[Rhodes22-list] Reduce your federal income tax (political humor)

[Brad Haslett]

Dave,

You wrote, "we have an implicit obgligation to look after our fellow
citizens."

Is this one of the poor farmers I'm supposed to be worried about?

www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=4321

Brad

On 6/30/06, DCLewis1 at aol.com <DCLewis1 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> Brad,
>
> I guess it was Keynes that  originated "in the long run  we're all dead",
> I
> could be wrong.
>
> Regarding Ricardo and comparative advantage, I think you're right, he's
> the
> guy.  As I recall the principal fairy tail attributed to him had  England
> trading with Portugal.   I think England traded  textiles for Portugal's
> olives or
> something, each provided what they could  best.  But it's important to
> note
> that in Ricardos model each party  generated the liquidity needed to
> support
> trade with the other from reciprocal  trade.  With the US, as our chronic
> and
> humongeous trade deficit will  attest, there is substantially inadequate
> reciprocal trade to offset our  purchases abroad - we're not generating
> liquidity,
> the Ricardo model does not  apply and hasn't applied for maybe 30 or 40
> years.
> The US side of the  trade has been financed by debt.  Only a Republican
> "conservative" or a  WalMart executive, would be comfortable with the
> level of debt
> that has  been accumulated importing all the stuff we've bought
> abroad.  Our
> kids are going to spend their lives servicing our debt.
>
> Regarding subsidies to American cotton farmers vice aid to African  cotton
> farmers - what you've overlooked is that we have an implicit  obligation
> to look
> after our fellow citizens.  We are a nation of 300  million people with a
> common destiny, to some extent we (you, I, and the  rest) are all in this
> together.  That is not the case for  foreigners, we have no obligation at
> all to look
> after African cotton farmers,  Sudanese bird breeders, etc - if we can
> help
> them swell, but there is no  obligation.  The notion of playing hard ball
> economics with American  citizens so that we can fund warm and fuzzy
> developmental
> projects in the 3rd  world seems a stretch to me.  That's not to say US
> cotton
> subsidies  are a good thing, better to get those guys doing something that
> doesn't need  subsidies and use that money for something better - like
> balancing
> the  budget.
>
> Enough, I'm going sailing!
>
> Dave
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