the presidential politics of international trade
Excerpts from David Ranson's WSJ article on the major presidential candidates and their views on trade...
Trade is a good litmus test of statesmanship, since many polls show that voters believe trade with other countries hurts our economy. Which of the presidential candidates will stick up for free trade in the face of doubtful and sometimes hostile audiences?
During their debates, some of the Republican candidates expressed more ifs, ands or buts about free trade than others. John McCain says: "Free trade should be the continuing principle that guides this nation's economy." Mitt Romney's position is: "I strongly support free trade, but free trade has to be fair in both directions." According to Mike Huckabee: "I believe in free trade, but it has to be fair trade." But elsewhere he has said: "I don't want to see our food come from China, our oil come from Saudi Arabia and our manufacturing come from Europe and Asia."
Hillary Clinton has taken an even stronger stance against free trade, suggesting that the economic theories underpinning it no longer hold....Mrs. Clinton believes in "smart trade." As president she would appoint an official to ensure that "provisions to protect labor and environmental standards" are enforced by international bodies like the WTO and the International Labor Organization....
Barack Obama is more even-handed: "Global trade is not going away, technology is not going away, the Internet is not going away. And that means enormous opportunities, but [it] also means more dislocations." In a 2005 essay he said: "It's not whether we should protect our workers from competition, but what we can do to fully enable them to compete against workers all over the world."
If Messrs. McCain and Obama see foreign trade as a glass that is half-full, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee see the glass as half- empty....
It was courageous of Mr. McCain to tell Iowans that he would eliminate subsidies for ethanol and other agricultural products. Instead, he expressed strong support for job retraining programs....
Mr. Romney sometimes advocates less government intervention, other times more. In an optimistic speech in Detroit, he said "that Michigan can once again lead the world's automotive industry. But it means we're going to have to change things in Washington."....[But] he pledge[d] to "make a five-fold increase -- from $4 billion to $20 billion -- in our national investment in energy research, fuel technology, materials science, and automotive technology." He also says he would maintain U.S. farm-subsidy programs until other countries remove theirs.
The Democratic candidates do not speak of reducing or eliminating farm-subsidy spending, only of redirecting it toward the "little guy."...
As in many of the other policy examples, there are no impressive candidates with a chance of winning...
posted by Eric Schansberg @ 8:24 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
If all our policies could be so simple as to solve them in think tanks just outside of Washington, life would be grand.
I guess Cato, WSJ and these institutions serve their purpose but I have so much more respect for the man who is bloodied in the ring of battle. Someone solving problems and leading.
Instead of seeing what politician fits the mold we're looking for, why don't we solve problems?
I never see blogs answer the following questions.
What do we do about China's refusal to operate ethically in their international trade?
Let's hear the solutions to unsafe products, unfair practices and pollution so bad my geologist buddy says you can eat it with a knife and fork.
What about sanctions on Iran? Do we continue to allow GE to sell them military supplies?
What about our dependence on middle eastern countries and Canada for our oil supply?
Do we continue to buy a lot of our food and energy and military supplies from outside our country?
Does free trade have any limitations? Have the rules changed with the move away from agrarian and industrial economies?
Sometimes I think we become a little overconfident in our sovereignty as a nation.
We've only been free for 230 years. Not nearly as long as the Egytian empire, the Roman empire, the Babylonian empire, the Byzantine empire, the Ottoman empire, the british or the french empires.
Someday our flicker of democracy could be put out.
What do you think our founding fathers who started a riot because the British we're taxing their breakfast beverage (thanks Dennis Miller) would think about our media magnification of wars?
Do you think we would have stayed and fought in world war II if we had 24 -7 instant media in the 1940's? Do you think they would have let FDR and Truman do the things they did?
What about losing more men in one day at Normandy then we have in 7 years of Iraq? I am not taking a position just asking questions?
What about losing 58,000 men with 350,000 casualties in Vietnam? I wasn't even born then and have no opinion on the matter. I do look at what happened when we left and wonder how we handle the situation in Iraq.
I'm not advocating premptive war. I'm not a military guy or a war hawk. I'm asking questions that make people say more than let's bring the troops home. If it's as easy as that, then cancel all entitlement programs and remove all unconstitutional amendments or activist judegements like the IRS, Rights to Abortion and the Education department. It's the right thing to do and who cares about the ramifications- we'll discuss them later. I'm in favor of doing away with all three.
All this is a little more complex than saying I'm free trade, free market, less goverment, less tax, less regulation, over and over again.
Let's see some solutions. Everybody has opinions. I'm intested in pragmatism.
"I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution" Werner Von Braun
Werner Von Braun
Here is a dilema we will all face very soon. What do economists and free traders suggest?
I can hire one of the 3 options below to help me with the operation of my small business.
1) At Your Man in India or Brickwork, I can hire an Indian MBA for $4-$10 US dollars to do all my assistnat work. Not just secretarial stuff, I'm talking web design assistance, research, travel planning, spreadsheet development, ad copy, the list goes on and on. I can talk to them via email and Skype for little to no money and have the advantage of time zones.
2) I can hire a virtual assistant like the one in India here in the US without an MBA. The cost is about $30 per hour and the duties are good but only about 70% percent of what the Indian MBA can handle.
3) I can hire my brother in Northern KY, who is in school majoring in marketing. I can pay him $12 per hour on a contract basis, but he's not as experienced and not as flexible, but he's my brother and he would love the opportunity.
Apply global markets, free markets and free trade theory to this transaction. This is happening all the time now. You can go to the websites in option 1 with a couple clicks on google.
I have a few opinions on this and I want to be a free market, free trade, competiitve market capitalist.
Can the US economy overcome these wide skill gaps? We can't even retrain baby boomers to use computers and we're the country that is supposed to have the corner on the information economy.
An Indian MBA for $4 per hour!
We've lost the industry, agriculture and manufacturing jobs. Now we are losing the information jobs.
Bryce,
On your first email: Those are important questions. But it doesn't seem likely that our elected officials will do much with them-- or that the public will ask that of them-- when the biggest policy this year will probably be the attempt (likely successful) to buy our votes by borrowing more money.
In your second email, if you mean the last sentence to be more than a hyperbolic nod to conventional wisdom, you should know that the number of manufacturing jobs has been about constant for decades-- but have diminished as a percentage of overall employment.
Likewise, it is difficult to make distinctions between service and manufacturing jobs. For example, an accountant working for Ford counts as a manufacturing job. Someone who does maintenance for an architectural firm will count as service.
In any case, the larger issue are worker productivity and government institutions that impact business productivity. On the former, school reform is, by far, the biggest issue. On the latter, the govt does a wide range of things that get in the way of productivity.
But it doesn't seem likely that our elected officials will do much with them-- or that the public will ask that of them-- when the biggest policy this year will probably be the attempt (likely successful) to buy our votes by borrowing more money.
To your comment:
This is one of the reasons why an outsider like Huckabee (nod to Paul as well) who raised 9 million as of Dec 31 and had cash on hand of 2 Million (these stats are on the yahoo election dashboard)impresses me. Menawhile clinton rasied 118 million and Obama 80 million, McCain 40 and the stats were no longer posted for Giulianni and Romney. People can say what they like about how Huckabee governed a state but does that really translate into how one will govern at the federal level. I think Reagan was a good example of this.
After all governors are responsible for things in their state like education while the federal government should not be involved in these matters. I believe the way a senator acts in congress can be a great indicator of how they'll run the country. It's in their blood to legislate. The American people had some great alternatives in this race.
Not that it matters much, but to clarify and extend, Ron Paul's supporters raised more $20 million in the 4th quarter. Paul's cash-on-hand is still impressive; unfortunately, I'm not sure what he can with it that will be all that effective!
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