The Worst President in History?

I think I prefer food on my table and a roof over my head and the government on the other side of my property line, but then, I'm a liberal.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Perhaps you ought to learn what a "citation" is in one of these discussion threads, Okie, before shooting off your mouth.

Parapharasing is not citing.

I understand your cutting and running, though, and if I were advising you, that is exactly what what I would suggest you do.

My guess is you have damn near no chance of making a substantive case for your original strawman.

Heres a couple, all I have time for now:
From: plainoldme post 2102803 in "Democracies and Mutual Respect":
"THESE CORPORATIONS AS THEY EXIST TODAY RUN OUR LIVES. EVERYTHING WE WANTED AS HUMAN BEINGS FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT ON IS BEING DESTROYED BY CORPORATIONS."

And this from Anton post 1885152 in "An open letter to all those decent Americans":
"President George Bush talks a lot about bringing democracy to the Middle East when in fact he has demonstrated an evil that is on a par with Nazi Germany … the world doesn't need another evil despot; since Bush became President the world has sunken into a mire of fear and uncertainty not seen since the Second World War … this is undoubtedly the most arrogant US President I have ever seen … his administration has destroyed the reputation of a country most of us held in high regard and kinship."

There is plenty of this type of stuff on this forum. And if you spend fruitless time debating with plainoldme, as she spouts out nonsense like the above day after day, and you also find sympathizers to her opinions, you begin to think for good reason that libs are antagonistic toward corporations, business, and free enterprise while not displaying the same antagonism toward the likes of Castro and his fellow travelers. Although the sympathizers to plainoldme do not say the same words as she does, it indicates that type of thought is fairly common amongst liberals.

I only repond to where some of you seem to want to go on some of these threads. Business is bad. Corporations are evil and the source of all of our problems. We are all victims, blah, blah, blah. American partriots are evil nationalists, bordering on fascists. On and on. I don't recall if you've said those things, but since I've been on this forum, the same old mantra constantly rears its ugly head from various sources. I get the drift, Parados, that many people must think there is utopia waiting for them somewhere sometime, if they could just get rid of evil corporations and turn it all over to the government. Their government of course.

3. We must meet the challenges of globalization by getting smarter

It certainly is, Mr. Hingehead and,if you read it, you noted that Friedman said that nothing could stop globalization. China sends large amounts of goods to us and vice versa. The entire world does business. Some parts of the world can do things better and faster than other parts of the world. We must learn to concentrate on what we do best.

The "Smarter" comment I made keyed in on what Friedman said about our future in the USA/ Friedman holds that one of our overwhelming strengths is our 'HUMAN CAPITAL" or brainpower. But Friedman warns that other countries may be catching up.

Most people do not realize that although there are a large number of jobs being sent overseas because they can be done more cheaply, there are jobs which are appearing in the USA from other countries also.



Mr.Hingehead- If you are interested. The article replicated below gives a very good take on "free trade".


Free Trade
by Alan S. Blinder

For more than two centuries, economists have steadfastly promoted free trade among nations as the best trade policy. Despite this intellectual barrage, many practical men and women of affairs continue to view the case for free trade skeptically, as an abstract argument made by ivory-tower economists with, at most, one foot on terra firma. Such people "know" that our vital industries must be protected from foreign competition.

The divergence between economists' beliefs and those of (even well-educated) men and women on the street seems to arise in making the leap from individuals to nations. In running our personal affairs, virtually all of us exploit the advantages of free trade and comparative advantage without thinking twice. For example, many of us have our shirts laundered at professional cleaners rather than wash and iron them ourselves. Anyone who advised us to "protect" ourselves from the "unfair competition" of low-paid laundry workers by doing our own wash would be thought looney. Common sense tells us to make use of companies that specialize in such work, paying them with money we earn doing something we do better. We understand intuitively that cutting ourselves off from specialists can only lower our standard of living.

Adam Smith's insight was that precisely the same logic applies to nations. Here is how he put it in 1776:



It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy... If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.



The case for free trade among nations is no different. Spain, South Korea, and a variety of other countries manufacture shoes more cheaply than America can. They offer them for sale to us. Shall we buy them, as we buy the services of laundry workers, with money we earn doing things we do well?-like writing computer software and growing wheat? Or shall we keep "cheap foreign shoes" out and purchase more expensive American shoes instead? It is pretty clear that the nation as a whole must be worse off if foreign shoes are kept out?-even though the American shoe industry will be better off.

Most people accept this argument. But they worry about what happens if another country?-say, Japan?-can make everything, or almost everything, cheaper than we can. Will free trade with Japan then lead to unemployment for American workers, who will find themselves unable to compete with cheaper Japanese labor? The answer, which was provided by David Ricardo in 1810 (see Ricardo in Biographies section), is no. To see why, let us once again appeal to our personal affairs.

Some lawyers are better typists than their secretaries. Should such a lawyer fire his secretary and do his own typing? Not likely. Though the lawyer may be better than the secretary at both arguing cases and typing, he will fare better by concentrating his energies on the practice of law and leaving the typing to a secretary. Such specialization not only makes the economy more efficient, it also leaves both lawyer and secretary with productive work to do.

The same idea applies to nations. Suppose the Japanese could manufacture everything more cheaply than we can?-which is certainly not true. Even in this worst-case scenario, there will of necessity be some industries in which Japan has an overwhelming cost advantage (say, televisions) and others in which its cost advantage is slight (say, chemicals). Under free trade the United States will produce most of the chemicals, Japan will produce most of the TVs, and the two nations will trade. The two countries, taken together, will get both products cheaper than if each produced them at home to meet all of its domestic needs. And what is also important, workers in both countries will have jobs.

Many people are skeptical about this argument for the following reason. Suppose the average American worker earns ten dollars per hour, while the average Japanese worker earns just six dollars per hour. Won't free trade make it impossible to defend the higher American wage? Won't there instead be a leveling down until, say, both American and Japanese workers earn eight dollars per hour? The answer, once again, is no. And specialization is part of the reason.

If there were only one industry and occupation in which people could work, then free trade would indeed force American wages close to Japanese levels if Japanese workers were as good as Americans (and who doubts that?). But modern economies are composed of many industries and occupations. If America concentrates its employment where it does best, there is no reason why American wages cannot remain far above Japanese wages for a long time?-even though the two nations trade freely. A country's wage level depends fundamentally on the productivity of its labor force, not on its trade policy. As long as American workers remain more skilled and better educated, work with more capital, and use superior technology, they will continue to earn higher wages than their Japanese counterparts. If and when these advantages end, the wage gap will disappear. Trade is a mere detail that helps ensure that American labor is employed where, in Adam Smith's phrase, it has some advantage.

Those who are still not convinced should recall that Japan's trade surplus with the United States widened precisely as the wage gap between the two countries was disappearing. If cheap Japanese labor was stealing American jobs, why did the theft intensify as the wage gap closed? The answer, of course, is that Japanese productivity was growing at enormous rates. The remarkable upward march of Japanese productivity both raised Japanese wages relative to American wages and turned Japan into a ferocious competitor. To think that we can forestall the inevitable by closing our borders is to participate in a cruel self-deception.

Americans should appreciate the benefits of free trade more than most people, for we inhabit the greatest free trade zone in the world. Michigan manufactures cars; New York provides banking; Texas pumps oil and gas. The fifty states trade freely with one another, and that helps them all enjoy great prosperity. Indeed, one reason why the United States did so much better economically than Europe for two centuries is that we had free movement of goods and services while the European countries "protected" themselves from their neighbors. To appreciate the magnitudes involved, try to imagine how much your personal standard of living would suffer if you were not allowed to buy any goods or services that originated outside your home state.

A slogan occasionally seen on bumper stickers argues, "Buy American, save your job." This is grossly misleading for two main reasons. First, the costs of saving jobs in this particular way are enormous. Second, it is doubtful that any jobs are actually saved in the long run.

Many estimates have been made of the cost of "saving jobs" by protectionism. While the estimates differ widely across industries, they are almost always much larger than the wages of the protected workers. For example, one study estimated that in 1984 U.S. consumers paid $42,000 annually for each textile job that was preserved by import quotas, a sum that greatly exceeded the average earnings of a textile worker. That same study estimated that restricting foreign imports cost $105,000 annually for each automobile worker's job that was saved, $420,000 for each job in TV manufacturing, and $750,000 for every job saved in the steel industry. Yes, $750,000 a year!

While Americans may be willing to pay a price to save jobs, spending such enormous sums is plainly irrational. If you doubt that, imagine making the following offer to any steelworker who lost his job to foreign competition: we will give you severance pay of $750,000?-not annually, but just once?-in return for a promise never to seek work in a steel mill again. Can you imagine any worker turning the offer down? Is that not sufficient evidence that our present method of saving steelworkers' jobs is mad?

But the situation is actually worse, for a little deeper thought leads us to question whether any jobs are really saved overall. It is more likely that protectionist policies save some jobs by jeopardizing others. Why? First, protecting one American industry imposes higher costs on others. For example, quotas on imports of semiconductors sent the prices of memory chips skyrocketing in the eighties, thereby damaging the computer industry. Steel quotas force U.S. automakers to pay more for materials, making them less competitive.

Second, efforts to protect favored industries from foreign competition may induce reciprocal actions in other countries, thereby limiting American access to foreign markets. In that case export industries pay the price for protecting import-competing industries.

Third, there are the little-understood, but terribly important, effects of trade barriers on the value of the dollar. If we successfully restrict imports, Americans will spend less on foreign goods. With fewer dollars offered for sale on the world's currency markets, the value of the dollar will rise relative to that of other currencies. At that point unprotected industries start to suffer because a higher dollar makes U.S. goods less competitive in world markets. Once again, America's ability to export is harmed.

On balance the conclusion seems clear and compelling: while protectionism is sold as job saving, it probably really amounts to job swapping. It protects jobs in some industries only by destroying jobs in others.


About the Author
Alan S. Blinder is the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics at Princeton University. He wrote, from 1985 to 1992, a regular economics column for Business Week and is the coauthor of one of the best-selling textbooks on economics. He has served as vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors and as a member of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.

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After that most intelligent comment from Mr. Cycloptichorn, Okie, I will give you another post on "Evil Corporations"!!!