Trickle-Up Recession: The 1% Getting Real About the Permanent Fix for the Economy

[Silhouette]

^^ Still waiting for your alternate healthcare plan that beats mine. The current system is dragging our country's economy to dangerous lows and can no longer be maintained for the benefit of the fraud$ters taking advantage of the hodge-podge.

You do mean the current system including obamadon'tcare?

Obama's sellout to your hodge-podge system is equally unacceptable. You don't put a bandaid on a severed artery.

 

[hadit]

^^ Still waiting for your alternate healthcare plan that beats mine. The current system is dragging our country's economy to dangerous lows and can no longer be maintained for the benefit of the fraud$ters taking advantage of the hodge-podge.

You do mean the current system including obamadon'tcare?

Obama's sellout to your hodge-podge system is equally unacceptable. You don't put a bandaid on a severed artery.

Likewise, you don't pay for a multi-trillion dollar program with a 10 cent tax on snacks.

 

[Silhouette]

^^ Still waiting for your alternate healthcare plan that beats mine. The current system is dragging our country's economy to dangerous lows and can no longer be maintained for the benefit of the fraud$ters taking advantage of the hodge-podge.

You do mean the current system including obamadon'tcare?

Obama's sellout to your hodge-podge system is equally unacceptable. You don't put a bandaid on a severed artery.

Likewise, you don't pay for a multi-trillion dollar program with a 10 cent tax on snacks.

Yes, because that's all I said "just a ten cent tax on snacks". Asshole.

Here's what I said:

1. Ten cent tax ON THE DOLLAR for each snack food, soda, beer, wine, hard alcohol, smoke tobacco, chewing tobacco, nicorette and even some sundries at EVERY CASH REGISTER, IN EVERY STORE, IN EVERY TOWN, EVERY DAY ACROSS THE US.

2. Tort reform. If you took your own cast off before it was time and you rebroke your arm, you don't get to sue. If the doctor assisted amputating a vital organ off of you without any cause to do so, you can sue. There's the spectrum.

3. Reducing costs and streamlining. Currently we have the lovely hodge-podge system of which the most evil and ruthless souls who walk the earth are taking advantage of. Hospitals do 10,000% markups on actual supply costs in a money racket game with insurance companies. The losers of this murky cash cow are the common man and woman (and children) and actual healthcare. If there was a central oversight and a system of dispensing healthcare ;with citizen panels assisting policy, along with cost auditing, you'd watch the cost of healthcare shrink probably in half overnight.

So, you shrink the costs of healthcare way down (I'd look at a veterinary office as a model; since vet school is commonly more or at least as expensive than med school and they dispense health across many species of all types of medicine, all in one office and all for a fraction of the costs charged to humans for the same wraps, bandaging, pain meds, sutures, salves, IVs & x-rays etc. etc. etc.

Then you tap NOT JUST SNACK FOOD, but a myriad of VASTLY MORE EXPENSIVE "optionals" that are the cause, after all, of most healthcare costs. And you have a system that could work.

So far from your ilk, I've seen nothing proposed to replace the current system set to bankrupt this country in a very short period of time. No streamlining specifics, no auditing specifics, no tort reform specifics, no revenue specifics. Your only "plan" seems to be "obfuscate until the issue goes away and then let the people die". While simultaneously insisting on taxing people for other human life saving entities like police, fire and military. That's OK because you know...saves human life...

I conclude, therefore, that the people posting fiercely here resisting UH like wildcats are some of the people lobbying for the most evil people on earth; or are the most evil people on earth themselves. And when you boil it down, aren't they both really?...

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

^^ Still waiting for your alternate healthcare plan that beats mine. The current system is dragging our country's economy to dangerous lows and can no longer be maintained for the benefit of the fraud$ters taking advantage of the hodge-podge.

You do mean the current system including obamadon'tcare?

Obama's sellout to your hodge-podge system is equally unacceptable. You don't put a bandaid on a severed artery.

Likewise, you don't pay for a multi-trillion dollar program with a 10 cent tax on snacks.

Yes, because that's all I said "just a ten cent tax on snacks". Asshole.

Here's what I said:

1. Ten cent tax ON THE DOLLAR for each snack food, soda, beer, wine, hard alcohol, smoke tobacco, chewing tobacco, nicorette and even some sundries at EVERY CASH REGISTER, IN EVERY STORE, IN EVERY TOWN, EVERY DAY ACROSS THE US.

2. Tort reform. If you took your own cast off before it was time and you rebroke your arm, you don't get to sue. If the doctor assisted amputating a vital organ off of you without any cause to do so, you can sue. There's the spectrum.

3. Reducing costs and streamlining. Currently we have the lovely hodge-podge system of which the most evil and ruthless souls who walk the earth are taking advantage of. Hospitals do 10,000% markups on actual supply costs in a money racket game with insurance companies. The losers of this murky cash cow are the common man and woman (and children) and actual healthcare. If there was a central oversight and a system of dispensing healthcare ;with citizen panels assisting policy, along with cost auditing, you'd watch the cost of healthcare shrink probably in half overnight.

So, you shrink the costs of healthcare way down (I'd look at a veterinary office as a model; since vet school is commonly more or at least as expensive than med school and they dispense health across many species of all types of medicine, all in one office and all for a fraction of the costs charged to humans for the same wraps, bandaging, pain meds, sutures, salves, IVs & x-rays etc. etc. etc.

Then you tap NOT JUST SNACK FOOD, but a myriad of VASTLY MORE EXPENSIVE "optionals" that are the cause, after all, of most healthcare costs. And you have a system that could work.

So far from your ilk, I've seen nothing proposed to replace the current system set to bankrupt this country in a very short period of time. No streamlining specifics, no auditing specifics, no tort reform specifics, no revenue specifics. Your only "plan" seems to be "obfuscate until the issue goes away and then let the people die". While simultaneously insisting on taxing people for other human life saving entities like police, fire and military. That's OK because you know...saves human life...

I conclude, therefore, that the people posting fiercely here resisting UH like wildcats are some of the people lobbying for the most evil people on earth; or are the most evil people on earth themselves. And when you boil it down, aren't they both really?...

Yes, because that's all I said "just a ten cent tax on snacks". Asshole.

That's what you said, originally, Moron.

Only after we kept asking you for actual numbers, did you finally change from one, unrealistic number, 10 cents, to another, 10%.

I conclude, therefore, that the people posting fiercely here resisting UH

Are people who can actually add numbers and who have actually seen government make things worse, not better, when they interfere more in free markets.

Just because you like bigger government doesn't mean we have to follow your idiocy.

 

[Silhouette]

^^ still waiting for your alternate plan to the system that is bankrupting our country from the bottom of the 99% to the 1%. I notice you didn't post anything about that yet.

 

[hadit]

^^ Still waiting for your alternate healthcare plan that beats mine. The current system is dragging our country's economy to dangerous lows and can no longer be maintained for the benefit of the fraud$ters taking advantage of the hodge-podge.

You do mean the current system including obamadon'tcare?

Obama's sellout to your hodge-podge system is equally unacceptable. You don't put a bandaid on a severed artery.

Likewise, you don't pay for a multi-trillion dollar program with a 10 cent tax on snacks.

Yes, because that's all I said "just a ten cent tax on snacks". Asshole.

Here's what I said:

1. Ten cent tax ON THE DOLLAR for each snack food, soda, beer, wine, hard alcohol, smoke tobacco, chewing tobacco, nicorette and even some sundries at EVERY CASH REGISTER, IN EVERY STORE, IN EVERY TOWN, EVERY DAY ACROSS THE US.

2. Tort reform. If you took your own cast off before it was time and you rebroke your arm, you don't get to sue. If the doctor assisted amputating a vital organ off of you without any cause to do so, you can sue. There's the spectrum.

3. Reducing costs and streamlining. Currently we have the lovely hodge-podge system of which the most evil and ruthless souls who walk the earth are taking advantage of. Hospitals do 10,000% markups on actual supply costs in a money racket game with insurance companies. The losers of this murky cash cow are the common man and woman (and children) and actual healthcare. If there was a central oversight and a system of dispensing healthcare ;with citizen panels assisting policy, along with cost auditing, you'd watch the cost of healthcare shrink probably in half overnight.

So, you shrink the costs of healthcare way down (I'd look at a veterinary office as a model; since vet school is commonly more or at least as expensive than med school and they dispense health across many species of all types of medicine, all in one office and all for a fraction of the costs charged to humans for the same wraps, bandaging, pain meds, sutures, salves, IVs & x-rays etc. etc. etc.

Then you tap NOT JUST SNACK FOOD, but a myriad of VASTLY MORE EXPENSIVE "optionals" that are the cause, after all, of most healthcare costs. And you have a system that could work.

So far from your ilk, I've seen nothing proposed to replace the current system set to bankrupt this country in a very short period of time. No streamlining specifics, no auditing specifics, no tort reform specifics, no revenue specifics. Your only "plan" seems to be "obfuscate until the issue goes away and then let the people die". While simultaneously insisting on taxing people for other human life saving entities like police, fire and military. That's OK because you know...saves human life...

I conclude, therefore, that the people posting fiercely here resisting UH like wildcats are some of the people lobbying for the most evil people on earth; or are the most evil people on earth themselves. And when you boil it down, aren't they both really?...

All of those can be done without giving the healthcare system to the same people who brought you the DMV and the Postal Service. You keep ignoring that.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

^^ still waiting for your alternate plan to the system that is bankrupting our country from the bottom of the 99% to the 1%. I notice you didn't post anything about that yet.

still waiting for your alternate plan

Less government control fucking things up, not 100% government control.

 

[Silhouette]

^^ And your specific plan is?

 

[Andylusion]

^^ Still waiting for your alternate healthcare plan that beats mine. The current system is dragging our country's economy to dangerous lows and can no longer be maintained for the benefit of the fraud$ters taking advantage of the hodge-podge.

You do mean the current system including obamadon'tcare?

Obama's sellout to your hodge-podge system is equally unacceptable. You don't put a bandaid on a severed artery.

Likewise, you don't pay for a multi-trillion dollar program with a 10 cent tax on snacks.

Yes, because that's all I said "just a ten cent tax on snacks". Asshole.

Here's what I said:

1. Ten cent tax ON THE DOLLAR for each snack food, soda, beer, wine, hard alcohol, smoke tobacco, chewing tobacco, nicorette and even some sundries at EVERY CASH REGISTER, IN EVERY STORE, IN EVERY TOWN, EVERY DAY ACROSS THE US.

2. Tort reform. If you took your own cast off before it was time and you rebroke your arm, you don't get to sue. If the doctor assisted amputating a vital organ off of you without any cause to do so, you can sue. There's the spectrum.

3. Reducing costs and streamlining. Currently we have the lovely hodge-podge system of which the most evil and ruthless souls who walk the earth are taking advantage of. Hospitals do 10,000% markups on actual supply costs in a money racket game with insurance companies. The losers of this murky cash cow are the common man and woman (and children) and actual healthcare. If there was a central oversight and a system of dispensing healthcare ;with citizen panels assisting policy, along with cost auditing, you'd watch the cost of healthcare shrink probably in half overnight.

So, you shrink the costs of healthcare way down (I'd look at a veterinary office as a model; since vet school is commonly more or at least as expensive than med school and they dispense health across many species of all types of medicine, all in one office and all for a fraction of the costs charged to humans for the same wraps, bandaging, pain meds, sutures, salves, IVs & x-rays etc. etc. etc.

Then you tap NOT JUST SNACK FOOD, but a myriad of VASTLY MORE EXPENSIVE "optionals" that are the cause, after all, of most healthcare costs. And you have a system that could work.

So far from your ilk, I've seen nothing proposed to replace the current system set to bankrupt this country in a very short period of time. No streamlining specifics, no auditing specifics, no tort reform specifics, no revenue specifics. Your only "plan" seems to be "obfuscate until the issue goes away and then let the people die". While simultaneously insisting on taxing people for other human life saving entities like police, fire and military. That's OK because you know...saves human life...

I conclude, therefore, that the people posting fiercely here resisting UH like wildcats are some of the people lobbying for the most evil people on earth; or are the most evil people on earth themselves. And when you boil it down, aren't they both really?...

Good people use math. Evil people, repost the same proven false claims, and ignore the math.
You are one of the most evil people on Earth. Since I am not lobbying for you, your claim isn't true.

We know what you said. 10¢ on every dollar on every store across the entire country, wouldn't even bring in enough money to cover just the VA.

We did the math, it doesn't work.

Even if all your cost cutting plans actually worked, and reduced health care costs by 50%, the amount of money your taxes would collect wouldn't be 1/100th of the cost of health care.

Tort Reform, is fine, but it's not going to cut health care costs, by even a tiny fraction.

Again, streamlining hasn't worked in the VA system. Why would it work elsewhere? It hasn't cut costs in any other country either. The only countries where they have a lower cost of health care, is by rationing care. Well of course if you deny care, it will be cheaper. That's not a good trade off.

So, you shrink the costs of healthcare way down (I'd look at a veterinary office as a model; since vet school is commonly more or at least as expensive than med school and they dispense health across many species of all types of medicine, all in one office and all for a fraction of the costs charged to humans for the same wraps, bandaging, pain meds, sutures, salves, IVs & x-rays etc. etc. etc.

Massive difference, and ironically, you cite this as support for you position, when in reality it supports ours.

A Veterinarian degree, is a tiny fraction of the cost of a physician degree. You can easily get a degree for as little as $30,000. A physician will run you $166,000.

Why is that? Because of government controls and regulations on medical schools. You can get a veterinarian degree at a community colleges. Columbus State has such a degree.

Also, the government doesn't do nearly as much to regulate the operation of Vets, which is why there are over a dozen Veterinary clinics and Animal hospitals, just within 10 minutes of my home.

Again, the nearest Hospital is 30 minutes away, in another city.

The very thing you are pushing, government control, government regulation, government oversight, is the exact thing Veterinaries do not have, and exactly why they are cheaper.

Your view is to look at the effects of poison, and conclude we need more poison in the system.

 

[Andylusion]

^^ And your specific plan is?

No, dude THAT IS THE SPECIFIC PLAN. The government controls and regulations and oversight is exactly what is causing all the problems. Literally.

We are looking at the cancer, and seeing how the cancer is causing all these problems in the system. Your proposal is.... Well if cancer is causing all these other problems... let's just have more cancer everywhere, and that will fix it!

We say.... how about we cut out the cancer?

And you respond with.... "And your specific plan is?"

No.... that is the plan. Cut the cancer out of the system.

100% cancer everywhere, is the VA system. The VA SUCKS.

Cutting the cancer out, is like Medical tourism, at unregulated, un-streamlined, un-government oversight, Capitalist based, pay-for-service hospitals, that do a better job, consistently, with better service, at a fraction of the cost.

Cut the cancer out *IS* the plan. That is the specific plan. It works. Just like you pointed to with Veterinarians. That is a cancer free system. Let's do that.

 

[Silhouette]

Likewise, you don't pay for a multi-trillion dollar program with a 10 cent tax on snacks.

Yes, because that's all I said "just a ten cent tax on snacks". Asshole.

Here's what I said:

1. Ten cent tax ON THE DOLLAR for each snack food, soda, beer, wine, hard alcohol, smoke tobacco, chewing tobacco, nicorette and even some sundries at EVERY CASH REGISTER, IN EVERY STORE, IN EVERY TOWN, EVERY DAY ACROSS THE US.

2. Tort reform. If you took your own cast off before it was time and you rebroke your arm, you don't get to sue. If the doctor assisted amputating a vital organ off of you without any cause to do so, you can sue. There's the spectrum.

3. Reducing costs and streamlining. Currently we have the lovely hodge-podge system of which the most evil and ruthless souls who walk the earth are taking advantage of. Hospitals do 10,000% markups on actual supply costs in a money racket game with insurance companies. The losers of this murky cash cow are the common man and woman (and children) and actual healthcare. If there was a central oversight and a system of dispensing healthcare ;with citizen panels assisting policy, along with cost auditing, you'd watch the cost of healthcare shrink probably in half overnight.

So, you shrink the costs of healthcare way down (I'd look at a veterinary office as a model; since vet school is commonly more or at least as expensive than med school and they dispense health across many species of all types of medicine, all in one office and all for a fraction of the costs charged to humans for the same wraps, bandaging, pain meds, sutures, salves, IVs & x-rays etc. etc. etc.

Then you tap NOT JUST SNACK FOOD, but a myriad of VASTLY MORE EXPENSIVE "optionals" that are the cause, after all, of most healthcare costs. And you have a system that could work.

So far from your ilk, I've seen nothing proposed to replace the current system set to bankrupt this country in a very short period of time. No streamlining specifics, no auditing specifics, no tort reform specifics, no revenue specifics. Your only "plan" seems to be "obfuscate until the issue goes away and then let the people die". While simultaneously insisting on taxing people for other human life saving entities like police, fire and military. That's OK because you know...saves human life...

I conclude, therefore, that the people posting fiercely here resisting UH like wildcats are some of the people lobbying for the most evil people on earth; or are the most evil people on earth themselves. And when you boil it down, aren't they both really?...

******

Of many posts amassing since, not one has given an alternate plan.

Still waiting for an alternate plan. So far every post in response to this one says "your plan is bad because....your plan is bad because....your plan is bad because..." but fails to give even a rough outline of a plan that would be better. The status quo is unacceptable and will lead our nation to bankruptcy, so that is not an option to offer in rebuttal.

 

[Silhouette]

*Notices a conspicuous silence to this question*... ^^

 

[Andylusion]

*Notices a conspicuous silence to this question*... ^^

Because we've responded to this more than two dozen times. It doesn't work. Your tax system doesn't cover a tiny fraction of the cost.

All you do is repeat the same mindless crap over and over, and never have an actual answer.

 

[Silhouette]

*Notices a conspicuous silence to this question*... ^^

Because we've responded to this more than two dozen times. It doesn't work. Your tax system doesn't cover a tiny fraction of the cost.

All you do is repeat the same mindless crap over and over, and never have an actual answer.

All you do is repeat criticisms over and over and never have your own actual answer to the healthcare system that cannot continue..

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

*Notices a conspicuous silence to this question*... ^^

Because we've responded to this more than two dozen times. It doesn't work. Your tax system doesn't cover a tiny fraction of the cost.

All you do is repeat the same mindless crap over and over, and never have an actual answer.

All you do is repeat criticisms over and over and never have your own actual answer to the healthcare system that cannot continue..

We're not silly enough to think that a 1000 word post on USMB is going to fix US healthcare.
If you want better and less expensive, we need less government control and tort reform.

 

[Silhouette]

^^ Another evasion.

 

[sartre play]

I was doing better in the 70s

 

[Andylusion]

^^ Another evasion.

You have evaded every single rational argument against your plan to this very post. Now you want to accuse others of doing, what you have done for the last 19 pages?

Hypocrite?

As a general rule, if you have to copy and paste, the same post 8 times so that we have to report you to admins for spamming, because you refuse to acknowledge the points we've made against your plan........ don't start trying to accuse others of evasion. The top evader on this entire thread, is you.

 

[Andylusion]

*Notices a conspicuous silence to this question*... ^^

Because we've responded to this more than two dozen times. It doesn't work. Your tax system doesn't cover a tiny fraction of the cost.

All you do is repeat the same mindless crap over and over, and never have an actual answer.

All you do is repeat criticisms over and over and never have your own actual answer to the healthcare system that cannot continue..

We're not silly enough to think that a 1000 word post on USMB is going to fix US healthcare.
If you want better and less expensive, we need less government control and tort reform.

I don't think we're going to get much more out of this guy. He obviously has no answer to anything we've said, and now he's accusing us of evading, after he's evaded a 100 posts already.

 

[320 Years of History]

Solutions would be like Canada's very sensible requirement of a certain percentage of industry using automation, to have humans doing that work. Also, stiffer tariffs on ALL goods manufactured offshore. PERIOD.

??? I don't know what drives the fascination and seeming preference for economic protectionism. There quite simply is no greater economic/financial well being to an economy and the people in it from tariffs, subsidies and quotas than there is by not having them. That is well understood by every single economist on the planet. It is Econ 101 for high school students and it is plain to see in very simple graphs.

(DWL = deadweight loss)

What to notice about the impact of a tariff: Domestic producers benefit at the expense of domestic consumers and foreign producers. The green triangles represent efficiency or well being lost because that is consumer surplus that is forgone after the tariff. The yellow rectangle is not deadweight loss because it is tariff revenue for the government.

Be sure to note the indirect effects of tariffs. For example, any of the three forms of protection shown in this post -- tariffs, quotas and subsidies -- will lead to a decrease in net exports for America’s trading partners, which means a decrease in Aggregate Demand and the possibility of higher unemployment, recession, lower income, thus less demand for American products abroad. So, not only does the tariff hurt American consumers through higher prices and lower quantity, but it harms other American businesses whose products are no longer in demand from foreigners whose incomes have declined thanks to the American tariffs.

Note also the regressive nature of tariffs. Much like a VAT or an excise tax, tariffs place a greater burden on low income earners than high income earners, as a particular tax on imports represents a larger percentage of a poor person’s income.

(DWL = deadweight loss)

Subsidies appear to result in less of a financial well being loss to society than tariffs, but this is unclear since the size of the subsidy is unknown. Obviously, larger subsidies create a greater welfare loss, because they result in more scarce resources being allocated towards the production of a product which the US lacks a comparative advantage. The size of the green triangle in the graph above represents the size of the welfare loss… or the degree to which resources are being over-allocated towards this product.

The Quota scenario is the most complicated to understand graphically. Here’s how to interpret the graph above. The government says that foreigners can only import Q1Q2 units, which means at Pw, where American firms are only producing 0Q1 units, there is a severe shortage of automobiles. The price rises in response to the excess demand, which attracts more firms into the automobile market (or existing firms open new plants) shifting domestic Supply out.

The Quota scenario is the most complicated to understand graphically. Here’s how to interpret the graph above. The government says that foreigners can only import Q1 to Q2 units, which means at Pw, where American firms are only producing 0 to Q1 units, there is a severe shortage of automobiles. The price rises in response to the excess demand, which attracts more firms into the automobile market (or existing firms open new plants) shifting domestic Supply out.

The price will settle where the new domestic Supply curve intersects demand, but the number of cars produced by American firms will equal 0Q4 minus Q1Q2. In other words, since foreigners were happy to import Q1 to Q3 even at the lower Pw before the quota, they will continue to import as much as they are allowed (equal to the government’s quota of Q1Q2 at the new higher price. But since consumers demand Q4 at the new higher price, new domestic producers will step in and satisfy the demand beyond what foreign firms can meet with their restricted imports. So the domestic output is represented by two segments, 0Q1 and Q2Q4. Imports are represented by Q1Q2 (restricted by the government’s quota). Confusing, but once you study it for a while it makes sense.


The charts and discussion above is the easy way to understand tariffs, quotas and subsidies. If you'd prefer to understand the above concepts by working through the math that makes it so, check out the content at the links below. To come to the same understanding, you'll need to do a lot more work -- it's the same work high school and college econ students perform when learning about how tariffs, quotas and subsidies work -- to arrive at the conclusions noted above.

• Tariffs examined in real world situations -- The first problem (water with and without VAT, which is the tariff in that example) is all you will need to solve. You'll need to create your own graphs, but what you'll end up with, assuming you do the math correctly and accurately graph your work, is graphs like the ones above.
• Why politicians like protectionist policies -- After studying how tariffs, quotas and subsidies (protectionist policies), you will be able to see how the cost of having them is "hidden." Of course, it's only hidden to folks who don't know how they work. Once one knows how they work, they're not hidden at all, but it does take some doing (as the exercise above will illustrate if you perform it) to quantify the so-called "hidden" costs of the protections.
• Simplifying difficult calculations: consumer choice of two-part tariffs -- This document explains how businesses can implement their own tariff system to drive consumer choice. Though the focus of the discussion in this document is not about governmental policy, it illustrates how the very same "hidden" nature of a tariff can be used by businesses to drive many/most consumers to choose a product that yields higher revenue/profit for the business. If you're familiar with the various schemes that cell phone service providers/carriers offer as go service and equipment, you've seen this idea in action.
  
• Tariffs and Quotas: Effects on Imported Goods and Domestic Prices -- This presentation (video) is essentially the same thing depicted in the charts and narrative above, but if you want watch a video instead of read it, this is for you.

So What Does All This Mean?
Well, it means that when politicians (or candidates) advocate for protectionist measures, there's one central question that they must be called to answer. What is that question?

Given that protectionist measures are well understood to impose the greatest burden on lower income individuals, what measures do you intend to implement to mitigate those burdens and what is the estimated quantifiable impact of them, either as a percentage of personal income/spending or a specific sum per person?​

At the very least, if a candidate or politician is going to advocate for protectionist measures, they must be held accountable to show how those measures are going to make individuals, businesses, or the society as a whole better off overall. Now the fact is that it's all but impossible to show that whatever short term gains may result from protectionist measures outweigh the long term losses, and the reason it's impossible is because there are no long term gains from protectionism.

• Gains from Protectionism
• Barriers to Trade
• The Political Trade-Offs of Trade
  
• “Protectionism vs. Free Trade in achieving Economic Development”
  
• Unpopular free trade is better than popular protectionism
  
• Trade Protectionism -- This is a short, nontechnical exposition of the political economy of protection. It asks how do political forces operate to generate protection, and what determines the magnitude and form that protection takes.
  
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Trade Protectionism
  
• The Benefits of Free Trade: A Guide For Policymakers

Economists know this. I think most politicians know it too. It's the average citizen who doesn't know it. Politicians have got one primary goal: to get elected. Knowing that most voters aren't going to ask the question I noted above, politicians can focus their rhetoric on short term gains, which is what will get them elected.

Quite simply, unlike many things where it's very hard to determine how much one has lost by going "this way" instead of "that way," the losses from trade protectionism are measurable, quantifiable, and numerous times they have been measured, and it doesn't matter whether one uses standard models or alternative ones, the answer comes out the same every time: protectionism is a losing proposition overall.

• How Costly is Protectionism?
  
• Trade Restrictiveness and Deadweight Losses from U.S. Tariffs
  
• Measuring the Costs of Protection in the United States
  
• Cost of Protection: Where Do We Stand?
  
• Why Protectionism Doesn’t Pay
  
• Alternative Approaches to Measuring the Cost of Protection
  
• Using the Gravity Model to Estimate the Costs of Protection
  
• Measuring Economic Effects of Technical Barriers to Trade on U.S. Exporters
  
• What are the Main Causes and Effects of Economic Protectionism?
  
• An economic perspective on the use of non-tariff measures [of protectionism]

At the end of the day, the thing that makes protectionist policy statements popular is politics. It's not the economics of it. It's purely and simply about getting votes. It's not about reducing costs. It's not about increasing prosperity.