tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post3484921089903565513..comments2024-03-28T16:22:14.888-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: The dogma of globalismUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50974553948128891042014-09-24T13:00:07.503-07:002014-09-24T13:00:07.503-07:00Free trade is the major cause of our economic cris...Free trade is the major cause of our economic crisis. Free trade is not trade as historically practiced and defined. It is more about dividing production from investment and moving production from place to place anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor. The investment communities win and everyone else loses. <br /><br />Every buy affects us up and now the line.<br /><br />Americans now vote more in the cash register line than they do in a voting booth on what kind of society they want to live in.<br />At the same time, they shop their way out of their jobs because there will always be someone willing to work for less in order to survive. This is an ugly way to deal with poverty. Workers in impoverished lands become wage slaves while in the more prosperous countries, new working poor classes are created.<br /><br />Sooner or later the process cancels itself out. The working poor find it more and more difficult to even buy the cheaper imports while those making the products can not even afford to buy the things they make. Free trade economics is indeed is a race to the bottom. <br /><br />President Obama bailed out the process when he took over but ignored all the suffering of those who lost everything due to free trade. In essence the bail outs are really tariffs on future workers.<br /><br />Now our economies based on making money on money instead of making things are burning out. <br /><br />The Great Depression continues in a silent controlled way.<br /><br />See more at http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews http://ray-tapajna-info.net/flatworld and http://tapsearch.com/clinton Search under tapart news or tapsearch com or ray tapajna and add free trade or globalization for thousands of references and resources on this subject. <br />See also http://art-that-talks.filetap.com <br />Search under Double Talk American Dream Reversed and you will find millions of results. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15555635879115959214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-2647644722706483292010-08-04T01:59:02.512-07:002010-08-04T01:59:02.512-07:00the united states does not function in an environm...the united states does not function in an environment of free trade, so i don't know what this thread is even about. many developed nations with advanced industrial manufacturing have barriers and obstacles which greatly reduce or even nearly eliminate US exports.<br /><br />there is no free trade right now. most english speaking economists are dead wrong, as usual.<br /><br />the problem of course, is exactly what the economist who emailed steve had said: these people are too far removed from the actual "getting stuff done" part of industry and sales. like lawyers, they can now live almost their entire lives ensconced in an artificial world which exists only due to technology and fiat money. they can spend 30 years clicking keys on a computer in an air conditioned office, and hand people slips of green paper to get food, gasoline, and electricity in return. they then cook up this idea in their head that the US operates under free trade.<br /><br />meanwhile, in the office building next to them, veteran engineers working for some other company, who know with 100% certainty which of their products cannot even be shipped to nations X, Y, and Z, do some educated guesstimation on the cost/benefit ratio of a new, expensive, and risky automobile platform. "Can we sell enough units in nation A to justify building a factory there, or are their restrictive laws going to make it not worth doing?"<br /><br />listening to an economist's ideas on how the world works is merely humor, and akin to listening to white suburban fantasy football players evaluating prospects before even 1 game of preseason NFL football has been played. they have their formulas, methods, data, ratings, and they're ready to draft a team. they've played fantasy football for 10 years and this time, well this time, they know for sure how to win their league.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-25589652362891472092010-08-03T22:50:02.098-07:002010-08-03T22:50:02.098-07:00>Here's a survey of AEA economists... somet...>Here's a survey of AEA economists... something like 90% of them favor complete, unrestricted free trade.<<br /><br />Argument from authority.<br /><br />90% of biologists will tell you in a survey that there is no such thing as race.<br /><br />90% of Medieval physicians believed in "Humors."<br /><br />Yawn. For allegedly "Rational Beings," you Ayn Rosenbaumers commit the most rudimentary errors in argumentation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-10148182519711039252010-08-03T21:59:13.484-07:002010-08-03T21:59:13.484-07:00"Annyhow, China now sits on a cash pile of up..."<i>Annyhow, China now sits on a cash pile of upward of $2trillion, money which in the full crazyiness of free trade is lent back to Americans in order to fund the feeding frenzy of buying more Chinese goods!</i>"<br /><br />Actually the Chinese are buying up perhaps hundreds of square miles of choice farmland. They are doing it through third parties. They are contacting executive farmers to see if they will work the farms for the Chinese here in America.<br /><br />Very few folks are tracking this, but word is leaking out. I heard from a farmer/engineer/senior manager who works for a large ag equipment company. He was wooed for months by the front men for the Chinese. <br /><br />They are buying up rural America, they just need someone round-eye front men to manage it for them, to do the planting, cultivating, and harvesting.The Dudenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-28957341501967984432010-08-03T21:43:32.074-07:002010-08-03T21:43:32.074-07:00"Anyone who tells you the free movement of la..."Anyone who tells you the free movement of labor is not on the agenda is lying. Each round of trade talks has whittled away at more and more items. First it was manufactured goods, later financial services and now they are working out agricultural policies. Labor will eventually be discussed because free trade can't exist without the free movement of labor."<br /><br /><br />It IS being discussed. It is called <a href="http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm6_e.htm#commitments" rel="nofollow">GATS - the General Agreement on Trade in Services</a>. It is continuously discussed, secret negotiations are carried out by secret negotiators,, all the time, to break down barriers to trade in services -- people work.<br /><br />The GATS template/master agreement was signed in 1994 after the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. Each country makes "commitments", i.e. appendices to the master agreement in which they agree to let foreigners in to compete with local service providers. <br /><br />Each round of negotiations is deliberately intended to expand these "commitments" until there is a free flow of people and business around the world. <br /><br />Ultimately it will <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2001/apr/15/columnists.theobserver" rel="nofollow">transfer virtually all sovereignty</a> to GATS and the WTO.<br /><br /><a href="http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2002/04/16/USA.pdf" rel="nofollow">This memo</a> should give you a sense of what is up for grabs. In this memo, Europe demands the Feds b!tch slap the states until they bend over and take it up the keister, changing their laws on everything from real estate to the law in order to accomodate foreign multinationals who want unfettered access to America's service sector.<br /><br />Remember "the Doha round"? that is what it is all about.<br /><br />I predict that we will have Indian hospital corporations working in America, paying Indian nurses $3,000 a year (excellent Indian wages, by the way) to live and work as nurses in an Indian hospital located in America. Cheap medical care at wages American hospital cannot compete against. That is what "trade in services" means.Big Billnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-70983404964950006952010-08-03T16:25:15.484-07:002010-08-03T16:25:15.484-07:00Annyhow, China now sits on a cash pile of upward o...Annyhow, China now sits on a cash pile of upward of $2trillion, money which in the full crazyiness of free trade is lent back to Americans in order to fund the feeding frenzy of buying more Chinese goods!<br /><br />Its actually sitting in a federal reserve account, they can spend it on US goods or they can spend it on US Treasuries, in which in case its reserve account is debited and its securities account is credited. There's not thing China can do to us that wouldn't hurt them more. We traded the IOUs we printed for their manufactured goods they produced. The government could stop selling bonds at any time and life would go on just the same. <br /><br />As Jamie Galbraith (a sharper economist than his illustrious father, not as tall) put it:<br /><br /><i>A government borrowing in its own currency need never default on its debts; paying them is simply a matter of adding the interest to the bank accounts of the bond holders. A government can only decide to default – an act of financial suicide – or (in the case of a government borrowing in a currency it doesn’t control) be forced to default by its bankers. But a US bank will always cash a check issued by the US Government, whatever happens.</i><br />http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/54561beowulfnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-60413500486423900522010-08-03T16:24:27.057-07:002010-08-03T16:24:27.057-07:00Part of the problem is that the usual suspects hav...Part of the problem is that the usual suspects have peddled snail oil like <a href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5269" rel="nofollow">this</a> and <a href="http://www.capitalism.net/Capitalism/Economics%20and%20Capitalism.htm" rel="nofollow">this</a> for half a century - through novels, lectures, tapes, institutes, committees, "think" tanks, etc.<br /><br />Never underestimate the influence of Jewish charismatic leadership on a populace of "idealistic" American boobs.<br /><br />The roll call of the libertards' magical patriarchs and matriarchs includes Mises, who was (in real life, not in an Alissa Rosenbaum fantasy) run out of Austria for destroying its economy. He and his groupies put about a different tale after emigrating, of course.<br /><br />Libertardism is just one of those 1960s spin-offs of the New Left. Neoconservatism is another. Both are as phony as a Liberty Dollar.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-85403042687694662022010-08-03T13:21:04.067-07:002010-08-03T13:21:04.067-07:00"Not quite true - the Democrats were against ..."Not quite true - the Democrats were against big business and banks but supported free trade, believing that tariffs hurt the farmer. William Graham Sumner, the leading advocate of laissez-faire economics, was a Democrat. The Republicans supported big business and banking and also supported high tariffs."<br /><br />You're right. I guess I just bundled up all the things that are currently neo-liberal dogma.ATBOTLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59574709863291014332010-08-03T12:54:32.240-07:002010-08-03T12:54:32.240-07:00Protectionism is basically like subsidizing Americ...<i>Protectionism is basically like subsidizing Americans who are bad at their jobs and preventing me from trading with people who are good at theirs, making the entire nation, on net, poorer.</i><br /><br />Well, no, that is not, as a matter of fact, how various forms of protectionism play out in the real world. Nations that have moved from poverty to First World status in the last half-century did not get there by free-trading (and neither did the original "First World".)<br /><br /><i>I recommend checking out the arguments at cafehayek.com.</i><br /><br />Been there, done that, went out by the same door wherein I went.Rohan Sweenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90105134099200765242010-08-03T11:01:22.029-07:002010-08-03T11:01:22.029-07:00Someone here mentioned the 'moral' argumen...Someone here mentioned the 'moral' argument that governments should not interfere with the rights of indivuals to trade with their own money.<br /> Yes, all well and good, but before the invention pf paper money when all transactions were done in a limited stock of precious metals, many nations were literally 'drained' of their money stock - thus pauperizing every citizen of that nation.This was the justification of controlling imports.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-680621681674887922010-08-03T09:58:59.208-07:002010-08-03T09:58:59.208-07:00Those globalized free trade policies did work well...<i>Those globalized free trade policies did work well. They created demand for employees at all wage levels.</i> <br /><br /><br />Have you noticed the current unemployment levels?<br /><br /><br /><i>in constant dollars, as a technical guy, I make almost 50% more than I would have made in the early '90s.</i> <br /><br />Why do you attribute that to free trade? Has it occurred to you that without "free trade" you might make more than you do?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-21508775402386437652010-08-03T09:54:31.716-07:002010-08-03T09:54:31.716-07:00I'm curious to know what people mean by "...<i>I'm curious to know what people mean by "the elite(s)." If defined by income and education - surely two reasonable factors - I suspect that quite a few Stevosphere regulars would fit the category.</i> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />That's not a reasonable definition. To be part of the elite you have to work in certain sectors - the media, acadamia, politics. If in business you have to not just comfortable, but filthy rich. I suspect that few billionaires spend their time here.<br /><br />Simply being intelligent does not make you part of the elite. In many cases its a hindrance rather than a help.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-46314462914862727032010-08-03T07:24:17.403-07:002010-08-03T07:24:17.403-07:00An amazing argument from someone who largely subsc...An amazing argument from someone who largely subscribes to the Austrian business cycle theory. It really comes down to freedom - unless it's for our common defense, what right does our government have to interfere with who I trade with? Protectionism is basically like subsidizing Americans who are bad at their jobs and preventing me from trading with people who are good at theirs, making the entire nation, on net, poorer. <br /><br />You may not agree with everything they say (I don't), but I recommend checking out the arguments at cafehayek.com. In general, I believe mainstream macroeconomics is about as believable as Lysenko's genetics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59915037938571439882010-08-03T06:59:34.822-07:002010-08-03T06:59:34.822-07:00P.S. I second Futurepundit's call to choose a...P.S. I second Futurepundit's call to choose a bloody pseudonym, damn it. You wouldn't think making up a name would be an insurmountable cognitive hurdle for Steve readers, but apparently it is.Rohan Sweenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-85070600200130577512010-08-03T06:58:51.173-07:002010-08-03T06:58:51.173-07:00Anonymous: But the point is this.Back in the day,...Anonymous: <i>But the point is this.Back in the day, free trade was sold to te people with the line that 'tarriffs keep Americans in bad jobs' ie the broad mass of factory jobs then done by Americans were 'bad' and better performed by cheaper foreigners and consequently Americans woud surely move into 'better' more productive employment.[...]</i><br /><br />But it has been kinda entertaining to observe the change in tone and content of the economic propagandists over time, though: "It'll be win-win for eeeeverybody!" eventually becomes "I'm sorry, but you just have to understand that we live in a globalized world and you're just going to have to accept that your standard of living is going to be adjusted significantly downward. Really, you lower quintiles of First World workers need to get over yourselves!"<br /><br />Not that the transformation has been completely uniform and one-sided. There are still pockets of "but, but, it is, too, still win-win for eeeeverybody, you're just too ignorant of economic theory to realize how much better off you are!", to accompany the half-baked, fashionable utilitarian shillery parading as ethical concern, exemplified by Mr. "morally unworthy", above.Rohan Sweenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26052209701032377312010-08-03T05:33:58.565-07:002010-08-03T05:33:58.565-07:00Well enough of pontificating about the wage stagna...Well enough of pontificating about the wage stagnation (but not expense stagnation) in the USA and how it coincided exactly with the adoption of hardline 'free trade', I wish to move on to something even more important, namely how the USA is now the bond slave (literally) of China.<br /> Amewrica has run massive, persistent and intractable trade deficits for decades now - sometthing that free trade theory actually tells us is impossible (another reason for ignoring the shrill screams and rants of the brainless), as deficits 'self-correct' in the fullness of time and an 'equilibrium' emerges, supposedly mediated by currency depreciation.<br /> Annyhow, China now sits on a cash pile of upward of $2trillion, money which in the full crazyiness of free trade is lent back to Americans in order to fund the feeding frenzy of buying more Chinese goods! - How is this 'smart' or even defensible, not to mention sustainable.Much of Chinese cash pile was 'lent back' to fund supposedly 'cheap mortgages' to wage stunted US proles - look where that ended up.The crisis took a bad turn when the Chinese barked and growled that Fanny and Freddy wren't going to be bailed out - giving the US government the willies.<br /> Now we all know who calls the shoots - a nation that 30 years ago couldn't harm a hair on America's head.After 30 years of free trade, the Chinese, if they so wished, could destroy the USA overnight by merely punching a few computer buttons.<br /> But you've got to keep plugging the dogma, don't you, after all 90% of economists can't be wrong.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77739373677249586582010-08-02T23:55:19.739-07:002010-08-02T23:55:19.739-07:00Some here are bragging that free trade has increas...Some here are bragging that free trade has increased their incomes in their highly specialized field.<br /> But the point is this.Back in the day, free trade was sold to te people with the line that 'tarriffs keep Americans in bad jobs' ie the broad mass of factory jobs then done by Americans were 'bad' and better performed by cheaper foreigners and consequently Americans woud surely move into 'better' more productive employment.Apart from the fact that the policy of uncontrolled mass immigration introduced contemporaneously effectively negated the 'rise in productivity' argument, the experience of 40 years tells us that median incomes have not grown at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-89223855785097352832010-08-02T23:05:13.734-07:002010-08-02T23:05:13.734-07:00steve wood,
Best to look at an example of elite b...steve wood,<br /><br />Best to look at an example of elite behavior. The elites are, for example, <a href="http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconvenient-truth_296.php" rel="nofollow">the people who got together to cast James Watson into the wilderness</a>. Hostile? You bet. They are a powerful group that marginalizes all those who do not accept their basic belief system.FuturePundithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02648675613651502692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13228231541716529882010-08-02T22:58:06.417-07:002010-08-02T22:58:06.417-07:00dearieme,
Europeans and Canadians who feel a need...dearieme,<br /><br />Europeans and Canadians who feel a need to do status posturing by posing as more knowledgeable than Americans need to seek psychological counseling to work out the sources of their dissatisfactions and hopefully come up with ideas for how to feel better about themselves.<br /><br />This would benefit not only those who feel unrequited desire for higher status but also many blog comment readers who will be saved from off-topic status posturing posts that are irrelevant to what is being discussed.FuturePundithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02648675613651502692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-25249927469714778252010-08-02T22:52:55.285-07:002010-08-02T22:52:55.285-07:00When I was an undergrad taking econ courses a few ...When I was an undergrad taking econ courses a few decades ago a couple of econ profs claimed to us that if the US ever ran a large deficit the dollar would decline in value until our imports declined and exports increased. Then our trade would balance. That's what they taught.<br /><br />The US is running a large sustained trade deficit. The automatic adjustment mechanisms claimed by the economists aren't happening. <br /><br />This going deeper into debt with foreign governments and banks has to be bad for the American people in the long run. Yet economists seem to just ignore the trade deficit. What's with that?<br /><br />I'm skeptical about the elite consensus of economists because:<br /><br />- We are running a large chronic trade deficit. Yet they still just bleat about Ricardo.<br />- The Chinese are managing our trade with them via currency manipulations, IP theft, and other mercantilistic practices.<br />- The economists (with a few exceptions) can't recognize a huge financial bubble.<br />- The economists can't predict financial crises.<br />- The economy no longer delivers rising living standards for most people. Lowering trade barriers in the 1990s did not put an end to this living standard stagnation.FuturePundithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02648675613651502692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12641307343841762802010-08-02T21:53:44.476-07:002010-08-02T21:53:44.476-07:00I'm curious to know what people mean by "...<b>I'm curious to know what people mean by "the elite(s)." If defined by income and education - surely two reasonable factors - I suspect that quite a few Stevosphere regulars would fit the category. And yet, the conversation here is always about "the elites" as though they were some remote, hostile group.</b><br /><br />The elites would emphatically exclude any regular, approving reader of iSteve from the elites, no matter how rich, no matter how smart, no matter how famous. See: James Watson, and about a thousand others.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20612863438899548722010-08-02T21:49:19.393-07:002010-08-02T21:49:19.393-07:00The elite belief that we must continue to move up ...<b>The elite belief that we must continue to move up the food chain as we did from agrarianism to the industrial revolution to the computer age to the internet age... they believe manufacturing no longer matters and we will continue to perform high-end engineering and design here even as everything gets made in China.</b><br /><br />Survey the list of the wealthiest countries and it's notable that, in spite of all the emphasis on technology, how many of them have disproportionately large per capita shares of natural resources. Natural resources still matter - a lot. Countries that drive down their per capita shares of resources, like, say, through mass immigration, are only impoverishing themselves in the long run.Captain Jack Aubreynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12881196523258348932010-08-02T21:44:49.041-07:002010-08-02T21:44:49.041-07:00The 'Smoot Hawley' caused the Great Depres...<b>The 'Smoot Hawley' caused the Great Depression meme somehow became the accepted wisdom of American society.</b><br /><br />That's because just about everybody has seen "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" - most of us dozens of times.<br /><br /><b>My guess is that the U.S. will languish for some number of years until 'something' forces a real shift in policy. What 'something' will be I do not know.</b><br /><br />I'm not suggesting that my predictive abilities are all-powerful, but I more or less foresaw the current trajectory - Obama victory, massive political overreach, failure of economy to rebound, and (hopefully) big Republican victories in the mid-terms. Granted that's not necessarily an unrealistic assumption for anyone who remembers the '92 and '94 elections.<br /><br />I wanted McCain to lose because McCain, like Obama, would fail, only the (potentially) conservative party would get the blame, and then we'd really be hosed.<br /><br />Predicting further that our economy will languish for a decade because neither party is willing to adopt the right policies isn't a real stretch.<br /><br />Until Republicans get right on trade, taxes (i.e., not lowering them for the rich), immigration (legal and illegal), and race-discrimination policies (like affirmative action and CRA), this country is going nowhere.Captain Jack Aubreynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-62798957647551176582010-08-02T21:41:35.541-07:002010-08-02T21:41:35.541-07:00Great post Steve. You should write more on this to...Great post Steve. You should write more on this topic. I think many economists know our trade deficits with China is unhealthy but are afraid to offer concrete actions to deal with it because they don't want to be labeled protectionist.<br /><br />Glossy said:<br /><br />"But the US Treasury can currently issue long-term inflation-protected securities at an interest rate of 1.75%. So the long-term cost of servicing an extra trillion dollars of borrowing is $17.5 billion"<br /><br />Does that mean that once the general level of interest rates in the economy goes back up, the Treasury will still be able to only pay its creditors 1.75% on those bonds? I'm asking because I read somewhere recently that interest payments on the federal debt are expected to balloon once the general level of interest rates goes up. Whoever wrote that (unfortunately forgot the source) seemed to contradict what Krugman is saying here. Does anyone know who's right on this?"<br /><br />Most Treasury debt is issued for terms of less then five years. When this debt comes due it will be rolled over with new debt at whatever the current interest rate is at the time. Many people predict that rates will go up in the future.Mercernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-35990155541061491312010-08-02T21:11:53.656-07:002010-08-02T21:11:53.656-07:00If the globalized free trade policies that the eli...<i>If the globalized free trade policies that the elites have foisted upon America have worked so damn well, why have median US wages stagnated for 40 years?</i><br /><br />Those globalized free trade policies <i>did</i> work well. They created demand for employees at all wage levels. At the high end it gave people more pricing power - in constant dollars, as a technical guy, I make almost 50% more than I would have made in the early '90s.<br /><br />On the low end the additional demand that <i>should</i> have given rise to higher wages was swamped by illegal immigration. The jobs I did in high school to save for college pay about half what I made in constant dollars. There's your stagnation right there.Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10330712047609650184noreply@blogger.com