Milton Friedman - Free Trade vs. Protectionism

Watch Friedman completely own this protectionist at 1:52. From Part 2 of the 1980 PBS Series ''Free to Choose''. Friedman puts forth one of the best arguments you will ever hear for why special government protection of select domestic industries hurts every other industry and every consumer. Truly free enterprise treats all businesses in all industries equally, which provides the highest quality and lowest prices, and therefore maximizes living standards and economic growth.

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[michaelvargo80]

Free Trade is good as long as it is free trade, it is impossible though when other countries manipulate their currencies, subsidize their industries etc. Right now we have multinational companies moving business wherever they can get their near slave labor, why not move all the jobs to Asia than? If all countries and companies played the same game free trade would be the answer.

[PenguinProseMedia]

@michaelvargo80 If someone from another country wants to sell me a (legal) good or service which I want to buy, what gives you the right to interfere in that exchange? What gives you the right to force that seller to lose my business and force me to pay a higher price somewhere else? Your disapproval of some foreign gov'ts domestic industrial policy empowers you to force down the living standards of anyone that doesn't share your opinion?

[IBloodSweatTears]

@billsurlatete Cheap goods from China mean nothing if it's building up our deficits & making us dependent on tehre production, while there goods are dumped on our markets thus destroying our at home jobs. We need Tariffs now.

[billsurlatete]

@michaelvargo80 i wouldn't worry about the chinese keeping their currency cheap if thats what your referring too. it makes their exports cheap.

[IBloodSweatTears]

@WBeez I think the 8.25 minimum wage benifits the business person more then the employee really. But no minimum wage would be mutually benificial. You, as a business man, don't need to compete for labor, you don't have to give raises, because government mandates you pay a floored rate. But an $100 minimum wage would cause you to fire everyone.

No minimum wage would cause you to have to compete for labor and low skilled workers could get jobs. What do you think?

[IBloodSweatTears]

@WBeez Thanks for your recomendation. But Milton was not exaclly a Monetary policy, Federal Reserve, Interest Rates, expert. Disagree with him on Trade Policy, And the Great Depression.

May I reccomend to your any and all books by Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig Von Mises. Economic's in One lesson is good.

But borrowers don't benifits from 0.25 interest loans, because credit markets will be frozen with those type of low rates. Low interest rates caused the housing bubble.

[IBloodSweatTears]

@WBeez You have to have reasonable, Mutually benificial interest rates. The entreprenuer can't find capital if it's consolidated in the hands of a few. 2nd, I don't know what kind of growth your looking at, but even the worst indicator for economic growth (GDP) only rose 2% last year, and it's not even a viable way of judging growth!

I didn't mention all the questions in the survey, but, the point remains, there was no funding available, maybe because there is no savings!

[IBloodSweatTears]

@WBeez The Federal Reserve has interest rates at 0 to 0.25%. Main street can't borrow att those rates. The only people who benifit are Wall Street Banks & The government, because they can borrow from the Fed at low rates. Main Street Savers, Lenders & borrowers all lose. If you let the market determaine interest rates, they would be higher. Cheap borrowing helps only a few set of people, but Main-Street can't borrow at those artificually low rates. What is needed if reasonable interest rates.

[WBeez]

@IBloodSweatTears You might consider reading the entirety of one of Milton Friedman's books. I recommend doing so with all due respect.

[WBeez]

@IBloodSweatTears As little as they would accept for the job.

[WBeez]

@IBloodSweatTears Now you're looking at the other side of the equation.  Before it was the borrowers, now the lenders. Let's continue to look at it from the borrowers perspective. The entrepreneur can have a better chance of success, and businesses that already exist can have a better chance for expansion, when the cost of borrowing is cheap. (or, in other words, when interest rates are low.) It seems as though you're basing your assumptions off the first chapters of Econ 101.