US protectionism- for or against?

[woodie1]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: woodie1
Generally against but countries who have imposed unfair duties to our exports should be punished in one manner or the other.

How about the converse? We don't penalize other countries (well, aside from taxation today), but incent our own through tax breaks?

Huh?

 

[StormRider]

Originally posted by: woodie1

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: woodie1
Generally against but countries who have imposed unfair duties to our exports should be punished in one manner or the other.

How about the converse? We don't penalize other countries (well, aside from taxation today), but incent our own through tax breaks?

Huh?

I think he means that if we subsidized some of our own industries through tax breaks or whatever is kind of the same thing as imposing unfair duties to foreign imports. Both make native products "cheaper" than foreign products.

 

[nobodyknows]

I used to hate country music, but now I like it.

 

[chess9]

After October 1929, many of our banks started failing. Then factories started closing because they couldn't get financing (a liquidity crisis!), and unemployment shot up. Sound familiar yet? Then Germany, which had lost the first world war and hadn't recovered, had similar problems, and ditto for the British Isles and France and Italy. Countries started closing their borders to trade and electing or installing more authoritarian governments. Hitler, the Fascists in Italy, and Communism was about to 'flower' in The Soviet Union. All of which led to WAR. You might remember WWII....

So, no, protectionism may be a very bad idea, even if this downturn is not identical to 1929. BUT, there are enough scary parallels to give one pause. The Ruger stock rise is perhaps one of the most worrisome signs of the times....

-Robert

 

[BrownTown]

I'm for it on a limited basis. There are some things that are just to important to be 100% reliant on other countries to produce them. For example this country cannot make the heavy forging required for nuclear power plants, that's just plain embarrassing. Same goes for alot of other manufacturing type jobs. For example extra high voltage transformers are no longer made in this country, the have to be shipped from Europe even though our entire electric grid is useless without them.