kalm wrote:... many of these countries have more aggressive protectionist trade policies. Not to mention we allow companies to shift manufacturing overseas, stimulating the Chinese economy while avoiding the costs of living wages or environmental protection, and allow them to sell those products once produced in the U.S. back to us while not paying any tariffs whatsoever. We don't have to let them do that. We still have a substantial market full of demand and if multinationals don't like paying high enough wages or minimizing pollution, they can try selling their high end consumer products to the third world and be replaced by companies that will. We have built in trade and market advantages and we need to start using them. ...
Interesting theory, kalm, but our own sh!t stinks, too. Your control-freakoconomics will not derive the utopic results of your wet dreams. Instead 95% of your New Deal regulatory regime is a tar baby of failure. There is not a sufficient free flow of market-driven capital and labor necessary for the kind of productivity and competitiveness to sustain a successful fair trade foreign policy. Every piece of bullsh!t socialist legislation Obama has passed makes the American economy that much more more sluggish, unproductive and uncompetitive.
I would support your fair trade scenario, IF we got our own house in order first by eliminating (NOT increasing) barriers to the free flow of labor and capital, empowering individual workers and small businesses, eliminating costly social welfare programs that sidetrack capital, encourage waste and sloth, immobilize the workforce and stifle productivity and associating with like minded nations on a preferential basis. Instead of Obamania, the government should be all about empowering the individual worker with things like 401(k) plans, mobile and personal medical insurance plans, right to work, privatized self-sustaining "paygo" social security and medicare programs.
1. De-emphasize American participation in the United Nations and form a new free trade federation to take its place, in which the only members allowed to join must abide by commonly accepted environmental emissions, fair trade and personal liberty standards. Communist countries and countries under sharia law, for example, could not possibly qualify for membership. Reciprocal intellectual property rights, laws, clean air and water standards, etc., would be required to join. Establish free-trade-zone federation outposts in non-federation countries to provide for peaceful trade and exchange of ideas.
2. Reduce the American military footprint abroad, returning to a somewhat Jeffersonian maritime military strategy in which the military is used to protect American LIVES and COMMERCE, not state building. COMMERCE becomes the biggest stick, backed up by an absolutely ruthless military might which destroys anyone who dares tread on the U.S. citizens or businesses or its federation partners, who would also be required to contribute on a fair share basis to the maritime military forces and in most instances agree to be led by the U.S. military.
3. Encourage immigration ONLY for those who learn English, sincerely want to become Americans, and subscribe completely and without reservation to the U.S. Constitution and traditional American political values. Here's the bad part for all you haters: This would allow greater immigration of Christian and Buddhist populations and eliminate huge numbers of Muslims. Sure, let gays and opther suffering groups immmigrate but not just because they are gay.
4. Make right to work the law of the land. Union wages and work rules are discriminatory, and create a barrier to productivity, innovation and competition.
5. Eliminate minimum wages and "living wages." Artificially high wages encourage black market economic activity and illegal labor and discourage the creation of entry level jobs for youth who need the money and the work experience. Lower wages at least leave a place in the economy and society for the marginally employable and incentivize those capable of greater productivity to get off their arses. Sufficient protection will be provided against slave-labor societies and non-free countries because
6. Eliminate public sector emplyee unions. Local democratic elections provide protection enough. There should be no more tenure in public life than in private life - even less. Public sector employee unions are an inherent conflict of interest, have an unwarranted and undemocratic stranglehold on state and local governments, and create a drag on productivity, innovation and competition. In the case of education, empower all parents with vouchers to send their children to the schools of their choice. GUARANTEED better school board, teacher and student results with parents thusly empowered and the NEA out of business.
7. Eliminate all political payola programs like Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, the Chrysler and GM bailouts, et al. Such programs contravene the Constitution, purposefully avoid economic responsibility and accountability, divert capital and labor to unproductive purposes, and have become a massive and corrupt political payoff assembly line in which politicians and academics with ZERO management or economic productivity credentials reap fortunes while violating the public trust.
8. Minimize and reform social welfare programs, for example those which reward profligate and irresponsible sexual behavior. Such programs create a permanent underclass while punishing innocent taxpayers without really protecting innocent children. In the current system, only the guilty and their co-dependent public sector enablers reap the benefits. The children, the taxpayers, and the greater society and economy suffer. After one "mistake," everything else is criminal negligence and abuse on the part of the "parents," and should be harshly punished as such.
9. Making all these changes would not only optimize utilization of labor and capital, creating the greatest possible OPPORTUNITY for all, it would also collapse the government to perhaps 20% to 30% of its current size, which in itself would eliminate public debt and stimulate the economy to once again lead the world in growth, productivity and OPPORTUNITY.
