Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Bugger
John Edwards, the populist, came in a strong second in the recent Wisconsin primary.
Edwards doesn't bother me as much as Dean, but I really get edgy when you get a major party candidate talking about manufacturing jobs going overseas because of free trade agreements. Such short term thinking is dangerous.
Think about it: is it REALLY beter for America to keep Mexico poor? Would we not benefit from a Mexican economy that is about as rich as our own (there's 100 million people in Mexico)? Would people in Illinois start to place trade barriers on Mississippi to prevent jobs from leaving Illinois? The standard response is: Mississippi is AMERICAN, and thus whole different standards of morality and ethics apply to them.
Bullshit (and I can say that, as this isn't an article for ZDNet). Ignoring for the moment that the economy AS A WHOLE benefits from lower cost manufactured inputs (where would Dell, the biggest computer company IN THE WORLD, be without lower-cost computer parts?), it is simply UNETHICAL to tell people in third-world nations that we aren't allowed to trade with them because American worker short-term interests matter more than their short, medium and long term interests.
This isn't a question of being a patriotic American. It's a matter of being an ethical human being. Foreigners have as much a right to other American's dollars (and remember, OTHER Americans are CHOOSING to give them those dollars) as American workers in Mississippi. And if you read much Hayek, choosing not to create such arbitrary distinctions between the trade-favored "us" and the non-trade favored "them" (a distinction built entirely upon a completely random accident, namely, the spot on the globe upon which you were born) has ramifications for world peace.
The crazy thing is, we don't just try to protect ourselves from poor nations. We put trade barriers to farm products from OTHER RICH NATIONS. We recently negotiated a massive free trade deal with Australia. Whole categories of manufactured goods will be allowed to flow between Australia and the United States, duty-free. The area that escaped such liberalization, however, is farm products.
Australia has one of the freest and least-subsidized farming industries in the world, and that makes their products EXTREMELY competitive in global markets (economies work that way; if you protect, you end up with a bunch of less competitive companies that have difficulties without protections). The beef industry managed to ensure that import quotas were raised by a mere 1.6%. The dairy industry managed an equally pusillanimous 2% increase in quotas. That's peanuts compared to the sugar industry (who are lobbying against the new Centrall American Free Trade Agreement due to concession to cane-growing industries in the region), which managed to scotch all discussion regarding liberalization in sugar imports.
Americans pay 3 times the world-market price for sugar, which, obviously, causes problems for industries that USE sugar (kind of like steel tariffs harmed the 13% of industry that USED steel to favor the less than 1% that produced it). The situation is getting sufficiently severe that sugar-consuming industries in America are trying to build a lobbying counterweight to sugar industry lobbyists. Businesses are closing in places like Chicago (apparently, the sweet-making capital of America, if not the world, according to the Economist) because the price of sugar is too high.
Back to the point: Edwards is engaging in shameless demagoguery. To be sure, he's far less shameless than Dick Gephardt ever was (thank GOD he was knocked out of the race early), but lots of people seem to think the best thing for America is to prevent competition with other nations. Edwards, in the interest of winning the nomination, is perfectly willing to tell them they're right. That's the textbook definition of a demagogue, and I have to wonder if his desire to get elected is trumping his ability to think rationally on the subject.
That's why I take heart in Kerry's waffling in the subject. He HASN'T been completely clear on his position vis a vis free trade. But then again, he probably can't be. His voting record is very pro-trade, which speaks to some part of his brain that understands the importance of trade for America. He just can't come out and say "I support free trade" because that won't win him the Democratic party nomination.
At least, that's what I hope is going on in Kerry's head. He could in fact have a General Electric waffle iron in there. Who knows? But like I said, someone who has voted as consistently in favor of trade MUST have some principles that guided him over the years.
Voting is a bit like hitchhiking. The guy in the car stopping to pick you up might SEEM nice, but there isn't any way to be sure that they aren't, in fact, axe-murderers.
John Edwards, the populist, came in a strong second in the recent Wisconsin primary.
Edwards doesn't bother me as much as Dean, but I really get edgy when you get a major party candidate talking about manufacturing jobs going overseas because of free trade agreements. Such short term thinking is dangerous.
Think about it: is it REALLY beter for America to keep Mexico poor? Would we not benefit from a Mexican economy that is about as rich as our own (there's 100 million people in Mexico)? Would people in Illinois start to place trade barriers on Mississippi to prevent jobs from leaving Illinois? The standard response is: Mississippi is AMERICAN, and thus whole different standards of morality and ethics apply to them.
Bullshit (and I can say that, as this isn't an article for ZDNet). Ignoring for the moment that the economy AS A WHOLE benefits from lower cost manufactured inputs (where would Dell, the biggest computer company IN THE WORLD, be without lower-cost computer parts?), it is simply UNETHICAL to tell people in third-world nations that we aren't allowed to trade with them because American worker short-term interests matter more than their short, medium and long term interests.
This isn't a question of being a patriotic American. It's a matter of being an ethical human being. Foreigners have as much a right to other American's dollars (and remember, OTHER Americans are CHOOSING to give them those dollars) as American workers in Mississippi. And if you read much Hayek, choosing not to create such arbitrary distinctions between the trade-favored "us" and the non-trade favored "them" (a distinction built entirely upon a completely random accident, namely, the spot on the globe upon which you were born) has ramifications for world peace.
The crazy thing is, we don't just try to protect ourselves from poor nations. We put trade barriers to farm products from OTHER RICH NATIONS. We recently negotiated a massive free trade deal with Australia. Whole categories of manufactured goods will be allowed to flow between Australia and the United States, duty-free. The area that escaped such liberalization, however, is farm products.
Australia has one of the freest and least-subsidized farming industries in the world, and that makes their products EXTREMELY competitive in global markets (economies work that way; if you protect, you end up with a bunch of less competitive companies that have difficulties without protections). The beef industry managed to ensure that import quotas were raised by a mere 1.6%. The dairy industry managed an equally pusillanimous 2% increase in quotas. That's peanuts compared to the sugar industry (who are lobbying against the new Centrall American Free Trade Agreement due to concession to cane-growing industries in the region), which managed to scotch all discussion regarding liberalization in sugar imports.
Americans pay 3 times the world-market price for sugar, which, obviously, causes problems for industries that USE sugar (kind of like steel tariffs harmed the 13% of industry that USED steel to favor the less than 1% that produced it). The situation is getting sufficiently severe that sugar-consuming industries in America are trying to build a lobbying counterweight to sugar industry lobbyists. Businesses are closing in places like Chicago (apparently, the sweet-making capital of America, if not the world, according to the Economist) because the price of sugar is too high.
Back to the point: Edwards is engaging in shameless demagoguery. To be sure, he's far less shameless than Dick Gephardt ever was (thank GOD he was knocked out of the race early), but lots of people seem to think the best thing for America is to prevent competition with other nations. Edwards, in the interest of winning the nomination, is perfectly willing to tell them they're right. That's the textbook definition of a demagogue, and I have to wonder if his desire to get elected is trumping his ability to think rationally on the subject.
That's why I take heart in Kerry's waffling in the subject. He HASN'T been completely clear on his position vis a vis free trade. But then again, he probably can't be. His voting record is very pro-trade, which speaks to some part of his brain that understands the importance of trade for America. He just can't come out and say "I support free trade" because that won't win him the Democratic party nomination.
At least, that's what I hope is going on in Kerry's head. He could in fact have a General Electric waffle iron in there. Who knows? But like I said, someone who has voted as consistently in favor of trade MUST have some principles that guided him over the years.
Voting is a bit like hitchhiking. The guy in the car stopping to pick you up might SEEM nice, but there isn't any way to be sure that they aren't, in fact, axe-murderers.
