Our Lobbyists Will Block Out the Sun

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by Maximatic, Dec 1, 2016.

  1. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    A PETITION

    From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.


    Gentlemen:

    You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and have little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry.

    We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your — what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.

    We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of [American] industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly...

    We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull's-eyes, deadlights, and blinds — in short, all openings, holes, *****s, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.

    Be good enough, honourable deputies, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to advance in its support.


    Bastiat's famous Candlestick makers' Petition
     
  2. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?

    If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields, meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all agricultural wealth.

    If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and rapeseed. These rich yet soil-exhausting plants will come at just the right time to enable us to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of cattle will impart to the land.

    Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great expansion.

    The same holds true of shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in whaling, and in a short time we shall have a fleet capable of upholding the honour of France and of gratifying the patriotic aspirations of the undersigned petitioners, chandlers, etc.

    But what shall we say of the specialities of Parisian manufacture? Henceforth you will behold gilding, bronze, and crystal in candlesticks, in lamps, in chandeliers, in candelabra sparkling in spacious emporia compared with which those of today are but stalls.

    There is no needy resin-collector on the heights of his sand dunes, no poor miner in the depths of his black pit, who will not receive higher wages and enjoy increased prosperity.

    It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman, from the wealthy stockholder of the Anzin Company to the humblest vendor of matches, whose condition would not be improved by the success of our petition.

    Bastiat's famous Candlestick makers' Petition
     
  3. Ted

    Ted Banned

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    And let's never forget that lobbyists are Democrats or fascists who want govt to have the power to favor certain industries.
     
  4. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    Yes, Democrats, and Republicans like DONALD TRUMP, who wants to impose a 45% tariff on all imports from China and a 35% tariff on all imports from Mexico. Those Democrats and Republicans are economically illiterate protectionists who think abundance and efficient production are bad things.

    The thread title is a play on words. You know, like "Our arrows will block out the sun!";

    [video=youtube;xcYmlfhShIg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcYmlfhShIg[/video]

    because Trump and those Democrats you're talking about think a TRADE WAR is a good thing. Bastiat's Petition is sarcasm. He was talking to the economically illiterate protectionists in the French Parliament of 1845.
     
  5. Ted

    Ted Banned

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    not like Trump at all. Republicans are generally for free trade capitalism while Democrats are generally against. Obviously, Republicans would be more for it if there was more popular support for it. Do you understand that? Also, Trump's secretary of commerce already said tariff was just rhetorical device for campaign and to scare China. Too subtle for you?
     
  6. Ted

    Ted Banned

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    not like Trump at all. Republicans are generally for free trade capitalism while Democrats are generally against. Obviously, Republicans would be more for it if there was more popular support for it. Do you understand that? Also, Trump's secretary of commerce already said tariff was just rhetorical device for campaign and to scare China. Too subtle for you?
     
  7. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    I understand that it's typical of Republicans to assume their candidates are lying about all the progressive campaign promises they make, and then to contrive apologetics for them when they go ahead and do progressive things once in office.

    I understand that Republicans of any given admin are more progressive than Republicans any prior admin, that their reactionary nature allows Democrats to set the narrative they follow, that they have always cared more about their own party winning than any principle whatever, hence their constantly leftward shifting positions, and that all of this yields the ratcheting effect we see in growth and consolidation of government power.
     
  8. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    The fears of protectionists are the same as those who are afraid of robots taking all human jobs. It is irrational fear that must ignore all economic history.

    It is ultimately predicated on the hidden assumption that innovation, particularly domestic innovation, will stop. Those who expound the irrational fear have seen innovation their whole lives. They wouldn't deny that the steam engine, the automobile, tractor, mechanical press, electricity, refrigeration, electronics, and so on, while rendering obsolete many jobs, also made possible the production of goods and services unimagined prior to their implementation and improvements in efficiency of production of already existing goods and services, rendering them more abundant; cheaper; available to more people than ever before imagined. They wouldn't deny that all such changes have resulted in improved standard of living for everyone.

    There are all kinds of ingenious devices that could be invented to change an existing production process, but not all of them are beneficial. The ones that are beneficial are so only insofar as they result in greater efficiency.

    So efficiency is really what benefits us.

    Technological advancement is not the only way to introduce greater efficiency. Improvements in efficiency can also be achieved by actualizing unrealized comparative advantage.

    Florida, for example, has a comparative advantage over Wisconsin for the production of oranges. To produce oranges in Wisconsin, greenhouses would have to be built and maintained, so that producing oranges in Wisconsin would require more jobs than producing them in Florida. This does not mean, however, that oranges should be produced in Wisconsin. There are many reasons that oranges should be produced in Florida. Some of those reasons are easy to see and some are not. A reason that's easy to see is that we have more oranges this way, hence they are cheaper and available to more people. A reason that's not so easy to see is that the labor that would be required to produce oranges less efficiently in Wisconsin is freed up to do something more productive.

    In the exact same sense, China has a comparative advantage over the US for the production of many goods due to the lower cost of labor there. It is more efficient to produce many goods in China than in the US.

    Questions for Protectionists:

    If there is any validity to the fears expounded by protectionists, that jobs lost to improvements in efficiency will not be replaced by more productive jobs that raise our standard of living, why have their predictions always failed to materialize?

    Take the last century as an example. After a hundred years of jobs being destroyed by technological improvements, realization of comparative advantage, and other improvements in efficiency, tripling of the population, and a greater portion of the population participating in the workforce, why does unemployment consistently tend toward 5%?

    Here's the US population plotted against the unemployed in real numbers:

    [​IMG]

    It doesn't look any better for the predictions of protectionists if we plot, in real numbers, the unemployed against the workforce:

    [​IMG]

    But we know that employment in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors practically been completely obliterated over the past century. What have people gone on to do?

    Everything that people no longer needed to toil in factories and fields have gone on to do, immediately in historical terms, is lumped into a catch-all category we call "services".

    [​IMG]

    Protectionists seem concerned only with manual labor. They seem to think that we would all be better off toiling away at mundane tasks with our hands than doing more productive work primarily with our minds. After I pointed all this out to a short sighted protectionist and suggested that people will always go on to do bigger and better things, he responded with:

    "Yeah, they could all go on to dig ditches!"

    His inability to imagine anything better for people to do than what they are currently doing does not stop smarter, more imaginative, more innovative people from thinking of those bigger and better things such as putting 4,400+ satellites in orbit to build an ISP network. His lack of imagination didn't stop all the people involved in inventing, writing, building, and selling all the hardware, software, and infrastructure that go to make up the the computer and networks he used to bring his inane comment to us.

    In short: Just because you can't think of something good doesn't mean others won't.
     
  9. Ted

    Ted Banned

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    1) if they did not care about winning they would merely be impotent Libertarians
    2) how many Supreme Court justices have Libertarians nominated and when will they repeal Obamacare?
    3) Finally, Republicans would cut govt size 60% tomorrow if there was enough support for it.

    I hope you understand now?
     
  10. Ted

    Ted Banned

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    wrong of course, the fear of protectionists is that Americans will lose jobs to China and others without protection.
     
  11. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    They would have to first be libertarians, but they can't because they are unprincipled.

    tu quoque much? I don't support the Libertarian Party. You believe Republicans will repeal Obamacare? We'll see.

    Support? They don't need support. They just need control, which they already had all of Bush43's first term. They didn't cut (*)(*)(*)(*). They grew the fed gov like never before. Now they have it again. Will you contrive more excuses when they grow it like never before again, or will you wake the (*)(*)(*)(*) up?

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    I see you didn't read the post.
     
  12. Ted

    Ted Banned

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    wrong of course, Republicans would need huge support to cut govt by 60%. If they did it without huge support they would be wildly unpopular, lose the next election, and the gains would be quickly reversed. Do you understand now?

    You seem to be confused by thinking the party is independent of the support when the reality is that the party
    is a creation of the support. Now do you get it?
     
  13. Ted

    Ted Banned

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    you cant seem to grasp that Trump will do what there is support to do, he is a creation of the support. HE will cut govt by 60% when there is support to do it.
     
  14. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    Lose the next election! Oh No!

    It almost sounds like, now, you're telling me that

    "they have always cared more about their own party winning than any principle whatever,"

    Do you get it now?

    By saying that repealing Obamacare and cutting the government in half would be "wildly unpopular", you are also suggesting that the Republican base WANTS Obamacare and WANTS the government the size it is.

    If that is true, then WTF does anyone need the Republican party for?

    Do you understand now?
     
  15. Ted

    Ted Banned

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    the principle is freedom from liberal govt Republicans support it to the extent the support will permit. What don't you understand?

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    I think we all know the country is almost evening divided and thus we have almost evenly divided govt. What don't you understand?

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    we need a party to vote for, obviously, and that party reflects the will of the people who vote for it, some of whom voted for the party opposite previously. Do you understand? The flip flopping folks in the middle decide elections and the parties reflect that. GOt it now??
     

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