Argumentum ad Trade-Deficit

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• Trade
• Deficit

[paleocrat]

Copy, paste, tweak, and read. I give you a B. Nah, B+ for effort.

Classical economists being called classical is hysterical. This mongrel horde came from the Enlightenment. Hardly classical.

Even Big Daddy Adam Smith valued protection of various sectors. His exceptions may be ignored by you guys, but they are there nevertheless.

So the more heavily you rely upon others for necessary goods and luxuries, the more free you are? Debtor nation status is a good thing! Welcome to Bizarro World.

[migkillertwo]

"copy, paste, tweak, and read"

I hope you're joking. If not then retract this slander or you'll be blocked.

"Classical economists being called classical is hysterical."

Yes, as if language has some sort of rigid set-in-stone meaning.

"So the more heavily you rely upon others for necessary goods and luxuries, the more free you are?"

in a way yes.

Paleocrat, are you a radical primitivist? Do you hold that everyone would be better off if everyone produced everything they consumed?

[paleocrat]

No. I have made this clear on more than one occasion. I do believe, though, that it would be in our economic interest to produce what we can produce for ourselves, as families, communities, and as a nation. Employment is maximized, ownership diversified, capital more equitably distributed, political power democratized, and notions such as community, commonwealth, neighborhoods, and national sovereignty strengthened. But this is a far cry from the agrarian ideal of Jefferson or economic isolation

[migkillertwo]

1: Let's try to avoid arguing over semantics

2: Debt isn't necessarily dependence upon someone else

3: Nations were just what everyone categorized themselves as. They're nothing more than fantasy structures that are manifestations of mass insanity

4: So you ARE a radical primitivist! Then I encourage you to either

A: Read any of the enlightenment economists (especially Bastiat), or

B: advocate that we remove ALL divisions of labor

[migkillertwo]

5: Why should we spread out political power? It would be better to just abolish the state so no one has political power

6: What is the benefit of equal, or roughly equal distribution of ownership and capital if everyone is more impoverished in the end? During the 80s collectivists in congress and parliament complained that ownership was being increasingly concentrated, but this is of no consequence. The rich were not becoming rich at the poor's expense because everyone was getting richer.

[migkillertwo]

7: Finally, why separate people into various collectives or nations? What more can this do than cause conflict? I say globalize.

[DrKnow417]

Of course the trade deficit is non-existent. We give $1 billion to China, they give us $1 billion worth of goods. That's an even trade. There is no logical or practical reason to compare imports vs. exports. It's just an arbitrary statistic that has gotten a lot of peoples' panties in a bunch.

[xTAxGUNZ]

I would like to also add that the fall of the US dollar could have the effect of decreasing the trade deficit due to US goods being cheaper to the rest of the world. This would only work only if the recession that occurs is not completely devastating to our productive capacity.

[xTAxGUNZ]

I know this is a late response but I felt I had to respond. Your argument is both correct and false at the same time. Right no it may not be a big issue. There may come a time when foreigners will become less willing to hold dollar denominated assets. This will weaken the dollar more than it already is. The Fed will then raise interest rates to maintain foreign investment. This will cause a liquidity drain from our economy back into banks causing another recession.