Freedom, Not Tariff, Is the Most Beautiful Word in the Dictionary

[KenH]

Your solution is to completely destroy what free market we have left

No, Jon. That is what you want to do.

 

[JonC]

I am doing no such thing. I am for empowering American workers, who are also consumers.

The national debt is caused by the federal government spending more money than it has in revenue coming in.

This is not true.

You can't be for the worker and advocate that the US allow nations that subsidize manufacturing, use child/ slave labor, and exploit workers in order to produce low cost goods free access to our market.

 

[KenH]

You are advocating a policy that would increase slavery and child labor in foreign nations while destroying the US economy.

It is you, Jon, who want to destroy the economic framework has been built in the United States since World War II and the international trading framework, frameworks which have led to a prosperous population in the United States, as well as promoting economic benefits to people around the world.

 

[KenH]

if the whole world...had free market systems.

Jon, you want to destroy what free market system we have in the United States for your heavy-handed, economic authoritarianism. I will not support you in this.

 

[JonC]

There is no such thing as "fair" trade. It is an amorphous concept. What you may consider to be "fair" trade may differ drastically from what a thousand other people would consider to be "fair" trade.

By "fair trade" I mean implementing penalties (in the form of tariffs) to negate the exploration of workers, slavery, child labor, and government subsidies in order to create a level field.


I do not believe we should encourage slavery and the exploitation of workers by rewarding other nations at the expense of US workers.

 

[KenH]

If you had it your way there would be no US automobile industry

False.

 

[JonC]

It is you, Jon, who want to destroy the economic framework has been built in the United States since World War II and the international trading framework, frameworks which have led to a prosperous population in the United States, as well as promoting economic benefits to people around the world.

This is where you make your biggest error. You take national economic terms (like "free market") and apply them internationally.

 

[KenH]

but also fair trade (

"Fair" trade is an amorphous concept. What you might consider to be "fair" trade would be arbitrary on your part, and a thousand other people would have an arbitrary concept of "fair" trade vastly different from yours.

 

[KenH]

By reading your posts, I doubt it.

So now you have reduced to your argumentation to personal insults. Not surprising, since you losing this debate.

 

[KenH]

By reading your posts, I doubt it. You constantly go back to protective tariffs and how they hurt our economy and never reciprical tariffs and how they helped our economy.

You sound like the man who accidentally broke his thumb with a hammer and then broke his leg with the hammer, and said, "Well, that helped, now I don't mind the broken thumb so much."

 

[JonC]

"Fair" trade is an amorphous concept. What you might consider to be "fair" trade would be arbitrary on your part, and a thousand other people would have an arbitrary concept of "fair" trade vastly different from yours.

It is not arbitrary, but it is subjective to each nation depending on their economic policies and resources.

I pay my emoloyees well to pick cotton. You use slaves. I charge you to sell in my territory so that you cannot undercut my market and to protect my employees. Otherwise you can sell your cotton so cheap that I'll go out of business, and now my employees are unemployed. The only other option I would have is to enslave my employees (which you woukd advocate to create "free trade").

 

[KenH]

You can't be for the worker

"For the worker", another amorphous concept.

 

[KenH]

By "fair trade" I mean implementing penalties (in the form of tariffs) to negate the exploration of workers, slavery, child labor, and government subsidies in order to create a level field.

There is no such thing as a "level" playing field. What you consider to be a "level" playing field would be vastly different than what a thousand other people consider to be a "level" playing field; thus, the need to keep the heavy hand of government out of it.

 

[KenH]

I do not believe we should encourage slavery and the exploitation of workers by rewarding other nations at the expense of US workers.

I do not believe that the American people - workers, consumers, everyone - should be harmed and beaten down by the capricious, heavy hand of government and those who attain government powers, who think they know what is best for everyone and are willing to use government power to impose their vision on others.

 

[KenH]

This is where you make your biggest error. You take national economic terms (like "free market") and apply them internationally.

I did no such thing.

 

[KenH]

It is not arbitrary

Yes, it is.

 

[JonC]

So now you have reduced to your argumentation to personal insults. Not surprising, since you losing this debate.

No, that was not an insult.

You have repeatedly confused reciprical tariffs with protective tariffs (in this thread) and the smoot-hawley tariffs (in previous threads).

I am pointing out that your posts indicate a lack of understanding. That is not an insult at all. I do not understand why Trump is imposing anything other than reciprical tariffs on Canada. That is not self-insulting. I do not understand fluid dynamics. That is not self-insulting.

If you understood reciprical tariffs then you would have been talking about the Reciprical Trade Agreement (1934) rather than Smoot-Hawley and protective tariffs.


What happened when the US implemented reciprical tariffs?

 

[KenH]

I pay my emoloyees well to pick cotton. You use slaves. I charge you to sell in my territory so that you cannot undercut my market and to protect my employees. Otherwise you can sell your cotton so cheap that I'll go out of business, and now my employees are unemployed. The only other option I would have is to enslave my employees (which you woukd advocate to create "free trade").

You analogy is highly demagogic.

 

[KenH]

No, that was not an insult.

Yes, it was.

 

[KenH]

You have repeatedly confused reciprical tariffs with protective tariffs (in this thread) and the smoot-hawley tariffs (in previous threads).

I have confused nothing.