The Chicken Littles Are Hammering Trump on Trade, but Charles Payne's Truth Bombs Blow Their Theorie

[Hoodat]

   Everyone has at least one nemesis here @goodwithagun, I have 3. 

I feel like I'm missing out.  If I could find out who my nemesis is, I would milk it for all its worth.

I do miss @CatherineofAragon though.

Me too.  Where did she go?

[kevindavis007]

History? Did someone say history?

19th-century free trade did not work out well for Britain

Starting in the 1980s and accelerating with NAFTA & GATT, the US set out to meld its economy with those of Europe and Japan and create a global economy. We decided to create the interdependent world envisioned by 19th-century dreamers.

That experiment did not work out well for the free-trade British in the nineteenth century, who were shouldered aside in the struggle for world primacy by America. But our generation would make it work for the world.

What happened was predictable and was, in fact, predicted. With the abolition of tariffs, and with US guarantees that goods made in foreign countries would enter American free of charge, manufacturers began to shut plants here and more production abroad to countries where US wage-and-hour laws and health & environmental regulations did not apply, countries where there were no unions and workers' wages were below the US minimum wage. Competitors who stayed in America were undercut and run out of business, or forced to join the stampede abroad.
Source: Suicide of a Superpower, by Pat Buchanan, p. 12-13 , Oct 18, 2011

Detroit was forge & furnace of WWII Arsenal of Democracy

This is our reward for turning our backs on the economic nationalism of the men who made America, and embracing the free-trade ideology of economics and academics who never made anything.

In early 2010 it was reported that Detroit, forge and furnace of the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II, was considering razing a fourth of the city and turning it into pastureland. Did that $1.2 trillion trade deficit we ran in autos and auto parts in the Bush 43 decade help to kill Detroit?

If our purpose in negotiating NAFTA was to assist Mexico, consider this: textile and apparel imports from China are now five times the dollar value of those same imports from Mexico and Canada combined.
Source: Suicide of a Superpower, by Pat Buchanan, p. 17 , Oct 18, 2011

Free trade is the Pied Piper to world government

For generations US and foreign elites have sought to diminish American sovereignty and dilute our national identity. The penultimate step to world government, a North American Union built on the model of the European Union--which would one day merge with it in a World Union of Nations and Peoples--is on the table.

This is where NAFTA was designed to lead us. As too few participants appreciate, free trade--with its lure of a cornucopia of consumer goods at the cheapest possible price--is the Pied Piper to world government. For any continental common market must call into existence institutions with the power to enforce its rules. These evolve into regimes. So history teaches.

The Mexican regime sees the EU as its model for North America. In a 2002 speech in Madrid, Vicente Fox underscored the essential element of the post-NAFTA agenda: Absolute freedom of movement for persons, as well as goods, between Mexico and the US.
Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p.121-3 , Oct 2, 2007

Stopped belief in free trade when US lost manufacturing jobs

Buchanan said he ceased being a believer in the free trade, a traditional Republican position, after he looked at the loss of manufacturing jobs in the last 25 years--nearly 50% in Michigan and New York, for example. "Why do you think there's such rage and anger out there?" he asked, his hands cutting the air in tiny chops. "The median income of the average American worker has gone down 20%." The American worker was being forced to compete with $1-an-hour Mexican labor and 25-cent-an-hour Chinese labor.

Buchanan said that if something was not done, people would be thrown out of work more and more, be forced into lower-wage jobs. "You're risking social stability just so some of these corporations' profits can be dramatically increased, they can move factories anywhere.

"I think I can make that case out there," he declared; "economic nationalism's coming in Europe. It's going to come to the US. It is the future of this country."
Source: The Choice, by Bob Woodward, p.151-152 , Nov 1, 2005

America’s freedom is tied to her economic independence

Alexander Hamilton wrote: ‘Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation...ought to endeavor to posses within itself all the essentials of a national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing and defense. ‘ America’s political independence, Hamilton was saying, could not survive without economic independence. “
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.153 , Sep 1, 2004

America's Industrial Revolution took place with high tariffs

From the ratification of the Constitution to WWI, this vision guided the nation: All Americans participated in that free market as their birthright, but British merchants, who had held life-and-death power over the colonies, would pay a price of admissio --a tariff.

From 1870 to 1913, the US economy grew more than 4% a year. Industrial production grew at 5%. The Protectionist Era was among the most productive in history. When it began, America was dependent on imports for 8% of its GNP. When it ended, America's dependency had fallen to 4%. The nation began the era with an economy half the size of Britain's & ended it with an economy more than twice as large as Britain's.

Tariffs alone cannot explain the economic success of the era. But high tariffs, nevertheless, went hand in hand with the rise of the most awesome industrial power the world had ever seen. And the Republican Party, which preached protectionism as the key to prosperity, controlled the White House for all but 8 of those years.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.154-156 , Aug 12, 2004

Reduce dependence on trade; support Monroe Doctrine

For Americans, Buchanan’s book says, only America should matter. Buchanan rages against the UN, the WTO, and a previously unknown animal, “the managerial elites of the New World Order.” Allies in South-East Asia and Europe must do their own fighting, and America must cut down its dependence on trade. The single pillar of American foreign policy should be the Monroe Doctrine; the country’s priorities are to guard against “hostile bastions in this hemisphere” and to try yo keep immigrants out.
Source: The Economist, p. 31 , Oct 2, 1999

Match 100% tariffs from Japan & China

Today, we let Japan and China to run up a combined annual trade surplus of $120 billion, blithely allowing them open access to our markets while we pay up to 100% tariffs for entry into theirs. By equalizing tariffs so that imported goods carry the same tax as American-made products, we can end the exploitation of US workers, and fund flatter taxes for families, fairer competition for business, and renewed economic liberty for all Americans.
Source: www.GoPatGo.org/ “Issues” , Jun 5, 1999

Trade deficit is “tumor in intestines of US economy”

Today Buchanan called the massive merchandise trade deficit-over $26 billion for February alone-a “malignant tumor in the intestines of the US economy. Unattended, it will one day kill this country’s tenure as the world’s mightiest industrial power,” Mr. Buchanan said. “A $300 billion annual deficit will strip America of our manufacturing and production base. Manic consumption is a mark of a republic that has passed its apogee, and begun its long descent.”
Source: www.GoPatGo.org/ “Press Release: Trade Deficit” , Apr 21, 1999

We will rue the day we passed NAFTA

Ross Perot and I stood up again against NAFTA. We stood up against GATT. We stood up against the World Trade Organization. We stood up against the $50 billion bailout of Mexico.

People ask, “Pat, why are you against NAFTA?” I said, “There are lots of reasons I’m against NAFTA. You do not force Americans making ten bucks an hour to compete with Mexicans who work for a dollar an hour.”

One year later, Mexico devalued the peso. American trade surplus disappeared. We now have a $15 billion trade deficit with Mexico, which means 300,000 American jobs were lost this year. Illegal immigration is soaring.

We are required to pay $50 billion to the government of Mexico. For whose benefit was that? It was not for the benefit of working Americans. It was for the benefit of investment bankers on Wall Street.

You kinda lost your argument when you use Pat Buchanan to defend your position.

[Formerly Once-Ler]

You kinda lost your argument when you use Pat Buchanan to defend your position.

agreed.

[corbe]

@Hoodat

Me too.  Where did she go?

   She assures me she's happy, gardening and such, just taking a much deserved break from the Freaks here, which we all seem to do from time to time.
@CatherineofAragon

[kevindavis007]

agreed.

Every time I heard Buchanan speak he always goes back to the 1950's, but in all fairness the 1950's was an anomaly. We had the luxury of having our infrastructure and factories not being destroyed during WWII.  In reality there was no competition. Now there is competition

[goatprairie]

Every time I heard Buchanan speak he always goes back to the 1950's, but in all fairness the 1950's was an anomaly. We had the luxury of having our infrastructure and factories not being destroyed during WWII.  In reality there was no competition. Now there is competition

Maybe Buchanan can get around to explaining why municipalities (New London, Connecticut) taking homes away from  citizens for the benefit of private businesses (which Trump also supports) is such a good thing.  I.e. Kelo vs. Connecticut where a city decided to raze some homes for a private development. Trump, naturally, thought that was  a real good thing.

[txradioguy]

Every time I heard Buchanan speak he always goes back to the 1950's, but in all fairness the 1950's was an anomaly. We had the luxury of having our infrastructure and factories not being destroyed during WWII.  In reality there was no competition. Now there is competition

Excellent point.

[Hoodat]

Every time I heard Buchanan speak he always goes back to the 1950's, but in all fairness the 1950's was an anomaly.

The 1950s also had a top income tax bracket of 91%, but I don't see Buchanan championing that.  Just think of the growth we could have had during the '50s with a top rate of 28%.

[jpsb]

A little bit of education for the economically stupid among us:


https://economics21.org/html/tariffs-don%E2%80%99t-help-industry-or-consumers-2812.html

Hmmm, whom to believe @txradioguy or Alexander Hamilton?

Founding Father Knows Best

For about 200 years, we understood well the benefits of tariffs, subsidized exports and protectionist policies in the United States. Had the fathers of the United States like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Andrew Jackson or Ulysses Grant applied for IMF loans, they would have been denied: All of them believed in high tariffs and a heavy control of foreign investment, and considered "free trade" to be absurd.

But it was another Founding Father -- Alexander Hamilton -- who knew best how to spawn American industry to make the country independent and competitive. As the nation's first Treasury Secretary, Hamilton submitted his Report on the Subject of Manufactures in 1791 to the US Congress, outlining the need for our government to foster new industries through "bounties" (subsidies) and subsequently protect them from foreign imports until they become globally competitive.

Additionally, he proposed a roadmap for American industrial development. These steps included protective tariffs on imports, import bans, subsides, export bans on selected materials, and the development of product standards.

It was this approach of putting America first that our government followed for most of our history, with average tariffs of 30 percent through the 19th and 20th centuries. There is no denying that it helped turn America into an industrial and economic juggernaut in the mid-20th century and beyond.

The three periods when we radically dropped tariffs -- for three years in 1857, for nine years in 1913, and by Reagan in 1987 -- were all followed by economic disasters, particularly for small American manufacturers.

The post-Reagan era has been particularly destructive to our economy because not only did we mostly eliminate the tariffs, but we became "free trade" proponents on the international stage. After Reagan blew out our tariffs in the 1980s, and Clinton kicked the door totally open with GATT, NAFTA, and the WTO, our average tariffs are now around 2 percent.

And the predictable result has been the hemorrhaging of American manufacturing capacity to those countries that do protect their industries through high import tariffs but allow exports on the cheap -- particularly China and South Korea.

The irony is that we have abandoned Hamilton's advice -- and our own history -- while China, South Korea, Japan and other nations are following his prescriptions and turning into muscular and prosperous economic entities.

It's high time we re-learned Alexander Hamilton's lessons for our nation.


http://www.tayenlane.com/tlp-news/2015/8/22/alexander-hamilton-argues-against-free-trade-a-must-read

[jpsb]

You kinda lost your argument when you use Pat Buchanan to defend your position.

Pat Buchanan was right, as was Alexander Hamilton.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Manufacturing is a dead-end anyway. Robots will be making a lot of manufacturing jobs obsolete. Why do these old fogies still think it's the 1940's?

[kevindavis007]

Pat Buchanan was right, as was Alexander Hamilton.

Guess what they are both wrong.

[Hoodat]

Hmmm, whom to believe @txradioguy or Alexander Hamilton?


But it was another Founding Father -- Alexander Hamilton -- who knew best how to spawn American industry to make the country independent and competitive. As the nation's first Treasury Secretary, Hamilton submitted his Report on the Subject of Manufactures in 1791 to the US Congress, outlining the need for our government to foster new industries through "bounties" (subsidies) and subsequently protect them from foreign imports until they become globally competitive.

Congress rejected Hamilton's proposal.

[txradioguy]

Manufacturing is a dead-end anyway. Robots will be making a lot of manufacturing jobs obsolete. Why do these old fogies still think it's the 1940's?

Kinda reminds me of that Luddite mindset that Obama had when he was badmouthing the fact so many American's use online banking and ATM's instead of going into the bank these days to do business.

[txradioguy]

Oh and the stock market opened 250 points down on the news that Mr. Cohn had resigned from the Administration.

[jpsb]

You need a new economic policy.

We tried it your way and the results were terrible for the USA. Now it is time to go back to what
worked for the US and the American people.

End the Fed.

[Hoodat]

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages”

-Adam Smith-

I'll take Adam Smith's expertise any day over a mercantile advocate.  Again, it was only after the UK abandoned mercantilism in favor of a free market that they became an industrial superpower.

Smith is right.  People will act in their own self-interests.  If you restrict sugar imports, then sugar growers aren't going to ramp up their production and efficiency in order to become more competitive.  Instead, they are going to take advantage of the absence of competition and raise their prices.

[kevindavis007]

Kinda reminds me of that Luddite mindset that Obama had when he was badmouthing the fact so many American's use online banking and ATM's instead of going into the bank these days to do business.

Hell even the Luddites is going after self checkout lanes in Grocery stores or Kiosks at McDonalds.

[txradioguy]

Hell even the Luddites is going after self checkout lanes in Grocery stores or Kiosks at McDonalds.

That's because it defeats the unions efforts at raising the minimum wage to $15 which triggers an automatic increase in their union wages.

[jpsb]

You really should leave this thread to people that understand economics

That leaves you out @txradioguy. You only care about making Communist China an economic
Super power.  You could not care less about the US economy as long as you can buy cheap chicom
stuff at Wallmart.

[INVAR]

Hmmm, whom to believe @txradioguy or Alexander Hamilton?

Hamilton is the one FF whom Jefferson and Adams both ended up despising for his want of expanding the power of the Central Government, creating a central bank and issuing debt and deficit spending while empowering what today we call 'crony capitalism'.   'Bounties' or subsidies to the winners government would pick to succeed and prosper.

And thus, the seeds of cronyism and lobbyists were sown by Hamilton - and we are plagued with it's intractable DNA to this very day.

It was widely believed among the FFs that if Hamilton had his way - America would adopt a monarchy.

And government picking winners and losers is what is seen today as 'good Conservatism'.  Even W Bush told us that he had to 'abandon the free market in order save it'.

[Hoodat]

We tried it your way and the results were terrible for the USA.

You keep making that claim without offering a scintilla of evidence to back it up.  Again, exports to Mexico have increased fivefold since NAFTA was enacted.  And you call that a "terrible" result.  Incredible.

Conversely, tire tariffs against China resulted in a net loss of 2,500 jobs, $1 billion in lost exports to China, and $1.1 billion in higher tire costs for the American consumer.
 

End the Fed.

I am down with that, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

Every time I heard Buchanan speak he always goes back to the 1950's, but in all fairness the 1950's was an anomaly. We had the luxury of having our infrastructure and factories not being destroyed during WWII.  In reality there was no competition. Now there is competition

The 1950s was an anomaly? Only on a calendar compared to today.

Dates change. Fashions change. The way Money works Never changes. Limbaugh summed it up in just 3 words.

"Everybody Wants Stuff." Political systems and arcane monetary theories will never change that.

The 1950s had our factories WWII production gear up in place.

Then we moved Our Industry offshore. Some cock and bull song about getting it done Cheaper. Not today it ain't. Nothing produced overseas that can't be produced right here, today, at similar or better quality and competitive prices.

It's way past time our manufacturing sector was brought back here where it belongs through Any and Every Constitutionally Allowable means.

We (and no one else) can run a country/economy without a broad based Small (meaning individual) Consumer Manufacturing Sector.

[jpsb]

The Tariff Act of 1789 (1 Stat. 24), signed into law by President George Washington on July 4, 1789, was the first substantive legislation passed by the first Congress.


So @INVAR I'll put you down as another so called conservative that would rather fund government
with a Marxist income tax rather than fund government with tariffs.

[Hoodat]

That leaves you out @txradioguy. You only care about making Communist China an economic
Super power.  You could not care less about the US economy as long as you can buy cheap chicom
stuff at Wallmart.

@jpsb

This confirms your own economic ignorance.  Any individual will always operate in his own self interest.  I would be willing to bet that you still drink foreign-grown coffee or tea, or that you wear underwear made in Honduras, or that you use computer chips made in Taiwan, or flat screens made in South Korea.  Do you do this because you want to make Taiwan, South Korea, or Costa Rica economic super powers?  Or do you do this because those products give you the most utility for your dollars?

I can purchase a pair of foreign-made khakis at Costco for $20.  Or I can purchase a pair of American-made khakis for $160.  If I buy the foreign khakis, then I will have $140 left over to buy more stuff.  If I purchase the American-made khakis, then I lose the opportunity to buy $140 of more stuff, but I get great quality pants and can feel good about buying American-made.

This is the invisible hand.  This is the choice of a single individual multiplied millions of times.  This is what drives the economy.  Because your choice may not be the same as mine.  Your choice is the best for you.  And mine is the best for me.  But neither choice is made for the manufacturer's best interest.  They are made for the individual's best interest.