Tapsearch Com EditorFree Traders talk nonsense about protectionism
January 12th 2009 20:49
Bizarre Politics Reports:
Free Traders keep passing on myths about protectionism. They make comparisons to the 1930s that just do not exist.
Free Traders still push myths about protectionism.
They should study the Lend Lease Act before making any statements.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, the top newspaper in Ohio, used their editor's page to pass on the myths about protectionism being the cause of the Great Depression. ( They quoted a source from the McClatchey-Tribune without any real verification of the facts .)
Here is the untold story behind the news......
During the "roaring prosperity"1920s, trade agreements
worked both ways. The stock market crashed came in 1929.
It was based on money not trade.
The Smoot-Hawley trade act that is also blamed for the
Great Depression was passed in 1930 a year after the stock market
crashed. President Roosevelt became president in 1932.
Congress passed the 1934 Trade Agreement that allowed
Roosevelt to lower or raise tariffs at will. The winds of
war were starting. There was very little trade to even
talk about. Nations lacked money to support trade.
The allies supplied the U.S. with munitions during the
World War 1 but there was worldwide depression with most
countries running out of money to support any new war
efforts. President Roosevelt said he was not going to let
the lack of dollars stand in his way. This points to the
fact that money and not trade was the main issue of that
time. Roosevelt launched the Lend Lease Act which played
the key in creating the most awesome industrial and
agricultural economy in history. He sent our allies goods
without worrying about payment.
Roosevelt said, "Now, what I am trying to do is to
eliminate the dollar sign". This in itself proved the
Great Depression was about the lack of money worldwide not
"protectionism". The American people were enticed into
supporting the war efforts of our allies for the sake of
good paying jobs. It had nothing to do with reciprocal
trade. And Free Traders use just a two year period to
make their case ignoring the fact that there are now more
than 15 years of Free Trade failures. ( It is actually much
longer than this since the U.S. Federal Government funded
the moving of factories outside the USA starting in 1956.)
A 1950 army officers military manual says, " The Lend
Lease Act embodied the most important new national policy
adopted during this period". And this was a one way deal
to supply our allies with goods. ( Alan Greenspan does not
even mention much about Lend Lease in his book The Age of
Turbulence.)
Lend Lease proved that you can not do business with people
who do not have money. It proved you need to first find
money to conduct business on either side of any deal.
Roosevelt created a vast economy based on a war effort by
mortgaging future generations. The government is doing
much of the same thing today. And any stimulus planner should
study this period as a priority. President Roosevelt created something
out of nothing by ramping up the industrial might of the USA and
using the Lend Lease act to trigger a vast economy.
We now have more than a fifteen year history of free trade
failures with continous trade deficits. This means we take
in more products from others than we sell to them. It has
been a losing proposition for many years compared to the
so called "protectionism" of about only two years during
the 1930s. The manipulation of money products have always
been the main problem and not trade.
( Our most popular ezine article on the internet - Lend
Lease was Real Free Trade and not Chop Liver as in the
Globalist World - is at Ezine Expert Articles )
As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress - the best way to stimulate the economy is to buy "domestically produced goods". This translates to buying products Made in the USA. It means too that only local value added economies in balanced geopolitical setting work. It means you have to duplicate success and not chop it up into pieces. It means you can use programs like the Marshall Plan to duplicate local value added economies in other countries. It ultimately means , you can not do deflate the value of labor and workers and expect anything good to come from this process.
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