Whats wrong with an import tax?

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Long term evaluations of free trade, both academic and by government and NGOs show that free trade adds pretty significantly to a country's GDP over time. There are winners and there are losers, but it's a net positive.

The policy prescription for this is strong free trade principles coupled with a social safety net to aid the losers in the free trade scheme. For example, the Nordic countries that are the envy of the world combine very strong free trade principles with this sort of welfare state, and they do it very effectively. Our primary problem in the US is that we have a movement that forgets half of this recipe.

That's a free trade policy I could get on board with, but as long as the free marketeers insist on equating economic win with societal win our country's problems are going to keep getting worse.

 

[Modelworks]

Because then we get taxed on exports.

We still export stuff ? News to me. Seems all we do is import. I can't think of one product the USA has that other countries can't get without us.

I can't buy anything without some part of it being made in China. Even the damn apple juice in stores is concentrate from China. What , no apples in the USA either ?

 

[fskimospy]

We still export stuff ? News to me. Seems all we do is import. I can't think of one product the USA has that other countries can't get without us.

I can't buy anything without some part of it being made in China. Even the damn apple juice in stores is concentrate from China. What , no apples in the USA either ?

We export more than a trillion dollars worth of goods annually. In particular we are the largest exporter of intellectual property in the world.

 

[juiio]

I never see that mentioned in here, never see it in the news. Why don't we impose a tax on imports? While I can see some issues with it, there is a lot to be said for bringing some of our exported jobs back home.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley

 

[Acanthus]

We export more than a trillion dollars worth of goods annually. In particular we are the largest exporter of intellectual property in the world.

And our largest trade partner doesn't honor our IP laws.

They openly counterfeit our goods.

 

[Acanthus]

Among large countries we have the highest per capita GDP and standard of living so I would say that free trade has helped us.

Our median income is also the highest among large nations in the world.

Our median income is not the highest, especially when you factor in real estate and healthcare... Not even close.

We also have the highest gini index in the developed world.

 

[Acanthus]

That's a myth, the US still produces more goods by a large margin then any other country on the planet. The difference is that per hour of labor we can produce alot more due to large capital investments that are already here. So to say we build alot of shit we just dont need that many people to do it anymore. We also tend to build more technical stuff, china mostly produces low tech garbage products.

Problem is if we forced more manufacturing to come back here, likely most of it would end up automated and it wouldn't really contribute that much in terms of jobs.

We don't "make" anything. It is all financial instruments based on fiat currency. We make very little "hard" goods... Especially when you consider our population growth.

OMG we make 10% more with 320,000,000 people than we did with 130,000,000 people! Things must be peachy!

 

[Acanthus]

Yeah no kidding. Its worse than Haiti around here. There's one family I know who had to decide if they were going to buy his kids games for their PS3, Wii, or Xbox360 for Christmas.. My god! The humanity! I think they settled on PS3 games this year for Xmas.. Hopefully the children won't starve.

Marginalizing the decline of the bottom 80% of our country doesn't help your argument. At all.

 

[Modelworks]

We export more than a trillion dollars worth of goods annually. In particular we are the largest exporter of intellectual property in the world.

only 1 trillion ? That is about like Bill Gates giving someone $100

 

[Modelworks]

We don't "make" anything. It is all financial instruments based on fiat currency. We make very little "hard" goods... Especially when you consider our population growth.

OMG we make 10% more with 320,000,000 people than we did with 130,000,000 people! Things must be peachy!

That is the root of the problem. We don't make anything here anymore. Where I live 20 years ago it was growing and the job market was good. What changed ? Almost all of the jobs were in textiles. There were yarn and cotton processors, rug companies and more. As the jobs went overseas those factories closed to the point there are no textile jobs at all now. there is only a few meat processing plants and the rest of the jobs are working retail.

 

[JS80]

That is the root of the problem. We don't make anything here anymore. Where I live 20 years ago it was growing and the job market was good. What changed ? Almost all of the jobs were in textiles. There were yarn and cotton processors, rug companies and more. As the jobs went overseas those factories closed to the point there are no textile jobs at all now. there is only a few meat processing plants and the rest of the jobs are working retail.

Why do you want to stick Americans with manual slave labor? It's a good thing these types of jobs are no longer here. It's a sign of progress.

 

[Acanthus]

Why do you want to stick Americans with manual slave labor? It's a good thing these types of jobs are no longer here. It's a sign of progress.

Except that we have mountains of wealth flowing out of the country.

 

[Acanthus]

It is no secret there there is a direct causal relationship between both public and private investment and GDP growth.

Since all of the investment is going overseas... our growth has dramatically slowed. Even in the worst recession in 70 years... China's growth only hiccuped while we tumbled to massive unemployment and negative GDP.

 

[DesiPower]

Trade wars are bad because everyone losses.

Look at the Great Depression and notice that every country in the world raised tariffs and it brought world trade to a stand still making things worse.

... and it will be specially very bad for us and our economy is so totally based in exports...

 

[DesiPower]

Other countries will do the same thing and tariffs add costs to consumers without commensurate benefit. Trade barriers are generally a bad idea unless you're trying to build up infant national industries, which we are not.

So do you have a solution for outsourcing or just jabbering away trying to to sound all educated...

 

[Acanthus]

... and it will be specially very bad for us and our economy is so totally based in exports...

 

[DesiPower]

Yeah no kidding. Its worse than Haiti around here. There's one family I know who had to decide if they were going to buy his kids games for their PS3, Wii, or Xbox360 for Christmas.. My god! The humanity! I think they settled on PS3 games this year for Xmas.. Hopefully the children won't starve.

yes... god dam America and its rich ppl... how dare they buy video games and drive cars when more than half of the world starves to death.. these luxuries should all be banned till every single human begin on the face of this god forsaken earth have the same amount of everything else... redistribution ow wealth should be mandatory.

 

[Zorkorist]

It artificially inflates costs and expands Government power.

You might as well say, "I think we should all be taxed more and live beneath a Communist regime."

-John

 

[fskimospy]

So do you have a solution for outsourcing or just jabbering away trying to to sound all educated...

I already told you my solution for outsourcing: there isn't one. Free trade grows the economy as a whole however, and you use that money to improve the social safety net to help those affected by outsourcing through retraining/whatever.

It's not my solution, it's one that's in use all over the world. Like I said however, we have a political party in America that has forgotten half of that winning formula.

Thanks for the unwarranted insults though, cheers!

 

[ProfJohn]

According to the census bureau the US shipped $200 billion worth of goods in July alone.
That would amount to $2.4 trillion worth of goods produced in this country this year.
http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/m3/adv/pdf/durgd.pdf

And according to this Federal Reserve blog:
Manufacturing employment is at about the same level it was in 1950, 14 million jobs.
But the output is 600% higher than 1950.
http://midwest.chicagofedblogs.org/archives/2010/08/bill_strauss_mf.html

Everyone should go read that second blog as it has a lot of interesting information.

The biggest thing you will learn is that the cost of making things have become so much cheaper that it makes it appear as if our manufacturing economy is dying away.

Think about it. Three years ago my 55" DLP cost nearly $3000. Today I can buy the same size and quality TV for $1200 or so. Take this principle and apply it to the entire manufacturing economy and you have an explanation as to why it seems to be disappearing.

 

[Zorkorist]

Anybody in the computer industry knows the dilemma you speak about Professor John.

I've been in the business since 1981 and I've seen solutions I used to sell for $10,000 sell today for $13.00

The only thing any of us can hope for is continued innovation.

-John

 

[DominionSeraph]

We don't "make" anything. It is all financial instruments based on fiat currency. We make very little "hard" goods... Especially when you consider our population growth.

OMG we make 10% more with 320,000,000 people than we did with 130,000,000 people! Things must be peachy!

CLICK ME NAO!


Wow, look at all dem "financial instruments".

 

[Zorkorist]

We don't make Bikes, we don't make Ships. We don't make Airplanes, and our Cities are full of gangs and thugs.

Detroit, is a wasteland.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

Do ya'll realize Detroit is a wasteland?

This is or was the heart of economy in the US for years.

Today, it's a wasteland.

Making cars, for goodness sake.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

Pennsylvania steel, gone.

American Timber, gone.

Oil and Gas, gone.

-John