and tie it to U.S. citizens. Right now, they like to import foreign guest workers and claim, magically they are the only ones who innovate, create. It's simply not true and it's almost discriminatory against American entrepreneurs. With *that said*, there are (for real) people from all over the globe who come up with true innovation and want to form start-ups with that very innovation in the U.S. But currently it's almost "immigrant preferred", often due to ties (they believe) to the home country for workers, even markets and that's just crap.
Glad to see someone read this. I was thinking the silence is due to I finally wrote a positive on Obama, true, a rarity but frankly presenting better proposals and just daring the GOP instead and pushing to override these people is the way to go.
People voted for that soaring rhetoric and campaign promises, they sure did not vote for Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.
Glad you like it and no doubt it would be challenged as a "barrier to trade" or some crap but at this point I think they need to tell the WTO and so on to go to hell. (or should have a good 15 years ago).
Here is Robert Oak's proposal to link tax reform to one of many practices whereby the USA economy is subject to what amounts to sabotage from within by way of outsourcing everything from the first business plan on out to the ultimate profits -- the latter "outsourced" into the wonderful world of WTO "competition," where you can give the proverbial finger to the IRS (as well as to your local schools and other infrastructure) and get away with it.
Robert Oak --
Require VC's to hire U.S. citizens, first and foremost, and all production, business activity be located in the United States, in order to obtain a 15%, or capital gains tax treatment on all profits. You want to see, magically, all sorts of people be hired and trained, a blossoming cloud of U.S. manufacturing? That would do 'er. Wouldn't that be nice instead of venture capitalists requiring business plans have a China strategy. Many VCs today will not fund a U.S. start-up unless they plan on manufacturing in China and offshore outsourcing some tech jobs to India.
Egregious executive compensation, especially for CEOs, really is a huge populist issue. I'm sure of that. People have been disgusted since before 2008, and since then, the bottom has fallen out of the opinion polls.
Many CEOs get paid far beyond what economic theory says is necessary to motivate them. Worse, a fair number enjoyed soaring pay while shareholders saw their wealth dwindle, as with John Snow when he ran the CSX Corp railroad company. When Snow left to become Treasury secretary his pay had grown 69 percent, while the price of CSX shares fell as much as 64 percent, just one of many disconnects between CEO pay and performance.
This relates to remark by Robert Oak on the President's tax reform proposals contained in his deficit reduction plan --
"The plan caps federal contractor's executive compensation. Think about it. If a corporation wants to obtain federal contracts, they cannot pay their executives exorbitant fees." -- Robert Oak
Just want to return to this topic briefly to clarify that I don't find $13,000 a month to be excessive for retirement pay of a Lt. General (*three stars"). There has to be a pay differential from private to corporal and on up -- so $13,000/month for next-to-top rank, in comparison with retirement compensation of corporate officers, isn't particularly excessive after 30 years of service. That's barring sweetheart "revolving door" employment of retired officers by military contractors -- which isn't anything to do with Boykin, I don't believe.
I don't consider the military retirement pay schedule to be a problem -- any more than I consider funding of Social Security retirement to be a real problem.
Conspiracy theory! Isn't it wonderful in the absence of facts? -- or meaning? -- or context?
"Boykin's video" refers to a retired general officer who draws about $13,000 a month from taxpayer money, plus complete socialized medicine (for himself, if no one else) ... complaining about runaway government expenditures! It doesn't get any better than that!
I have just reviewed Boykin's video, and it doesn't seem that the costs of medical care are troublesome to him -- not surprising given his situation. The problems that he sees or imagines are much more brooding and ominous than anything quantifiable. What strikes me is that he exempts the current Communist Party regime in China from his criticism of "the Marxist model" -- even though every point he makes applies today in the People's Republic just as much as it did twenty or thirty or fifty years ago! All of his points also apply, for example, to Singapore. Oh well ... guess he's trying to cope with the changes somehow ...
Whatever else Boykin is saying, at least we are agreed on commitment to the Constitution.
I do think this is the first time I can remember him recommending policies which he knows the GOP will block at every turn. I cannot recall another event like this. Of course this doesn't negate the promotion of policies such as more H-1B workers, bad trade deals, bank bail outs and so on which are terrible for the U.S. middle class, but credit when it's due here I think.
I'm glad you noticed the write-up. I thought it important here that our readers at this website, which is so dependent on freedom of thought and expression on the internet, understand more about the Pirate Party. Congratulations on your success in Berlin. This is likely to shake things up a bit in Germany and elsewhere.
I think my main point is trade is dynamic, dependent upon many elements and due to global supply chains, various elements via imports actually can help exports. There just isn't a "hatchet". Even the theory, if one digs into the mathematics, it's actually quite complex, multi-variate theory and Gomory utilized his integer mathematics in part for his analysis to come to equilibrium.
So, to scream "tariffs", which are just a tax and can be applied per item, even per point in time, just doesn't really address what's going on.
It's also a lightening rod. Alot of economists and esp. politicians don't take people too seriously who just shout "tariff" without details.
So, it's not a simple thing, except om currency manipulation that actually helps boil things down into a "simple thing" because it's just a gap, created across all of that nation's exports, who are manipulating their currencies.
For example, VATs are pretty common and China is notorious to literally change their VAT on a per time period and per item all of the time. That's all legal to do, according to the infamous WTO, i.e. change one's VAT in short time windows and per category or items.
That doesn't mean that an across-the-board tariff is the way to go, or even would not be disastrous in the short term, but it does mean that it's past time to identify WTO 'free trade' dogma as cow pucky.
The evidence is there. Americans can look around them and see how many people are unemployed. This is why a majority of Americans think that free trade agreements are bad for the country.
We need to get past the idea that free trade is theoretically good, and look at the evidence that proves that it is bad in practice for America.
"Putting an across the board tarrif on China ... would result in sharp increase in interest rates as the government deparately tries to find buyers for its debt. But rising rates would cause interest payments on the $14 trillon debt to skyrocket causing obsene deficits." -- Bill Sander
The premise here is that we will not see monetary and related reforms as advocated by the American Monetary Institute. So, of course, we can expect disaster in one form or another ... but we already knew that!
However, assuming necessary reforms will be implemented, then the main point is that since we will not need to continue to snowball our debt, the "skyrocketing interest rates" will be purely the result of the value of Treasuries falling, that is, people who buy them will pay less, which means they will earn more relative to the amount they have paid. The interest payments made by the USA on existing Treasuries will total exactly what they would have anyway. The solution to the problem is easy -- it's like cutting up all your run-up credit cards to begin paying yourself first. You just have to get over your idea that the economy requires a huge US. debt in order to function.
As China unloads its ownership of our national debt and exchange value of U.S. Treasuries fall, just buy in on the way back up and you'll have a nice guaranteed nest egg. The People's Bank of China loses. You win.
This was one of the best summaries of the Pirate Party I have read in five and a half years:
The Pirate Party stands on its head the notion that challenging the rule of corporations and the rights they have assumed to themselves at the expense of individuals is somehow an act of “piracy.” Those who vote for the party appear willing to be branded as pirates, as outlaws or brigands, if that is what it means to assert that individual freedoms and rights should never be subordinate to those of impersonal and often amoral corporate interests.
We will see, how long it last, until the old system shuts down!
The Pirate Party is the only political answer which gains success for all people in the now system.
You will see:In the future system, there isn't any big private company!
So! Watch out and see, what you never have believed!
I see your fat boat swinging on the rough sea of the human future!
Interesting and this all came about due to P2P, torrents and going after pirate bay?
The U.S. political system guarantees corporate control over government with no choice. Not only is the electoral college sew it up by the gerrymandered districts with the additional state, local laws to even get on the ballot make it impossible for any 3rd party. Add to that, the media will lock out anyone who isn't corporate endorsed.
I wrote up a piece on some GOP candidates, one who has a lot of positions that would put economic policy in line with the national interests, they are getting completely locked out.
Take a look at Robert's article today on the Household Wealth decline in the Fed's quarterly economic data dump. Households - the consumer - the individual, however you want to define them, are bust. Their wealth is shrinking. Their earnings power we used to say in the 00s has plateaued; now we have to say it has collapsed altogether. There is no tax money to be squeezed from the consumer, however much The Washington Post, the Republican Party, and other mouthpieces and agents for the wealthy want to portray things. Just where did all the money go from the cut in the Social Security payroll tax this year? To food and energy and paying down debt. Nobody's buying flat screen TVs anymore. The only credit people can get is for buying cars using sub-prime loans, and we all know how that is going to play out eventually for the lenders.
If you want to squeeze more blood out of the consumer by increasing their taxes, you just hasten the day when the economy implodes altogether and federal tax revenues fall by 50% from already record-low levels.
But since the United States must, sooner or later, and in the face of strenuous objections from the Republicans, raise revenue by increasing taxes, there are only two places to go where there is any money to be found: the wealthy, and corporations.
We are wasting a lot of time pretending otherwise.
P.S. Don't get me started on that joke of an argument that we can't tax corporations because they create jobs. The argument actually is true. The part never discussed by the conservatives is the fact that almost all of these jobs are created in China.
"Okeydokey, please stop posting that fiction." - Robert Oak
Brief review of facts in evidence against across-the-board tariff is appreciated -- but not impugning my remarks as fiction or as advocating across-the-board tariff for current USA policy.
Please note use of quotation marks in comment title - "across-the-board tariff" - was intentional. My initial topic was use of the term, not any policy recommendation.
After that, my topic was theoretical and historical, implying limits as to what is possible - related to policies instituted and supported by 'free traders', not policies advocated by myself or anyone else for the USA at this time.
The fiction is by 'free traders' that the world would move toward elimination of non-tariff barriers by first eliminating tariffs. Didn't happen. Ain't happening. Fiction.
Yes, I am not saying what Scott is saying. I just don't understand how I was misunderstood as trying to represent what I was saying as something that Scott has said or as something that is supported by Scott.
I thought that my point was clear, that it's good to see the term "tariff" and even "across-the-board tariff" in print and discussed. That point holds even though I have long since capitulated to the analysis, published here at EP, concerning energy.
Personally, I would install a dish just to be able to view a panel discussion of tariffs on some major network -- moderated by Robert Oak, with panelists Robert Scott, Craig Harrington, Ralph Nader and Peter DeFazio!
The terms "tariff" and even "across-the-board tariff" have popular appeal, like it or not. If that appeal is mainly to simplistic thinking, then there's all the more reason for discussing the idea in all its complexity, pro and con.
I remarked on Scott's use of a term, that's all. Doesn't mean that I am trying to make a citation, like, "blah-blah-blah (see, Scott, R., 2011)." Doesn't mean that I am representing that any of my ideas have been established by his use of the term!
I did not represent my analysis and conclusions as Scott's. I have no idea what Scott would say about my comments. He will probably never read them.
Am I posting fiction when I post historical/theoretical analysis of the free trade movement and related phenomena?
Nothing in my historical/theoretical analysis has been disputed. None of my conclusions have even been challenged. (Possibly, no one has read them!)
I am saying that the goals of free trade have not been and will not be, in the long run, served by systematic elimination (to zero) of tariffs in the short run. However, that doesn't mean that USA trade policy now should suddenly be limited to an across-the-board tariff -- that would indeed be simplistic. On the other hand, I would not recommend that USA trade negotiation should premise itself on any limitation, including a limitation as to an across-the-board tariff. (I presume that was Scott's point, that we should retain that 'nuclear option'.)
It's a non sequitur to suppose that my conclusion -- that across-the-board tariffs are the way forward for elimination of non-tariff barriers -- implies that I am arguing for an across-the-board tariff at this time (or ever). My conclusion is more of a conditional than a prescriptive statement: IF you want to reduce non-tariff barriers, THEN you need across-the-board tariffs. But we do not really want to reduce non-tariff barriers or tariffs either -- we want to improve the US economy. It's the free trade movement (WTO) that purports to want to systematically reduce non-tariff barriers by way of eliminating tariffs. IMO, that can't be done, and that's all I am saying.
IMO, the world will ultimately (maybe in 50 years) see modest across-the-board tariffs between major trading units globally, even as we may also see more transnational unions such as the EU.
Both major political parties are guilty of protecting the wealthy and MNC's but the Democratic party is additionally guilty of fraud by misrepresenting their platform, then pimping their constituents. I will vote third party.
he is saying an across the board tariff for only countries who significantly undervalue their currency for an unfair trade advantage. That's not a tariff in the traditional sense. It ends up being across all imports from one country, but only because trade exchange, price exchange's are in that country's currency.
I did not misunderstand Scott, I just quoted him. Of course, Scott has a point of view, somewhat different from my point of view.
What I was saying, and do say, is that it's refreshing to see the term "across-the-board tariff" used in discussion.
I probably agree with Scott as to policy. My general analysis is theoretical rather than policy-oriented.
My analysis (not necessarily the opinion of Scott, EPI or EP) is that an across-the-board tariff is essential if we want to work toward elimination of barriers other than across-the-board or other tariffs -- unless we are talking about transnational unions such as the EU.
As I have noted, I am theoretically opposed to all trade barriers, that is, opposed to trade barriers in the best conceivable of all conceivable worlds. But realistically -- here in what is merely the best of all possible worlds -- complete elimination of national trade barriers is simply impossible for the foreseeable future. Therefore, progress toward the ideal of free trade through irreversible and systematic tariff reduction is delusional.
Of course, we are stuck in the neo-mercantilist struggle for survival. We can't just declare a halt and new rules overnight. Nonetheless, the neo-mercantilist (WTO) system as it has evolved has been proven to subvert the declared intentions of the free-trade ideal.
and tie it to U.S. citizens. Right now, they like to import foreign guest workers and claim, magically they are the only ones who innovate, create. It's simply not true and it's almost discriminatory against American entrepreneurs. With *that said*, there are (for real) people from all over the globe who come up with true innovation and want to form start-ups with that very innovation in the U.S. But currently it's almost "immigrant preferred", often due to ties (they believe) to the home country for workers, even markets and that's just crap.
Glad to see someone read this. I was thinking the silence is due to I finally wrote a positive on Obama, true, a rarity but frankly presenting better proposals and just daring the GOP instead and pushing to override these people is the way to go.
People voted for that soaring rhetoric and campaign promises, they sure did not vote for Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.
Glad you like it and no doubt it would be challenged as a "barrier to trade" or some crap but at this point I think they need to tell the WTO and so on to go to hell. (or should have a good 15 years ago).
Here's creative thinking at its best.
Here is Robert Oak's proposal to link tax reform to one of many practices whereby the USA economy is subject to what amounts to sabotage from within by way of outsourcing everything from the first business plan on out to the ultimate profits -- the latter "outsourced" into the wonderful world of WTO "competition," where you can give the proverbial finger to the IRS (as well as to your local schools and other infrastructure) and get away with it.
Robert Oak --
Egregious executive compensation, especially for CEOs, really is a huge populist issue. I'm sure of that. People have been disgusted since before 2008, and since then, the bottom has fallen out of the opinion polls.
However, as David Cay Johnston recently points out, most corporate executive compensation is dropping currently.
On the other hand --
This relates to remark by Robert Oak on the President's tax reform proposals contained in his deficit reduction plan --
"The plan caps federal contractor's executive compensation. Think about it. If a corporation wants to obtain federal contracts, they cannot pay their executives exorbitant fees." -- Robert Oak
Just want to return to this topic briefly to clarify that I don't find $13,000 a month to be excessive for retirement pay of a Lt. General (*three stars"). There has to be a pay differential from private to corporal and on up -- so $13,000/month for next-to-top rank, in comparison with retirement compensation of corporate officers, isn't particularly excessive after 30 years of service. That's barring sweetheart "revolving door" employment of retired officers by military contractors -- which isn't anything to do with Boykin, I don't believe.
I don't consider the military retirement pay schedule to be a problem -- any more than I consider funding of Social Security retirement to be a real problem.
I have just reviewed Boykin's video, and it doesn't seem that the costs of medical care are troublesome to him -- not surprising given his situation. The problems that he sees or imagines are much more brooding and ominous than anything quantifiable. What strikes me is that he exempts the current Communist Party regime in China from his criticism of "the Marxist model" -- even though every point he makes applies today in the People's Republic just as much as it did twenty or thirty or fifty years ago! All of his points also apply, for example, to Singapore. Oh well ... guess he's trying to cope with the changes somehow ...
Whatever else Boykin is saying, at least we are agreed on commitment to the Constitution.
I do think this is the first time I can remember him recommending policies which he knows the GOP will block at every turn. I cannot recall another event like this. Of course this doesn't negate the promotion of policies such as more H-1B workers, bad trade deals, bank bail outs and so on which are terrible for the U.S. middle class, but credit when it's due here I think.
I'm glad you noticed the write-up. I thought it important here that our readers at this website, which is so dependent on freedom of thought and expression on the internet, understand more about the Pirate Party. Congratulations on your success in Berlin. This is likely to shake things up a bit in Germany and elsewhere.
Numerian
I think my main point is trade is dynamic, dependent upon many elements and due to global supply chains, various elements via imports actually can help exports. There just isn't a "hatchet". Even the theory, if one digs into the mathematics, it's actually quite complex, multi-variate theory and Gomory utilized his integer mathematics in part for his analysis to come to equilibrium.
So, to scream "tariffs", which are just a tax and can be applied per item, even per point in time, just doesn't really address what's going on.
It's also a lightening rod. Alot of economists and esp. politicians don't take people too seriously who just shout "tariff" without details.
So, it's not a simple thing, except om currency manipulation that actually helps boil things down into a "simple thing" because it's just a gap, created across all of that nation's exports, who are manipulating their currencies.
For example, VATs are pretty common and China is notorious to literally change their VAT on a per time period and per item all of the time. That's all legal to do, according to the infamous WTO, i.e. change one's VAT in short time windows and per category or items.
"Emphasis Should Be Placed On Free Trade Results, Not Failed Theory" is the title of an article by Karl Rusnak, at EP-linked Economy In Crisis.
That doesn't mean that an across-the-board tariff is the way to go, or even would not be disastrous in the short term, but it does mean that it's past time to identify WTO 'free trade' dogma as cow pucky.
"Putting an across the board tarrif on China ... would result in sharp increase in interest rates as the government deparately tries to find buyers for its debt. But rising rates would cause interest payments on the $14 trillon debt to skyrocket causing obsene deficits." -- Bill Sander
The premise here is that we will not see monetary and related reforms as advocated by the American Monetary Institute. So, of course, we can expect disaster in one form or another ... but we already knew that!
However, assuming necessary reforms will be implemented, then the main point is that since we will not need to continue to snowball our debt, the "skyrocketing interest rates" will be purely the result of the value of Treasuries falling, that is, people who buy them will pay less, which means they will earn more relative to the amount they have paid. The interest payments made by the USA on existing Treasuries will total exactly what they would have anyway. The solution to the problem is easy -- it's like cutting up all your run-up credit cards to begin paying yourself first. You just have to get over your idea that the economy requires a huge US. debt in order to function.
As China unloads its ownership of our national debt and exchange value of U.S. Treasuries fall, just buy in on the way back up and you'll have a nice guaranteed nest egg. The People's Bank of China loses. You win.
What's the problem?
This was one of the best summaries of the Pirate Party I have read in five and a half years:
The Pirate Party stands on its head the notion that challenging the rule of corporations and the rights they have assumed to themselves at the expense of individuals is somehow an act of “piracy.” Those who vote for the party appear willing to be branded as pirates, as outlaws or brigands, if that is what it means to assert that individual freedoms and rights should never be subordinate to those of impersonal and often amoral corporate interests.
Cheers,
Rick - founder of the first Pirate Party
We will see, how long it last, until the old system shuts down!
The Pirate Party is the only political answer which gains success for all people in the now system.
You will see:In the future system, there isn't any big private company!
So! Watch out and see, what you never have believed!
I see your fat boat swinging on the rough sea of the human future!
Have fun!
Interesting and this all came about due to P2P, torrents and going after pirate bay?
The U.S. political system guarantees corporate control over government with no choice. Not only is the electoral college sew it up by the gerrymandered districts with the additional state, local laws to even get on the ballot make it impossible for any 3rd party. Add to that, the media will lock out anyone who isn't corporate endorsed.
I wrote up a piece on some GOP candidates, one who has a lot of positions that would put economic policy in line with the national interests, they are getting completely locked out.
The first step to getting what you need is asking for it. If Democrats don't represent you, stop voting for them! Vote Green!
Merry "Talk Like A Pirate Day" to everyone, Arrr!
Take a look at Robert's article today on the Household Wealth decline in the Fed's quarterly economic data dump. Households - the consumer - the individual, however you want to define them, are bust. Their wealth is shrinking. Their earnings power we used to say in the 00s has plateaued; now we have to say it has collapsed altogether. There is no tax money to be squeezed from the consumer, however much The Washington Post, the Republican Party, and other mouthpieces and agents for the wealthy want to portray things. Just where did all the money go from the cut in the Social Security payroll tax this year? To food and energy and paying down debt. Nobody's buying flat screen TVs anymore. The only credit people can get is for buying cars using sub-prime loans, and we all know how that is going to play out eventually for the lenders.
If you want to squeeze more blood out of the consumer by increasing their taxes, you just hasten the day when the economy implodes altogether and federal tax revenues fall by 50% from already record-low levels.
But since the United States must, sooner or later, and in the face of strenuous objections from the Republicans, raise revenue by increasing taxes, there are only two places to go where there is any money to be found: the wealthy, and corporations.
We are wasting a lot of time pretending otherwise.
P.S. Don't get me started on that joke of an argument that we can't tax corporations because they create jobs. The argument actually is true. The part never discussed by the conservatives is the fact that almost all of these jobs are created in China.
"Okeydokey, please stop posting that fiction." - Robert Oak
Brief review of facts in evidence against across-the-board tariff is appreciated -- but not impugning my remarks as fiction or as advocating across-the-board tariff for current USA policy.
Please note use of quotation marks in comment title - "across-the-board tariff" - was intentional. My initial topic was use of the term, not any policy recommendation.
After that, my topic was theoretical and historical, implying limits as to what is possible - related to policies instituted and supported by 'free traders', not policies advocated by myself or anyone else for the USA at this time.
The fiction is by 'free traders' that the world would move toward elimination of non-tariff barriers by first eliminating tariffs. Didn't happen. Ain't happening. Fiction.
Yes, I am not saying what Scott is saying. I just don't understand how I was misunderstood as trying to represent what I was saying as something that Scott has said or as something that is supported by Scott.
I thought that my point was clear, that it's good to see the term "tariff" and even "across-the-board tariff" in print and discussed. That point holds even though I have long since capitulated to the analysis, published here at EP, concerning energy.
Personally, I would install a dish just to be able to view a panel discussion of tariffs on some major network -- moderated by Robert Oak, with panelists Robert Scott, Craig Harrington, Ralph Nader and Peter DeFazio!
The terms "tariff" and even "across-the-board tariff" have popular appeal, like it or not. If that appeal is mainly to simplistic thinking, then there's all the more reason for discussing the idea in all its complexity, pro and con.
I remarked on Scott's use of a term, that's all. Doesn't mean that I am trying to make a citation, like, "blah-blah-blah (see, Scott, R., 2011)." Doesn't mean that I am representing that any of my ideas have been established by his use of the term!
I did not represent my analysis and conclusions as Scott's. I have no idea what Scott would say about my comments. He will probably never read them.
Am I posting fiction when I post historical/theoretical analysis of the free trade movement and related phenomena?
Nothing in my historical/theoretical analysis has been disputed. None of my conclusions have even been challenged. (Possibly, no one has read them!)
I am saying that the goals of free trade have not been and will not be, in the long run, served by systematic elimination (to zero) of tariffs in the short run. However, that doesn't mean that USA trade policy now should suddenly be limited to an across-the-board tariff -- that would indeed be simplistic. On the other hand, I would not recommend that USA trade negotiation should premise itself on any limitation, including a limitation as to an across-the-board tariff. (I presume that was Scott's point, that we should retain that 'nuclear option'.)
It's a non sequitur to suppose that my conclusion -- that across-the-board tariffs are the way forward for elimination of non-tariff barriers -- implies that I am arguing for an across-the-board tariff at this time (or ever). My conclusion is more of a conditional than a prescriptive statement: IF you want to reduce non-tariff barriers, THEN you need across-the-board tariffs. But we do not really want to reduce non-tariff barriers or tariffs either -- we want to improve the US economy. It's the free trade movement (WTO) that purports to want to systematically reduce non-tariff barriers by way of eliminating tariffs. IMO, that can't be done, and that's all I am saying.
IMO, the world will ultimately (maybe in 50 years) see modest across-the-board tariffs between major trading units globally, even as we may also see more transnational unions such as the EU.
Both major political parties are guilty of protecting the wealthy and MNC's but the Democratic party is additionally guilty of fraud by misrepresenting their platform, then pimping their constituents. I will vote third party.
he is saying an across the board tariff for only countries who significantly undervalue their currency for an unfair trade advantage. That's not a tariff in the traditional sense. It ends up being across all imports from one country, but only because trade exchange, price exchange's are in that country's currency.
I did not misunderstand Scott, I just quoted him. Of course, Scott has a point of view, somewhat different from my point of view.
What I was saying, and do say, is that it's refreshing to see the term "across-the-board tariff" used in discussion.
I probably agree with Scott as to policy. My general analysis is theoretical rather than policy-oriented.
My analysis (not necessarily the opinion of Scott, EPI or EP) is that an across-the-board tariff is essential if we want to work toward elimination of barriers other than across-the-board or other tariffs -- unless we are talking about transnational unions such as the EU.
As I have noted, I am theoretically opposed to all trade barriers, that is, opposed to trade barriers in the best conceivable of all conceivable worlds. But realistically -- here in what is merely the best of all possible worlds -- complete elimination of national trade barriers is simply impossible for the foreseeable future. Therefore, progress toward the ideal of free trade through irreversible and systematic tariff reduction is delusional.
Of course, we are stuck in the neo-mercantilist struggle for survival. We can't just declare a halt and new rules overnight. Nonetheless, the neo-mercantilist (WTO) system as it has evolved has been proven to subvert the declared intentions of the free-trade ideal.
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