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Words are important.
True free trade means balanced and enforceable rules among trading
countries, constantly weeding out manipulation of currency, border
adjustable taxes, regulatory disparities, subsidies and the like. Maybe someday we can achieve true free trade.
Pseudo-free traders, those working
against enforcing the rules, have won the battle of words and money at
the federal political level. They merely shout "protectionism!",
"Smoot Hawley!", and something about lifting all boats... or
whatever.
Several in Michigan's federal delegation are getting not only the policy, but the words, right, if quotes from Detroit News are accurate. The words chosen are important.
"If
we are enforcing the rules and other countries can't cheat, it may make
a difference between a plant staying in the United States or leaving,"
said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, who sits on the Senate Commerce
Committee, which oversees trade policy.
Sander Levin, D-Royal
Oak, rejects the protectionist label. "Every time you want a real
government policy, they say it's protectionism," Levin said. "But it's
the Koreans who are the protectionists; it's the Chinese who are the
protectionists. To say it's protectionism to knock down their
protectionism doesn't make any sense."
But persuading the press to
write sensibly is harder. They are caught in the 1990's
caricature of protectionsts vs. free traders, attacking other countries
economically, retaliation, etc. What really is necessary is
unilateral NEUTRALIZATION of other countries' protectionism, and that
is what is souugh in several bills pending in Congress.
The same article includes these words written by the Detroit News reporter, who is unnamed.
Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Township, is pushing a bill to attack Japan's currency policies.
The word attack suggests warfare, and furthers the "trade war"
story. Japan has a "currency policy". What a neutral
word. Can't they have a "currency policy?" Must we attack
it? The real story here is that Japan manipulates currency, which
is the attack, and we merely must neutralize it.
Try another quote from the article:
In mid-August, when China threatened to retaliate against tougher
U.S. policy by selling off U.S. Treasury notes, Rep. Mike Rogers,
R-Brighton, declared, "We won't be intimidated."
Maybe Rogers said this. His thought is generally correct, but
"intimindation" is another warfare term which may not help in DC,
though it probably works in Michigan on the streets, which is ok.
Words are important. You can describe an impressionist
painting by Claude Monet as "generating a hypnotic energy and a
kaleidoscope of color" or as "a vague, unformed, unfinished pile of
paint glopped on by someone on LSD." There is a difference.
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