There seems to be quite a bit of protectionism going on in the world right now and in the United States of America we are not exactly without fault.
As China works very hard to get their businesses to buy Chinese products, and only spend their stimulus money within the country, many people decry this and want the WTO to intervene.
And yet in the United States we have done the same thing due to union lobbies, and what not.
Many folks say it's only common sense to buy things from yourself, especially if we are spending taxpayers money because it is not the American taxpayer's job to provide jobs to Chinese people.
This has been a big issue in Congress as the legislature provides under tones of protectionism into the bills that went along with the stimulus package and federal spending on various endeavors.
We must however be very careful that we do not incite a trite trade war.
Many of the major wars that have been in past periods have started out as trade wars.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor it was really about steel, rubber and oil, as both of our industrialized nations needed the raw materials, and fuel to keep our nations going.
The Japanese felt they had no choice, but to attack.
Although this seems rather harsh and unacceptable by today's standards, we could easily see a repeat as nations get upset with each other, over trade.
The global recession is estimated that it will be between seven and 8% decline in GDP of the nations of the world on average.
Some nations will experience a much worse recession and even a depression.
Even if the United States of America winds up at the end of 2009 with only a slight expansion of 1 to 2%, we may not notice the difference.
It will still feel like troubling and turbulent times.
Still, if we become protectionist to bump up our GDP, we will inevitably hurt other nations and can even cause the collapse of governments, the implosion of their economies, and massive civil unrest leading up to civil wars.
Please consider all this.
As China works very hard to get their businesses to buy Chinese products, and only spend their stimulus money within the country, many people decry this and want the WTO to intervene.
And yet in the United States we have done the same thing due to union lobbies, and what not.
Many folks say it's only common sense to buy things from yourself, especially if we are spending taxpayers money because it is not the American taxpayer's job to provide jobs to Chinese people.
This has been a big issue in Congress as the legislature provides under tones of protectionism into the bills that went along with the stimulus package and federal spending on various endeavors.
We must however be very careful that we do not incite a trite trade war.
Many of the major wars that have been in past periods have started out as trade wars.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor it was really about steel, rubber and oil, as both of our industrialized nations needed the raw materials, and fuel to keep our nations going.
The Japanese felt they had no choice, but to attack.
Although this seems rather harsh and unacceptable by today's standards, we could easily see a repeat as nations get upset with each other, over trade.
The global recession is estimated that it will be between seven and 8% decline in GDP of the nations of the world on average.
Some nations will experience a much worse recession and even a depression.
Even if the United States of America winds up at the end of 2009 with only a slight expansion of 1 to 2%, we may not notice the difference.
It will still feel like troubling and turbulent times.
Still, if we become protectionist to bump up our GDP, we will inevitably hurt other nations and can even cause the collapse of governments, the implosion of their economies, and massive civil unrest leading up to civil wars.
Please consider all this.