I am asking all readers to answer this question, whether you normally comment/participate or not.
The wording comes from a poll that is regularly conducted on the issue. More about the poll in a future post. For right now, just tell us whether you support eliminating tariffs. Please choose one option or the other; there is no “third way” on this one.
Pronounced "Patter-EE-koh"
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Tariffs are generally bad. They are a tax on one’s own citizens to help well-connected domestic producers avoid direct contact with the marketplace. In the 60’s (and probably before) there were sizable tariffs on imported automobiles, amounting to perhaps 20% of the sales price. The idea was to keep European and Japanese cars from competing with the Big 3.
It tended to keep European cars off the market, as they were even more poorly made, but the Japanese eventually brought enough game that their cars sold despite the tariffs. The choice then became: raise the tariffs to protect Detroit, or remove them and make Detroit compete. Nixon removed them.
The result? Much better cars at lower prices. Sure the UAW and the fat cat managers suffered in the end, but consumers have far more choice.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:30 ami hate tariffs cause of they make stuff more expensive and that is very regressive on a pikachu
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:34 amThe poll started out in favor of tariffs, but it’s swinging against them at the moment.
Patterico (9c670f) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:41 amI don’t like the wording (“support eliminating” is confusing) but this is the wording the professional pollsters use, and I wanted to compare my readership’s responses to theirs. There’s no way to do that without replicating the wording, exactly.
Patterico (9c670f) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:43 amI also dislike tariffs, but they have a place and function in our world. China now dominates the rare earth element mining. Last night on 60 minutes they discussed this. We need REE’s for many of our military, industrial and domestic products. Yet China can just say no to exports or raise the price. Meanwhile an American company like Molycorp suffers from currently low prices in REEs. Their stock is at $.35 and the company is close to closing the mine. Do we want China to control this resource? I think they currently dominate many markets that if we were at war we would/could be dependent on them for resources. Poor position choice.
bald01 (9cd062) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:53 amThe ocean floor is rare earth miners new frontier — report
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:56 amtariffs, like most, if not all, government “solutions”, cause more trouble than good.
we need less regulation, taxes & fees, not more.
redc1c4 (cf3b04) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:57 amThere should be tariffs, and and any and all other practicable import barriers, on anything we can produce ourselves. Nations, as well as individuals, should be self-sufficient and not rely on strangers for either necessities or luxuries. Moreover, we should take every practicable step to provide our population with jobs at decent wages, raise our standard of living, and make possible a strong domestic market for our own goods.
I support oil import tariffs to keep domestic production profitable, for example. I don’t want Russia and Saudi Arabia lowering oil prices to the extent that they put our domestic producers, frackers, drillers or alchemists, out of business.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:57 am*whether* drillers, frackers or alchemists
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:59 amMilton Friedman just scratched you off his Christmas card list Mr. nk
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:00 amanyone else not have a working link to the survey?
seeRpea (1925e7) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:02 amtariffs, taxes, fees, licenses and a middle finger.
mg (31009b) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:06 amMilton Friedman wrote propaganda for the mercantilists and they rewarded him with grants, endowments, speaking fees and publishing contracts. I would bet that he not only never engaged in one hour’s honest work tapping rubber trees, mining graphite, or choping down pines, I would further bet that he never bought a pencil for four cents and tried to peddle it for five.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:10 amWe actually have a law that keeps oil drilling UNprofitable: no oil can be exported. This is from a time when we imported almost all our oil. It is one of the laws that Obama is enforcing and has caused a glut of oil in the US.
Current US price, $46/barrel
Current world price: $$55/barrel
Good perhaps for US consumers that don’t live in California, bad for drillers though.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:20 amI also support elimination, but I figure it is going to be much like perfect communism and a perfect libertarian society.
Never going to happen in the real world.
seeRpea,
JP Kalishek (b3930f) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:22 amYou likely have script blocking turned on. The solution is to turn it off and the easypoll will show up.
@ Kevin M
JP Kalishek (b3930f) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:25 amWhat is happening is the refiners are exporting gasoline and other petrochems instead. This is why the price is so low but the gas is still a bit high. It is high enough that I see the lifts bobbing, so it has to pay enough to keep that paying a mild profit.
Did you know that Congress may not impose export tariffs?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:26 amJP,
So, it is bad for consumers AND for drillers. Gotta hand it to Washington.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:27 amI oppose tariffs, on the condition that we would have enough guts and common sense to refuse to trade with any country who does not meet a minimal set of human rights conditions.
JVW (a1146f) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:28 amWell, that shows the proper spirit, Kevin. That we have an incentive to produce a surplus to export.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:29 amthere’s still labor unrest plaguing at least one refinery
and that one that blewed up in California is still closed for repairs
happyfeet (a037ad) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:29 amTariffs are a convenient, and more easily collectible tax than others, and fairer than the also easily collectible real property tax, but they are not very important any more, because the epercentage of GDP governments tax has grown very much, and there’s not much more of an arguent for tariffs.
But I do think boycotts and sanctions, as punishments and means of pressure, are reasonable puproses that should not be eliminated.
And also it is important sometimes for “strategic” reasons to keep tinbgs manufactured in the country it is used, to prevent cutoffs, and monopoly pricesw and just bad quality.
There’s also an argument for taxing oil imports. It would be a significant tax that could releive r prevent other taxes, and there’s some argument about consumption of oil.
But overall, I’m sympathetic to getting rid of them, especially for cargoes or things supplied by a contracts that are not too valuable, and what is carried in individually.
Meanwhile we have these “tariffs” between different states of the United States, for cigarettes, and anything that sales tax is applied to.
ation
Sammy Finkelman (033fec) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:47 amAbout self-sufficiency: it depends on whether or not there is a wide varety of sources, and what kind of sources (who) it comes from. and anything essential or semi=essential should be stockpiled.
Sammy Finkelman (033fec) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:49 am<blockquote13.Milton Friedman wrote propaganda for the mercantilists and they rewarded him with grants, endowments, speaking fees and publishing contracts. I would bet that he not only never engaged in one hour’s honest work tapping rubber trees, mining graphite, or choping down pines, I would further bet that he never bought a pencil for four cents and tried to peddle it for five.
Where does one come up with such blatant propaganda as that, nk? First of all I knew Milton Friedman and I assure you he wrote no propaganda for mercantilists or anyone else. He was immersed in the science of economics from a monetary prospective and believed the free market to be the best road to economic freedom for free people. And if you believe the only “honest work” is taping rubber trees or mining graphite then you are seriously missing the point. We all participate in the economy as we can. Some mine graphite, some deliver babies and some teach economics. All are “honest work”.
Hoagie (58a3ec) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:59 amIt was an allusion to his pencil example of the world economy, Hoagie.
But on that point, I have more faith in the business acumen of the guy peddling the pencils from a tin cup on a street corner than I do in that of academic economists. And academic economist is a tautology to begin with. They don’t live in the real world. An economist is like going to the hardware store for a 10-24 nut and bolt and getting a lecture on the inclined plane instead.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 9:05 amI’m cool with Coolidge on the tariffs. Paraphrasing Silent Cal’s quote on the topic, which I can’t find offhand: In theory, people would be better off without them. In practice, a small and temporary tariff buffering the citizens from the swings of world economics is a good thing for people, too. Instead.
Pouncer (ed0078) — 3/23/2015 @ 9:09 amI oppose tariffs, on the condition that we would have enough guts and common sense to refuse to trade with any country who does not meet a minimal set of human rights conditions.
Since when did we care about that in trade talks?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 9:35 amI will point out that almost all trade talks have little to do with eliminating tariffs, but are more a negotiation between rent-seekers, agreeing to charge each other less rent.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 9:37 amSince when did we care about that in trade talks?
Yeah, that’s kind of my point.
JVW (a1146f) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:00 amI’d say that a country using slave labor to sell us its shoddy trash cheaply enough, is as bad as a country using cane field subsidies to sell us its sugar cheaply enough. It’s unfair competition and you know the prices will go up when they’ve driven everyone else out of the market. Among other things.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:06 amTariffs, as a tool of protectionism, are bad. When tariff wars start, depending on how heavily a country relies on import/export, they become necessary. Much like the kinetic form of war, there are always those pushing the idea that tariff wars are already happening.
Why no comment on the Ted Cruz?
WTP (4090b3) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:17 amSorry, see it now. my bad.
WTP (5c621d) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:18 amI vote to eliminate tariffs.
Georganne (e37667) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:34 amI am against tariffs, but that would be in a perfect world where both sides play fairly. The problem is that neither side tends to play fair. Since the world (and people) aren’t perfect, some (very few) tariffs are probably needed (if only for national security).
Roy in Nipomo (8c3b61) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:34 amI would say tariffs are necessary and a better way to fund government than the income taxes many of them currently institute.
I generally approve of free trade doctrines, but it depends on the country we trade with. When factoring in currency differences and varying policies in countries, such as subsidies for industries, tariffs are necessary like government is necessary.
Tariffs can be misused, yes, such as the USA sugar tariff. But I would never say we need to eliminate them.
Dejectedhead (83e1bc) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:55 amEliminating tariffs would only work in some nonsensical libertarian fantasy land. In reality you would do nothing but destroy any work in the US. With out tariffs you are trying to compete with slave labor done in places with out any sort of environmental or safety regulations.
JNorth (5fe1bf) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:57 amEliminate. The social good they could and should do is lost in the maze of bureaucrats.
htom (4ca1fa) — 3/23/2015 @ 11:04 amTariffs should be reciprocal:
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 11:50 amIf you want your goods to enter the USA, they should pay they same rate that you charge USA goods to enter your little slice of heaven.
And none of this crap, like the French pulled with the Japanese at one time, declaring that all goods that meet the described criteria must enter at only one POE (all Japanese electronic goods entering France had to enter through a POE in the Pyrenees).
Did you know that Congress may not impose export tariffs?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:26 am
But, they can through the Ex-Im Bank, create export subsidies.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 11:54 amThose who don’t “qualify” for subsidies, are effectively taxed with an export tariff by another name.
whoa! used a browser with no protections. did not realize this blog had so much external popups, popins, videos, etc on it.
All things being I would sympathize with no-tarriff, but all things are not equal. I would have to think more about this if countries were dumping products below costs of material and transport.
Interesting to note that Adam Smith was not opposed to all tariffs.
seeRpea (181740) — 3/23/2015 @ 12:11 pmI am sure the rest of the world will do away with their tariffs so we can destroy their manufacturing base as the rest of the world has done to us right! Did the koch brothers or heritage foundation fund this poll?
truther (61e51b) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:02 pmWhat on earth do the Koch bros. or the Heritage foundation have to do with this thread? Are you some kind of deranged hate filled psycho? Or are you just repeating the nonsense George Soros and The Huffington Post tell you to regurgitate? You should use #truther.
Hoagie (58a3ec) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:16 pmIn an ideal world, yes. But this is not an ideal world. It would be a better one if Adam Smith and Von Mises’s ideals were universal. Unfortunately they are not and never will be so. We have the biggest market for consumer goods in the world. NAFTA and GATT have done nothing more than give that away on the cheap. I am sympathetic in the abstract. But we rightly mock the Left for the PC nonsense when it comes to foreign policy, assuming the best in others.But even Smith warned countries act only to their own benefit, not out of some higher obligation. And yet in this area Ron and Rand Paul (whom I like) and their ilk wander off into Fanstasyland.
Bugg (aace18) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:26 pmDenying ourselves the ability to use tariffs is like unilateral nuclear disarmament.
It gets us taken advantage of by those who continue to use the weapons against us.
We need the ability to use tariffs to defend ourselves from others with unfair labor/government practices.
luagha (e5bf64) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:26 pmIdeally, no tariffs, I agree with economic theory that they place a drag on economic activity.
Ken in Camarillo (c5b86d) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:30 pmIn real life, tariffs are required to deal with issues in other countries such as: slave wages, subsidies, market manipulation, and weak (or none) environmental protections. In the cases of things we have that others don’t such as environmental and safety regulations, we need to be sure we only have those regulations that actually provide the desired result at a reasonable cost. Otherwise its our own fault that our costs are higher.
41-42-43….
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:47 pmWhich is why I support a Reciprocal Tariff,
one based upon the interactions of a specific nation with the USA:
I’ll treat you the way that you treat me!
Bastiat nailed it in “Seen and Unseen”.
It does not matter if other countries are subsidizing their industries or engaging in other “unfair” practices. If we can import a good cheaper than we can export it, no matter what reason, the people as a whole will have more money to spend on other things.
With a tariff, what we see is people in an industry making more money. What we do not see, is what we might have had if we’d had the good we used to produce, plus the money we save by importing it and not making it ourselves. We do not see the growth in other industries, or the new industries, that we would have had if we didn;t have the tariff.
Tariffs on raw materials hurt manufacturing. Tariffs on manufactured goods hurt consumers. Tariffs on food hurt everyone who eats.
The arguments for tariffs apply to one’s own state, county or city equally as it does to our entire nation-state. Arguments for tariffs are arguments against any trade at all.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:52 pmSmoot Hartley
joe (debac0) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:53 pmSee, Gabriel and I can agree. 😉
JD (86a5eb) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:55 pmjoe, you can argue Smoot-Hawley, or you can argue Taft-Hartley, but you can’t argue Smoot-Hartley or Taft-Hawley.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:56 pmIn other words, let’s screw over other countries by letting them waste their time and energy practicing crony capitalism. We’ll import their products and use the money we save to build the things they can’t afford to export because their putting the fat thumbs of their governments on their market scales, and they’ll end up buying those things from us.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:57 pm@JD: Of course we can agree on the things I’m right about. 😉
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:57 pmPut me down as a “no tariffs” vote.
felipe (56556d) — 3/23/2015 @ 2:17 pmBut, they can through the Ex-Im Bank, create export subsidies.
Those who don’t “qualify” for subsidies, are effectively taxed with an export tariff by another name.
Considering that the Constitutional Convention, quite explicitly, chose an absolute ban over a more nuanced approach, any court that even halfway believed in legislative intent would have to toss that out. The Ex-Im bank also runs afoul of the “no preference” rules I bet. Anyone want to bet on whether a Texas company gets the same subsidies a California company does in this administration. This is EXACTLY the kind of thing they intended to ban.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 2:33 pmjoe, you can argue Smoot-Hawley, or you can argue Taft-Hartley, but you can’t argue Smoot-Hartley or Taft-Hawley.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 1:56 pm
point taken
joe (debac0) — 3/23/2015 @ 2:35 pmI have a question then, for the pro-tariff people:
Circa 1970, we could have protected the US car manufacturers by imposing steep duties on Japanese cars. The result would have been that Detroit would continue to sell poor cars at high prices and the industry and Detroit would be much better off despite every effort of the UAW and Detroit politicians to screw everything up with their greed.
Or, we could all have really good cars at prices that have declined in real dollars ever since.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 2:42 pmOh, yes the question: Pro-UAW/Detroit, or pro-consumer?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 2:42 pmAt lest he didn’t say Smoot-Huntley.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 2:44 pmThere’s not much point to being “pro consumer” if the long term quality of life is being sabotaged by fewer jobs and lower wages.
Bugg (aace18) — 3/23/2015 @ 2:55 pmOf course, that most Republican/Conservative of Presidents, Ronald Wilson Reagan, did initiate import quotas on Japanese vehicles in the Early-80’s – strictly voluntary, mind you.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 3:08 pmWonderfully, that brought us the Accord/Lexus/Infinity lines as the Japanese were quick to spot that importing a $40K “Lexus” was a much better deal than an $8K “Celica”, which they started making in plants they built in fly-over country.
There’s not much point to being “pro consumer” if the long term quality of life is being sabotaged by fewer jobs and lower wages.
Bugg (aace18) — 3/23/2015 @ 2:55 pm
In other words, the Obama Administration!
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 3:09 pmSpeaking of Government, I’ve been notified of my Special Snowflakeness by the Dept of Commerce in that I get to participate in their American Community Survey, and that I am required by law to respond to this survey.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 3:15 pmDoes “None of your f*cking business” count as a response?
There’s not much point to being “pro consumer” if the long term quality of life is being sabotaged by fewer jobs and lower wages.
So, you believe that the loss of monopoly by the Big Three car companies has led to lowered quality of life? Please explain. I would argue that the collapse of Detroit would have just happened later and taken more with it, or been put off by ever-increasing tariffs and subsidies, or both. Meanwhile US exports (Boeing, Microsoft, Hollywood, Iowa) would have been badly harmed.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 3:49 pmAll of those are bad, by the way.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 3:49 pmaskeptic–
Does it say you can’t lie?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 3:50 pmI don’t know, as this was just a heads-up letter telling me that I would be getting the survey to fill out.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 4:05 pmNow, the Census is Constitutionally required, but I’ve yet to decipher any emanations from penumbras that require anyone to participate in “community surveys”, and so my natural inclination is to chuck it in the handiest round-file, or just to answer all the questions NOYB.
What’s the worst that can happen?
Three hots and a cot, lot’s of time for sleep and exercise?
@Bugg: if the long term quality of life is being sabotaged by fewer jobs and lower wages.
If. If people pay less for something, they have money left over for other things in addition to what they had before. So on the average you get more jobs and higher wages without protection than with it.
Again, seen vs unseen. I know the slide rule craftsmen have fallen on hard times, but computers and calculators benefited all of us a lot more, and I strongly suspect the slide rule craftsmen have gone on to other things since then.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 3/23/2015 @ 4:07 pmA very nice lady will call you on the phone and make you take it orally.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 4:09 pmMy landline is set to Msg Only/FAX.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 4:30 pmCan’t take the survey (current browser doesn’t do javascript at all), but I’ll comment.
Ibidem (a9e511) — 3/23/2015 @ 4:47 pmI’d answer “no”: I’m in favor of revenue tariffs (but not protective tariffs).
It makes sense for the government to tax imports if it’s going to tax labor and business.
A protective tariff might theoretically be justified by some circumstances (eg, “unfair competition”), but in general it’s a bad idea that’s used to protect businesses and unions that need to fail — and for the other cases, I suspect we’d be better off just doing a (partial?) embargo.
My concern regarding tariffs has nothing to do with slave labor, the environment, nor any other social justice reason. In time of war, to believe that we will unhindered access to imported goods, whether they come from our enemies or come across oceans patrolled by our enemies, is folly. Some things the government may be able to stockpile. Others, especially when it involves specialized knowledge, like shipbuilding or aircraft production, can not. For those things where no other strategy exists, then something must be done to keep the domestic ability to produce those items or materials. Tariffs seem to be better than outright gifts, since it at least produces some revenue instead of increasing spending.
prowlerguy (3af7ff) — 3/23/2015 @ 4:48 pm@Gabriel Hanna:I strongly suspect the slide rule craftsmen have gone on to other things since then.
Indeed, they continue to be employed by such great American companies as Jeppesen making whiz wheels and such.
http://www.mypilotstore.com/mypilotstore/sep/2232
prowlerguy (3af7ff) — 3/23/2015 @ 4:57 pmre #58: iirc, the quotas that President RR put into place where a way to nudge the Japanese companies to bring production capabilities to the USA. It was part of a bigger plan to try prevent tariffs against the Japanese cars and the mess the Japanese gov’t was creating with dumping steel.
President RR’s team was trying to find a way to balance jobs and consumer benefits AND politics.
seeRpea (181740) — 3/23/2015 @ 5:04 pmI don’t know, as this was just a heads-up letter telling me that I would be getting the survey to fill out.
I just suggest this, as a pack of lies IS a “response.” Then again “Nuts!” is also a response.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 5:09 pmYeah, it was Reagan, more than anyone else, who gave away our manufacturing capacity. Any little sops to the American worker were just Hollywood smoke and mirrors.
Archie Bunker had his own home, his wife did not work, he put his son-in-law through college, and he had enough savings to buy a tavern when he got tired of working at the loading dock. Reagan thought Archie had it too good, all that “surplus income” he made would have been better in the factory owners’ profit margin, so he sent Archie’s factory job to China. Then he taxed the sale of Archie’s tavern and the depreciation on it as ordinary income. Thanks, free market.
It’s not to the advantage of the merchant class for the working class to have it too good. Because then they have ambitions of becoming middle class. They start their own businesses, their sons-in-laws become college professors and don’t want to work at the loading dock, and their daughters don’t want to work at the perfume counter at Walmart. Worst of all, if there are more jobs than there are workers, they demand high wages. Can’t have that. Have them living hand to mouth, at minimum wage, with just enough to buy your shoddy imports.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 5:16 pmArchie Bunker had to commit forgery for a second mortgage on his home in order to buy the tavern.
You really think President RR fooled everybody? You really think you are smarter than everyone else who lived during those times?
seeRpea (181740) — 3/23/2015 @ 5:20 pmKevin M (25bbee) — 3/23/2015 @ 5:09 pm
It certainly worked for Gen. McAuliffe.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 5:41 pmWhere did I say that 1) Reagan fooled everybody or 2) that I think that I’m smarter than anyone else who lived during those times? Do you, seeRpea, really think that beans in soy sauce taste like walnuts?
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 5:44 pmMiddle-class people today have a far higher standard of living than they did in the 1970s.
Manufacturing jobs have actually increased since then.
One example: a 19″ color TV cost about $500 in 1980. Correcting for inflation, that’s about $1400.
What does $500 for TV buy you now? Bought me a 50″ LED, that’s what.
If “exporting jobs” is bad, tariff supporters, then why do you allow free trade with other states, other counties, or other cities? Wouldn’t we all be richer if city were self-sufficient? if not, why not?
After all, every time you buy something made out of town you are stealing a job from a fellow townsman, are you not?
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 6:49 pmNot to mention Hong Kong, Singapore, and other tiny places having very high per capita incomes despite having to import things like water.
If the logic of protectionism is valid, how are such things possible?
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 6:56 pmBastiat says it better than I can:
The family, the commune, the canton, the department, the province, are just so many groups that all, without any exception, reject your principle in practice and have never even dreamed of acting on it. All procure for themselves by way of exchange whatever it would cost them more to procure by way of direct production. And nations would do the same if you did not prevent them by force.
It is therefore we who are the practical men; we are the ones who base our principles on experience; for, in order to oppose the restrictions that you have chosen to place upon a certain part of international trade, we base our argument on the practice and experience of every individual and every group of individuals whose acts are voluntary and can therefore be adduced as evidence. You, on the other hand, begin by coercing or by impeding, and then you seize upon forced or prohibited acts to support your case: “See; practice proves us in the right!”
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:02 pmIf our standard of living has gone up so much (at a time when wages have stagnated by every measure ) why do both mom and dad now have to work to support the family? Not a Luddite moron like Obama complaining about the supposed disappearance of bank tellers because of ATMs. Nobody has to wait for an hour at a bank some workday afternoon, clearly a good thing. Still we have given up a lot of industries solely for cost, and that isn’t the only consideration. Would note Reagan stood up for Harley Davidson and that has worked out.
I understand perfectly comparative advantage, that producing something cheaper in the abstract is better. But because Japan produces a better product does not mean your stop building cars altogether. People might pay a premium to buy an American-produced product if they knew that buying it was supporting their fellow citizens. It’s why New Balance sneakers is a solid company, to name but one example. And for the GOP the danger of Romney before and Walker now is they’re a little too quick to throw out working and middle class concerns about wages and jobs. There are other societal and cultural considerations.
Perot, for all his weirdness, told us in 1992 NAFTA and later GATT were excuses to ship manufacturing jobs overseas and to allow unfettered access to our roads and markets by substandard products and illegal immigration labor. He was mostly right. Bush Sr. didn’t heed him, and the GOP has won 1 popular presidential vote since Reagan went home. Ands it took the suckitude of John Forbes Kerry for that to happen. Go ahead, have another Entrepenuerapalooza in 2016. Like what I heard from Cruz today, but suspect the in crowd will either get to him or just get him.
Bugg (bd9445) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:10 pm[Reads Gabriel’s comments. Makes up and down gesture pumping gesture with half-closed fist. Exits stage silently.]
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:11 pmIn fact I can’t think of any argument posed in this thread for tariffs what was not anticpated and dispatched by Bastiat about 150 years ago. Some commenters here have said that our national security depends on self-sufficiency. And here is Bastiat:
Among the arguments that have been advanced in favor of the protectionist system, we must not forget the one that is founded on the idea of national independence.
“What shall we do in case of war,” people ask, “if we have put ourselves at the mercy of England for iron and coal?”
The English monopolists for their part do not fail to exclaim:
“What will happen to Great Britain in time of war if she makes herself dependent on France for food?”
The one thing that people overlook is that the sort of dependence that results from exchange, i.e., from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent upon a foreigner without his being dependent upon us. Now, this is what constitutes the very essence of society. To sever natural interrelations is not to make oneself independent, but to isolate oneself completely.
And observe, too, that one isolates oneself in anticipation of war, but that the very act of isolating oneself is a beginning of war. It makes war easier to wage, less burdensome, and consequently less unpopular. If nations remain permanently in the world market; if their interrelations cannot be broken without their peoples’ suffering the double discomfort of privation and glut; they will no longer need the mighty navies that bankrupt them or the vast armies that weigh them down; the peace of the world will not be jeopardized by the caprice of a Thiers or a Palmerston; and war will disappear for lack of materials, resources, motives, pretexts, and popular support.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:12 pmWould note Reagan stood up for Harley Davidson and that has worked out.
For Harley. Now all of it is manufactured in China and only assembled in Milwaukee. I bought my new Harley in 1984, when only the carburetors were foreign (Keihins), for 1/8th of my annual income. How many people can now buy a Harley with two and half months’ of their wages?
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:16 pm@Bugs:If our standard of living has gone up so much (at a time when wages have stagnated by every measure )
Because stuff got cheaper. Do you remember when you could only get one kind of phone, and you had to rent it from the phone company, and colors were more expensive, and long distance was $0.60 per minute? Do you remember when houses were half the size, and lots of people had black-and-white TVs because they couldn’t afford color, and people spent 20% of their income on food instead of 6%?
why do both mom and dad now have to work to support the family?
Because we want so much more stuff than our parents ever dreamed of when they were our age. If you are content to live like it’s in 1970, you’ll have no trouble doing just fine on one salary, my family has done it and are thinking of doing it again.
The personal computer we had in 1986 cost more than the one I’m typing on now–that doesn’t account for inflation and it doesn’t account for the difference in capability, which is several-thousandfold.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:18 pmYou confuse self sufficiency with some maintaining some domestic industry. And again, you must live in a world where other countries act only on Smith/Von Mises’s precepts rather than self interest.What color is the sky there? To quote that noted economic mastermind, Rodney Dangerfield, where you gonna have you production facility; HOW ABOUT FANTASYLAND?
Bugg (bd9445) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:23 pm@Bugg:You confuse self sufficiency with some maintaining some domestic industry.
In what fantasy land does all domestic production capacity disappear?
How about that production capacity in Singapore, 277 sq miles, 5.5 million people, per capita income $78,000?
How is that even possible, if your logic is sound? It should be the poorest nation on earth, except for Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and other hell-holes. They’re obviously importing FOOD, for God’s sake.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:27 pmSingapore’s GDP is $425 billion. They import food.
That’s higher than my home state of Washington, which exports food, electricity, aircraft, is home to Microsoft, etc. That’s higher than 37 US states.
How is that possible, if the logic of protection is valid? How can all those people not be groaning in abject misery?
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:32 pmGabriel Hanna,
I love Bastiat. Keep quoting him.
Patterico (9c670f) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:34 pmSo because of Hong Kong and Singapore, the US should have no tariffs, not even reciprocal ones. And any worker making a penny more an hour should have his job shipped to the 3rd world. Which is how I found myself talking to “Steve” from Bangalore when my HP printer went to poop. And why I would never buy any HP product nor vote for Carly Fiorina.
Singapore and Hong Kong are surrounded by water and have fished forever. It’s why those locations were settled in the first place. So it’s not like they were starving spare trade.
Bugg (bd9445) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:34 pm@Bugg:So because of Hong Kong and Singapore, the US should have no tariffs, not even reciprocal ones.
If they had tariffs they’d be poorer, and if they had tariffs and we had none part of their wealth would be ours.
And any worker making a penny more an hour should have his job shipped to the 3rd world.
Yes, because once a job disappears it is never, ever replaced by another one. Which is why we all starved to death 300 years ago when the machines put us all out of work.
If it can be done cheaper elsewhere, consumers will have more to spend on things that cannot be done cheaper elsewhere, and other jobs will appear that didn’t exist before.
Singapore and Hong Kong are surrounded by water and have fished forever. It’s why those locations were settled in the first place. So it’s not like they were starving spare trade.
Yeas, I’m sure that $78,000 per capita is paid in fish.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:41 pm@Patterico:I love Bastiat. Keep quoting him.
It’s your place, man. No one is stopping you.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:41 pmHong Kong and Singapore are city-sized shopping centers. Nothing more. Your comparison to any genuine nation is ridiculous. Comparison to America is ridiculousness that words of ridicule have not been invented for.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:53 pmI have never understood the protectionist argument that trade is going to impoverish us.
Foreign nations are not going to give us something for nothing. Money is nothing. It’s numbers in a file. You can’t eat or wear it or fill your gas tank with it. If we don’t produce anything, we won’t be able to import anything either.
It follows then that even if trade did somehow make us poorer, it would have to reach a limit at which equal value is going in and coming out. If a hostile nation decided to give us stuff in excess value of what we export, they would be making us richer and themselves poorer, which is such a strange form of warfare that I cannot think of a historical example.
Remember how protectionist Japan was going to own us all one day? Yeah, how’d that work out? Now we’re all supposed to be scared of China, for the same reasons.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:56 pm@nk:Comparison to America is ridiculousness that words of ridicule have not been invented for.
Bastiat saw you coming:
And that is why you are reduced to repeating every day:
“There are no absolute principles. What is good for an individual, a family, a commune, or a province is bad for a nation. What is good on a small scale—to purchase rather than to produce, when purchasing is more advantageous than producing—is bad on a large scale; the political economy of individuals is not that of nations,” and other nonsense of the same kind.
And what purpose does it all serve? Face up to it frankly. You want to prove that we consumers are your property! That we belong to you, body and soul! That you have an exclusive right over our stomachs and our limbs! That it is your prerogative to feed and clothe us at your price, whatever may be your incapacity, your greed, or the economic disadvantages of your situation!
No, you are not practical men; you are impractical visionaries—and extortionists.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:59 pmMay it please our host, some more Bastiat:
I marvel how men who call themselves practical above everything else can employ reasoning so completely divorced from all practice!
In practice, is there one exchange in a hundred, in a thousand, in possibly even ten thousand, that involves the direct barter of one product for another? Ever since there has been money in the world, has any farmer said to himself: “I wish to purchase shoes, hats, counsel, and lessons only from the shoemaker, the hatter, the lawyer, or the teacher who will buy my wheat from me for exactly the equivalent value”? Why, then, should nations impose such an inconvenience upon themselves?
How is business actually transacted?
Suppose that a nation does not trade with the rest of the world, and that one of its inhabitants has produced some wheat. He sells it in the domestic market at the highest price he can get, and in exchange he receives …. what? Money, that is, warrants or drafts that are infinitely divisible, by means of which he may lawfully withdraw from the supply of domestic goods, whenever he deems it opportune, and subject to due competition, as much as he may need or want. Ultimately, at the end of the entire operation, he will have withdrawn from the total precisely the equivalent of what he put into it, and, in value, his consumption will exactly equal his production.
If the exchanges of this nation with the outside world are free, it is no longer the domestic market, but the general or world market, to which each individual sends his products and from which each withdraws the means of satisfying his wants and needs. It is no concern of his whether what he sends to the market is purchased by a fellow countryman or by a foreigner; whether the money he receives comes to him from a Frenchman or an Englishman; whether the commodities for which he afterwards exchanges this money in order to satisfy his needs were produced on this or the other side of the Rhine or the Pyrenees. For each individual there is always an exact balance between what he puts into and what he withdraws from the great common reservoir; and if this is true of each individual, it is true of the nation as a whole.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:02 pmI prefer the story of Jacob and Esau. Of course, it is a cautionary tale only to some people. To others, it’s a how-to manual.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:14 pmI don’t know this Bestiat, BTW. I’ll take your word for it for what he wrote. But if he thought free ports were nations, as you seem to suggest, he was an idiot.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:17 pm@nk:Hong Kong and Singapore are city-sized shopping centers. Nothing more.
The words are English, are arranged grammatically, yet make no sense.
Singapore has a larger economy than 37 US states do. How can it not be a “real nation”? It’s economy is 1/3 of Canada’s and it has 1/7 as many people. If Singapore is not a “real nation” then neither is North Korea or Iceland.
How can Singapore be “nothing more” than a “shopping center”? Why would anyone go there just to shop?
Singapore is far from a free-market paradise internally, but the foreign trade thing they have absolutely nailed, since they are importing food and water. By protectionist logic that should make them the poorest nation ever.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:19 pmBugg (bd9445) — 3/23/2015 @ 7:10 pm
Attacking Walker about middle-class concerns and jobs is just a bit inaccurate.
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:22 pmWalker attacked the distortions caused by the rent-seeking of PE unions, and the costs they imposed upon middle-class taxpayers.
His accomplishments resulted in workers not being allowed to be extorted by those unions, and taxes to be lowered – both being positives for middle-class workers/taxpayers, and everybody else not in PE union leadership.
@nk:I prefer the story of Jacob and Esau.
I know that story very well, and Esau ended up quite a bit richer than Jacob.
acob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. 2 He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear. 3 He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.
4 But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. 5 Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked.
Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.”
6 Then the female servants and their children approached and bowed down. 7 Next, Leah and her children came and bowed down. Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down.
8 Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?”
“To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” he said.
9 But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.”
10 “No, please!” said Jacob. “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably. 11 Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it.
12 Then Esau said, “Let us be on our way; I’ll accompany you.”
13 But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die. 14 So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the flocks and herds before me and the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”
15 Esau said, “Then let me leave some of my men with you.”
“But why do that?” Jacob asked. “Just let me find favor in the eyes of my lord.”
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:24 pm@nkI don’t know this Bestiat, BTW. I’ll take your word for it for what he wrote. But if he thought free ports were nations, as you seem to suggest, he was an idiot.
Bastiat lived before Singapore existed and when Hong Kong was nothing but fishing villages. He tried to educate the French as to the follies of their protectionist and dirigiste economic policies, and failed.
You might try reading him, you’d learn something.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:26 pmSingapore is more correctly ID’d as a City-State, much like Monaco, San Marino, Lichtenstein (though it is larger), and Andorra (probably more of a Valley-State).
askeptic (efcf22) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:26 pmHong Kong anymore is just another province of the PRC, with only as much autonomy as Beijing allows it.
You keep picking and choosing your factoids. There’s something in there about other consequences to Jacobs if he did not make amends too, I believe.
nk (dbc370) — 3/23/2015 @ 8:27 pmBefore you can be a consumer you have to have money. Unless everyone is on welfare(and impossibility) someone has to earn the money to pay for consumption. If you have no job you have no money no matter how cheep the foreign goods are!
truther (61e51b) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:00 pm@askeptic:Singapore is more correctly ID’d as a City-State, much like…
Ok, fine, you come up with your definition of a “real nation”–which will, no doubt, be populated by True Scotsmen–and then we can go from there–but as Bastiat would ask you, why do the laws of economics not apply to these “city-states” and at what point do the “real laws” that justify protectionism kick in and why does that happen? That’s for you to ponder after you’ve decided what “real nations” are.
@nk:There’s something in there about other consequences to Jacobs if he did not make amends too, I believe.
None of what you said had any relevance anyway, so it’s not worth pursuing. I see that you intended “sell your birthright for a mess of pottage” as a metaphor for free trade, but what does the “birthright” correspond to? Does the universe owe us economic success if we don’t trade, or what? We don’t have a “right” to anything we’ve built here. Countries like Russia and China were at the game much longer, have much the same kind of things we had to begin with, and we’ve done far better with them than they have. So what happened to their “birthrights”? Since these countries were about as far from free trade and free enterprise at it is possible to get, we’ve always had more of that, then why aren’t they richer? In fact China and Russia only have the little prosperity they do since they opened up to foreign trade in the last thirty years.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:03 pm@truther:If you have no job you have no money no matter how cheep the foreign goods are!
Your name is well chosen. You go ahead and scour the history books for a nation that became destitute through foreign trade. I’ll wait.
In the meantime the nations that impoverished themselves through destroying their trade are a very long list.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:05 pmOh nk
Gil (febf10) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:13 pmBash Friedman, bash Bastiat
Then refer to a man who thought breeding traits into his goats had to do with putting bark in their drinking water as a source of wisdom. Par for the course.
OK Gabriel. Let’s say, for a moment, that we allowed totally open market to thrive, and in the course of doing so, no shipyards in the US survived. It became cheaper to purchase ships from China or India. And that is good, because we as a nation spent less on our warships and merchant fleet.
But in this future, bad men do what bad men do, and we find ourselves in a war that, through treaties and alliances, pits most of the nations of the world against each other. And neither China nor India are on our side. How would we be able to replenish and repair our fleet, which is vital to protecting the sea lanes that are so vital to a country that relies on import for staples and raw materials. You seem to be in love with Bastiat. I would suggest perhaps Mahan might be a good book for you to pick up next.
That is but one example of how a nation that intends to survive MUST maintain the ability to do certain things within its own borders.
prowlerguy (3af7ff) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:13 pmGil – you and further should hang out.
JD (86a5eb) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:44 pmGil – you and truther should hang out. Damn autocorrect.
JD (86a5eb) — 3/23/2015 @ 10:45 pm@prowlerguy:Let’s say, for a moment, that we allowed totally open market to thrive, and in the course of doing so, no shipyards in the US survived.
That is an enormous if. If the United States had no comparative advantage whatever in building ships–not technological, not proximity, not cheaper materials, not more reliable workforce, none whatever, perhaps this could happen. But where in history has this ever happened? The US builds planes for Europe, and they build planes for us, do they not? And no one’s aircraft plants have ever disappeared.
But we don’t need to purchase war material from China and India any more than we have to recruit Chinese and Indian mercenaries. I reject your premise. Military spending is of course outside of a free market, just like conscription is. Even if all merchant vessels were produced abroad, government shipyards strictly for warships could remain without violating any free trade principles.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/24/2015 @ 12:20 am@prowlerguy:That is but one example of how a nation that intends to survive MUST maintain the ability to do certain things within its own borders.
Okay, you show me where an industry disappeared entirely due to foreign competition, in this or any First World nation. Not “reduced by 95%”, because even 5% capability is still capability.
And of course factories can be retooled, like in WWII when a war economy appeared within months and we were producing one Liberty ship every 42 days.
Meanwhile, while you waste time with the spectres of things that have never happened, non-free trade costs money for certain. Money that could go for more warships, if we had any need for any more.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/24/2015 @ 12:24 amI can’t help but think of the trade restrictions on sugar. Domestic sugar is so crucial and strategic that the trade controls have raised the price of it to the point where it’s not in any manufactured products anymore–which just goes to prove how necessary sugar is.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/24/2015 @ 12:49 amI think that the federal government should be funded exclusively through tariffs. No more income tax, payroll tax, capital gains, etc. Just tariffs. And, the tariffs should take the form of some flat percentage on all imports, rather than something that is directed at this that and the other in order to protected favored special interests.
Anon Y. Mous (8ec442) — 3/24/2015 @ 1:15 amYeah, it was Reagan, more than anyone else, who gave away our manufacturing capacity
No, nk, it was the manufacturing companies who decided they didn’t want to compete. Korea doesn’t make all the TVs because of slave labor, they do it because they make better TVs than Japan, who once made better TVs than Motorola.
It was the unions that decided that they would go for one last generation of sticking it to the man rather than make some concessions to keep the operations sustainable.
It was the environmentalists who made it nearly impossible to manufacture anything without having to pay for all those pissant rent-seeking special environmental services they required.
All Reagan did was say: “Look, we are not going to block trade just so rich folks can sit fat dumb and happy clipping coupons. We are going to open trade to the world and we will all get much richer.” And we have. Or at least we were until the game-fixers got back in control.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/24/2015 @ 1:20 amWhich is how I found myself talking to “Steve” from Bangalore when my HP printer went to poop. And why I would never buy any HP product nor vote for Carly Fiorina.
And which is why Steve from Bangalore is now out of work and doing scam “Microsoft Security Center” calls. Turned out that there is value in having people who your customers can understand and who know their stuff. BTW, there are probably a million Republicans in Silicon Valley, and not one of them would vote for Carly either.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/24/2015 @ 1:23 amOTOH, I would end the scammy H1-B visa program, which is now being mostly used by outsourcing companies that evade the H1-B hiring rules by “contracting” to supply workers to firms shedding US employees.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/24/2015 @ 1:26 amit needs reform not ending ending
american workers are so stupid and narrow anymore there’s just a lot of cases where we do actually need smart talented people from other countries
happyfeet (831175) — 3/24/2015 @ 3:05 amHow about smart talented people stay in their own damn country and fix it.
mg (31009b) — 3/24/2015 @ 3:50 am@Gabriel And of course factories can be retooled
Yes, factories can be re-tooled. But a factory must exist in order to be re-tooled, and that factory must be making something similar to what you need. You can’t take a textile mill and turn it into a steel mill. If you have no factory in the first place, with a labor force in place and trained, your months (which was in fact over a year) would become considerably longer, and by that time the war may well be over. And your assertion that any remaining capability, no matter how small, is enough to sustain a nation’s war needs is farcical. Colonial Williamsburg has these wonderful blacksmiths that can make all manner of metal objects. And even if every domestic nail manufacturer was forced out of business by foreign competitors, they would continue to exist. But to pretend that they and other boutique manufacturers could somehow supply our entire nation or be expanded quickly to meet such demand is a fantasy.
Money that could go for more warships, if we had any need for any more.
Military spending is of course outside of a free market … government shipyards strictly for warships could remain without violating any free trade principles.
Now this seems strange. On the one hand you insist that allowing unfettered free trade would save us money, but then you turn around and claim a special exemption for governmental purchasing. It almost seems as if you realize that the ability to make warships is truly essential to allow trade to flow, and if all the shipyards with the ability to build and repair capital ships were to go out of business, then your entire argument that free trade could never leave a nation at a severe disadvantage should war break out.
It would seem that you are arguing exactly what I did: that certain industries and capabilities are essential for a nation’s self-defense, and government intervention (whether that takes the form of government stockpiling, tariffs and trade restriction, or government-owned companies) is not only acceptable, but required.
http://breakingdefense.com/2015/03/half-of-shipbuilders-1-contract-away-from-bust-stackley/
And without government intervention; in the form of tariffs, trade restrictions, government contracts set-asides for US products, and bailouts, do you honestly believe that there would be anything other than boutique auto production in the US? The labor unions would have fought even more savagely for their cut of that shrinking pie, and would have strangled whatever managed to avoid bankruptcy.
prowlerguy (3af7ff) — 3/24/2015 @ 5:02 amA-6?
Steve57 (a8e3e8) — 3/24/2015 @ 5:12 amEA-6.
Steve57 (a8e3e8) — 3/24/2015 @ 5:14 amthere is an also of retaining institutional memory. so order a submarine that is not needed just in order to maintain the ability to build submarines when needed.
Has anyone brought up the bidding for the gov’t contract for war planes that caused the big kerfuffle when Boeing wasn’t awarded the contract but the less expensive foreign bid was?
seeRpea (1925e7) — 3/24/2015 @ 5:18 amohnoes you sunkered my battleship
happyfeet (831175) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:00 amspeaking of institutional memory, it’s not just being able to build them. You have to use them.
I say this cuz I come from a long line of maintainers who could eke out an extra 100 horsepower out of a Pratt and Whitney R-2800. Could rebrick a steam turbine soes you could get a couple of extra knots.
It’s not enough to be able to build them. You have to fix them. They rust.
Steve57 (a8e3e8) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:13 amI’ll try to cut that out. Sinkering your boat.
Steve57 (a8e3e8) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:15 am“I think that the federal government should be funded exclusively through tariffs. No more income tax, payroll tax, capital gains, etc. Just tariffs. And, the tariffs should take the form of some flat percentage on all imports, rather than something that is directed at this that and the other in order to protected favored special interests.” As it was from the end of the Civil War until 1913. Also arguably the greatest stretch of economic growth in American history.
I remain sympathetic to free trade. But no other country, not the UK/Scotland of Smith, nor Von Mises’s Austria, nor Hong Kong(insert howls of PRC-inspired laughter here) nor junta-ruled Singapore, has total free trade. Mr. Hanna would have you believe we should give up the ghost completely, and SOMEDAY, perhaps in Economics Heaven, America will get SPECIAL POINTS for going into every trade negotiation like a football team without a defense. And since the dawn of NAFTA and GATT we instead have chronic underemployment, stagnating wages, rampant illegal immigration, exploding trade deficits(largely with the masters of those wonderful Hong Kong rulers-I THOUGH THEY WERE FREE TRADERS NOT PREDATORY PRICING US!) , dangerously expanding budget deficits spare roughly 10 minutes at the end of the Clinton Administration, and shocking consumer and student loan debt.But we got lots of war, so we have that going for us. And again, since the day Reagan decamped the GOP and their Chamber of Commerce masters have won 1 popular vote as middle and working class people (dare I mention mostly typical white folks) have stopped voting for them. And again, Ross Perot told us this in 1992. But he was crazy, right?
Bugg (aace18) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:15 am@prowler:. But to pretend that they and other boutique manufacturers could somehow supply our entire nation or be expanded quickly to meet such demand is a fantasy.
But your premise is a fantasy. I am still waiting for an example of an industry that was annihilated by foreign competition. Your idea that free trade will leave us nothing but colonial reenactments of blacksmithing is a fantasy. It has never happened.
I can see foreign competition leaving us with fewer aircraft factories than before, or shipyards, or aluminum plants, but I have yet to be shown a case where the equilibrium point was zero.
It would seem that you are arguing exactly what I did…
No, because you ignored what I said about conscription. Free trade does not require that we hire foreign mercenaries or tax collectors or cops. Government functions, by definition, are not the free market, because their activities are based on force.
And without government intervention; in the form of tariffs, trade restrictions, government contracts set-asides for US products, and bailouts, do you honestly believe that there would be anything other than boutique auto production in the US?
Are you saying that Americans can’t build cars that anyone else would want? If American auto workers are as bad as you say, that they can’t live without picking pockets, maybe they ought to employ themselves in something they are good at and live honestly.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:24 am@Bugg:go into every trade negotiation like a football team without a defense.
If a country protects or subsidizes their own goods, THEY ARE SUCKERS. THEY ARE SHOOTING THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT. We can profit from that.
You want us to cut off our noses to spite our faces–and line the pockets of a few at the expense of the many.
How are higher steel prices better for the domestic auto manufacturers?
How are higher lumber prices better for the construction industry?
How are higher semiconductor prices better for the computer industry?
How are more expensive cars, and construction, and computers, better for the businesses that need trucks, computers, and buildings in order to operate?
Every producer is also a consumer. You focus on what you see, and ignore what you do not see.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:27 amGabe-
The country following said precepts completely is…?
Bugg (aace18) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:37 am@Prowler:And without government intervention; in the form of tariffs, trade restrictions, government contracts set-asides for US products, and bailouts, do you honestly believe that there would be anything other than boutique auto production in the US?
Incidentally, Toyota and Nissan have more faith in American workers than you have, since they build their cars here.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:37 am@Bugg:The country following said precepts completely is…?
Apply that to Christianity…
The closer nation states get to free trade, the more they prosper, all else being equal.
Gabriel Hanna (c17820) — 3/24/2015 @ 6:39 amNot an answer, merely more happytalk utopian gibberish, if well spoken. The answer is NOBODY. A country that fails to control it’s borders soon ceases to be a country at all.
Bugg (aace18) — 3/24/2015 @ 7:31 amre #132: all else is not equal.
seeRpea (c1462d) — 3/24/2015 @ 7:36 amtariffs are of the devil
tariffs
red light cameras
mukbang
Jenny McCarthy
sully not yourself with these unclean things and walk with the Lord
thus endeth the lesson
happyfeet (831175) — 3/24/2015 @ 7:49 am@Bugg:A country that fails to control it’s borders soon ceases to be a country at all.
No one said anything about no control whatever over borders–but that’s pretty characteristic of all your arguments so far, to insist that only extremems be considered.
@seeRpea:all else is not equal.
Ok, maybe you could explain what is not equal and why it makes a difference?
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 3/24/2015 @ 8:25 amSo of course everyone here is aware that Honda, Nissan, and Toyota have moved manufacturing to the US; they sell the cars here and it’s cheaper to make them here than make them in Japan and send them here.
So my question for the protectionists is–is Japan poorer as a result of their automakers offshoring their production?
Or are Americans poorer now because they are working for foreigners and buying their cars?
Or did both nations get poorer, and how so?
Of course my argument is that both nations got richer.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 3/24/2015 @ 8:34 amre #137: what does that have to do with tariffs? has someone come up with an intracountry tariff?
for autos, USA is a poor example of the who-what-why for international trade.
Great Britain’s auto industry on the other hand …
seeRpea (c1462d) — 3/24/2015 @ 8:52 amOk seaRPea, the laws of economics evidently do not apply to the US auto trade. Why is that?
what does that have to do with tariffs?
Are these Japanese cars manufactured in America an import subject to a tariff; if so why, if not why not?
Did Japan, or did Japan not, lose wealth by offshoring this production, and how so? Does America, or does America not, lose wealth by Americans purchasing these cars?
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 3/24/2015 @ 10:38 amThe long term effect of tariffs is to make a small minority of domestic producers comparatively wealthier, while making everyone, including those domestic producers, absolutely poorer.
As for unfair labor practices and lax environmental protections, tariffs are the least effective approach to solving those problems.
Soothsayer (683171) — 3/24/2015 @ 10:52 amAmerican engineer argues there has never been a sound theory of economics with major implications for tariffs: http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/myth-middle-class-economics-5665 Critique welcome.
withheld (33134e) — 3/24/2015 @ 4:10 pmWithheld-
Looked at a lot of that. Don’t totally agree; seems to go off the deep end on entitlements. But middle and working class people know better than anyone that SSI and the whole lot has to be fixed.
We have a very serious problem for the GOP. The Dems have locked up whole states with coastal elites with silly obsessions about fracking and oil and inner city black and latinos at the low end getting entitlements. The GOP even in power has done nothing to curb any of that, again,something the voters the GOP should appeal to know. There are only so many electoral votes the GOP can count on,and even there, illegal immigration threatens that, as in Texas, NC, VA and Florida.
Again, it took the total douchebaggery of John Forbes Kerry for the big R to win 1 popular vote since 1988.
Instead the GOP has obsessed over union busting, more illegals for the CoC crowd to cut costs, and crazy wars for the 3rd world “yearning to be free”(Bush Jr.’s 2nd inaugural,arguably the dumbest thing any president has ever said). The Dems are obsessed with “diversity” and more entitlements as well as more illegals to eventually turn many red states blue forever.
Simply, are the interests of working and middle class people are not being represented. A Walker candidacy would be the final break. There are only so many decent jobs left, and a GOP candidate who has attacked those jobs (when he could’ve simply demonized union leadership) will be that final break. Working and middle class people are not the problem; the entitlements for the nonhackers, the illegals cutting the wage scale and overwhelming schools, hospitals and social services, the offshoring of jobs, the insane wars and the spending for all of the above are.Let me restate that starkly; Walker believes the working and middle class typical white people who go to work every day, pay the bills and follow the rules are the problem. If the GOP candidate wants to be the handmaiden for the CoC crowd as Walker would be(as was Romney, McCain and the Bushes), Hillary! or Fauxahontas is gonna party like it’s 1972 or 1984- a 49 state electoral blowout.
Gabriel Hanna and his ilk are nothing more than than Lenin’s rope salesmen. Lovely treatise you got there. Good luck with that.
Bugg (aace18) — 3/25/2015 @ 5:59 amSteve57: Add a B.
Gabe: I am still waiting for an example of an industry that was annihilated by foreign competition.
TV manufacturing. Completely wiped out. I’ve only been able to find a reference to a single TV manufacturer starting up in the US in the last 20 years.
http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/hurrah-there-will-once-again-be-usa-made-televisions
And you might want to look at the textile manufacturing and steel mill businesses. Both gutted and only able to produce products for boutique, small run batches.
Incidentally, Toyota and Nissan have more faith in American workers than you have, since they build their cars here.
Nice misdirection. I never said anything about the American worker. But I could have sworn we were talking about tariffs and other government protection of SOME industries.
Now, WHY did they locate those plants in the US (but not surprisingly, out of the grip of unions)? Because of….. you can do it…. it’s OK, we all know. Say it with me, then. Because of tariffs and import restrictions that made it more profitable to place a token amount of manufacturing capability in the US.
But, that would have been moot, had the government not propped up US car makers repeatedly. Chrysler has been bailed out twice, GM was bought by the US taxpayers as a big ol’ present to the UAW, and all three have benefited greatly from the huge government contracts at the federal, state, and local level. Perhaps Ford would have survived on their own, but we will never know. And don’t pretend they were buying the best cars for the money. In the 80’s the federal government bought K cars, for goodness sake.
Free trade does not require that we hire foreign mercenaries or tax collectors or cops.
I think you are a bit confused. I was talking about where the government buys GOODS from, not labor. In a truely free market, the government would buy from the lowest bidder who produced goods that fulfilled the terms of the contract. But we don’t, for the precise reasons I have outlined. The US is not the most cost-effective builder of naval warships, nor is it the most cost-effective producers of military and civilian aircraft. But yet contracts are given to them. Why? Because there are certain industries you can not allow to be decimated by unfettered free markets, because those free markets will CLOSE when the balloon goes up. Then you have to fight with either a) those things you have within your borders, or b) what you can take by force. In WWII, we used a), while Japan chose b). You might want to consult Google to find out which way worked out better.
prowlerguy (3af7ff) — 3/26/2015 @ 6:27 pm