Who do you vote for if it's McCain Vs. Obama?

[K. A. Pital]

South Korea used to have a standard of living worse than Sub-Saharan African countries, but now it's an industrial giant with a rising standard of living. They didn't advance like that by opening their country to cheap, subsidized imports.

Yeah, I already brought that up. Funny how South Korea is always thought as of an example of "free trade" when in fact the oligarchs were forced-loyalty not to drop Korea's war-ravaged, investment-unlikely industry but to revive it. Uh-huh.

Chang remembers quite clearly that as a student “We learned that it was our patriotic duty to report anyone seen smoking foreign cigarettes. The country needed to use every bit of foreign exchange earned from its exports in order to import machines and other inputs to develop better industries.”

Sweeet.

And indeed, I love how Britain turned to "free trade" when it eliminated any competition to it's rise as a superpower, then preaching "free trade" left and right. It seems history repeats, first time as a tragedy, then as farce.

[Guardsman Bass]

Keep in mind that the South Korean growth was based on somebody having a relatively free trade policy on certain goods (the United States), so that South Korea's infant protected industries could export and bring in hard currency. Protectionism alone generally doesn't do it unless you happen to be a large country with a lot of capital and a huge internal market, like the United States was in the 19th Century, so that competition in that market between companies is fierce enough to make them competitive.

Just look at what happened to the Latin American countries under Import Substitution Industrialization (in particular, Mexico); many of them got a few decades of growth, but then stagnation and heavy debt.

[K. A. Pital]

You can industrialize even if no one buys your goods, but I agree a country needs a critical mass for that.

[Coyote]

Keep in mind that the South Korean growth was based on somebody having a relatively free trade policy on certain goods (the United States), so that South Korea's infant protected industries could export and bring in hard currency.

Which, of course, relies on being a partner with a major patron-country for other reasons, in the case of South Korea, they were a strategic military partner for the USA. Basically, a smaller country would do well to find something about itself that makes it useful to a larger country, and negotiate that into a patronage... but it's always a balancing act. If you're too useful, and become indispensible, the patron country could always decide that it is a good idea to put troops in your backyard to maintain "stability".

[Guardsman Bass]

Keep in mind that the South Korean growth was based on somebody having a relatively free trade policy on certain goods (the United States), so that South Korea's infant protected industries could export and bring in hard currency.

Which, of course, relies on being a partner with a major patron-country for other reasons, in the case of South Korea, they were a strategic military partner for the USA. Basically, a smaller country would do well to find something about itself that makes it useful to a larger country, and negotiate that into a patronage... but it's always a balancing act. If you're too useful, and become indispensible, the patron country could always decide that it is a good idea to put troops in your backyard to maintain "stability".

That's the way the Japanese and South Koreans did it (apparently, one of the things that really boosted the post-World War II Japanese economy was selling stuff to the US Army in South Korea during the Korean War. Or selling stuff to the armed forces, to be more precise).

The Western Europeans got the ultimate deal on this after World War 2, of course; the US actively encouraged them to drop tariffs with each other while raising tariffs against the US.

[Straha]

I think "protectionism" means raising barriers to international trade, Straha. So both Stalin and the British Raj are not protectionist because both easily gathered foods for international trade; the USSR traded heavily on the grain market.

Yes it did! But it also prevented its people inside the USSR from buying grain from outside the USSR. Also the major trigger of the 1930s famine was the large scale collectivization of farms which took control of the flow of grain out of the hands of the peasants. So holding up 1930s Russia as an example of how protectionism doesn't cause famines doesn't really work.

What about Tsarist Russia? It traded heavily too while the calorie availability per head remained lower than even during the 1930s famines, sometimes lower than 1K calories per head, durng massive and routine famines. All that time, Russia remained a "bread basket of Europe".

To be quite frank, I haven't studied my Tsarist history in the past two years. But to cite the Tsars as any sort of open minded trade barrier dropping rulers is inane. And you have to know that too.

Simple protectionist measures - a refusal to sell the food - alleviated famines, stopped malnutrition. Very simple measures. No barriers and full-on trade with foreigners, who of course often maintained protectionist barriers, resulted in disaster.

I challenge you to find me one example of a famine where there were, to quote you, "no barriers" to trade imposed by the government.

Corn laws were the manufacture of Britain, Ireland's doomsayer in the situation, and are frankly irrelevant here aren't they? Ireland did not restrict "imports" of food from Britain mainland itself; it's people were just unable to buy food. Did Britain, the protectionist architect, itself suffer a famine as a result of Corn Laws? Tell me about it.

So, the people who imposed the protectionist trade laws on Ireland preventing them from buying food from external markets (indeed, even trying to prevent gifts of food coming from external markets) are irrelevant? And, no, they didn't restrict imports from the British mainland but those weren't affordable due, in no small part, to the Corn Laws.

And Sen. Obama proclaimed himself a new messiah... when, exactly?

He didn't. But the people around him treat him like one (the only person worse than him was Ron Paul). When it comes to government office I'm just as afraid as the people around the man as I am of the man.

And Straha, your initial rejection of Obama had nothing to do with protectionism, it was because you felt that his followers were Kool-aid sipping moonbats.

Re-read my post. If they were kool-aid sipping moonbats who could argue in support of coherent policies I wouldn't mind. It's that I disagree with his policies and his followers tend to act as if they'd vote for him regardless of what his policies were because he's such an invigorating speaker.

How is it wrong to place trade restrictions that force foriegn countries to make up the difference? Right now they profit from the fact that quite frankly, they are authoritarian states with no accountability to their populace and therefore can abuse human, labor, and property rights at will in order to drive down the cost of labor?

You mean like those evil Canucks up north! Their flagrant human rights abuses and sheer sweat shop industry! Why how could us poor Americans ever compete with them without pulling out of NAFTA!?! And how can we support the evil evil Steven Harper and his reign of tyranny over the Canadian people. Oh... Wait...

See, if Obama's trade policy was "Free Trade with Free Nations" and set out goals for other nations to achieve Free Trade with America I could, possibly, get behind that. Yes it might cause some minor harm to the American economy but it's a moral stance and I'd respect that. But it's not like that in the least, instead it's pandering to the Starbucks vote by slapping "Fair" in the title and then claiming it'll recreate jobs. Another example is his opposition to the Colombia free trade agreement. Colombia is now freer than it has been in decades, has pushed FARC almost completely out of the country, has busted down on corruption (police can arrest and try even government officials now, something unthinkable eight years ago) and has been an American ally in a region that's rather Anti-U.S. Yet Obama opposes the agreement on flimsy grounds of anti-Union murders (when, in fact, statistically the rate of violent incidents involving union members per capita is lower than the national rate of such incidents.)

The United States cannot compete directly without betraying fundamental principles of equality of opportunity and popular soveriegnty. I, unlike many, do not think endless and slavish obsequience to "the market" is more important than social welfare.

So instead we drive people in other countries (like Mexico and Colombia just to name two) which need the labour into unemployment and starvation? How does that work out for caring about "social welfare"?

His health care policies may not be as good as foriegn states, but McCain's open admission that health care should be like "college" - i.e., where only the well-off and the very special exceptions can afford the decent brand of it? I suppose you're comfortable with an endless escalation of costs and the pricing out of a huge percentage of Americans.

Actually, I find no real solid plan for Health Care from any of the candidates. I do see some hope in McCain's anti-pharmaceutical speeches and his plan to make it so that hospitals get paid not for the procedures they operate but for the problems they cure. But, that being said, I have doubts he'll follow through. Odds are, I'll end up voting Third Party because the thought of voting for McCain just does not sit right with me.

Moderately competent otherwise? Compared to McCain? You're obviously a Republitard. Anyway, his method of campaigning at least sincerely calls for a sea change in the political climate of the United States. McCain will bring another four years of record deficits, increasing unaffordability in every aspect of American life for the middle and working class, more class inequity, more war, and no preparation for energy or environmental needs.

I'm not a Republican and I don't think McCain is the best man for the job but I don't think Obama could do any better judging from his policies. That's the long and short of it.

[K. A. Pital]

But it also prevented its people inside the USSR from buying grain from outside the USSR.

Why should they? There was more than enough Soviet grain, and the USSR's grain was cheapest - grain prices in the world plummeted in depression times. And please tell me how the peasants in the USSR were supposed to buy foreign grain.

Also the major trigger of the 1930s famine was the large scale collectivization of farms which took control of the flow of grain out of the hands of the peasants.

Straha, you are an idiot. Grain trade in Russia was always controlled by large bodies. In fact, farmers did not trade on the world grain market, tradesmen did. In Imperial Russia, the sales of grain were high even in hunger years. What does that tell us about "farmers in control"? They were not.

But let me tell you a little more. During World War I Russia's calorie availability increased despite the nation entering a massive, straining bloody war. How was that possible? Very simple. The Tsar Government took over grain trade and installed severe barriers to that trade, as wartime measures. Ultimately, it resulted in better fed people at home, in a time of World War. Paradox? Not really.

But to cite the Tsars as any sort of open minded trade barrier dropping rulers is inane.

Really? Grain trade was private in Tsarist Russia. Export sales in the late XIX-early XX century were large and abundant. So were famines. When WWI kicked in and international trade came to a forcible halt, in fact the situatin improved.

Grain trade in Tsar's Russia was controlled by huge private megabanks. To name a few: Kolomensk Bank, Siberian Bank.

I challenge you to find me one example of a famine where there were, to quote you, "no barriers" to trade imposed by the government.

So Tsar's Russia is not good enough for you? Bangladesh 1974

And once again, how was Ireland complicit in Britain's corn laws, or it's outstripping demand for high calorie foods, that first of all economically forced the Irish to make potato, and then fall victim to a famine?

A little blast from 1891-92 famine.

The government was ignorant of the famine until tax collectors reported that the peasants of the region had nothing with which to pay them. Petersburg thought that the collectors were to blame and the Emperor sent men into the interior to investigate. The grain buyers, however, knew of the situation. They quickly bought and exported reserve grain before an Imperial ukase forbidding the export of wheat, oats and rye was issued.

That's your beloved private grain trade in full effect. The Tsars didn't even know about what was going on, much less "control" the trade.

[Anguirus]

He didn't. But the people around him treat him like one (the only person worse than him was Ron Paul). When it comes to government office I'm just as afraid as the people around the man as I am of the man.

That's nonsense. Obama's the one in the office. You see young Americans treating him like a Messiah; I see them treating him like a politican who doesn't take them for granted. But it's beside the point...either way, they aren't the ones in the office. This isn't Dune.

[Havok]

Well hopefully this board is a good indicator of how people are going to vote, 'cause it's Obama in a fucking massacre.

[K. A. Pital]

Well hopefully this board is a good indicator of how people are going to vote

No. Sadly, this board is just about the farthest you can get from what the US votes and generic preferences are like, in my view...

[General Zod]

Well hopefully this board is a good indicator of how people are going to vote, 'cause it's Obama in a fucking massacre.

Unfortunately it's not. Since this board has a statistically significantly higher rate of intelligent people to mouth-breathers than the rest of the US.

[Havok]

Stas Bush
General Zod
Yeah I know. *sigh*

[Patrick Degan]

And Sen. Obama proclaimed himself a new messiah... when, exactly?

He didn't. But the people around him treat him like one (the only person worse than him was Ron Paul). When it comes to government office I'm just as afraid as the people around the man as I am of the man.

That's rank sophistry and you know it. What evidence can you point us to that the people on Obama's staff, the people on his short-list for cabinet or staff positions, regard him as messianic the way some of his fan club do?

And if Obama himself is not showing megalomaniacal tendencies, and nobody on his actual staff —the people who actually count in this equation— regard him so, then you really do not have a legitimate argument which disqualifies him or makes him a worse choice than The Gimp, who promises four more years of Bushism at best —assuming he doesn't die in office and whatever freak the GOP saddles him with as running mate winds up filling out his term instead.