving shiploads of currency around the world. The world is not a cash & carry operation any more.
Last edited by banjomike; 01-12-2015 at 04:57 PM..
What gives you faith we can, with the regulations we have, rightfully so... making a price barrier we cannot compete with, unless exploited illegal immigrants do the work, while Americans sit home, cannot find work that pays decent wages and the government starts taking care of more and more .
Faith is faith.
If a believer believes, he isn't going to stop believing. If a non-believer does not believe, then he will never believe unless shown otherwise. Once a person has faith, it's harder to dump it that it is to get it. Faith is what grows churches, because churches deal in faith like banks deal in credit.
Don't blame someone else for lacking faith when he understands how the modern world revolves. It might be better for you to question why he believes and you don't.
By thinking tariffs are going to fix our employment problems, you are asking Americans to pay more for their foreign goods, period.
A tariff doesn't take into account whether U.S. goods are the same quality, better quality, or lower quality. Anything that comes in from another place costs us more. Period.
Tariffs also means tariffs on raw materials that our industry needs, but don't exist here, will cost more for us as finished goods. Tariffs mean American companies can't take advantage of combining the advantages of importing part of what they need to build more jobs here. Some of that need may be labor, not raw materials, or finished goods, a combination of labor and raw materials.
Tariffs also mean American manufacturers can make goods as shoddy as will be accepted by their buyers, as there is no economic incentive to build better goods, based on price alone. Crappy goods do not pay the workers who make them as much money as getter goods.
Since we will never have the manpower to match China, Americans can't make good livings making crap.
That's why all the American guitar manufacturers no longer make cheap guitars here. There are only so many workers who are able to make guitars, and China will always have more workers than we will ever have. 40 years ago, all the American guitar makers who made cheap guitars refused to learn that lesson, and all went broke trying to fight it.
The companies that survived dropped their cheap guitars and concentrated on only the guitars than skilled Americans could make in the American way, and all the survivors grew as a result. American made guitars are still the ones the rest of the world covets and wants the most, even though they cost much more than any others.
And eventually, Americans built new factories in China, where they could build cheap guitars and make money selling them, too. They could build crap overseas and make money, but they learned the American attachment to a Chinese guitar made them even more money when they didn't make crappy guitars. They made even more money when they brought the Chinese guitars closer to our superlative quality. But no Chinese guitar will ever match an American in the eyes of the rest of the world.
The rest of the world will settle for a Chinese guitar made in an American factory and pay more for it, but they're still willing to pay even more for an all-American guitar.
And every single guitar, no matter where it's made, depends on raw materials that come from someplace else. The most expensive guitars all have rarer woods and other stuff that is found in countries where very few guitars are made. The Chinese buy the same woods the Americans do, but because our makers have a higher profit margin, due to their excellence, they get the best woods first when the tree is cut down.
And where will the money go from those tariffs? To the government, of course. To make prices easier on Americans, the government would have to pass that extra money out to the rest of us. How well do you think that would work? Do you want some more government in the middle between buyer and seller?
If that's what you want, then you are a socialist and don't know it. That position, with the government always in the middle, taking and passing along, manipulating the nation's labor, manufacturing, goods and services toward the benefit of all, is what makes Sweden, Norway, and all the other northern democracies of Europe work.
Yes, we're aware of your unceasing propaganda and disinformation campaign.
Here's the relevant facts you suppressed:
Quote:
The Swiss economy
Switzerland’s economy is based on a highly qualified labour force performing highly skilled work. The main areas include microtechnology, hitech, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, as well as banking and insurance know-how. The service sector now employs the greatest number of people.
Source: Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
....microtechnology, hitech, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals...
The Swiss have something the US does not have: an expanding 5th Level Economy.
You can have a Department of Education, or a 5th Level Economy, but you cannot have both, even more so since the Department of Education is the reason why you did not move into your 5th Level Economy in the mid-1990s...you know....like Switzerland did.
Which is most important to you: Your Liberal Ideology or High Paying Jobs in the 5th Level Economy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by chad3
Economic freedom is unregulated capitalism.
The laws of capitalism state jobs will go to the countries that pay the lowest wages (this increases a business's profits.).
Capitalism may be regulated and there are no "laws of capitalism" regarding wages, since Capitalism is a property theory.
Your attempt at Disinformation has failed yet again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow
The jobs started going to other nations as we started dropping tariffs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7
Yes, I've always supported tariffs. They worked wonderfully historically.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Votre_Chef
And we went from being a ramshackle backwater to being the premier industrial giant of the world.
I agree with you on this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow
We had trade tariffs since the founding of this nation, voted on by congress, to keep the people of their states working and prosperous, to maintain this nations self sufficiency
Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow
The balance is, making it worth producing here...
.
No, jobs were already leaving when tariffs were reduced or dropped.
It isn't worth producing here.
Which part of "Zenith" do you not understand?
Quote:
1995: LG gains a 58 percent controlling stake in Zenith by buying $351 million in stock.
Nov 14, 1999 - What's an American industrial icon worth? Try 200 million bucks. That's what LG Electronics paid when it acquired Zenith in a bankruptcy.
Do you think tariffs would have saved Zenith and all of those union jobs?
Wrong.
All of you are incapable of understanding the implications here:
The US = 4.5% of World Population
The non-US World = 95.5% of World Population
In that respect, at least you all and the former CEO of Zenith have something in common.
The only real difference is the former Zenith CEO had a parachute....you guys don't.
You need to compete globally.
If you think global competition is "unfair" then remember that you created that competition through your own greed and avarice.
WWJD?
What would Jesus do?
...or maybe...
WWSD?
What would Sequoyah do?
Do you think that Jesus and Sequoyah would brutally oppress Millions of people on Earth to steal all of their money, and simultaneously hinder their political, economic and social growth?
On top of that, you have the unmitigated gall to whine and complain that the Million of people that you brutally oppressed and hindered can now manufacture things for less money than the US.
That's like shooting someone in your home and then whining that they bled on your carpet.
Well, of course they did....
....microtechnology, hitech, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals...
The Swiss have something the US does not have: an expanding 5th Level Economy.
You can have a Department of Education, or a 5th Level Economy, but you cannot have both, even more so since the Department of Education is the reason why you did not move into your 5th Level Economy in the mid-1990s...you know....like Switzerland did.
Which is most important to you: Your Liberal Ideology or High Paying Jobs in the 5th Level Economy?
Capitalism may be regulated and there are no "laws of capitalism" regarding wages, since Capitalism is a property theory.
Your attempt at Disinformation has failed yet again.
.
No, jobs were already leaving when tariffs were reduced or dropped.
It isn't worth producing here.
Which part of "Zenith" do you not understand?
Do you think tariffs would have saved Zenith and all of those union jobs?
Wrong.
All of you are incapable of understanding the implications here:
The US = 4.5% of World Population
The non-US World = 95.5% of World Population
In that respect, at least you all and the former CEO of Zenith have something in common.
The only real difference is the former Zenith CEO had a parachute....you guys don't.
You need to compete globally.
If you think global competition is "unfair" then remember that you created that competition through your own greed and avarice.
WWJD?
What would Jesus do?
...or maybe...
WWSD?
What would Sequoyah do?
Do you think that Jesus and Sequoyah would brutally oppress Millions of people on Earth to steal all of their money, and simultaneously hinder their political, economic and social growth?
On top of that, you have the unmitigated gall to whine and complain that the Million of people that you brutally oppressed and hindered can now manufacture things for less money than the US.
That's like shooting someone in your home and then whining that they bled on your carpet.
Well, of course they did....
Mircea
Then Zenith would have been an American Market, kept alive by Americans with a choice. Buy American or buy Japanese, Korean, Taiwan and now Chinese.
Back in the day, the Chrysler Imperial, Cadillac, and Lincoln Continental, where the cars to have, Tariffs kept americans working in Detroit. No one really thought of a Mercedes, or a Porsche. That wasn't American.
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