Free trade with a side of tariffs anyone?
Posted on September 26, 2007
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I was reading an article today on free trade from my favorite news site, cnn.com. Mostly I go there to read all the stuff in their money section. The article I was reading was a story about Susan Schwab and her efforts to promote free trade. Here’s the link in case you want to read it,
As i’m reading it I was thinking to myself, is free trade really free trade? The whole point of this article is talking about how she is negotiating all these tariffs and trade restrictions, regulations and protections. Now, anyone that knows me knows that I’m a Libertarian, I don’t like government regulation all that much, I feel that it interfears with my right to decide for myself, no matter how bad my decision is.
My question is this: Where do all these tariffs, trade restrictions and protections come from? Who writes theses laws?Â
And when you think about it they come from lobbies, be it the auto industry, farm industry, or whatever lobby can push their protections through. Essentially stiffling free trade…..
I’m sure you are sitting there wondering what I’m doing putting together a website that promotes products made in the US, and that I always talk about trade deficits, and if that’s the case then how can I be against protecting US industries.Â
 There are two reasons really:
1.) I don’t like people trying to protect themselves at my expense. If your product is a good product then advertise it, sell me on the benefits and I’ll buy it. But I want the choice. I just don’t understand why companies don’t make a more concentrated effort to promote the fact that they make their products in the US. The whole reason I started this website was to give people the opportunity to find products that are made in the US because I found it was so hard to find anything made in the US at wal-mart, k-mart and all those other marts… I want to buy US made products!
and 2.) Protectionism will ultimately lead to a degradation in our economy and the very industries we are protecting. We need competition to remain sharp, we need to be pushed to produce more, cheaper, better. Just look at the US auto industry, what a mess. We tried to protect the auto industry in the 70’s by restricting toyota’s imports and it totally backfired. They just learned to make better cheaper cars and then they ultimately reallized they could make the cars here, get around the restrictions and now look at them! In fact 2 of the top 10 cars in terms of US parts and labor are toyotas…lol…
Ultimately I think it’s up to the consumers to decide for themselves what’s important to them and it’s up to the companies to do better job selling me their products!Â
If you like what you are reading you can "Buy us a Beer", secure, via paypal! Donate a couple bucks to help us continue building this website.Ideablob.com competition for new business, $10k!
Posted on September 25, 2007
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As I was browsing through my LinkedIn account I found a company that is doing a $10k a month competition for new business ideas! I of course jumped at the opportunity to sign iBuyAmericanMade.com up for the competition in hopes that I could get some money to help with marketing, web devolpment and the likes. So if you have a moment and wouldn’t mind, go to ideablob.com and vote for iBuyAmericanMade.com. You would need to register but it’s not that hard to do and it’s free and just think, if I win it will help build a great website that promotes some good products and you will feel good about yourself for helping!
If you like what you are reading you can "Buy us a Beer", secure, via paypal! Donate a couple bucks to help us continue building this website.The Forum is alive!!!!
Posted on September 24, 2007
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Today I have somehow managed to get the Forum up and running, granted I’ve been getting a lot of help from the guys at eCommerceforeveryone.com, the are a HUGE help and I would be completely lost without them since I only know how to turn a computer on for the most part.
 I hope everyone has a chance to check the forum out and contribute, the web address is www.forums.ibuyamericanmade.com . I think it’s going to be a valuable part of the website and ultimately makes it more of a community. I know there are a lot of likeminded people out there that are looking for places to discuss the issues of the trade deficit, the budget deficit and the economy as well as find products and information about American made products.
 I’ve even been getting asked questions on my LinkedIn account about why the US dollar continues to slide against the Euro and how long I think it’s going to continue. This is great, people are actually taking an interest in these issues rather than just going along with the same ol speaches from the same ol people that got us into the situation we are in.
If you like what you are reading you can "Buy us a Beer", secure, via paypal! Donate a couple bucks to help us continue building this website.Not quite a new car….
Posted on September 22, 2007
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Well, I went to the dealership last night to trade my little Mercedes in on a new Escape Hybrid and, what do you know, the Mercedes value has just about fallen through the floor since I bought it. So, no new car for me…. I just can’t justify taking a $6k loss on the stupid thing, even as much as I would love to get rid of it.
 It’s kinda sad really, buying a car just to see it devalue as fast as you are paying it off.
 Other than that nothing new to talk about, still just working on getting the site up and running, get rid of all those non USA made products on there!
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