Two years ago today. Well well...
Adrian S Petrescu
July 22, 2016 at 7@06 PM ·
"The voters who feel they've been disadvantaged by free trade"?
Are we serious? We drive cars that are reliable. They last 15 years or more. They are affordable. Some come with 10 year or 100 kmiles warranties. Because foreign manufacturers made better cars since the early 1980s, including here in the U.S., the big three themselves had to start making better more reliable vehicles as well. And they had to keep their prices down to compete. Do we really want to imagine a world with tariffs on every imported product? Large and small?
From socks and t-shirts to phones, TVs and refrigerators. From fossets to vehicles. Do we really agree to allowing all the monopolies controlling each industry to run wild with price gauging in the absence of any surviving competition? We want to throw out the window David Ricardo's work and the law on comparative advantage?
To return to a time before massive globalization? To the 1920s maybe? Oh, the quality of life back then... can we imagine?
Which capitalism do we want, Henry Ford's and Thomas Edison's or the Dodge Brothers' and the gas lighting companies monopolies'? Are we serious?
Why don't we all read a few books before voting? Why don't the media pundits also read a few books and explain on TV and radio too what free trade means and doesn't? Why can't we all learn (or teach, or be taught) a little lesson in macroeconomics 101 in a world where everyone is supposed to graduate at least from 10th grade?
I propose a simple family exercise: calculate your daily and monthly budget with a 3-500 % or more increase in the price of 95 % of the goods you purchase, all of which are imported. But wait, we buy them from U.S. based companies called anything from Apple and Microsoft to GM and Ford. American companies make products abroad. The Constitution disallows a President from interfering directly anyway. Vernon's product cycle law will always stand tall so the U.S. will always have to adapt to making smarter newly innovative products at the tip of the technological advancement arrow. There is no feasible protectionist way around that need. But why doesn't someone from among all the talking heads teach voters all of that?
Please. Pretty please. As I saw written somewhere:
Think things through!
Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.
Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek
We got here. What's next?
Accelerate Innovation.
In companies and self.
Grow flow. Naturally.
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