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Cuchulainn
Posts: 20250
Joined: July 16th, 2004, 7:38 am
Location: 20, 000

Re: Is free trade the problem?

July 7th, 2018, 1:26 pm

Sounds like a stupid way to make crankshafts. Expensive, inefficient, bad for the environment.
It sure sounds that way, although I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the engineers at BMW have given it some thought. Of course, I also wouldn't rule out that it is a grand scheme to harvest a variety of local subsidies and tax breaks...
In some countries you get manufacturing grants etc. if you can prove it's 'manufactured' in the country. My neighbour was MD of Fyffes and true to get a manufacturing grant for bananas in the 80s, even though it was just some kind of postprocessing. 12.5% tax.
And in NL the great outsourcing exist began when they discovered gas. It would surprise me if Norge has met a similar fate.

In economics, the Dutch disease is the apparent causal relationship between the increase in the economic development of a specific sector (for example natural resources) and a decline in other sectors (like the manufacturing sector or agriculture). The putative mechanism is that as revenues increase in the growing sector (or inflows of foreign aid), the given nation's currency becomes stronger (appreciates) compared to currencies of other nations (manifest in an exchange rate). This results in the nation's other exports becoming more expensive for other countries to buy, and imports becoming cheaper, making those sectors less competitive. While it most often refers to natural resource discovery, it can also refer to "any development that results in a large inflow of foreign currency, including a sharp surge in natural resource prices, foreign assistance, and foreign direct investment"

 
The term was coined in 1977 by The Economist to describe the decline of the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands after the discovery of the large Groningen natural gas field in 1959.

//  I used to work with manufacturing companies in EU in the 80's as outsourcing spree was in full motion.
Last edited by Cuchulainn on July 7th, 2018, 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
User avatar
Cuchulainn
Posts: 20250
Joined: July 16th, 2004, 7:38 am
Location: 20, 000

Re: Is free trade the problem?

July 7th, 2018, 1:38 pm

The Norwegian solution to Dutch Disease
https://www.fresheconomicthinking.com/2 ... sease.html
 
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ppauper
Posts: 11729
Joined: November 15th, 2001, 1:29 pm

Re: Is free trade the problem?

July 8th, 2018, 10:00 am

before one decides whether free trade is the problem, one needs to define free trade.
The so-called "free trade" agreements are more often than not managed trade.
TPP (transpacific partnership) was 5,000 pages long. Congressman Ron Paul always used to say that an actual free trade agreement wold take a handful of pages if not less.
An actual free trade agreement is what president trump offered at the G7,
"Ultimately that's what you want, you want tariff free, no barriers, and you want no subsides because you have some countries subsidizing industries and that's not fair," Trump said. "So you go tariff free, you go barrier free, you go subsidy free, that's the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance."
 
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bearish
Posts: 5186
Joined: February 3rd, 2011, 2:19 pm

Re: Is free trade the problem?

July 8th, 2018, 11:45 am

before one decides whether free trade is the problem, one needs to define free trade.
The so-called "free trade" agreements are more often than not managed trade.
TPP (transpacific partnership) was 5,000 pages long. Congressman Ron Paul always used to say that an actual free trade agreement wold take a handful of pages if not less.
An actual free trade agreement is what president trump offered at the G7,
"Ultimately that's what you want, you want tariff free, no barriers, and you want no subsides because you have some countries subsidizing industries and that's not fair," Trump said. "So you go tariff free, you go barrier free, you go subsidy free, that's the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance."
So, Trump took an undergrad Econ class in the 60’s, on the basis of which he insists on changing the world economy. That pretty much sums up his intellectual depth.
 
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ppauper
Posts: 11729
Joined: November 15th, 2001, 1:29 pm

Re: Is free trade the problem?

July 8th, 2018, 1:29 pm

the actual takeaway is that treaties like NAFTA and TPP are managed trade rather than free trade
 
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ISayMoo
Posts: 2332
Joined: September 30th, 2015, 8:30 pm

Re: Is free trade the problem?

July 8th, 2018, 11:55 pm

We have always managed trade, and always will.
 
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wanaquant
Posts: 44
Joined: May 12th, 2012, 1:19 pm

Re: Is free trade the problem?

February 1st, 2019, 12:39 pm

before one decides whether free trade is the problem, one needs to define free trade.
The so-called "free trade" agreements are more often than not managed trade.
TPP (transpacific partnership) was 5,000 pages long. Congressman Ron Paul always used to say that an actual free trade agreement wold take a handful of pages if not less.
An actual free trade agreement is what president trump offered at the G7,
"Ultimately that's what you want, you want tariff free, no barriers, and you want no subsides because you have some countries subsidizing industries and that's not fair," Trump said. "So you go tariff free, you go barrier free, you go subsidy free, that's the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance."
So, Trump took an undergrad Econ class in the 60’s, on the basis of which he insists on changing the world economy. That pretty much sums up his intellectual depth.
Just because he is a ridiculous person doesn't mean he is always on the wrong side. Trump is correct on this one. Other countries are trying to export as much as possible and then to limit imports on their side. They think it is going to boost their economies (well it does on the short run). Opening import/export for a country is tricky. You first discover how delicious it is (you don't have that tech that you can't produce and you can access it by exporting some of your fruits because it is cheaper to produce them in your lands). Then you quickly realize that opening import/export means full-retard globalization. If all the countries in the world opened import/export without tariffs/subsidies you'll be having a single world country in short-notice.