The ideology of "Free trade" is Killing America's Economy

I feel better now.

 

You shouldn't. The consequences can be horrendous. See, for example, how trade liberalisation has increased absolute poverty problems

 

you certainly do

Logical fallacy alert!
Harming economic well-being is not part of the "definition".

How much will comparative advantage be harmed? I think the answer is not that much.

I wonder how much of this trade would continue if the USA was forced to have a trade balance with all the countries it traded with.
Because right now, America's consumerism is being fueled by debt and the selling off of capital.

More free trade isn't the magical solution to our economic problems you think it is. Any comparative advantage gains are marginal at best, and more than offset by decreases in wages.

 

We've known about the harm generated since Ricardo. Its based on opportunity costs after all, the very basics of the economic approach.

Protectionism, by definition, harms specialisation. We get two immediate unfortunate effects. First, redistribution of well-being from consumer to producer. Second, creation of a deadwight loss. The dynamic effects are of course also aggressively negative.

Given you're a right wing nationalist it standard to reason that you would also support the stupidity of economic nationalism.

Complete nonsense. The overall effect on wages will be positive given trade increases productivity (and therefore provides the means for wages to rise)

 

Name one company that makes its money not selling to customers who pay voluntarily, but leave out the companies with government socialist type backing. I know, socialism doesn't exist, and capitalism means socialism blah blah blah, I don't need the routine... but I still want that company name when you get the chance.

 

The coercion is via the labour market: the creation of inefficient economic rents. In terms of consumers? You'd have to refer to the tendency towards market power. See, for example, resource based economics and its rejection of the neoclassical notion of the optimal sized firm.

 

Faith Mission, the homeless shelter down town? Oh wait.... they are funded by those evil capitalist companies that make money off customers.

And ironically, G-d has provided more evidence of his trustworthiness, than Government has.

 

This is one of the more ironic aspects in my mind. Why is this worth complaining about? Let me put it another way.

Let us say that I want to sell you a product. Let's say a TV. The TV costs me $80 to make. Now say the market for my type of TV is $100. So I'm selling it for that much at a $20 profit.

Now say I decide I want to come up with a plan to increase my sales. I decide to ask my wife, to pay me $30 for every TV I sell. This way I can decrease my cost to $50, charge $70, and still make my $20 profit. So now I'm selling TVs for $70, $30 under market, and I'm making tons of money. But my wife is losing money on every TV I sell. The net profit between us, is a loss of $10 per TV.

Meanwhile, you who buy my TV, are getting a perfectly good quality TV set, for $30 cheaper than you could get anywhere else. You are getting tons of good stuff, while I'm slowing going into the poor house.

If I did this, would you complain about it? You are getting tons of stuff, for amazingly cheap prices, that you are benefiting from. I'm going into bankruptcy. Why is this a problem to you?

This is exactly what China is doing. The government of China is taxing the country, to subsidize exports, so we American can get cheap products, at the expense of the Chinese people....... and we're trying to stop this..... why???

If you really want this to stop, completely unrestricted all imports from China. The ever increasing cost to the Chinese government, to subsidize Chinese products, so we can get them cheap, will eventually exhaust the treasury of the Chinese government. Then they will either drive up taxes, which will hinder their economy, or they will have to cut subsidies, and the problem will go away.

Yes, this is one of the problems I have with GDP in general. Simply by definition of how they calculate GDP, imports are a negative.

But, that only changes a statistical calculation, not the real economic effect of imports.

First, stuff is wealth. Not dollars. Dollars are green paper with ink on them. Stuff is what wealth really is. If you take two people, and strand them on separate deserted islands, and give one a life time supply of food, water, shelter, whatever, and then you give the other $80 Trillion US dollars.... which is wealthy? The guy with the stuff. Dollars on a deserted island, are worthless.

Point being the only value a dollar has, is what you can exchange it for. It's the stuff that makes the difference, not the green paper with ink.

So back to imports. We're getting the stuff. They are getting green paper with ink. Further they are selling the stuff to us for very few green paper with ink. Meaning, we're becoming more wealthy, from these imports. Yet according to GDP, imports are a negative.

I disagree with that. What is worse, is that much of the GDP in our calculation, is dependent on those imports. For example, Foreign investment, is of course a positive. We want foreign people investing in the US, which gives us jobs, and buildings, and business, and all kinds of things.

But is Lexus going to invest into making car dealerships, and hiring managers, sales staff, and mechanics, if they can't import those Lexus automobiles?

No they are not. So we could prohibit the import of automobiles, and see a rise in the calculated GDP, while at the same time thousands of people are losing jobs, and the US is losing investment.

Imports are a positive thing, regardless of how GDP is calculated. For example, my company I work for right now. Nearly all of the materials we use to manufacture our products, are all imported. If imports were reduced, or restricted, my company would close. I'd be out of work..... oh but the GDP figure would be higher!!!

Cutting imports always harms the country, no matter what your calculation says.

 

From a Marxist perspective one could say that these 'inefficient' rents going to workers can help counteract the rents of capital (or to be more specific that aspect of capital which comprises land and natural resource ownership).

And of course, "efficient" in economic speak is not the same thing as more real efficiency. The direct creation of wealth might be greater, but this can lead to wealth distribution issues, which in some cases can then actually indirectly lead to lower economic efficiency. If you follow my line of thought

Unquestionably assuming that free trade ultimately leads to more wealth in all cases is a fallacy of composition.

 

Please refer me to the Marxist analysis in support of this comment. You don't seem to have progressed!