Forum Post: I Am Protectionist And Proud ! ! ! !
Posted 7 months ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 7:54 p.m. EST by mac123
(64)
from Canton Township, MI
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Sir James Goldsmith foresaw everthing that we are experiencing today. If you watch this video you will see the real reasons behind the state of our economy today. It's not just about corporate greed its about world trade and why it just won't work. Please watch this video it will be very enlightening. : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5064665078176641728
No time to watch the video but I am absolutely convinced that the slave labor in China that Walmart and the American retail industry use like beasts of burden is the cause in the collapse of America's middle class.
That is exactly what the video says!
What an amazing video, lots of good points come out of it. Slave labour is evil, both for those working and for those that loose their job because of it.
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South Korea protected their economy in the 50s and 60s when they had third world economies, but government intervention, protectionism, refusals to protect foreign patents, copyrights, they went from third world to first world. A small little exporter of fish was government supported, until it turned into a little corporation called Nokia! They are just the major cell phone company in the world! Protectionism works.
In Japan you had Toyoda. Small company. With government protection they later become the car wonder toyota!
I totally agree. Only this country is too stupid to see that let alone do it.
Globalism is not the problem. Global trade is inevitable and the U.S. is best positioned to benefit from that trade. The problem is how the very top corporate executives in this country have no problem enriching themselves while they enable the gutting of the middle class.
Protectionism and Isolationism is not the answer, Strategic trade is. Nature abhors vacuum, if the US did not take the lead in global trade, somebody else would and they would dominate. It is because of global trade that the US became the most powerful nation. Like I told you in your other thread, the problem is trading with China and India, not with other countries. Trade has to be used as a strategic tool to keep dominance, otherwise others will take the lead.
Tariffs were used to protect American workers ever since 1776. NAFTA, and the WTO have been disastrous for the US economy and have been extreamly profitable for multi- national corporations.
We will never be able to compete with 3rd world labor until we ourselves become 3rd world labor. We need to withdraw from NAFTA and WTO and implement trade policies that benefit the American workers, then we need to break up the large monopoly corporations, and make it illegal for corporations to give money to politicians in any way, shape, or form punishable by prison.
This.
He said the US should only have free trade with countries that have similar wages. It should be a regional thing. If the US engages with trade with low wage countries like India and China there will be a world wide economic catastrophy.
Beyond similar wages, please include labor and environmental laws. Otherwise, intelligent tariffs that account for the differences, please.
Another thing he brings up in the video is that millions of people in third world countries will flock to the cities to get the new jobs being offered and there will be far too many people to be employed driving wages down even further.
Agreed
Nobody said isolationism. Strategic trade would be considered protectionist by free trade fundamentalists. And I really recommend the video.
Global trade is an irresistible force. The wage differential happened because of colonial domination of 2-3 centuries by Western Europe and it is slowly giving way to lesser wage differential. But it is happening for countries that got market access, which was given as a reward for political alliance. So to think that one country even the most powerful one like the US can stop global trends is wishful thinking.
It does not matter if people call strategic trade protectionism, this is what is needed to stop Chinese and Indian dominance, not just for US and EU, but for the rest of the world, who are essentially nations less populous than the US and will never be a threat for the US. But China and India, each individually, are a looming threat for the whole world. Because unimaginable power and just a small step from poverty and malnutrition is a bad cocktail and a recipe for global instability and chaos.