> > Roads are corporate subsidies only by the most ridiculous definition of > corporate subsidy. > > I'm talking about things like special treatment under laws, tax breaks, > below-market access to federal resources, etc.
Ah, I considered those direct subsidies. Those I don't favor. Indirect subsidies, I considered > > >Well, because it would put our balance of trade even more out of wack. I > >realize that we can afford the present imbalance, but it seems that > >unilarerally dropping trade barriers would invite high trade barriers > >against our goods, because the countries that did this would end up gaining. > > Why do countries gain by place barriers to trading with us? Money. Lets assume that no one bought US goods, and we continued to buy goods overseas at the same rate. Then United States employment would go down, and employment in those countries were to go up. Yes, our country's ecconomy is strong enought to have a balance of trade imbalance of 2% of the GDP. But, 11%? > Presumably countries who currently trade with us are not being made worse > off by the experience - if trading was making a country worse off, we would > expect that they would simply stop trading! That's not what I'm saying. They are better off trading fairly than not trading at all. But, they would be still better off if they only sold to us. Think about the difference today between Japan and Argentina. IIRC, 100 years ago, they had comparable ecconomies. Argentina simply traded a national resource for goods, Japan built a commercial infrastructure. Japan is far better off now. Dan M. Dan M.
