When I think of the alternative to Wal-Mart, the supposed ideal society of small shopkeeper and the family farmer, I’m reminded of the abyssmal service, high prices, lack of selection, and utter dreariness of Hyde Park, Chicago, where I went to school. The corruption of the city government and the misguided policies of the University of Chicago kept out every conceivable large chain. Instead, we had to truck over to Cicero Avenue to go to Target to buy necessities or face being ripped off by the local busineses. And for a long time this scene repeated itself in every small town in America, where local quasi-monopolists and petty corrupt politicians routinely conspired to keep out lower priced and more efficient competitors. This type of system keeps prices high and hurts most consumers in order to enrich a handful of privileged business owners.
This is not the American way. Efforts to fight big chains like Wal-Mart are not either. The counterfeit Americanism of the far left and parts of the paleoconservaitve right has nothing to do with America’s core values: free competition, free access to property and markets, and minimal government interference with economic development. Now businesses, big and small, have resisted this model, seeking various forms of priviledge; but the rhetoric of free markets and small government has long been championed by the middle classes as a whole. These views have been the antidote to European-style socialism. This historically-grounded economic freedom was the banner of resistance to FDR’s New Deal. It is also the reason that all of the anti-Wal Mart hysteria is wrong-headed and un-American.
Robert Novak, to his credit, has not forgotten what makes America distinct from Mexico, Europe, or, for that matter, Communist China:
The truth is that none of these Democrats can resist dumb economic populism. Even though we are not in a recession, and even though the presidential primaries are more than a year away, the DLC crowd is pandering shamelessly to the left of the party — perhaps in the knowledge that the grocery workers union, which launched the anti-Wal-Mart campaign, is strong in the key state of Iowa.
For a party that needs the votes of Wal-Mart’s customers, this is a questionable strategy. But there is more than politics at stake. According to a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag, neither of whom received funding from Wal-Mart, big-box stores led by Wal-Mart reduce families’ food bills by one-fourth. Because Wal-Mart’s price-cutting also has a big impact on the non-food stuff it peddles, it saves U.S. consumers upward of $200 billion a year, making it a larger booster of family welfare than the federal government’s $33 billion food-stamp program.
How can centrist Democrats respond to that? By beating up Wal-Mart and forcing it to focus on public relations rather than opening new stores, Democrats are harming the poor Americans they claim to speak for.
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Sebastian Mallaby echoes this position in today’s Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700553.html
Basically, it’s interesting how many Democrats, who perceive themselves as the defenders of the poor, are bothering to attack a corporation that serves to save the poor billions of dollars. Mallaby raises the fact that Wal-Mart saves consumers $200 billion every year on their purchases, while the federal food stamp program doles out a meager $33 billion. Wal-Mart is a bigger welfare provider than the government!
I remember what a big deal it was when we got our first Microwave. It was probably around 1986. It cost a few hundred dollars. It was amazing to us at the time, a real luxury, and it was considered state of the art.
You can buy one now at Wal-Mart literally for $30.
The money saved doesn’t even begin to tell the story of how American capitalism and the constant war among sellers has increased social welfare. Luxuries become widespread and then “necessities” in a matter of less than a decade. And this process repeats itself over and over.
Sure…they save you money. $200 billion is a lot of money. But in the process they do so at a price. That savings, all savings, always come at a price. Maybe not on the front end…which the consumer feels…but on the back end definitely. When Wal-mart ‘s unquentionable search for cheaper prices puts people out of work, destroys economies, and drives 80% of their retail goods production into China…then what is the real price of that?
Are they not dumbing down our ecomony? Are we not, as a country, putting ourselves out of the manufacturing business because we at the same time want cheaper goods?
I am no economist…but logic dictates that if you force the market to produce things cheaper, then the market’s bottom line goes down, which means people get paid less, and have less to spend…and the circle continues.
Though this all may be moot considering that China, whom Wal-mart considers more important than our own country, will soon be implementing massive ecological changes that will increase the cost of production.
Funny…about the only thing Wal-mart doesn’t have made in China is their food…and if Chinese food exports could pass the FDA standards they would I am sure.
cl
Cheaper does not always mean worse. It also can mean that things are overpriced elsewhere. Wal-Mart sells a heck of a lot of food, and I have trouble seeing how cheap food is a bad thing for poor families, or “dumbs” them down. Do you really want the alternative, which is to sell goods for a higher price than they really could be sold for? Should we keep microwaves at $250 instead of $30? If so, then wouldn’t businessowners be scalping consumers? And wouldn’t that be hurting the poor the most?
I don’t see how lowering prices lowers incomes. The opposite is certainly true, in that artificially increasing incomes will lead to inflation. But all companies have a drive to lower their prices in comparison to their competition without lowering quality in order to gain an advantage in the market. This is a good thing that should be encouraged. If you can’t beat Wal-Mart’s prices and products, then try selling higher-priced fare. Be a niche seller. But don’t be surprised when poor people without much discretionary income to throw around choose to maximize their buying power rather than load up on overpriced “organic” stuff.
If Wal-Mart sold junk, it would fail. It doesn’t sell junk. It sells the same products for lower prices than anyone else.
Also, income is a function of purchasing power. So even if my income stays flat, if I can buy more things and things I used to buy cheaply, I’ve in effect received a raise. That’s why poor people in America have A/C, cars, in some cases computers, CD players, and other things that didn’t even exist 50 years ago.
That said, sure there are complicated issues best rederessed by public policy, including how to trade (if at all) with regimes that may represent national security threats. The goal of the policy makers is not and should not be a deontological commitment to free trade. Free trade is the right policy because on balance it tends to raise wages and standards of living. Sure, there are some exceptional circumstances. But large, efficient, cost-cutting megastores aren’t one of them.
Sheik Roach, you capitalist pig, come to Tehran and you will never need money again. Become a martyr for the People of Allah and you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams!
Andrew Young resigns from Wal-Mart group / Civil rights leader hired to burnish retailer’s image under fire for remarks
SEE LINK: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14406528/
Andrew Young, founder of SCLC, got fired from his job at Walmart for his “anti-semitic” remarks about the sort of “Mom and Pop” shops that the Black community has had to put up with?
Alas, we have tried to recruit Mr. Andrew Young. But he desires to make hateful statements about Jews, Koreans, Hispanics, and others.
Actually, it’s not “economic populism” that motivates the Left to attack Walmart. It’s social elitism!
Working folks patronize Walmart, not snooty downtown liberals, or union bosses, or the Sandals and Granola crowd.
So you got it all mixed up.
Sorry…still not really buying it. The last round of “Wal-mart helps the poor” PR in the news outlets and articles feels just that way…like it is Pro Wal-mart PR. It has been my experience that people who are doing the right thing…for the right reasons don’t need PR like that. But Wal-mart has a bad rap…and you can’t tell me that it is all left vs. right non-sense. Or anti-mega store stuff.
We have had mega-stores for a long time. Wal-mart is not the first. But Wal-mart has done has been on a scale never before seen.
It can not be a good thing to put people out of work on every continent they step foot on. If we believe the “pro-world’s-poor” PR, then Wal-mart believes it’s okay to shut down American’s number one pillow manufacturer and there 10k+ employees out of work because they care about the poor? That seems alittle anti-poor to me.
That is not free-trade. That is not shifting markets or taking advantage of burgening world markets…that is one country and it’s 5000+ stores world-wide using the poor and the working class as their excuse to push manufacturing to China where they own the plants and the people so that they can make all the money.
In the end Wal-mart winds and everyone looses. Their goal…and I have seen the quotes in print in financial industry trade rag…is to be the wholesale supplier to the world. They do not want you to ever have to buy anything from anyone else. Which means it is their goal to have a monopoly…and I thought we determined that was bad…
cl
Walmart is not the root cause of the problem, Walmart is the result of an fanatical dedication to some fantasy about the “free market” being a rational way to allocate resources.
What needs to happen is that we need to impose a tariff on goods being dumped on the US market the way Ronald Reagan did with Harley Davidson and silicon chips.
The fanatics and high priests at the Ludwig Von Misery Institute don’t like to admit it but there would be no Intel or AMD without the tariffs Reagan imposed on products being dumped by Japan. No Harley Davidson either!
If Walmart can’t buy foreign stuff made by slave labor from China, and then made even cheaper by the Chinese refusal to allow the yen to free float, then they’ll go back to “American Made”.
And what if “American Made” goods are overpriced? Screw the consumer?
Every company has the goal to put all of its competition out of business. Can you imagine a business with the philosophy of “we’re not going to try to earn the business of consumers who shop at our competitors’ stores”? You don’t get to be successful without striving to be the best, and that is not a bad thing.
I’ve never understood the urge to keep manufacturing in America. If another country can make a widget cheaper, then let’s free up our workers for other jobs and reap the benefits of the cheaper goods. If you insist that American workers be the ones to make the widgets, then all you’re doing is subsidizing overpriced labor. It’s just welfare by other means, except it’s welfare that primarily goes to the owners and shareholders of the overpriced businesses. And typically at the expense of poorer consumers.
Mr. Helvetica, before you make ad hominem attacks on the likes of Ludwig Von Mises, perhaps you should read his writings and the writing of his direct successors (Hayek, Friedman, Sowell). Better yet, go back to the beginning and read Limits of State Action by William Von Humboldt.
Not a good thing to put people out of work. Stated so vaguely, I suppose, but that isn’t what capitalism does. Capitalims does allocate resources so that they are used more efficiently. In the first day of econ class you learn this lessons. It typically begins with a story of two islands where one produces milk at a cheaper cost and the other produces eggs cheaper. Turns out the island are better off if each solely concentrates on producing the product for which they have a comparative advantage. As with free trade they will each have what they need at a lower cost.
If Walmart puts Americans out of work, what that really means, is that our resources can be better utilized. Specifically, we are now able to obtain the products which they use to produce for less from someone else. These people can now do something else for which we have a comparative advantage in producing.
In America, our comparative advantage is not cheap labor. What we are good at are value added services. We provide the world with financing, lawyers, and ideas, not hard labor.
When we export jobs to other countries, we create new opportunities in America. First, if American companies can have component parts made cheaper else where or whole products made cheaper else where, they can better compete and can sell more products. Of course if a company is selling more products they need more employees. True, this people will not be working on the production line, but they will be doing accounting, investing, sales, shipping, etc.
Additionally, the pie does grow. Thus, as China, Mexico, or others grow, they need more of our services. Thus we get their cheap labor and we sell them back are more costly services.
If you insist on bring up Reagan in regards to tariffs, I suggest you read Frédéric Bastiat whom Reagan often quoted and cited as one of his heroes. Bastiat explains well the follies of tariffs. That said, it is true the Reagan’s rhetoric and words in regards to free trade did not always mesh. Such is politics.
One rarely encounters yuppie snobbery at Wal-Mart, a reason unto itself to shop there.
We in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine also do not like the American capitalist piggery. As the old saying goes, love it or leave it. And when you choose to leave it, come to Tehran and we will help you eliminate this piggery forever. And the Zionists, too.
Mr. Merkel: “And what if “American Made” goods are overpriced? Screw the consumer?”
What do you mean by “overpriced”? Compared to what?
If the Japanese Government was subsidizing it’s chip manufacturing to sell products below the cost of production, then they are not “overpriced” compared to chips from Intel or AMD. No!
I mean it’s hard to argue with you libertarians since you have a religious like rapture with the sound of the word, “free market” as if it actually exists.
If you want to talk economics, you need to talk REALITY, and that means politics, not some lunatic rant about “free markets” in regard to the Asian Tigers, and especially China, the fastest growing capitalist country in the world.
Unless China allows it’s yen to free float on the monetary market system, ceases the use of state repression to interfere in labor markets, and stops providing capital investment to it’s so-called “private” owned businesses, then your argument is irrelevant.
In large part, the entire globalization argument in the United States gets down to politics, to who benefits from it and who does not, and the politics of how these decisions are made. For instance, the US government is instrumental in subsidizing the closing down of US factories and rebuilding them in Asia via the loan guarantees, grants, and other subsidies via the Export Import Bank and the World Bank.
In the end, all your talk about ‘free markets’ is just a lot of smoke and mirrors to hide what is at it’s root a POLITICAL QUESTION!
Just to make clear where I stand, I’m a defender of Walmart, and in general agreement with Roach and Merkel’s points. However, I can’t agree with their lack of understanding of the economic and political fundamentals that gave rise to Walmart’s success.
What is clear is that Walmart has benefited the American consumer by introducing DISCOUNTING into the US retail industry. It’s doubtful to me that without Walmart in the picture, very few retailers would have any incentive to lower prices the way Walmart has with it’s innovation in warehousing, purchasing and inventory management.
Where I disagree is the tendency of Roach, Merkel and other so-called “free marketeers” (as in Mickey Mouse economics?) to loop Walmart with globalization, which is an entirely different argument.
Walmart is good for consumer in the short run, but so-called “globalization” is bad for the consumer in the long run.
Right now the problem for most Americans is that even though the costs of consumer goods is keeping pace with declines in income, the costs of big ticket items is NOT. The squeeze is on because of rapid increases in the cost of health care, college tuitions, home ownership and property taxes.
Walmart’s success is lowering markups is certainly welcome to the squeezed consumer, it is not a answer to the economic and political fundamentals that are squeezing the consumer in the first place.
Conservaterian: When we export jobs to other countries, we create new opportunities in America. First, if American companies can have component parts made cheaper else where or whole products made cheaper else where, they can better compete and can sell more products. Of course if a company is selling more products they need more employees. True, this people will not be working on the production line, but they will be doing accounting, investing, sales, shipping, etc…
Classic ideological claptrap. One of the problems with free market ideologues is that like Communists, free marketeers (like in Mickey Mouse) use circular arguments that exclude reality.
The problem with your statement is that it isn’t supported by reality. A quick check of latest numbers on job creation from the Bureau of Labor statistics contradicts you. As does the numbers on the trade deficit.
The US is consuming more then the value of what it produces. Not sustainable in the long run.
What is proppping up the US economy is not Ludwig Von Mises “classical” economics, but a monetary system that is dependent on political and military reality.
It’s not helpful to anyone for you to go around quoting Ludwig Von Misery any more then the problems of Socialist economies was resolved by quoting Marx or Lenin.
Let’s talk REALITY, not fantasy.
DH:
You are locked into static thinking. There is friction in the job market, just as there is friction in the products and services market. “Services” generally can’t be exported, and are not captured in the trade deficit, which measures only consumer and capital goods.
Your understanding of monetary dynamics and money markets is amusing.
If you want to talk “reality,” get a grounding in it – you know, economics, finance, and political economy. Otherwise, you’re not contributing to the discussion, just beating your chest and decrying the unAmmurcan shipping of jobs to furriners.
The trade deficit in no way indicates that we are consuming more than the value of what we produce. It only means that we import more than we export. And I’ve never understood the hand-wringing over the trade deficit anyway. After all, let’s go ad absurdium and propose the ultimate cure for the trade deficit: Take all the imports as they hit our soil and dump them into the trash. Voila, no more trade deficit! Now, would we really be better off? We’d have fewer goods available, and would likely have to pay more for replacement goods. That’s a good thing…how?
If foreign governments choose to subsidize an industry in order to allow that industry to sell products to Americans at lower prices, realize that this necessarily means that foreign governments are effectively subsidizing American consumers. Let’s say that Americans buy widgets, and Japanese Corp. produces widgets that, if imported to America normally, would cost $5/pop. So the American consumer would either have to pay $5/pop or would have to pay the price an American company would offer it at, say $4/pop. So the Japanese government subsidizes Japanese Corp. so that now they only have to charge us $3/pop. That means that Japanese taxpayers are paying the money that American consumers would otherwise have to pay — either the $2/pop for the original Japanese widget or $1/pop for the American widget. They are basically giving us their money! And yet somehow that’s never factored into the whole trade deficit analysis.
As for “DH”/”David Helvetica,” change your name all you want, but you’re still just Hoe. Aren’t you banned yet?
Lief: “You are locked into static thinking…there is friction in the job market just as there is friction in the products and services market”…
Oh I didn’t know Mr. Know-it-All was listening.
Aaccording to the holy rites of free market ideology, the result of every transaction was supposed to be mutual benefit? Now you admit there are losers and winners? What’s so “free” about a “free” market where every economic benefit to one party is an economic loss to another?
Lief: “Services” generally can’t be exported, and are not captured in the trade deficit, which measures only consumer and capital goods”
Ha, ha. Let’s run a test. You consume only services for the next 90 days, and if you’re still alive, let me know. With any luck, we’ll be rid of another free marketeer, and that’s not a bad thing.
Secondly, what you just said isn’t true. The trade deficit reflects an exchange of currency…actually numbers in a computer I think…it’s a monetary transaction is it not?
Third, I’m wondering what “services” the Asians are buying from us in exchange for our paper dollars? Software? Uh, that’s a “product”…hmmm?
Sorry, Leif, but you can’t sing and dance the reality that the US is financing it’s prosperity on debt and inflation, a system sustained by political relationships backed up by raw military FORCE. There is no peaceful free market.
Mr Merkel: And I’ve never understood the hand-wringing over the trade deficit anyway. After all, let’s go ad absurdium and propose the ultimate cure for the trade deficit.
I guess you’d understand it better if it was YOUR job being exported.
Mr. Merkel: “That means that Japanese taxpayers are paying the money that American consumers would otherwise have to pay — either the $2/pop for the original Japanese widget or $1/pop for the American widget. They are basically giving us their money! And yet somehow that’s never factored into the whole trade deficit analysis.”
I guess it didn’t occur to you to ask why the Japanese government was willing to subsidize their chip industry?
CAn you name a single major industry that provide Americans high paying jobs that the government hasn’t subsidized or protected?
Can you name any American product that the US exports–silicon chips, software, drugs, aircraft, military weaponry that the federal government hasn’t protected or subsidized?
Haven’t you ignored the extent to which the taxpayer subsidizes most of what little the US does export, via the Export Import Bank, the World Bank, the WTO?
Oh, I see – I thought I was dealing with someone rational, but misguided. I should’ve looked past the name change to the tone of the comment and realized that the post came from a mildly retarded off-brand proto-simian with delusions of competence.
G’wan, Silverback. Beat’cher chest wit’cher bad self. The other half-brains totally think you’re winning.
Lief: “G’wan, Silverback. Beat’cher chest wit’cher bad self. The other half-brains totally think you’re winning.”
Snore….
Lief: “G’wan, Silverback. Beat’cher chest wit’cher bad self. The other half-brains totally think you’re winning.”
Bluster and blow…is that supposed to be an argument?
Hoe: “Bluster and blow…is that supposed to be an argument?”
No more than “Oh I didn’t know Mr. Know-it-All was listening,” along with everything else you’ve ever written.
As usual, you have no response to reasoned argument. Why does Japan subsidize its chip industry? Because they haven’t realized it’s a bad policy that only transfers their tax revenue into our pockets. Naturally, you can’t argue that it isn’t the case, because it is the case. I’ve already demonstrated why. And now you’re left foundering around for some reason — boy, it must be a good one! — why a government would pursue a bad policy. Gee, maybe because governments do stupid things when idiot “populists” get in lather with their xenophobic notions and national socialist tendencies to insist on dumbass policies that effectively create welfare for the consumers in other nations.
As for a “major industry” providing “high-paying jobs” that our government hasn’t “protected or subsidized,” that’s easy: software. See Exhibit One, Microsoft Corp. Hell, the government even tried to bring them down over trumped-up charges of monopoly! So hush, at least until Roach gets around to hushing you for good.
Mr. Merkel: “Why does Japan subsidize its chip industry? Because they haven’t realized it’s a bad policy that only transfers their tax revenue into our pockets.”
My, my. I guess if you think that the Japanese were dumb for subsidizing high-tech manufacturing, then you must think that the God-head of the Conservative movement Ronald Reagan was equally DUMB for protect US manufacturers from them. Right?
Mr. Merkel: Naturally, you can’t argue that it isn’t the case, because it is the case.
I guess you should be arguing with Ronald Reagan, who advocated the protectionism of the chip industry.
Mr. Merkel: “I’ve already demonstrated why.”
You’ve only demonstrated that you think Ronald Reagan was dumb.
Merkel: “Gee, maybe because governments do stupid things when idiot “populists” get in lather with their xenophobic notions and national socialist tendencies to insist on dumbass policies that effectively create welfare for the consumers in other nations.”
Hoo hoo, hullobullo!
Merkel: “As for a “major industry” providing “high-paying jobs” that our government hasn’t “protected or subsidized,” that’s easy: software. See Exhibit One, Microsoft Corp.”
If anyone had any doubt that you were as ignorant as you are arrogant, you’ve removed all doubt.
Do you know anything about electronics manufacturing and the software development that goes hand in hand with it? Microsoft exists because it has deals with Intel and AMD…their success is intertwined. One would not exist without the other.
You’ve proven nothing, other how dangerous free market fundamentalism is, as idiots like you run around spouting ideological crap, and then citing their own ignorance as “proof” of their fantasies.
I’ve always said that Any Rand, Hayek and the other so-called “Libertarians” are the mirror images of Marxist Leninists, little minds who like simple solutions. What makes you dangerous is that like Communists who you so resemble in mentality, you demand that all reality be interpreted to match the tenets of your small mind.
I have nothing left to conclude, but that you’ve offered nothing to refute my original contention, that there is no such thing as “free markets”, that what is left of American “high-tech” is either protected or subsidized by the state.
Ultimately, globalization is nothing more then a political decision that benefits certain political elites. There is no such thing as a free market. And your “free markets” is nothing more then pimp talk.
So Ronald Reagan advocated some stupid policies. What’s your point? I’ve never held Reagan up to be some paragon of perfection.
Hoe: “Do you know anything about electronics manufacturing and the software development that goes hand in hand with it?”
Yes, I do.
Hoe: “Microsoft exists because it has deals with Intel and AMD…their success is intertwined. One would not exist without the other.”
It’s pretty funny that you cite, as evidence of government subsidization and protectionism, PRIVATE CORPORATIONS working together. Good God, what an own-goal you just scored! But somehow, in your deluded brain, this counts for “proof” somehow, even as you fastidiously ignore inconvenient proofs I’ve offered, such as how Japan’s subsidization of its chip industry has only moved money into American pockets. Oh, wait, too many big words for you. I’ll restate: “You still can’t show us how Japan’s chip policies are wise in any way.” Sorry, mentioning Reagan doesn’t count as an argument, natch.
Hoe: “I have nothing left to conclude…”
Yes, please, spare yourself the embarrassment. Go ahead and change your name again so that you can vainly hope to elude the shameful legacy of your stupidity.
Mr. Merkel: “So Ronald Reagan advocated some stupid policies. What’s your point? I’ve never held Reagan up to be some paragon of perfection.”
Since you are forced to admit that the legacy of Ronald Reagan was protectionism and economic nationalism, then I’ve clearly made my point.
Mr. Merkel: “It’s pretty funny that you cite, as evidence of government subsidization and protectionism, PRIVATE CORPORATIONS working together.”
Even more funny is your continued refusal to admit that without Reagan’s protectionist policies, that the “private” partnership of Intel and Microsoft would not enjoy dominance that it does today.
Intel/Microsoft of course, does indicate another thing—how private corporations conspire to exclude competition and harm the consumer, but that’s another argument….
Mr. Merkel: “I’ll restate: “You still can’t show us how Japan’s chip policies are wise in any way.” Sorry, mentioning Reagan doesn’t count as an argument, natch.”
Uh, I asked you to give a single example of any American high tech industry that provides high paying jobs that wasn’t the beneficiary of government subsidies and/or protectionist policies. To the amusement of everyone you cited Microsoft.
Quite the contrary, it is YOU that has failed to prove your point. Intel/Microsoft WAS the beneficiary of protectionism, and if Japan had been allowed to plunder the US electronics industry, there would be about as many computers running Microsoft software as there are American-manufactured iPods or cell phones.
All you’ve proven is that you so-called “individualism” is merely the views of a self-centered simpleton who can’t see anything beyond the latest techno wizbang he bought from Walmart.
Mr. Merkel: “You still can’t show us how Japan’s chip policies are wise in any way.” Sorry, mentioning Reagan doesn’t count as an argument, natch.”
In case you forgot, my original point was that globalization is nothing more then a political decision that benefits certain economic and social elites, and not the result of “free markets”.
Mentioning Ronald Reagan was not my argument, his protectionist policies and economic nationalism were! The fact that you were ignorant of the FACT that Reagan aggressively protected INtel and AMD is certainly humiliating to someone who likes to pretend he’s a intellectual thinker.
The conclusion of this conversation is that you cannot find a single industry that creates high paying jobs and prosperity for
Americans, as your single example Microsoft was wrong.
Of course, you even failed to address the FACT that the US taxpayer is subsidizing the relocation of American corporations factories and American worker’s jobs to Asia via the Export Import Bank, the WTO and the IMF.
Which of course, brings us to the final conclusion, that so-called “Libertarians” arguments that globalization is just the just and free workings of the unfettered marketplace is a lot of shite. It is a political decision that benefits certain economic and social elites, and therefore is a reasonable question to resolve in a democratic manner at the ballot box.
Hoe: “Since you are forced to admit that the legacy of Ronald Reagan was protectionism and economic nationalism, then I’ve clearly made my point.”
What point? That Reagan did something doesn’t mean it’s right. I already said that, but apparently I used too many big words. So, are you going to address the merits of the argument presented, or just jerk off to your Reagan fetish some more?
Hoe: “Even more funny is your continued refusal to admit that without Reagan’s protectionist policies, that the ‘private’ partnership of Intel and Microsoft would not enjoy dominance that it does today.”
You’re just making it up, you know. The private dealings between Microsoft and chipmakers had nothing to do with the government. And the feds did more to try to put Microsoft out of business than any one else. How is the government subsidizing or protecting Microsoft? Show me laws. Actually prove it. Otherwise, stop making up crap we all know is a lie.
Hoe: “Of course, you even failed to address the FACT that the US taxpayer is subsidizing the relocation of American corporations factories and American worker’s jobs to Asia via the Export Import Bank, the WTO and the IMF.”
Of course, nobody’s mentioned any of those groups until now, so your insisting that I’ve “failed” to address them is akin to your abject failure to account for how the Canadian subsidization of lumber has wound up moving money from Canada to U.S. consumers. Naturally, your lumping them all together indicates that, first, you really don’t know what these groups really do, and second, they are just convenient effigies you like to raise whenever the Jew-baiting, fag-bashing, name-calling and outright lying has failed. So I really don’t see any use in going down this path with you.
I’m just waiting on Roach to ban you yet again. Apparently, you aren’t bright enough to realize that you’re not qualified to post here anymore. Roach told you flat-out to stop posting here. So stop posting.
Mr. Merkel: So, are you going to address the merits of the argument presented..
Oh give up, Nerd. You’ve opened your mouth and inserted your foot.
I asked you to provide me with a single incidence of a American industry providing high paying job opportunities and you cited software, and microsoft.
YOu have been completely proven wrong—without the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984, and Reagan’s emergency Executive Order 12504 imposing 100% tariffs on Japanese semiconductors, there would be no US dominance of software, possibly no Microsoft or Intell at all. Certainly, no AMD.
Stop talking about “private” companies and “free” markets because there is really no such thing except in the confines of the pea-brains like you who mindlessly recite the nonsense being spouted by the Wall Street pimps at the CATO or AIE on how much “globalization” is benefiting us.
You know as much about “free market entreprenuership as George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. YOUR hero, Bush2, was spoiled punk born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who has made a career stealing from the public, cheating his investors, and using his father’s connections to start every business he’s ever been involved in.
Every time you scratch a “libertarian” like you, we find either a liar or an ignoramous. YOu postings prove quite clearly that you are both!