Saturday, November 19, 2011

The start of something bad?

On page four of the Herald Sun recently was a news item that might one day have very serious consequences for Australia:

Australian farmers and manufacturers will benefit from a nine-nation free trade deal that leaders hope to have in place within a year.

US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the heads of seven other Asia-Pacific nations have agreed on the broad outline of a Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Mr Obama hailed it as a "milestone" that could dwarf the euro-zone.

It commits Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam to drop all trade barriers.

There's a good side and a bad side to this. Australian politicians have been looking for some time now to create an Asian Pacific bloc similar to the EU. In 2003, for instance, a senate committee issued a report which:

proposes a Pacific community which will eventually have one currency, one labour market, common strong budgetary and fiscal discipline, democratic and ethical governance, shared defence and security arrangements, common laws and resolve in fighting crime, and, health, welfare, education and environmental goals.

In other words, the Australian senate agreed to shift sovereignty toward a regional federation. There was to be "one labour market" in this new federal entity, meaning no borders between Australia, PNG and other pacific nations.

Fortunately the Pacific Community never took off, but Kevin Rudd did bring in a Pacific Islander guest worker scheme in 2008. This scheme was opposed by Brendan Nelson which brought him the following rebuke from the national political correspondent for the Herald Sun:

A guest worker scheme makes sense ... it should also pave the way for a pan-Pacific economic and trade pact ... Rudd's employment scheme, which will initially allow 2500 "guest workers" into Australia, is the first tranche of an eventual Pacific "common market".

And so he we are a few years later, a step closer to a Pacific common market. The good news is that the nations involved in this Pacific free trade pact are so geographically diverse that it will be harder to argue for an EU style federation. The bad news is that these free trade pacts can easily lead on to a "free movement of labour" - which would mean a further loss of border controls for Australia.

Finally, it's worth noting that the Australian Department of Immigration has been proved correct in its warnings about a guest worker scheme back in 2008. It noted the negative impact of the mass recruitment of overseas labor in countries such as the USA and the UK. One problem noted by the departmental researchers was that:

... As immigration has increased, native-born low-skilled workers (those most directly affected by foreign-labor programs) are increasingly dropping out of the labor force, and the tendency seems most pronounced among teenagers.

If you've been reading the Daily Mail recently you'll know what a problem that has become in the UK. Jobs there are increasingly going to overseas applicants, leaving a large pool of native born young people unemployed. The problem has been recognised by the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron who has warned that:

...around two-thirds of the increase in employment since 1997, was accounted for by foreign-born workers. Even now people are managing to come to the UK and find a job. Yet throughout all of those years we consistently had between 4 and 5 million people on out of work benefits. You can understand it from the employer's point of view. Confronted by a failing welfare system, shortcomings in our education system and an open door immigration system they can choose between a disillusioned and demotivated person on benefits here in the UK or an Eastern European with the get up and go to come across a continent to find work. Or they can choose between an inexperienced school leaver here or someone five years older coming to Britain with the experience they need. But that situation is simply not good enough. We have to change things.

Open borders means that a nation doesn't have to confront failings in its education and welfare systems, as workers can be taken from overseas. But keeping 5 million locals on welfare is a costly business and the recent riots in the UK also show the dangers of a large class of unemployed young people.

The question, then, is whether this new nine nation agreement can be kept to a free trade pact (which is how it's now being presented to the public) or whether it will lead on to a free movement in labour or, worse, an attempt to create an EU style regional federation.

62 comments:

  1. "Keep it to Only a Free Trade Pact."

    Mark you fool It's OVER For Australia.

    How is Australia supposed to compete with countries that employ slave and child labor?

    Your standard of living is going to go to shit. This is like Australian NAFTA.

    You people are screwed. Say goodbye to Industry, self-reliance and manufacturing.

    Free Trade is the Biggest Crock of Shit Ever Invented.

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  2. "The start of something bad?"
    Its already been bad in this country things like this will just make it worse.

    I thought the bit about the pacific islander migrant scheme was interesting.
    Several years ago there was a wandering migrant islander in a tradie uniform going door to door asking to do odd jobs in my mothers street.
    He came to the door of my mothers house. My mother answered the door, I was at the back of the house at the time listening to this.
    He asked if he could come in and do some gardening. My mother refused he then insisted that he be let in and was beginning to barge in to do who knows what.
    My mother firmly stood her ground telling him to go away and by the time i came rushing to the front door the guy had given up and wandered off.
    Besides the thought of what id have to do to defend my mother the thought struck me at the time that what the hell was this migrant doing in the country if he wasnt in a job. I also wondered at the standards of the screening process because this guy sounded like he was mentally retarded.

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  3. OK, so "The start of something worse" might have been a better title for the post.

    Even so, a free movement of labour pact will have a much bigger impact than a free trade one.

    And it should be of considerable interest whether this is intended as a free trade pact or as the start of a shift toward a regional federation along the lines of the EU.

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  4. This sort of thing is the prelude to world government. First a European Union, then a North American Union, & an Asian Union, & now I suppose that there will soon be a Pacific Union centred in Australia & New Zealand. Rather like the super-states of Eurasia, East-Asia & Oceania described in Orwell's 1984.

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  5. Democracy
    Open immigration
    Welfare state

    Pick two.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Free trade and "free movement of labor" are two very different things. That "liberals" and libertarians tend to conflate them because, though for different reasons and purposes, they want to flood western nations with "third worlders", is no reason for (so-called) conservatives to get stupid about free trade, as the first Anonymouse does.

    "Free Trade is the Biggest Crock of Shit Ever Invented."

    Allowing the people of Perth to buy goods and services from the people of Adelaide or Alice Springs is "the Biggest Crock of Shit Ever Invented".

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  7. Once upon a time our elites thought it was fine to keep black people as slaves.

    A few hundred years later they think it's fine to have white guys be their slaves. It is happening in Europe, it is happening in the USA, and now it will happen in Australia. 90% of these immigrants will eventually be on some sort of welfare, while old guys like my dad work into their 70's paying taxes to feed them. Theft!

    Labor party, labor party, why have you forsaken us? Blood and kinship means nothing to these transnationalist traitors.

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  8. So it has begun, the disenfranchisement and the forming of a new underclass. Have the politicians not learned from what has happened in the last 60 years? From the EU about to be failed experiment...The USA being flooded with Mexicans and the race war over there.

    This will lead to trouble,big trouble, I can't see any good coming from this apart from a very short term goal and perhaps a second boom...Then what?

    Sacrificing ourselves for the good of others is compassionate, but it will not work. As there are to many differences.

    I see the industries to be in for the Australian working man now will be mining, medical and security/defence work. With white middle class flight till there is no where else to go.

    No open borders.

    Free trade, yeah that works, look at the USA...

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  9. Llion has worked it out. Trade is always between individuals. Countries don't trade with each other; the people in those countries trade with each other, and it should be no business of our supposed representatives to be telling us who to trade with and who not to, whether they live next door, in the next town, or in another country.

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  10. your all making excellent points but as a young guy I have to say to this
    "A few hundred years later they think it's fine to have white guys be their slaves"

    I'D LOVE TO BE A SLAVE. Seriously what slave jobs? They are all being taken by immigrants. We can't even be slaves under this system.
    As Pat said in another topic we are all being thrown onto the trash heap.

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  11. Ilion is a free trade absolutist. He compares trade within a nation with that without a nation and finds it is all good.

    So, let me get this in terms you understand, if the radical autonomy of the individual reigns supreme then nation is nullified. Nullify nation and what do you have left to defend yourself against the race to the bottom of free trade, labour without standards? Absolutely nothing.

    Trade to Alice Springs is fine because Alice shares a common standard. Trade with Asia is unequal, it is a raced to the bottom deterimed only by labour rates.

    But we know this, so why does it happen? Because the majority of people in Oz are childless, spite filled, selfish fuckwits who clothe their evil as good - like not being judgmental. Of Spanky, child molesters, white collar criminals, whatever, the whole things a big joke to them.

    It's as simple as that.

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  12. So, Pat you would be happy to have our elected representatives tell you that you can't buy that iPod you want because it's made in China? Seems you are a government absolutist. I don't want to cede that sort of power to politicians.

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  13. "So, Pat you would be happy to have our elected representatives tell you that you can't buy that iPod you want because it's made in China? Seems you are a government absolutist. I don't want to cede that sort of power to politicians."

    Heres a strange thought. Imagine if Ipods were actually made in California. Like it says on the box.

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  14. Pat Hannagan: "Ilion is a free trade absolutist. He compares trade within a nation with that without a nation and finds it is all good."

    What term ought one use to denote someone, such as Pat Hammagan, a protectionist dupe:
    1) who refuses to acknowledge that protectionism isn't about "helping our people/society", but is rather all about "helping me at the expense of you and all our people", and that this is true whether "me" is the worker or the owner of the business;
    2) who refuses to acknowledge that free trade is about individual human freedom -- that individuals, not states or societies, engage in this free trade, and that so, using the (deadly) power of The State to restrict the excercise of my right to trade with someone from Australia is exactly like restricting the excercise of my right to trade with someone from California;
    3) who refuses to acknowledge that using the (deadly) power of The State to force one's fellow citizens to choose between buying the good or service one is offering, and at the (inflated) price for which one is willinf to part with it, or to do totally without, the option of buying it more cheaply from a foreigner having been "lawfully" eliminated, is exactly the same as to turn all the erstwhile citizens of that state into subjects, and slaves, of The State;
    *) and so on.


    How about 'socialist'; or at least 'socialist dupe'?

    ReplyDelete
  15. ... how about 'totalitarian', or at least 'totalitarian dupe'?

    --- how about 'selfish bastard who imagines that he can own his fellow citizens, without himself being owned'?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymouse: "Labor party, labor party, why have you forsaken us? Blood and kinship means nothing to these transnationalist traitors."

    Silly, silly, Anonymouse, the varous Labo(u)r Parties were all about the elites owning "the common man" ... and you willingly put the chains on yourself.

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  17. Anonymouse: "Free trade, yeah that works, look at the USA..."

    Indeed, look at the US -- we became this wealthy, this powerful, because of free trade.

    The problems we now face, which may well destroy our polity, cannot be laid at the feet of free trade, but rather at the creeping socialism with which we're saddled ourselves, going back to the Progressive Era. In fact, it is (semi-)free trade which has delayed the Day of Reconning, which is finally here.

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  18. Brett_McS: "Llion [sic] has worked it out. Trade is always between individuals. Countries don't trade with each other; ..."

    For the most part; countries like China and North Korea -- huge slave-labor camps -- are special exceptions to the general rule.

    But, as a general rule, yes: "... and it should be no business of our supposed representatives to be telling us who to trade with and who not to, whether they live next door, in the next town, or in another country."

    ===
    Protectionist dupes like to imagine, and refuse to see otherwise, that there are no adverse consequences, neither socially nor economically, to using the (deadly) power of The State to force one’s fellow erstwhile citizens to buy goods or services “locally” and at locally inflated prices, or to do without.

    But, consider this: if Australia restricts or eliminates the importation of goods and services from Thailand, so as to “save Australian jobs”, then how are the people in Thailand going to be able to afford to import Australian goods and services, even aside from retaliation by the Thai government?

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  19. 'Silly, silly, Anonymouse, the varous Labo(u)r Parties were all about the elites owning "the common man" ... and you willingly put the chains on yourself.'

    You're very arrogant for a dumb guy.

    'Another thing: on top of a history of free trade, another reason America is so free and wealthy and powerful is because we have a 400-year history of being philo-semetic.'

    Haha. This is a trollish comment aimed at Pat? Please let it be so. If not where to start.

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  20. Over the years, what I've noticed about fools who think that "You're arrogant" and "You're stupid" are irrefutable arguments is that they almost always mean, “How dare you ‘arrogantly’ argue against the stupid things I willfully choose to believe, or at least to assert!”

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  21. Illion,

    I think pragmatism is best when it comes to the economy. Sometimes the market will work well for your community/nation and sometimes it will be destructive and have to be restrained. It's a question of harnessing the power of the market to drive it in socially beneficial directions - rather than letting it loose on society.

    Brett and yourself seem to be coming at it from a libertarian point of view, in which any limits on the free market imposed by the state are thought to harm the freedoms of the individual.

    I believe the overall welfare of a community has to be considered. That includes not only the economic welfare, but also issues of economic and political independence and even national pride.

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  22. Pat,

    Now that you've openly declared your political allegiances I can't accept any more comments from you at this site.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Mark Richardson said...

    ""I think pragmatism is best when it comes to the economy.""

    Damn right.

    People forget that in Chile the economic miracle did not happen right after Chicago school ideas were implemented, it was not until those ideas were more carefully tailored to the Chilean economy a few years later that the massive surge in economic growth happened.

    Is small govt better than big govt? Yes.

    But pragmatic exceptions for any ideology come about when you start applying abstract principles to the real world.

    Sometimes the exceptions made are good, sometimes they are not. Competition decides who is better.

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  24. "Brett and yourself seem to be coming at it from a libertarian point of view, in which any limits on the free market imposed by the state are thought to harm the freedoms of the individual."

    You sure know how to insult a man, don't you? Libertarianism is almost as bas as fascism/socialism ... and, generally, leads to it in time.

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  25. Mark Richardson said...

    ""Pat, Now that you've openly declared your political allegiances I can't accept any more comments from you at this site.""

    Shame, he was interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Democracy
    Open immigration
    Welfare state

    Pick two.


    Actually, it's pick ONE.

    You can't have democracy and open immigration, because the immigrants will destroy your democracy EVEN if there is no welfare state.

    You can't have open immigration and the welfare state even in a non-democracy because the immigrants will break the system EVEN if they can't vote.

    Democracy and the welfare state is doomed EVEN without open immigration, it just takes longer.

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  27. A few of things about Protectionism.
    In regard to our state.
    1)We don't make anything anymore theres nothing to protect.
    2)We already have inflated prices.
    Australians seem to pay more for everything than anywhere in the world (this is from experience and i've not once had a decent explanation from anyone explaining why Australians pay up to twice or even three times more than every other country)
    3) This is related to the last thing. Are people aware that Ipods as an example only cost a few bucks to make but are sold for many times their material cost. How can it be really argued we are getting the cheapest goods.
    How can it be argued we are getting quality goods either. Old model ipods were just recalled as a fire hazard.
    A really good example of the quality of foreign made goods westerners can buy was(or is still) the Microsoft Xbox which has failure rate of over 20 percent.

    The other thing that makes me suspicious of people criticising protectionism (not that I am for it) Is the reaction of EU leaders. They tie it closely with nationalist resurgence. They are globalists, protectionism impedes their globalist agenda. So of course they would be against protectionism and be "warning" people about it. Who exactly are they warning? Considering what has already happened with increased globalisation and migrant labour.

    Back to the complaining about overpriced goods. I think its hilarious that foreigners migrate here with apparently the goal to live the western dream of high quality of life and cheap crap. They pick up the things on the shelves in our stores and see the discount price and think you beauty a bargain. I can only laugh when I know for a fact you can buy what they think is a bargain for 1/4th the price. These are actually the comparably honest immigrants who are trying to live like westerners but they are being conned. The smartest migrants are the ones that game us always at their advantage not ever becoming like us.

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  28. Another thing. How do people expect westerners to keep buying cheap junk when they have no jobs. How do people expect China to boom if it is reliant on the west buying its cheap junk.

    Will the new migrants replace westerners as the mass consumers. How will westerners survive then? Exclusively on welfare? Is this the end goal to have westerners on welfare paid for by the labouring foreigners.

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  29. Anonymous: "Another thing. How do people expect westerners to keep buying cheap junk when they have no jobs."

    You're right, it's so much easier to buy expensive junk when you have no job. Problem solved

    "How do people expect China to boom if it is reliant on the west buying its cheap junk."

    While I sorrow for the Chinese people living in a slave-labor camp (and, also, note that it continues because most of them want it to continue), I'm not too worried about whether China booms. And, since China is a vast slave-labor camp, I try never to buy anything from China.

    My concern is not about China, but about America, and then the "Anglo-sphere". And my primary concern is about truth and reason -- which, in economic matters is that free trade makes us all materially better off; whereas, protectionism impoverishes most of us for the benefit of the politically-connected few of us.

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  30. Anonymous: "... Democracy and the welfare state is doomed EVEN without open immigration, it just takes longer."

    Exactly. At the same time, democracy must always lead to the welfare state, as the many realize that they can vote themselves largess at the expense of the few; then to anarchy as morality and law-abidingness is broken down by the dishonesty of making your living by "legally" looting your fellows; then to tyrany to suppress the anarchy.

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  31. "i've not once had a decent explanation from anyone explaining why Australians pay up to twice or even three times more than every other country"

    Small market very far away from everyone else?

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  32. Anonymous, the supplier of goods and services has no moral obligation to sell them to you as cheaply as you think he ought (i.e. for free), but rather for as much as you are willing to pay him. This exactly mirrors the fact that you have no moral obligation to buy his goods and services as dearly as he'd like (i.e. such that one sale sets him for life), but rather as cheaply as he is willing to accept.

    It works, and it works for all of us. No other "rational" -- i.e. non-free market -- scheme will work. Ever. And all the alternatives must result in mass blood-shed to keep them propped up until they fall over regardless of the propping.

    Furthermore, and as is so often the case with folk bitching about free markets (*), you contradict yourself: “2)We already have inflated prices.
    Australians seem to pay more for everything than anywhere in the world (this is from experience and i've not once had a decent explanation from anyone explaining why Australians pay up to twice or even three times more than every other country)
    ” versus “Back to the complaining about overpriced goods. I think its hilarious that foreigners migrate here with apparently the goal to live the western dream of high quality of life and cheap crap. They pick up the things on the shelves in our stores and see the discount price and think you beauty a bargain.” OBVIOUSLY, if their experience, as foreigners, tells them that they are getting a bargain at Australian prices, then it cannot simultaneously be true that “Australians … pay more for everything than anywhere in the world”.

    (*) This is just another example of the same leftist-induced class-warfare paranoia and envy and hatred, such as leads many Americans to irrationally bitch that “they” are getting rich by keeping “us” too poor to buy the goods “they” want to (and need to) sell to “us”. It can’t be both ways.

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  33. "Anonymous, the supplier of goods and services has no moral obligation to sell them to you as cheaply as you think he ought (i.e. for free), but rather for as much as you are willing to pay him. This exactly mirrors the fact that you have no moral obligation to buy his goods and services as dearly as he'd like (i.e. such that one sale sets him for life), but rather as cheaply as he is willing to accept."

    I stopped reading at your first paragraph. You mistake me like you mistake everyone here for as you say "protectionist fools" You are right they ARE under no obligation to sell it for the price I think they should. Thats why I do the smart consumer thing and either not purchase or look for a cheaper deal.
    Look where that has got us. Now Australian shops are suffering because people are refusing to buy here. Its possible to buy manufactured goods at close to their cost to manufacture. You just contradict yourself on your previous remark of saying this offered us cheap goods. It doesn't
    as I said we are ALREADY buying inflated goods.

    "folk bitching"
    "This is just another example of the same leftist-induced class-warfare"

    I can't take libertarians seriously. Its just endless insults , claiming to know everything and whats best, ignoring the facts of reality etc. I'm glad its a fringe political belief. You believe in everyone having military grade heavy weapons in their homes right? Why, because they feel like it?
    Sounds like Anarchy.

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  34. "Small market very far away from everyone else?"
    I've been to smaller markets where mass consumerism just isn't feasible yet they sell all their goods 3 times cheaper than they do here.
    Distance isn't an issue anymore because of globalisation.

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  35. Illion,

    The free market, if left by itself, can lead to highly irrational and destructive outcomes.

    Take this example. Let's say one generation builds a very beautiful suburb filled with lovely family homes. Over time it becomes thought of as a heritage suburb and a desirable place to live.

    Therefore, people are willing to pay a good amount of money just to purchase a unit in this suburb, because they like the heritage environment and all the nice old homes they are surrounded by.

    But this means that developers can make a profit tearing down the old homes and building units. That is, until there are so many units and the place is so crowded that it's not such a nice place to live in anymore.

    The free market, if left unchecked, leads in this instance to a demoralising situation in which it is high quality housing stock that is destroyed.

    It's up to a community to set the rules in which economic activity takes place. If the community does this unwisely, then it will have to bear the negative consequences. But there do have to be rules - you can't take an individualistic approach of saying "any regulations that restrain the market infringe on my liberties".

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  36. llion

    how does it feel to be on the same side of the Socialist globalists that want to destroy the west?
    You don't care about the anglo-sphere at all you want to see it destroyed.

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  37. It commits Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam to drop all trade barriers.


    Because the EU has been such a rousing success? You can say (weakly) that the Europeans didn't know any better, but nobody following them has any such excuse.

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  38. democracy must always lead to the welfare state, as the many realize that they can vote themselves largess at the expense of the few;


    Libertarians just love this nonsense. Being historically illiterate, they don't have to worry about the fact that the Nazis and the communists had welfare states. They also don't have to deal with the fact that the US had a much smaller welfare state when it was more democratic.

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  39. I think most people with politics to the right of centre would agree that a small state is better than a large, intrusive one.

    But many of those people have doubts about free trade as a principle.

    The U.S underwent some of its greatest periods of growth in the pre-welfare state era, but they still had protectionist policies in play to guard their growing industries.

    Like all wonderful principles that seem to offer the answer to everything Free-trade is best taken with a grain of salt.

    Sometimes it might be a good idea, other times perhaps not.

    The individual situation dictates more than abstract principles do.

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  40. "But in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favour of free trade" Karl Marx, 1848. This shows forth the real reason that those who run things are enamoured of free trade, it assists in attaining their goal of imposing a world communist dictatorship. Communism and capitalism serve the same end; to concentrate power in the hands of a cabal, which is then free to tyrannize over the population at large. In Communist countries it is the state, meaning the rulers and the nomenclatura, who have their special shops, the gastronoms that the proletarians are not allowed to enter. In Capitalist countries it is the bankers, (really they are the secret rulers of Communist countries as well, but that is another matter) and their various lackeys in the political class (which consists for the most part of worthless scum who would sell their own mothers for their 30 pieces of silver, and then everyone wonders why nothing changes ha ha) and in the major corporations (these have the same character as their political brethren). In much vaunted America the prole is as powerless as he ever was in the Soviet Union. The difference is that a more scientific approach is taken in U.S., sophistry and mind games are used to make the dumbed down population believe that they have some degree of control over what is going to be inflicted on them, whereas in Russia it was more straightforward. Do what you're told or you get a bullet in the head. For any Americans reading this, that think they are free, let them try not paying their "property" taxes. They will quickly discover who really owns their land. Let them try to compete with mighty walmart with their own little business, let them even try set up in business. Strange how the libertarians can't understand that if there is no control whatsoever over how business is conducted, that then the vilest filthiest subhuman scum will invariably rise to the top for the simple reason that they are willing to do anything and everything to do so, no matter how iniquitous it may be. As for philo-semitism bringing blessings on a country.....well you could ask the Russian people how benevolent their Bolshevik overlords were, or maybe some Weimar Germans, I'm sure they enjoyed losing their life savings whilst certain others lived in luxury and bought everything up for pfennigs on the mark, but Mr. Richardson has asked that this particular question not be discussed so I'll not write any more about it.

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  41. 'Over the years, what I've noticed about fools who think that "You're arrogant" and "You're stupid" are irrefutable arguments is that they almost always mean, “How dare you ‘arrogantly’ argue against the stupid things I willfully choose to believe, or at least to assert!”

    Troll.

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  42. Being historically illiterate, they don't have to worry about the fact that the Nazis and the communists had welfare states. They also don't have to deal with the fact that the US had a much smaller welfare state when it was more democratic.

    Bzzzt, wrong. The US had a much smaller welfare state when it was LESS democratic -- when women couldn't vote, when blacks either couldn't vote or were actively discouraged from doing so, and when the voting age was 21 not 18. Being historically illiterate you are unaware of this.

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  43. I live in the USA, and thus am something of an outsider to the debate that you are having.

    But I am under the impression that the unemployment rate in Australia is much lower than it is in the USA.

    Further, I am under the impression that able bodied and reliable young men who are willing to move to live in mining towns and do physical labor can earn a very nice ammt of money

    Also, Australia has a minimum wage much higher than the USA

    As an outsider, my theory is that immigrants to Australia generally prefer to live in cities and not in the more rural areas. As such, high immigration to Australia pushes down the wages of native born Australians who want to live in cities, but does not impact so much the wages of native born australians living in the more remote areas.

    Is this the right way to look at it ?

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  44. "Is this the right way to look at it ?"
    No.

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  45. I don't think that's too far off. I'm not an economist but the immigrants do certainly want to live in the cities and wages in the mining regions are booming because there's lots of economic activity there and labor is required.

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  46. Hi Mark,

    As people have noted, free trade only works if all players are working on the same set of rules. This would mean same tax rate, same safety rules, same etc. (Not necessarily pay rates as areas with a higher population would find it easier to supply labour intensive industries).

    The problem is, Australia does not have the same rules as any of the other countries in this free trade block. We also largely have free trade which has resulted in our economy being pretty much mining base with pretty much all other industries setup to support the mining.

    As I've learnt the whole theory behind free trade being a benefit has some serious flaws. This article explains it well:

    http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/06/mailvox-hazlitt-international-trade.html

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  47. Hi Mark,

    This is OT, but I've been noticing your conversation with Dalrock in the comments sections of his blog.

    He does make a reasonable point of non-conservatives identifying themselves as trad conservatives. And while you call them out, unfortunately, you appear to be the only one doing so.

    Have you considered taking a new label and making it your own, such as historical conservative or some such. That way if you own and create the label you retain the power to call people out who are not acting in the correct way.

    Just my two cents worth.

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  48. On the topic of Fascism not being on. I'm assuming people are aware that many of the south east Asian nations we would join with in an Asian union are run or dominated by fascist parties (even adopting fascist european symbols). Their leaders are also on record, in parliment (!) saying that "white Australians" need to be ethnically cleansed from Australia.
    With friends like these who needs enemies.
    I think its interesting because the EU would not of agreed to take on a country that had a major fascist party. Yet our Australian leaders are willing to create an EU type system with fascists.

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  49. This is OT, but I've been noticing your conversation with Dalrock in the comments sections of his blog.

    He does make a reasonable point of non-conservatives identifying themselves as trad conservatives


    No, I don't think he does. His insistence that any conservative who is critical of "game" is not a conservative at all but a feminist is simply idiotic.

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  50. The US had a much smaller welfare state when it was LESS democratic -- when women couldn't vote, when blacks either couldn't vote or were actively discouraged from doing so, and when the voting age was 21 not 18. Being historically illiterate you are unaware of this.




    You make these mistakes because .... you're historically illiterate.

    Women got the v0te in 1920. The welfare exploded in size in the 1960's and 70's. Much of what drove (and still drives) the growth of the welfare state has been courts making up the law while pretending to "interpret" the constitution. This has happened at both the state and local level.

    For instance, many state supreme courts have ordered their state legislatures to spend more money on schools in order to bring spending in poor districts up the the level in wealthier ones.

    And when the American people have tried to use the democratic process to curb welfare spending - especially welfare spending on illegal illegal - the courts have overruled them.

    In Plyler v Doe, 1982, the US Supreme Court overturned a Texas law which denied school services to the children of illegals.

    In 1994 the people of California passed a law, Prop 187, which prohibited welfare to illegal aliens. The law was promptly overturned by a federal judge.

    It's not democracy causing the welfare state to grow and grow. It's unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.

    And now you know ...... the rest of the story.

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  51. He does make a reasonable point of non-conservatives identifying themselves as trad conservatives


    Actually, Dalrock has repeatedly claimed that all "trad conservatives" are liberals/feminists/manginas/"Gilligans". Apparently the only people who do not fit that description are he and his commenters.

    He seems to have a rather Jim Jones mentality.

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  52. ""And now you know ...... the rest of the story.""

    Paul Harvey is that you?

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  53. James: "Paul Harvey is that you?"

    LOL.

    And now we know ...... why he posts as anonymous.

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  54. Have you considered taking a new label and making it your own, such as historical conservative or some such.

    I've certainly thought about a better label, as have others, but haven't come up with one.

    The good thing about the term "conservative" is that it has a sense of attempting to conserve important aspects of a tradition that liberalism is attempting to destroy.

    But there are two problems with the term. First, it is often applied in a haphazard way to anyone on the right, no matter if they are clearly right-liberals or just plain political opportunists.

    Second, the more that liberalism itself takes over society the more our real task is to restore rather than to conserve.

    So "restorationist" is becoming a more accurate label, but it doesn't sound catchy or appealing.

    So for the moment I'll stick with "tradcon".

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  55. No, I don't think he does. His insistence that any conservative who is critical of "game" is not a conservative at all but a feminist is simply idiotic.

    Agreed. I like Dalrock and he's a great writer but he has truly gone off the MRA end and it's a sad thing to behold. Sure I wasn't fond of a couple of his commenters but I have found his posts quite interesting and enlightening. In fact I was initially inspired to write a book on the misbehaviour of modern women by Dalrock in the future (a book about modern love) but I've decided that it would probably be best inspired by the authors of Elusive Wapiti, Hooking Up Smart, Bonald, Thinking Housewife, Grerp or others.

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  56. "No, I don't think he does. His insistence that any conservative who is critical of "game" is not a conservative at all but a feminist is simply idiotic."

    Such behavior is symptomatic of the “my one simple, all-encompassing idea explains everything” mindset; you see it from open Marxists, from socialists and feminists and all other Marxist-inspired -ists, from Freudians, from Darwinists, and from many, if not most, internet atheists.

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  57. "Such behavior is symptomatic of the “my one simple, all-encompassing idea explains everything”

    Thats funny, sounds like your libertarian views on free trade.

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  58. Project much, Anonymouse? Of course you do.

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  59. The *only* alternative to free trade is some form of socialism, and a very clumsy socialism at that.

    When you people bitch that free trade is “stealing” “our” jobs, and that it must thus be curtailed, what you are saying, among other things, is this:

    I demand that the government use deadly force to prevent my fellow so-called citizens from buying certain imported goods (or services), which they wish to buy, generally due to lower price, so as to limit their choices of those certain goods to those offered by a list of ‘approved’ domestic suppliers, whose offerings the so-called citizens had already rejected in favor of the foreign suppliers.

    You people *claim* to be for liberty and citizenship; but you are not actually so: you are as thoroughgoing enemies of liberty, as solid proponents of subject-hood, as any open socialist is, merely more incoherent about getting there.

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  60. Illion,

    I disagree with you on this. You are defining freedom around an absolute right to unimpeded consumer choice.

    I think it's fine for a community to decide, pragmatically, what is best when it comes to such matters. If a community of people opt to enact a tariff which might raise prices but protect a local industry then they have that right.

    It's then on their heads whether that has the intended economic consequences or not.

    But the greater liberty is having the option to decide rather than being locked into the "no impediments on free trade" position.

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  61. Surely people and the nation matter more than the unimpeded right of goods to travel? Personally my biggest concern with protectionism is that it can lead to inefficient outcomes, as there is value in being pushed continually by competition. The lack of competition can lead to moral and practical “flabbiness”, just look at the public sector.

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