If governments have to make an agreement it's by definition managed trade. They should attain free trade by simply removing all artificial barriers to trade. And yes, true free trade is always good.
[QUOTE="famicommander"][QUOTE="LoG-Sacrament"]nice. finally a good d-pad for pc games. if the touch pad doesn't work, that's find as most games that would benefit from a touch pad controller would probably be better played with kb/m.LoG-Sacrament
The Dualshock dpad isn't good. It's better than the 360 dpad by many orders of magnitude, but the Logitech F series of controllers blows both out of the water. never used it myself although i'd probably never buy one without doing so. the models i saw looked like they had that circle around them that i never like. does it make it easier to input diagonals? arguably, but that's not what i want from a d-pad. i want up, down, left and right. the dualshocks all have efficient little presses for the 90 degree points and that's why i like their d-pads. The Logitech controllers have very precise cardinal directions. It has a tactile feedback and it's easy to press each direction. I play Super Meat Boy on it easily.
nice. finally a good d-pad for pc games. if the touch pad doesn't work, that's find as most games that would benefit from a touch pad controller would probably be better played with kb/m.LoG-Sacrament
The Dualshock dpad isn't good. It's better than the 360 dpad by many orders of magnitude, but the Logitech F series of controllers blows both out of the water.
[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="EagleEyedOne"][QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"] No. If you continue importing cheap goods all you have is people out of work that can't afford to purchase the goods. How does that help anyone? The only way you would be able to import cheap goods is if your currency is worth more than the country in question. That would imply your economy is strong enough to support high interest rates. This is never the case with closed economies. Not entirely. Labor is a big cost of production and a country that doesn't pay much for labor will be able to under cut domestic production. In which case domestic resources are redirected to more productive endeavors.
[QUOTE="EagleEyedOne"][QUOTE="famicommander"][QUOTE="EagleEyedOne"] Except nothing is being destroyed. Resources are being redirected as a result of policies forcing consumers to spend on goods they otherwise would not buy. Productivity is being destroyed; wealth is being destroyed. When you need to use coercion to direct resources from one sector of the economy to another you are by definition decreasing wealth and productivity. People see the companies favored by the protectionist policies thriving and they assume it is economically beneficial, but what is not seen is the more productive use of every dollar spent on protectionist-supported endeavors. If you've read Hazlitt's book I referenced he uses the logic of the broken window fallacy and applies it to many common economic sophisms. He does a whole chapter on protectionism. You can read it for free here: http://mises.org/books/economics_in_one_lesson_hazlitt.pdf The chapter begins on page 59. I see what you are saying, but it still is not direct enough to use the broken window fallacy as a supportive statement. Yes it is, because the underlying logic is exactly the same. The broken window fallacy doesn't only apply to acts of direct destruction and subsequent reactions; it applies to all attempts to argue using its same underlying logic.
[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"][QUOTE="famicommander"][QUOTE="EagleEyedOne"] The broken window fallacy has nothing to do with protectionist policy. It has everything to do with it. It has to do with what is seen and what is unseen. With protectionist policy people see that it stimulates domestic industry, as the broken window stimulates the window salesman. What is unseen is the damage done to the person whose window was broken, as he now must spend money that would otherwise be directed at some other productive use on the window. In the same way, people who are forced to pay higher prices for domestic products instead of cheaper foreign ones are harmed. The money they would have spent on some other productive use is redirected by protectionism to its less urgent use. Protectionism is one of the most simple and clear cut examples of the broken window fallacy. No. If you continue importing cheap goods all you have is people out of work that can't afford to purchase the goods. How does that help anyone? If you continue importing cheap goods consumers in the economy have more money to offer more employment in other industries. Further, the companies doing the actual importing will offer employment. Your premise that wealth-destroying activities (protectionism) increase net employment is logically contradictory. Protectionism can only increase employment by force, for one specific group of people at the expense of every other actor in the economy. I would very much suggest reading Hazlitt's book. It's free, concise, short, and logically constructed: http://mises.org/books/economics_in_one_lesson_hazlitt.pdf
[QUOTE="EagleEyedOne"][QUOTE="famicommander"][QUOTE="EagleEyedOne"] The broken window fallacy has nothing to do with protectionist policy. It has everything to do with it. It has to do with what is seen and what is unseen. With protectionist policy people see that it stimulates domestic industry, as the broken window stimulates the window salesman. What is unseen is the damage done to the person whose window was broken, as he now must spend money that would otherwise be directed at some other productive use on the window. In the same way, people who are forced to pay higher prices for domestic products instead of cheaper foreign ones are harmed. The money they would have spent on some other productive use is redirected by protectionism to its less urgent use. Protectionism is one of the most simple and clear cut examples of the broken window fallacy. Except nothing is being destroyed. Resources are being redirected as a result of policies forcing consumers to spend on goods they otherwise would not buy. Productivity is being destroyed; wealth is being destroyed. When you need to use coercion to direct resources from one sector of the economy to another you are by definition decreasing wealth and productivity. People see the companies favored by the protectionist policies thriving and they assume it is economically beneficial, but what is not seen is the more productive use of every dollar spent on protectionist-supported endeavors. If you've read Hazlitt's book I referenced he uses the logic of the broken window fallacy and applies it to many common economic sophisms. He does a whole chapter on protectionism. You can read it for free here: http://mises.org/books/economics_in_one_lesson_hazlitt.pdf The chapter begins on page 59.
Somehow I thought I could re-read Atlas Shrugged quickly. 500 pages in and losing steam, but I haven't read it since high school and I want to finish it. I like it less than Rand's other novels. Not a fan of her nonfiction.
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