Free trade?
Employment, inflation, new home sales, old home sales, retail sales. It's all important and moves the markets from day to day. The biggest overhang on values today, however, is the issue of free trade. Will the Democratic party controlled Congress use their power to impose tariffs that move the world away from free economic interaction?
As a matter of economic policy and political policy it is hard to believe that Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and most intelligent Democratic politicians believe that it would be sane to start putting up trade barriers. If they move in this direction they would be supported by a meaningful number of Republican retards in the House. The White House would obviously oppose such actions but, as with the immigration issue, the President cannot necessarily overcome the racial bias of our popularly elected officials and their constituents.
Do Pelosi and Schumer and company actually believe that huge tariffs on China will solve America's industrial issues and the problems of a Madison Ave. driven and credit card and mortgage company enabled spendthrift economy. They simply see it as a bargaining chip for a higher minimum wage, a rollback of tax relief for the wealthy, and a political way to declare some victories after a period of no leadership of consequence and no accomplishment to speak of. Unfortunately their grandstanding on trade could turn into something that is real if they push their talk too far.
America would of course like to influence economic integrity in other countries on issues such as a living wage, child labor, health care, human trafficking, and political freedom. Putting up barriers to trade will not help. There is much to do right here on these issues as well.
The Democratic Party's traditional constituency of labor unions that promotes trade barriers seems to be a hierarchy of old ideas, hopefully no longer corrupt and in concept valuable(GM sold more than half of their 2006 cars overseas by the way). Trade barriers will create inflation, stall economic growth of our multinational corporations and delight European and Japanese competitors(especially in media, technology and finance where the U.S. firms are now in significant leadership positions), and create political friction at a time when we simply need as much cohesion as we can build after the damage Bush has done to our image.
This is a big issue and unfortunately it is possible that the perceived political capital to be gained will overwhelm an intelligent approach.
As a matter of economic policy and political policy it is hard to believe that Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and most intelligent Democratic politicians believe that it would be sane to start putting up trade barriers. If they move in this direction they would be supported by a meaningful number of Republican retards in the House. The White House would obviously oppose such actions but, as with the immigration issue, the President cannot necessarily overcome the racial bias of our popularly elected officials and their constituents.
Do Pelosi and Schumer and company actually believe that huge tariffs on China will solve America's industrial issues and the problems of a Madison Ave. driven and credit card and mortgage company enabled spendthrift economy. They simply see it as a bargaining chip for a higher minimum wage, a rollback of tax relief for the wealthy, and a political way to declare some victories after a period of no leadership of consequence and no accomplishment to speak of. Unfortunately their grandstanding on trade could turn into something that is real if they push their talk too far.
America would of course like to influence economic integrity in other countries on issues such as a living wage, child labor, health care, human trafficking, and political freedom. Putting up barriers to trade will not help. There is much to do right here on these issues as well.
The Democratic Party's traditional constituency of labor unions that promotes trade barriers seems to be a hierarchy of old ideas, hopefully no longer corrupt and in concept valuable(GM sold more than half of their 2006 cars overseas by the way). Trade barriers will create inflation, stall economic growth of our multinational corporations and delight European and Japanese competitors(especially in media, technology and finance where the U.S. firms are now in significant leadership positions), and create political friction at a time when we simply need as much cohesion as we can build after the damage Bush has done to our image.
This is a big issue and unfortunately it is possible that the perceived political capital to be gained will overwhelm an intelligent approach.
posted by John Borden at 3:33 PM
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