On Free-Trade and Protectionism
An economic policy that disproportionately helps A, while
disproportionately harming B, doesn't help the economy. It helps A. This
whole antiseptic notion that, if we simply put stiffer tariffs on
certain countries in an effort to help certain industries, the entirety
of the nation will somehow benefit from it is absurd. There are always,
ALWAYS, unintended
consequences............................................................................................And
the fact of the matter is that we can certainly stimulate the economy
without these measures. Reducing and simplifying the corporate income
tax rate (right now we have companies like G.E. paying zero and other
companies like U.P.S. paying a cart-load), continuing to explore and
market domestic sources of energy (even as it stands now, a lot of new
manufacturing jobs are being created here in at least some small measure
due to the cheap natural gas that we have), reducing the amount of
red-tape necessary to start a new business (according to Dallas
Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban, he probably wouldn't have been able to
start his businesses in today's highly troubled environment), loosening
up visa restrictions in an effort to boost the tourist industry (prior
to 9/11, the U.S. garnered 17% of the world's tourism business and we're
currently down to 11% - Mr. Obama, to his credit, is absolutely
addressing this), etc. - all of these initiatives would greatly expand
the economy, I'm
thinking............................................................................................And,
besides, if tariffs were in fact such a wonderful thing for the ENTIRE
country, then why, pray tell, did we almost fight the frigging Civil War
30 years prematurely over them? And why in the hell aren't they allowed
BETWEEN the 50 states? Certainly Connecticut should be able to protect
its citizenry from those terrible and backward Mississippians, no?
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