If you wanna vote, you gotta make a choice. No equivocating. Protectionism or not?

[Stinky The Clown]

[el_bryanto]

1. With only two choices, I suppose you have to go with the market

In the long run protectionism isn't going to pan out. That said, I'm not in favor of just throwing up our hands and letting international corporations do whatever they want either.

Bryant

[Stinky The Clown]

4. I wanted only two choices so as to foster some discussion

[Jackpine Radical]

8. In the long run, the "free market" will kill us all.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. +1

Free?





eta: Only a fool would believe that the markets act without extreme prejudice. The ruling class has their thumb on the scale. Wage inequality. Government subsidies. Tax bias. Regulation by whim. Regulation by payola. Phony numbers. Ad infinitum...

[el_bryanto]

14. Well to be fair, in the long run, something will kill us anyway

But to reiterate I'm not favor of a laissez faire do whatever you want style capitalism. I am in favor of a well regulated capitalism with environmental protections and worker protections.

Bryant

[SteppingRazor]

2. I would support some protectionism in that...

I would only offer free trade agreements with countries that had labor laws similar to those of the United States. By putting labor on an equal footing, the U.S. can compete relatively fairly.

[gratuitous]

3. Like the poor, protectionist measures will be with us always

The choice is whether we set up an iron system that we think benefits us, knowing that other countries will follow with their own forms modeled on ours; or do we set up a system where protectionist measures are negotiated, extended, allowed to expire, and whose terms are enforceable even when we don't want them enforced?

[Zorra]

5. I've been a hard core isolationist for years. IMO, "free market" global capitalism

is the most destructive weapon of mass destruction ever invented.

The weapon, naturally, fell into the wrong hands, and we appear to be defenseless against it.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

[FreakinDJ]

6. The current Trade policies are a Scam for Wall St

They most likely were written by Walmart lobbiest

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Yes, protectionism of course.

The alternative is a free-for-all race to the bottom in labor law, environmentalism, and basic humanity. We might want to think about exactly what form that protectionism might take--perhaps only letting goods into the country that are made under labor and environmental standards comparable to our own. The eventual answer is to take cheap, exploited labor out of the competitive equation by something like universal trade unions, and to remove the economic advantages of heedless destruction of the environment. Economics is a blind swine that can smell the truffles but cannot perceive anything not denominated in money.

[Horse with no Name]

9. If a sustainable industry becomes unsustainable

There are usually only a few reasons this happens. Number one reason being mismanagement.
If we truly are for capitalism and free markets...then the unsustainable industry should be allowed to fail and make room for someone who can replace it with a sustainable industry.
However...the auto industry is not the only industry teetering on the edge. The Healthcare industry is teetering dangerously and very few are paying attention to that. A year ago, jobs were plentiful in nursing--but they are fewer now. Not because the shortage is better, but because staff is being stretched thinner and patient care matrixes are being re-worked. In other words--positions evaporating. It's also a hard sell to someone in the Midwest who lost their job that it is in their best interest to save the jobs in Detroit.
What can I say...I am a socialist at heart but I am NOT a protectionist.

[Turbineguy]

10. The best protection

is making products people want to buy. And a regulatory environment that rewards manufacture of actual products instead of fake paper profits. In other words, the opposite of the "conservative agenda".

[EstimatedProphet]

12. Protectionism

The market will always be guided by market forces to a certain extent. There's no need to enable them, because left alone they will enable themselves.

[On the Road]

13. It Would Seem to Me That

"some reasonable form" of protectionism is a kind of equivocation.

If the results were tariff levels before the WTO existed versus current tariff levels, now that would be more straightforward.

[HughBeaumont]

15. Reasonable form of protectionism.

"Free markets" got us in this situation. "Free markets" did not "work themselves out". Relying on "Free markets" resulted in epic FAILURE. Look at your history. Every time we've tried the "free market" solution, there's been vast gaps in wealth inequality, we have an economy based on speculation, risky financial instruments and debt instead of products, and there's been a consistent pattern of "boom/bubble/crash", each crash worse than the last.

We now have pretty close to a two-class society: the "Have Way Too Damn Muches" and "Ain't Got Shits". There's no social safety net worth speaking of, there's no universal health care and most of our discretionary tax dollars are being pissed out of tanks and assault weapons in deserts on the other side of the world.

Simply put, you have no jobs HERE, you have no BUSINESS HERE and you have no tax revenue HERE. Why is this so goddamned hard to figure out? WHY?

Oh, I forgot. Because Americans (especially wealthy ones) are conditioned Horatio Alger-believing taxophobes and the government would just waste our tax dollars on eternal military conflict instead of rebuild our infrastructure anyway.

See, I'm not AGAINST trade in all forms, but by saying "either free trade or protectionist, there's NO middle ground" . .. it's just kind of flimsy. There are happy mediums performed successfully in Europe and America's economy didn't do half bad when we made things here, right? I honestly don't get the conservative argument on this one, though. Globalization WAY overestimated the benevolence of the business leaders conducting it, and no amount of time to give it to work is going to make it work. I mean, if we're not taxed and we don't make anything here, where logically did they think the money to, you know, run this country was going to come from?

That camel's back broke long ago. It's time to try a new way. And FAST.

You know, unless you WANT America to turn into one big Northeast Ohio.

[gravity]

16. It all depends on your definition of reasonable protectionism and market forces

Those concepts are very vague and not mutually exclusive

[Stinky The Clown]

17. And therefore, that becomes a point of discussion

What is reasonable protectionism (which is what I favor)?