Protectionism

[Toro]

NAFTA has benefited the US.

The implementation of NAFTA benefited the United States by increasing competition in product and resource markets, as well as by lowering the prices of many commodities to U.S. consumers. Because the U.S. economy is so much larger than Mexico’s, however, U.S. gains from NAFTA as a proportion of its GDP were much smaller. Canada was the least affected by NAFTA because Canada had already negotiated a free trade agreement with the United States in 1988, and so most of its economic effects had already taken place by the time NAFTA came into effect in 1994.

Global Economy Journal

 

[loosecannon]

Free trade has been beneficial to America.

There has never been any free trade in American history.

Just lie there has never been anything that remotely resembled free markets.

 

[Toro]

criticizing it because he is an admitted whore to globalization.

That is not a serious and is an anti-intellectual statement.

 

[Toro]

Free trade has been beneficial to America.

There has never been any free trade in American history.

Just lie there has never been anything that remotely resembled free markets.

Your comment reminds me of the doctrinaire Marxist who says that communism has never really been tried. In the real world, Marxism, like free trade, has been tried close enough. And we know which succeeds and which fails.

Philosophical purity is for the theoretician who lives in his mind, not in the world around him.

 

[loosecannon]

NAFTA has benefited the US.

Now you are just looking like a gooftard.

NAFTA helped create the flood of illegal aliens and the conversion of the Mexican economy to a drug fiefdom.

NAFTA also facilitated the exodus of dozens of core industries from the US. And with 9.6% unemployment forecast to persist for decades you can't defend offshoring industries.

No matter how many quackpot economists support your anti American memes.

 

[Toro]

Mercantilism fails on so many levels.

http://freetheworld.org/2006/EFW2006complete.pdf

 

[loosecannon]

Free trade has been beneficial to America.

There has never been any free trade in American history.

Just lie there has never been anything that remotely resembled free markets.

Your comment reminds me of the doctrinaire Marxist who says that communism has never really been tried. In the real world, Marxism, like free trade, has been tried close enough. And we know which succeeds and which fails.

Philosophical purity is for the theoretician who lives in his mind, not in the world around him.

Thanks for being wrong on both counts. That is strike 5.

Did you now that the Federal Reserve's own website still credits Karl Marx as the 5th most influential economist of all time?

You weren't even listed.

Formal econ purity is for the theoretician who lives in his mind, not in the world around him.

 

[Toro]

NAFTA has benefited the US.

Now you are just looking like a gooftard.

NAFTA helped create the flood of illegal aliens and the conversion of the Mexican economy to a drug fiefdom.

NAFTA also facilitated the exodus of dozens of core industries from the US. And with 9.6% unemployment forecast to persist for decades you can't defend offshoring industries.

No matter how many quackpot economists support your anti American memes.

Ranting is not an argument.

 

[loosecannon]

Mercantilism fails on so many levels.

http://freetheworld.org/2006/EFW2006complete.pdf

But it has always worked in the real world since the advent f the nation state.

In fact it is the dominant model today.

Except in the USA.

 

[Toro]

In 2005 worldwide exports exceeded $10 trillion. Since 1980 they've more than tripled while the overall global economy doubled. Like it or not, massive international flows of goods and services (aka "globalization") underpin all modern economies. ...

The idea is that much trade is inherently "unfair." Multinational companies use it to ship U.S. jobs abroad; other countries compete unfairly with low wages and substandard labor practices. (Indeed, lax labor standards are cited to oppose the Peruvian and Colombian agreements.) Vast U.S. trade deficits measure the destructiveness. If trade is so unfair, why encourage more of it?

Much of this indictment is wrong or wildly exaggerated. For example, American trade deficits haven't destroyed U.S. job creation by sending work abroad. Consider: From 1980 to 2006, the trade deficit jumped from $19 billion to an estimated $786 billion, or from less than 1 percent of gross domestic product to about 6 percent. Still, employment in the same period rose from 99 million to 145 million.

Robert J. Samuelson - 'Fair Trade' Foolishness - washingtonpost.com

 

[Toro]

dp

 

[loosecannon]

NAFTA has benefited the US.

Now you are just looking like a gooftard.

NAFTA helped create the flood of illegal aliens and the conversion of the Mexican economy to a drug fiefdom.

NAFTA also facilitated the exodus of dozens of core industries from the US. And with 9.6% unemployment forecast to persist for decades you can't defend offshoring industries.

No matter how many quackpot economists support your anti American memes.

Ranting is not an argument.

It still bested your silly assertions.

NAFTA has definitely NOT benefited the US or Mexico.

Strike 6.

 

[loosecannon]

In 2005 worldwide exports exceeded $10 trillion. Since 1980 they've more than tripled while the overall global economy doubled. Like it or not, massive international flows of goods and services (aka "globalization") underpin all modern economies. ...

The idea is that much trade is inherently "unfair." Multinational companies use it to ship U.S. jobs abroad; other countries compete unfairly with low wages and substandard labor practices. (Indeed, lax labor standards are cited to oppose the Peruvian and Colombian agreements.) Vast U.S. trade deficits measure the destructiveness. If trade is so unfair, why encourage more of it?

Much of this indictment is wrong or wildly exaggerated. For example, American trade deficits haven't destroyed U.S. job creation by sending work abroad. Consider: From 1980 to 2006, the trade deficit jumped from $19 billion to an estimated $786 billion, or from less than 1 percent of gross domestic product to about 6 percent. Still, employment in the same period rose from 99 million to 145 million.

Robert J. Samuelson - 'Fair Trade' Foolishness - washingtonpost.com

well of course he is correct.

Globalization has benefited the world, even in this recession.

At the expense of the US and the EU.

You aren't an American are you?

 

[Toro]

Mercantilism fails on so many levels.

http://freetheworld.org/2006/EFW2006complete.pdf

But it has always worked in the real world since the advent f the nation state.

In fact it is the dominant model today.

Except in the USA.

Mercantilism is not the dominant model today. The dominant model is an open economy that mostly allows the free movement of goods, services and capital across borders.

There is some empirical evidence that some developing countries have benefited from trade barriers for a time, but generally, mercantilism and protectionism is damaging to economies.

You can always find specific examples of barriers protecting favoured industries within countries. However, when one looks at the broad volume of trade, most of it is unfettered.

 

[Toro]

Now you are just looking like a gooftard.

NAFTA helped create the flood of illegal aliens and the conversion of the Mexican economy to a drug fiefdom.

NAFTA also facilitated the exodus of dozens of core industries from the US. And with 9.6% unemployment forecast to persist for decades you can't defend offshoring industries.

No matter how many quackpot economists support your anti American memes.

Ranting is not an argument.

It still bested your silly assertions.

NAFTA has definitely NOT benefited the US or Mexico.

Strike 6.

I am posting empirical evidence underpinned by rigorous analysis. You post rants and preconceived opinions.

And the empirical evidence is that NAFTA has benefited all three countries involved.

If you wish to post something empirical, please do so. I'd love to see it. But you haven't so far.

 

[Toro]

Here is what the former socialist President of Chile had to say about globalization.

President Michelle Bachelet opened an international gathering of socialist leaders in the Chilean capital on Monday by urging them to take advantage of the "reality" of globalization instead of fighting it.

"Let's admit it, comrades, modernity and globalization are not an imperialist invention," Bachelet told the conference of the Socialist International, an umbrella organization for socialist parties from around the world. "They are realities and it is up to us to turn them into opportunities." ...

"Our rival is not economic modernity," Bachelet told the gathering. "Our rivals are the forces that oppose social progress and seek an accumulation of wealth that excludes many."

Bachelet Touts Benefits of Globalization - washingtonpost.com

 

[Toro]

Here is an example of how expensive protectionism and mercantilism is to Americans.

The Washington-based Institute for International Economics has assembled data that might help with the answer. Tariffs and quotas on imported sugar saved 2,261 jobs during the 1990s. As a result of those restrictions, the average household pays $21 more per year for sugar. The total cost, nationally, sums to $826,000 for each job saved. Trade restrictions on luggage saved 226 jobs and cost consumers $1.2 million in higher prices for each job saved. Restrictions on apparel and textiles saved 168,786 jobs at a cost of nearly $200,000 for each job saved.

Trade charade - Washington Times

 

[Toro]

dp

 

[loosecannon]

Toro, you seem to misunderstand the discussion at a fundamental level.

Yes of course, globalization may very well benefit the world economy at large more than mercantilism. Esp the poorest 2nd and third quintiles of the world pop, a the expense of the 4th and 5th quintiles.

The glaring real world example in support is that is that the BRIC nations are averaging something like 6% annual GDP growth during a recession that many say could have ushered in a world wide depression.

Mercantilism, by definition, is not concerned with global GDP increase or benefit. It is strictly concerned with relative national benefits.

Like; "gee it would be great if the US had to worry about putting the brakes on OUR economy because 9% annual growth threatens to overheat OUR economy".

That is strike 7.

You lose.

 

[loosecannon]

Here is what the former socialist President of Chile had to say about globalization.

President Michelle Bachelet opened an international gathering of socialist leaders in the Chilean capital on Monday by urging them to take advantage of the "reality" of globalization instead of fighting it.

"Let's admit it, comrades, modernity and globalization are not an imperialist invention," Bachelet told the conference of the Socialist International, an umbrella organization for socialist parties from around the world. "They are realities and it is up to us to turn them into opportunities." ...

"Our rival is not economic modernity," Bachelet told the gathering. "Our rivals are the forces that oppose social progress and seek an accumulation of wealth that excludes many."

Bachelet Touts Benefits of Globalization - washingtonpost.com

while he openly opposes globalization