POLITICAL THREAD
- Thread starter kybobcat
- Start date
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-18/news/mn-1024_1_computer-chips
Reagan didn't have a problem placing tariffs on countries, why do you think Toyota and Honda started building plants in the US?
Our ingenuity should be able to offset whatever advantage they get from lower wages. Problem is the government has so many restrictions and intrusions, it stifles our ingenuity.
So, in this current regulatory climate we probably need them.
We've been over this before, if you want to subsidize unionized factory workers then send them a relief check from your personal bank account. I don't want to pay more for goods and services across the board so a high school drop out can make $30/hour with full salary pension to tighten down door hinge bolts.
Those "good" jobs, were only good for a very short period of time and only remained that way for as long as they did because of unions and government interference. Maybe if we allowed some manufacturing to slowly die out in the '70s like it should have, we could have moved on. Instead, we artificially pumped up industries well past their prime until the bottom fell out all at once.
Protectionism like you want requires a government capable of being: not corrupt, intelligent beyond the market, agile, and forward thinking. If you think this describes any government in history, I would like examples.
We have a lot of argument from anecdote going on here
Protectionism has worked since the beginning of time. There are countless examples of it working to build a nation's industrial base. And all you clowns point to is the Great Depression as a time when it didn't work - which is BS.
Protectionism *can* work for a short period of time to insulate infant industries. There are no examples of protecting an established industry and it working well.
Japan was seen as the prime example of protectionism, the kind of place Wayne and Bill would have been pointing to, working in the '70s and '80s...until the '90s came and their economy has never fully recovered.
Japan was seen as the prime example of protectionism, the kind of place Wayne and Bill would have been pointing to, working in the '70s and '80s...until the '90s came and their economy has never fully recovered.
Did you read the article you linked? He did it because they didn't live up to a trade agreement they signed that prohibited them from dumping below cost chips into the US market. He wasn't trying to prevent free trade. In fact, they limited the products they put tariffs on to those that were readily available from other suppliers so that it wouldn't raise the cost to US consumers. This was a measure to try and push Japan back to free market trading, not a movement toward protectionism.
There have been several automobile manufacturing plants and associated component manufacturing plants built in the US since NAFTA. If tariffs are responsible for Honda and Toyota being here, then why have others been built since NAFTA? The answer is that tariff's have nothing to do with why automobiles are manufactured here. They are built here because the exchange rates are such that it is more economical to build them here rather than build them in foreign countries and ship them here. If that changes, those plants will disappear.
it really is amazing where some of you "conservatives" have drifted: gubment is baaaaad, but we want it to pick winners/losers via trade barriers. Gubment is bloated, but we don't want a candidate who supports limiting and reforming entitlements. Gubment is too powerful, but we want a POTUS who will sue and coerce every media outlet who challenges him, even if it requires changing the law.
Oh, and we respect Putin. Because now that's a thing.
Oh, and we respect Putin. Because now that's a thing.
I don't think most people are voting for Trump. They're voting for hope and change, I think. Seems like that was seen as honorable in recent times.
That's because CNN would report it.
![[laughing]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/classic/laugh.r191677.gif "Laughing [laughing]")
QualitySo you'd rather the high school dropout leech off the Govt the rest of his life?
I agree there needed to be a correction, the problem is we over corrected to the extreme other direction of it now. The government's corrupt now, there's probably more now than ever. Elections are practically bought and for, with the elected official doing whatever their master wants.
I'm not saying we need protectionism, I'm saying we might ought to rethink the free trade agreements we have in place, just like the politicians told us in 93.
I live in Western KY, General Tire and Ingersoll Rand moved from Graves County, thats close to 4000 good jobs gone. Goodyear right across the stateline in Union City TN with it's 3000 jobs gone, Johnson Controls in Trigg County 400-500 jobs, Papermill in Ballard County and it's 350 just closed, what do the people in those communities do to replace the income and taxes from those jobs? It's like that all over the Country, we as a nation cannot keep going down this path. At some point we're going to have to pick our poison.
Ok, I guess the tariffs imposed and the penalties that would incur if a portion of Japanese vehicles weren't built in the US in the early 80's had nothing to do with it.
No shit, they were flooding the US market, directly against the agreement they had signed so he put a tariff on them.
Why is that the only other option?
What happened to all those poor buggy whip manufacturers when Henry Ford started cranking out cars? Did they all starve to death or leech off the government for the rest of their life?
@Bill Derington - Should we go to great lengths to preserve the IRS just because of how many accountants' jobs are at stake? Should we make the tax code even more complex in order to ensure their continuing employment?
Better yet lets send the IRS jobs to China, they'll do the same job for less.
What about the radio jobs RCA and the like lost to Sony? Are we better or worse off for advancing technology at the expense of American jobs?
Hey, Brazil wanted to foster a nice little computer industry so they tariffed the ish out foreign computers. We all know how that turned out. Brazil is the leader in computer technology
Transy, if you're fine with the ever increasing number of people on govt help more power to you, I personally am not.
I've literally said the exact opposite dozens, if not hundreds, of times in this thread
Why do you keep saying this? It's a total non-sequitur. It's not like there are millions of Americans who are incapable of doing anything besides sewing cheap tshirts or assembling iPhones
Remove government interference, and let innovation explode once again. Then protectionism won't be needed.
Guess I am confused. According to this administration and many Dems, the economy has recovered. However, Hilary is now saying she is going to put Bill in charge of "revitalizing" the economy.
What do you think about the current price of gasoline, Bill?
Should the US government step in to artificially inflate the price and give all that money to the oil and gas industry to keep those companies afloat? Or should you an I continue to benefit from low gas prices?
Should the US government step in to artificially inflate the price and give all that money to the oil and gas industry to keep those companies afloat? Or should you an I continue to benefit from low gas prices?
I completely agree, unfortunately the oppurtunities to do something else are getting fewer and fewer.
It's funny you bring that up, because many on here sound just like the people moaning about drilling in the US would never be enough to lower the price of gaoline.
Time to get to Mars, people.
Getting to the moon was one of our crowning achievements and spurred a whole era of innovation and jobs.
We shouldn't be talking about getting back jobs where we create tvs. We should be talking about creating jobs to create the technology to colonize Mars.
Getting to the moon was one of our crowning achievements and spurred a whole era of innovation and jobs.
We shouldn't be talking about getting back jobs where we create tvs. We should be talking about creating jobs to create the technology to colonize Mars.
The negotiations for NAFTA began during the Reagan administration and continued through the Bush 1 administration. Ross Perot's whole campaign in '92 centered around NAFTA. It was "The giant sucking sound" as he coined it. Perot was against it...both Bush and Clinton supported it. It passed in the Senate with a 61-38 vote...and 234-200 vote in the House. Most of the support was from the GOP.
Trump can talk about it but he was supporting Clinton (both of them) the whole time they were in office. Not that it won't play with the low-informed voter...to others it looks pretty hypocritical.
I think Japan is a pretty poor case to cite.
Japan is an island nation that has to import nearly all of it's raw materials. The US on the other hand could be pretty self sufficient from that standpoint. The problem with protectionism is that it is usually met with protectionism. If we close off our market to others, others will close off their market to us. That will hurt those industries that are major exporters like agriculture. It would force a major shake-up of industry for sure...but I think if it could work anywhere, it would be here.
My point is that you basically stated that Reagan supported taxing imports as a way to protect US jobs. You implied that believed in that approach to trade. That is not at all what happened. He wanted free trade with Japan and they broke that agreement, so I wasn't sure what point you were making by linking this article.
There are plenty of jobs that aren't outsource-able and come with a very respectable earning potential. If you're a nurse or a plumber, your job isn't getting outsourced and you can get your certification without sinking tons of money into a bachelors degree.
But segments of our population would rather sit on their laurels and complain about Rodrigo in Nicaragua assembling some seatbelt component.
