America has benefitted civilization greatly. Why change it?

it's crazy that about every two days now it's like another 9-11, crazy, that is a lot of people

 

Its not imports which are affecting the job market. It is neoliberalism. That is wrong seen as globalism. In reality, it is the ultimate commodification of people as factors of production. That then encourages the trade imbalance. Direction of causation matters.

 

the problem is we do not tax imports enough to keep Americans competitive and corps choose foreign labor over American labor

same with foreign outsourcing

corps have found it's more profitable to import low quality products that do not last as long as people have to buy them more often as well

the reality is, there has to be a balance.... people need good jobs or society crashes

 

Tariffs necessarily destroy economic activity. The only way the US could win from it is through 'optimal tariff' manipulation of world prices. However, that would (if it didn't just lead to retaliation) just benefit corporations.

Again you're going for the wrong target. This is really just about neoliberalism, including short term profiteering behaviour. Imports aren't the problem; they are a symptom of it.

 

yes, it's harder to do after the fact, it should have been done from the get go

now we have put our hand in Pandora's box and it's gonna hurt removing it

 

Nope. The point is its irrelevant. You can't treat the disease by pandering to the symptom.

 

what do you think the disease is exactly - not sure I understand the point your trying to make

sounds to me like you want to make it even easier for corps to outsource jobs and import goods?

 

I've mentioned it several times: the problem is neoliberalism, generating extreme inequalities. Any reference to solution by reducing imports is snake oil, only showing a twin failure to understand the problem and trade theory.

 

You keep repeating this right wing stuff, Reivs. I reckon I've pulled the rug out from under your comfortable assumptions about your own Leftism, and you're going with the old "I'm not, you are!". The more you say it, the more I know it's about you.

 

give us some examples of what you mean

when I look up neoliberalism, it says "a modified form of liberalism tending to favor free-market capitalism."

is free-market capitalism the issue?

if so, sounds like your saying the same as me, we need speed limits, we can't just allow all this excessive foreign outsourcing and foreign imports, there needs to be balance

greedy Corporatism is killing Capitalism

 

I was hoping for better quality pretense. Supporting imperialism and then chanting a right wing narrative? Crikey, at least try and hide it!

 

Neoliberalism is market fundamentalism. However, free markets are neither desirable or achievable. The free market economics involved actually has a more insidious aim: to accentuate rentier capitalism. That does not just create a government actively working in support of big business. It also disempowers the working class, ensuring further economic rent creation through wage exploitation. Its of no surprise, for example, that we easily find phenomena such as wage-productivity gaps and an underclass within countries that have more fully embraced neoliberal principles (particularly the UK and the US).

I'm not saying anything of the kind. Trade imbalances are a macro phenomena based on savings rates. Any focus on import reduction, such as arguing in favour of tariffs, is merely going to be destructive.

Two aspects here. First, it isnt difficult for the capitalist elite to protect the paradigm despite its inherent contradictions. See, for example, the use of Quantitative Easing. And before that, see the use of Military Keynesianism. Macro solutions are available which avoid empowering the workers. Indeed, Quantitative Easing was followed by austerity where the working class paid for the stabilisation process (e.g. evidence indicates that it led to 130,000 UK deaths, a figure agreed by the main political adviser who is now pitching his bile in the US).

Second, its not difficult to pacify the working class and ensure that they blindly accept their lot. Indeed, the false focus on import levels is a narrative deliberately designed to achieve that. It creates economic nationalism, a particularly nasty zombiefication process.

 

I'm gonna let Justin explain it for ya'. This explains it pretty well:

 

so you're saying you don't want free markets, but you also don't want government intervention to equalize the markets?

I still don't get what you want

the problem is the working class can not compete against greedy globalist corporations that have easy access to cheap labor and cheap goods

this is the future if we keep going the way were going, but it will be a painful transition

 

There is no such beast as free markets. Free market economics is used to merely increase inequalities. The obvious example is supply side economics, dressed all around trickle down celebration of inequality.

Nothing to do with what I want. As a socialist, pishing around with marginal changes in capitalism isn't something I cheer. This is simply about how imports are used, both by the left and right, to engineer false narratives that typically demand highly destructive tariffs.

That just isn't true. Western Europe highlights how you can twin relatively liberal trade with high wage and vibrant self employment.

The US will maintain its Anglo Saxon Capitalist path, twinning high poverty and low social mobility. That doesn't reflect any issue with imports. It reflects a Dem-Repub consensus over maintaining rentier capitalism.

 

It seems the big solution to your gripe is to not allow big business to contribute to political campaigns and do away with lobbying. That would be a huge improvement.

We need big business to give sociopaths something to do. Let them run big companies that can be regulated by a government ran by the people. Otherwise these sociopaths end up in the government. This is why socialism is bad.

 

Terribly oversimplistic. Neoliberalism blurs the boundaries between private and public sectors. Any solution requires the end of neoliberalism.

This is incoherent. For socialism to exist there has to be democracy at all levels, from government to local cooperative. That democracy is alien to influence costs.

 

Socialism and democracy cannot exist together. One negates the other.

 

Most of Western Europe would strongly disagree.

 

Western Europe is declining as does any country that goes socialist. They are only draining the resources built up by the free market. When that runs out they are screwed.

 

McCarthyism does make it difficult to derive sense from right wing Americans on socialism. They typically confuse socialism with the economic spectrum (i.e. government=socialism folly). Extraordinarily naive, particularly as most socialists have accepted Hayek that the socialist planner cannot replicate perfect competition. Without democracy, at all levels, it is not possible to have worker ownership and control.

 

And you try to talk around the fact that socialism has historically failed and ended in catastrophe.

 

There you go.

I often recommend that lapsed Lefties (or poseurs and cafe socialists) revisit the core, and it's looking like you might be overdue, Dear. Well overdue. You're becoming hilariously off kilter.

 

Nope. I'm actually being much more critical. I'm stating that you have no idea what socialism entails, making it impossible for you to make any determination.

Socialism, and Marxism, merely become right wing vocab jabs when confronted with circumstances beyond their comprehension.

 

Socialism, Marxism, Communism, genocidal dictatorships.....all the same.