World Free Trade Ending?

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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foxnews.com/politics/2016/06 … pport.html

This would of been awesome had Bill Clinton took this approach during his presidency… the great depression got it’s start under Bill Clinton, with the collapse of the US Steel Industry… many of these areas haven’t recovered, and the money & wages missing from the economy wrecked havoc across several states. When the housing bubble collapsed, my area was already in a Democratic Party induced depression for well over a decade. Most of Bush’s activities was aimed at filling the balance sheets, making sure enough money existed in the economy to fulfill our debt obligations… our money more or less dissapeared.

Now all of a sudden everyone is backing off. Free trade isn’t the issue, but letting predatory states like China (Denmark does the exact same thing with the EU, pegging their currency, but Denmark has nothing like the industrial capacity like China to force radical market fluctuations guided by politicians) do this shit is insane.

The steel mill here isn’t coming back, even with trump. It went from the largest in the world to the most decrepit. It isnt easy to destroy it, has taken years by demolition and recyclers to get half down… I wouldn’t trust myself on the catwalks of the half left. Other mills nearby exist in a sense, in better shape. Other nations have their mills, Africa is expanding, Brazil is still humming. It is a bad idea for a country to give up on it’s essential, core manufacturing base, becoming dependent on the hijinks of others.

I’m increasingly for pulling out of Free Trade Associations, and just reworking trade deals individually with individual nations and pacts. I think the vast majority can be preserved, just it is wiser having direct control. No point pushing a country back to the stone age.

I think most major nations and Blocs having basic steel manufacturing is wise… they can build skyscrapers and ships without asking or begging, or having to pussyfoot diplomatically. I’m not interested in breaking China, punishing it, weakening it… just we need to be realistic regarding every nation’s core essential needs. It is wise for other countries to have core industrial and manufacturing bases. Not just the US, not just Europe it the Asian Tiger States… that should be everywhere. More self reliance.

Short of having Star Trek style replicators, going the route of Mao’s command that every peasant would smelt in his own foundry in his backyard isn’t going to work… independence on that level isn’t possible… but in modern world politics, states can be isolated and become pariahs… they act more insane if they come off completely inept. Countries need the ability to build their own projects, fund their own debt and churn their own economy. Having a strong middle class is essential… Bill Clinton stood opposed to the middle class, and we lost these advantages we one had. His wife appears to grasp everyone is angry now, and is backing away from it.

More and more her potential presidency has the feel of of the Alliance from Firefly… a conglomeration of the most evil aspects of our society coming together to destroy us, for some petty, isolated elite.

My part of the country has been back in official depression for some time. It isn’t going nearly as well as the Democrats claim it to be. I’m very fearful under Clinton… besides her war mongering tendencies, she will strike the final blows against the economy on some insane liberal joyride, who’s logic only makes sense to them, and no one else. What does it mean she us distancing from Free Trade? Does she even have alternative policies, or will it be something no thought out… like her attacks in Libya and ignoring ISIS in Iraq? Silent until she blunders…

We can’t survive another 8 years in this trajectory. Country needs to take a decisive stand against the Clintons. Vote no for Wars, Vote no for Economic Depressions, Vote No for Hillary.

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I think steel will generally loose demand in the coming years due to better materials, and China’s steel industry will also bit the dust.

We are going through massive changes and its probably not any country or politic that’s responsible. Here for example, they blame the socialist labour party for the failure of capitalism lol, when in fact it is neither the party/leader nor the nation at cause.

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what’s your view on protectionism?

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I think I gave it above…

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Hello Mr. Ferguson

It is not just the steel industry. A lot of other areas were once dominated by the US but has since been taken over by other countries. I think that events happen in already established circumstances, so that for example the American rise in the steel industry came at a time of high need (19th and 20th century). After the world wars pretty much took out Europe and left America with it’s war industrial capacity intact, is it any wonder what followed? But as the world has enjoyed peace (and perpetual skirmishes) competition has increased and we are not always the best option available. Globalization was not possible a century ago, but the “threat” it represents is at the same time the promise of prosperity for continents left behind. It scares us because we are not prepared to compete and have given up even competing. Even IF government adopts protective measures such as you describe, without the available know how, Americans will not benefit except for greater handouts by government. I would love move vocational schools being available instead of so many service schools. Our infrastructure is crumbling under the weight of exponential population growth and we cannot get Congress to get behind construction bills that may alleviate the problem. China has moved past us because we are no longer able to pass such massive government undertakings. They are the nightmare that keeps Americans awake at night, and yet, it has to be said, there is an advantage for such “enlightened” dictatorships. Oil companies, Boeing, Airbus, and Apple know this, and whatever we do we either trade in our liberty or accept where the “invisible hand” has placed us.

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I’m not interested in the invisible hand, I want to see in this case the hand that is smacking me, all respect otherwise to Adam Smith.

And I’m not for protectionalism everywhere, even most places. I don’t think you can build a computer by a pure “American Made” approach, nor can most countries. We could put something low tech out, like China… but to get something advanced, you gotta go all over. We aren’t exactly running out of computers though… we could last a few generations off of what we currently have… an example, the power plant in Iraq I had to guard had old apples from the 80s running it.

That power plant couldn’t run without pipes though, and you need steel for those pipes. You need steel for the thousand of bridges falling apart… we can make concrete easily. I am looking at worst case scenarios, and say what is of vital interest. Steel is one. Brass for bullets would be another, but I think we produce that plenty. Food is one… Obama started shutting down agriculture subsidies early on (think he thought he could fund Obamacare that way, the idiot). We built that system up from the great depression, it was ironically a survival of progressive politics and the dumbass steamrolled it. I’m usually pro-austrian economics, but my outlook is aimed at centuries.I don’t know how we will be in 20, 40, 80, 100, 150 years from now. Spaceships? Poor and impoverished, with UN sanctions on us? I can look back on Roman and Byzantine times, to the present, marking the fluxuations and it makes sense to me… but Emperor Augustus couldn’t look forward to me and say he knew what was coming in between.

I do know, cornered states do better when they can fund their own agricultural and industrial growth. I’m not fighting to protect every industry, just the die hard ones we can’t do without. It took Heraclitus 20 years to rebuild the Roman Army and push back the Persians. How long would it take us in a Shit Hits The Fan situation in say, 20 years from now… our ballistic shield works perfect… we stop Russia or Chins from nuking the US, but we lose Europe… it becomes a nuclear nightmare… our ships are hunted at sea because China or Russia knocked out satellites out of orbit with some gravel bags ripped open, sacking all our satellites out. We can get steel from West Africa, India, Brazil… but that’s exactly the waters we are being contested in, and those countries are remaining neutral, not wanting to be part in a nuclear war…

How long will it take us to convert tin mills into full blown steel mills, then into mills capable of uranium plate folding for armor… be it tanks or subs? How long till be can build new bridges to new reclaimed farmland using steel beams, so we can feed our starving population?

We can produce our own oil, so free trade isn’t that scary. If we destroyed our last refineries and capped the Alaskan pipe line and the gulf stations, I would freak. I don’t want absolute free trade, I want some state security knowing civilization wouldn’t collapse overnight if the market went belly up. We wouldn’t use our strategic oil reserves to fuel your car… we would use it for vital services, if we suddenly couldn’t import or produce.

Other thing I know from history is… for better or worst, nations change their economic system. I really prefer capitalism, save for the considerations above. If we decide, hopefully through the legit Democratic process, to turn commie… or fascist, or who knows what… I want it as smooth a transition as possible. This means the state needs the possibility of going in, rationing and fixing how the economy works in a transition. I’m guessing most systems involve food and bridges and a military… so covering food and steel makes sense.

If we have a really, deeply retarded president… completely collapses the economy, we can do a “New Deal Part 2” with our agriculture base. Put people to work on farms. In order to do that… we need farms. Farmers need equipment to buy, and laborers need currency. That is what the food stamp program was designed to do, in SHTF situations. It is a backup currency. Was when it was just paper at least. USDA still let’s farmers buy equipment in situations with it. I do not advocate doing this to all our unemployed, but if we hit a really bad depression with a famine looming, that is what our system was designed to do. At least till Obama tried to make America great again, a change we could believe in. He started fucking our agriculture sector. Was it a welfare hog? Yes… but it was a welfare hog that insured a backup if a president absolutely failed otherwise economically, that we wouldn’t starve to death in mass famines. I like to eat dammit! Moscow and China have had famines, they keep massive food stocks underground in the permafrost and in freezers. I don’t want the invisible hand backhanding me during a famine.

Am I advocating saving the locks, shoe, minor electronics like alarm clock or fitbit industries? Nope. Why? We can do without… shoes ate coming back actually, Nike and Adidas are building plants here. If you can make steel, I can make a shoe factory. Shoes good for soldiers, workers. If something bad happens, we have shoes, but as long as you got good agriculture and good steel making, you can naturally make shoes.

See the logic? I’m a minimslists when it comes to protectionalism. Some industries would collapse like the computer industry. Do you want the new model of IPhone to have similar specs to North Korean computers? We need China, Malaysia, Japan, Korea to make one. They need us to make their stuff. But to survive, we absolutely need steel and agriculture. It needs protected. Perhaps other areas too, but nothing stands out in my mind as that essential. You don’t want to become dependent and without these as a large nation, at others mercy.

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At this point global free trade economically all around the world is cannibalizing itself.

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Necessary.

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blogs.ft.com/the-exchange/2016/0 … -pedigree/

Trying to make capitalism fair and good.
I don’t think that is very possible.

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When the global economy eventually collapses ushering in world war III I would say that will be the start of the end of that so called thing that describes itself as free trade, yes.

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sorry, there has never been any free trade at all… but a giant wealth transfer into the elite’s vaults and the impoverishment of 90% of world citizens.

the world debt is almost 10 times the global GPD, toxic derivatives neutron bomb not included.