I am sick and tired of hearing how we shouldn't protect our jobs and shouldn't tax imports. History and the present are showing otherwise. I have a couple questions...1. Why shouldn't we have an import tax? Isn't this what HAMILTON, the founding father of Amerieconomics, did? If other countries can do it to us, why can't we do it to them?2. How can you expect American workers to compete globally? In China, workers receive virtually no pay, cheap and hazardous products, and the government can manipulate stocks and such. How are we expect to compete with them when we are held to standards that they aren't?I'm tired of hearing from all these absolutist capitalists that anyone who wants protectionism or taxes from other countries isn't a capitalist. There are several degrees of capitalists and I am one of them!Guess what, do you care about Americans or the rest of the world? You are so concerned about the 3rd world you are forgetting that we are losing millions of jobs here at home!My concern is Americans, not Brazilians or Indians or anywhere else.To is it 5 yet, you call OUR workers uncompetitive? Do you expect Americans to work for .50 cents an hour? Those are unlivable wages. Yes, there is no way we can compete with that which is why we need to establish some things to protect American jobs and we need an import tax.

1. First off... the "he did it so we should" argument is fallacious. The founding fathers also allowed slavery, so should we? But with regards to substance, two things. 1. Bureaucracies did not exist at that time to effectively levy income taxes. Furthermore, such a direct tax was considered unconstitutional. So trade tariffs were used primarily as a means of generating government revenue. That function is no longer required. 2. Protectionism is what led to the second colonization period of the late 1800s and sparked nationalistic based wars. Under protectionism, for a nation to acquire resources it must actually control the territory, so wars begin. Under free trade, there is no need to acquire the land, because your industires can trade. Look at oil today. It is the most non-free market traded commodity and it is what we still fight wars over.2. I expect American workers to compete globally because we have a higher educated work force and we have a lot more physical working capital to use, so that the average American worker is more productive. In certain industries such as textiles, that are highly labor intensive, low capital intensive production, I don’t expect them to continue. I expect the nation to adapt and move its workforce to something more productive. Should we have we protected our farmers in the industrial revolution and prevent them from moving to industry because they would have to change jobs? No. If we do not allow for a natural transisition to occur, both wages and technology growth will be hindered.Now, with that said, I realize there are costs, and I personally understand this. My father was layed off for almost two years, but I understand the greater need for change. However, our education system needs a major overhaul in order to accommodate this, and there is a transitional cost to this, and government in my opinion should act to retrain, reeducate, and generally aide the transition of workers into new jobs.If foreign countries still have tariffs or other barriers, then ours are justified to balance the trade distortion, but the effort should be to remove both nations’ barriers. Any claim that is made that tariffs are the just and fair thing to do to protect American workers is fallacious. Any gain an American worker makes due to tariffs, is done at the expense of the consumer and the foreign worker. Our tariffs unjustly force foreigners into poverty because we are unwilling to produce things that we actually have a comparative advantage in, because we feel we have some divine right to these jobs. Two examples:1 The US steel tariff put in place in a few years back... in order to save the jobs of a few thousand steel workers, we destroyed four or five times that amount of US jobs that work in industries that use steel. Furthermore, the consumer had to pay more for steel products, and we keep foreign steel workers artificially in poverty.2. Western agricultural subsidies. In order to protect about 2% of the western population, we impoverish 3rd world farmers. It is estimated that removing agricultural barriers would result in a net inflow of capital into Africa that would be larger then all foreign aid, private and public, that has ever gone to the continent. Another example. We currently have a 247% tariff on sugar to protect our farmers. This makes food and ethanol in gas more expensive for consumers and destroys jobs in very industry that uses gasoline... basically every industry. At the same time Brazilian farmers are kept in poverty.

If the government will not hold our trading partners to a fair trading practice, and the free Enterprise CEO's looking only at their profit margins don't stop exporting America's Jobs, Tax and more Tax on imports I say also.. Without a sound home base those profits ring hollow. If we no longer produce products, and employ enough numbers to maintaining our country's well being, we will have to visit the doctor overseas.And China said, "come get your medicine"..tainted but cheap .And the CEO said, if the FDA don catch it; home run!!

I think EB answered your questions.So the question before you is, why would you want to protect the jobs of uncompettetive workers at the expense of American consumers AND foreign workers living in poverty?

Only some commentsChina compete in world economy with cheaper worker (plus other things)USA does not compete in world economy with cheaper worker.USA usually does not apply taxes or tariff to imported goods but apply a lot of non-barriers tariff to many economies...American workers are not directly responsible about the economic situation in US...Absolute capitalism just is an ideal, all we know that is impossible to apply it in the real world. This ideal show us that even the Chinese death working 24 hours like slaves, they can not compete with American workers in, example: pharmaceuticals, cars, computers, etc, etc, etc,....the knowledge give aggregate value to the productive process...a cheaper worker not.

The founding of American Economics is Adam Smith. Free trade is the best policy for our economy. Jobs? We can create superflous jobs if you want, but I don't think it's smart to waste scrace resources. If you understood American trade, you wouldn't flap your mouth like an idiot. Trade is based on comparative advantage. Because of the law of diminishing returns, we still produce some of the good that other countries produce. Anyone who opposes free trade is either ignorant or doesn't have any skills so they need "protection". I am pretty sure a person from China has as much value as a person in America. I think the idea of the American economy is wrong. If you look up what the word 'economy' means you will realise how silly it is to seperate one country from another. I believe there is only 1 economy. And, again, a person is a person and so, no jobs are lost from free trade. Jobs are created from fair trade.Call yourself whatever you want. You apparently know very little on the subject of international trade. Taxing important raises prise. If other countries tax imports, it HURTS their citizens. It hurts their economy. Tarrifs and quotos suck. Anyone who disagrees is wrong. This isn't a matter of opinion. It's a proven fact.