I don't support the democrats on protectionism. Do you?

Umbagog wrote:

Let's take a hypothetical here.

Let's say we arrived in the Middle East about half a century ago, seeking to buy oil for our machines, our factories, our transportation systems, our heat and light, and oh so much more that benefits all Americans from sea to shining sea.

Now let's say we conducted business deals in such a way that made it an imperative that any sales that happen that are benefitting Americans so much must by law benefit the people of the Middle East as well. The current system in Alaska exemplifies this equal benefits in doing business.

Let's say that was the law from the word go. If it was, do you think we'd be having trouble with Middle Eastern terrorists right now?

Free trade is a misnomer. The governments we do business with are benefitting mightily, while the people under their rule remain locked in squalid poverty for the most part. The richer we make these governments, the more oppressive they become. The current trade system is creating the poverty and the terrorism, not ending it. To call it free trade is a travesty. A people, not a government, need to benefit equally from trade, not just the business owners or the governments. We trade today with total disregard as to how it impacts those we are doing trade with, and we look the other way so long as we profit from it. This business lacking moral considerations or social obligations is what is creating all the problems the world faces today.

The simple rule of share and share alike is not the way we do business.

We are going to be very sorry about all this much sooner than later. You can't globalize without a middle consuming class spreading all over the planet, and it isn't spreading all over the planet. The Indians and Chinese are working for peanuts, not emerging into middle classes. How can you have an expansionary capitalistic system based predominately on consumption when most of the planet remains locked in poverty and is unable to consume? We can't keep stockpiling production and hope that someday people will be able to buy it when those making the profits could care less if the poor live or die. If we want a global economy, we have to invest in it. That means less profits now to ultimately make greater profits later.

But business investing in itself instead of raking fantastic wealth out of the system? We might as well still be in the Middle Ages for all the push there is to truly open up the planet so that all may participate.

So be it. If you refuse to grow up and act like an adult, you don't deserve the comforts, securities, and independence that comes from acting responsibly.

Down we go, and no one is even concerned enough to even try to stop it. Chinese sweatshops are our future, not a prosperous and open world.

I agree with some of what you're saying. But you're destroying your credibility by claiming that the people aren't reapign the fruits of free markets anywhere. India is perhaps the best example of the people benefiting from from free markets. Their middle class is booming. Where as a decade ago, scooters were considered a luxury for the upper most classes, now much of the middle class can afford homes, cars, televisions, and computers. India doesn't have sweat shops. They don't have an oppresive govt by any stretch of imagination. What they achieved, they achieved because of a culture that values higher education above all else.

We should discourage sweat shops. There are international laws in place that allow countries to pass tariffs against companies abusing sweat shops. There are laws that allow countries to pass trade barriers against oppressive govt. that loot the peoples money. We are the ones refusing to enforce most of them.

We should make it clear that we will cut imports from nations abusing sweat shops. What we shouldn't do is adopt protectionist policies that ban corporations setting up branches in nations that don't allow sweat shops and don't have oppressive governments.

Let us live by the same international rules we helped establish and shoved down the rest of the world's throats when they helped us profit. Let us not turn back to protectionism.

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On the way the oil business is run in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden had said in an interview with ABC in 1998 that, "they [Americans] rip us of our wealth and of our resources and of our oil." Interview Osama bin Laden

In an interview with Frontline, Dr. Saad Al-Fagih elaborated on those thoughts, which are an echo of the thoughts of the Saudi public in general:

[Frontline] To be mercenary about it, many people in America might say, "You know what we're really there for? We're defending our oil."

That's what we believe. The military people there are defending the oil, which is believed by Americans to be American oil. Not Arab oil. And that's the most sincere and credible expression by [an average] American. That they see this as American oil. And they are going there to buy the land and control the oil. And that's what irritates us. That they believe that this is their territory. This is their resources. And this is their domain. ... What about us? This is our country. This is our land. ... Not another country has the [right to come] here and say, "Stay aside, we'll control the oil."

So bin Laden is seen as someone fighting for the dignity, the natural resources, the nation of Saudi Arabia?

Very much so. He is going even beyond that. Because of the American challenge to Arabians and Muslims, to the degree that they are controlling their own resources, he's going beyond that. ... He wants Muslims to have domination in the whole area. ... So Muslim [economy] has to replace an American [economy]. That's the principles of bin Laden and people like bin Laden. ... Interview Dr. Saad Al-Fagih

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The issue of protectionism vs free trade is a tricky one. It is one on which the jury is still out for me.

I will offer this though: Actions to protect ourselves from outsourcing are, at best, delays of the inevitable. At worst, they will be utterly ineffective and perhaps even counterproductive. The fact is that outsourcing is both inevitable and unstoppable. The capitalist nature of the global economy ensures this. As long as companies can do things cheaper elsewhere, they will. This problem is a symptom of Americas slow but inevitable decline relative to that of other nations.

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Umbagog wrote:

Free trade is a misnomer. The governments we do business with are benefitting mightily, while the people under their rule remain locked in squalid poverty for the most part.

They are poor, but they are not locked. For example, while Iran was never as rich as America, Iranians did a lot better under the Shah and his crony capitalism than they did under the super-ethical mullahs. The picture becomes even clearer if you look outside the Middle East. From Japan to Lebanon, from Hong Kong to Chile, third world countries have advanced to first world status throughout the 20th century. In every case, the advance has involved a huge deal of free markets and free trade. In many cases, such as Lebanon and Zimbabwe, things went terribly wrong when the countries were taken over by people who thought their choices were better than the choices made by their citizens in free markets.

Umbagog wrote:

The richer we make these governments, the more oppressive they become.

If this is the case, US trade policy towards Cuba should have produced a free country there by now. Could you give me a quick progress report please? Are you happy with the results?

Umbagog wrote:

The Indians and Chinese are working for peanuts, not emerging into middle classes.

If you don't mind my asking: When was the last time you checked this belief against some Indian and Chinese wage statistics? If you don't trust these statistics, did you ever go to your library and check out some of the National Geographic articles that have been written about India and China over the last 30 years? Did you notice any change in people's clothes, houses, vehicles?

Umbagog wrote:

It only makes sense. And the USSR is the perfect example. They STRIPPED their resources to try and win the Cold War, and look where it left them.

I second your observation, but the USSR doesn't strike me as an example of "anything goes" business and global capitalism. And I would have said that the USA, which is a much better example of it, has done much better on its environment than the USSR did on its.

Umbagog wrote:

Saddam is another perfect example. Look at his lavish palaces, then look at the state of the people around them.

And after 12 years of trade sanctions, he was still living in those palaces, while his people had become desperately poor. Once again, it was not free trade, but intentional absence of it, that strengthened a government at the cost of its citizens.

Umbagog wrote:

Hell, look at DC. Nice town, surrounded by ghettos. Same thing for the Vatican.

Yes. And the "poor" people living in those ghettos still make considerably more than the average citizen of the world. Capitalism and reasonably free trade works for them, and it's the lack of both that hasn't worked for most of the world.

Umbagog wrote:

Profits can and must be made by ALL involved, not just the Owners.

They are. They're just called rents and wages if they are made by land owners and workers.

Umbagog wrote:

Call it bull all you want. History has tons of examples of what happens when an elite minority calls the shots.

Sure. But history also shows that an economic policy of laissez faire makes it much harder, not easier, for elite minorities to call the shots. I am as hostile to the elite minorities of Bush and his cronies as anyone. (Ask Scrat!) But I would much rather live in Bush's America than in any of the virtuous countries that messed with people's choices because the government thought it knew better. In fact, I may well be going to leave Social Democratic Germany for Bush's America in the not too distant future.

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Please urge Kerry to stop advocating protectionism http://forum.johnkerry.com/index.php?showtopic=13614

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I don't support the democrats on protectionism. Do you?

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