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Old 05-25-2013, 03:40 PM   #16
Len
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Join Date: Jul 2003
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Originally Posted by sxotty View Post
That sounds nice and reasonable, except you really have no evidence for that. Politicians here are elected. The electorate is happy if they can buy goods cheap. That is an incentive not to put tariffs on imports from other countries regardless of what is happening with our goods because that would diminish the supply of cheap goods for the electorate to buy. It is silly to discount everything that appears unfair as something that serves our interests. That suggests we have absolute power over all things in the world which is frankly ridiculous.
I did not say that we have absolute power over all things. What I said was that it's unlikely the US was forced into an unfair trade relations with S. Korea, given the asymmetry in power between the two nations. Of course if we are talking about a different country, say, China, then the story could be different, although even there I think Americans tend to overestimate the power China has over the US.

Naturally there will be some level of padering and short-sightness in any society, but there are genuine disagreements in what it is that serves our interest as well. I don't know what your position is on trade exactly, but just based on the two posts you sound like you might prefer a more protentionist policy. Let's say you do, for the sake of the argument. Obviously that is a fairly popular position held by many. On the other hand, I don't know of any serious economist who believe that trade barriers are good for the economy in the long run. This is one of the rare topics that unite the left and right wing economists, their belief in free trade. Now I am NOT saying therefore protectionism is wrong, but I am saying that many people believe free trade is good not because they have to get elected, or for some other sinister reasons, but because it what they sincerely believe.

Speaking of free trade, in fact partially because of the open trade policy of the US, we do have more products available at lower price than just about anywhere else in the world. When people visit America, whether they are coming from a first world country or a thrid world country, they all go bonkers shopping. We can debate the value of such material abundance, but it is certainly something that appeals to a lot of people, including potential immigrants.
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