Originally Posted By: the G-man of Zur-En-Arrh
I disagree with it. Not only does protectionism hurt the economy in the long run and encourage shoddy workmanship and union thuggery, but Buchanan was discovered some years ago to favor Mercedes cars over domestic models.


As I recall, Buchanan was exposed as driving a foreign-model SUV, and when exposed sold it and purchased an American-made vehicle.


I disagree that protectionism is bad. In the short term, it hurts the economy, yes. But in the long-term, it keeps capital, jobs, and taxable income in the U.S., and that money re-circulates here and builds our economy.

As opposed to allowing 800 billion a year to leave the U.S., as we presently do, that shrinks our GNP, exports high-paying jobs and industry, and makes us dependent on foreign suppliers.

At some point (as we may be seeing now) the dollar collapses, and those cheap "efficiently made" products (i.e., goods made by third-world labor at less than a tenth of U.S. wages, with ho health care or benefits for employees, which pressures U.S. companies to not provide healthcare to U.S. employees either, if they want to compete and stay in business) suddenly become very expensive.
We saw an example of that with the drop in the dollar, and the huge spike in oil prices last year.

Whatever the economic cost, I think protectionism and an abandonment of free trade is the only way to save the United States from losing its sovereignty to foreign suppliers and banks.

Regarding lack of competition, U.S. companies still have to compete with each other, and that breeds efficiency. Detroit seems to be the exception to that rule. And foreign competition hasn't made Detroit any more efficient either.

I think a limited degree of foreign competition is healthy. But we are way past that. What's needed now is to pull baack significantly from foreign trade, and protect our vulnerable industries. As every other nation does. And we, suicidally, have not.
Free trade destroyed the British Empire, and now it is destroying us.