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I'll add that America is the most protectionist country according to Credit Suisse: http://www.businessinsider.in/The-country-that-imposes-the-most-restrictions

I'll add that America is the most protectionist country according to Credit Suisse: http://www.businessinsider.in/The-country-that-imposes-the-most-restrictions-on-trade-might-surprise-you/articleshow/49170319.cms http://www.businessinsider.in/The-country-that-imposes-the-m... (Couldn't find link to original report) Worked out well for America. Protectionist laws are a legitimate tool for social and economic progress.

velodrome 10y ago
This is the original Credit Suisse report: The End of Globalization or a more Multipolar World? https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?document_id=x657558&serialid=CKNMlWfHjw7rZyk%2BUGmvnQWrpsyCCwGev4oQ/ngdrE8%3D https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?document...
baddox 10y ago
What is the evidence that Americans wouldn't be better off if there were less protectionism?
- bduerst 10y ago
  Protectionism shrinks markets, drives up prices, and reduces consumer choice. The decreased competition from protectionism also decreases technological development.
argonaut 10y ago
Your links cites a report that itself gets its numbers from the "Global Trade Alert," which is an org that aggregates a variety of trade-related actions published by the governments of each country. Only a fraction of these are actually related to governments being protectionist. A huge number of these "actions" appear to be petitions by companies inside a country for trade investigations against other companies or nations. Another big chunk appear to be listings of every law enacted that gives even a few million to some factory in a given nation. Not unsurprisingly, the aggregator just lists a bunch of state laws in the US. The fact that America, with its very transparent political/legislative/corporate-grievances system would be recorded more often by this aggregator, is not surprising. In other words, this aggregator is going to be biased to record more trade-related events coming from more transparent nations that have more corporations located inside of them, and whose corporations will tend to try to resolve their trade disputes in the courts. But I guess you couldn't be bothered to investigate the numbers when you could just cite BusinessInsider.
- esterly 10y ago
  Agreed. Friends use an up vote for this parent.
  - maskedinvader 10y ago
    why is this downvoted ? I didn't read this as an endorsement to upvote but rather as witty response to @argonaut , unless i'm missing something else entirely here and the downvotes are warranted.
    - teh_klev 10y ago
      See: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." Rallying the crowd for up-votes (even for another user's post) falls pretty much in the same ballpark.
      - maskedinvader 10y ago
        like I said, I didn't read it as a rally for upvote, but rather a witty response to the previous comment. Unless he/she actually was rallying for upvotes and I read it wrong.
        esterly 10y ago
        Thanks man. I have plenty of other stuff I used rally-ing up on ;-) next time all say 'well played' instead of up vote
- arey_abhishek 10y ago
  Argonaut, are you suggesting that the chart shows transparency of nations?? That's inferring a lot from one chart :) I don't think America is the most transparent country in the world. Credit Suisse did the research and reported the chart+numbers. From Global Trade Alert's website: 'Global Trade Alert provides real-time information on <i>state measures</i> taken during the current global downturn that are likely to affect foreign commerce.' It is not a list of petitions by companies. Here's the original report from CS: https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?document_id=x657558&serialid=CKNMlWfHjw7rZyk%2BUGmvnQWrpsyCCwGev4oQ/ngdrE8%3D(Chart https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?document... appears on page 20) And Trump is all about protectionism. If America wasn't the most protectionist country before, it certainly will be very soon.
rgbrenner 10y ago
That chart at the top the _number_ of protectionist actions... As in, Country A takes 2 actions that affects $1 in trade. Country B decides in 1 action that no imports are allowed. And so it concludes Country A is clearly more restrictive. Does that conclusion seem correct to you? Don't you think you need more information than just that?
bduerst 10y ago
> Protectionist laws are a legitimate tool for social and economic progress. Just not technological progress. The auto manufacturers in the U.S. are a prime example of how protectionism stagnated industry development.

velodrome 10y ago

This is the original Credit Suisse report: The End of Globalization or a more Multipolar World? https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?document_id=x657558&serialid=CKNMlWfHjw7rZyk%2BUGmvnQWrpsyCCwGev4oQ/ngdrE8%3D https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?document...

baddox 10y ago

What is the evidence that Americans wouldn't be better off if there were less protectionism?

bduerst 10y ago
Protectionism shrinks markets, drives up prices, and reduces consumer choice. The decreased competition from protectionism also decreases technological development.

argonaut 10y ago

Your links cites a report that itself gets its numbers from the "Global Trade Alert," which is an org that aggregates a variety of trade-related actions published by the governments of each country. Only a fraction of these are actually related to governments being protectionist. A huge number of these "actions" appear to be petitions by companies inside a country for trade investigations against other companies or nations. Another big chunk appear to be listings of every law enacted that gives even a few million to some factory in a given nation. Not unsurprisingly, the aggregator just lists a bunch of state laws in the US. The fact that America, with its very transparent political/legislative/corporate-grievances system would be recorded more often by this aggregator, is not surprising. In other words, this aggregator is going to be biased to record more trade-related events coming from more transparent nations that have more corporations located inside of them, and whose corporations will tend to try to resolve their trade disputes in the courts. But I guess you couldn't be bothered to investigate the numbers when you could just cite BusinessInsider.

esterly 10y ago
Agreed. Friends use an up vote for this parent.
- maskedinvader 10y ago
  why is this downvoted ? I didn't read this as an endorsement to upvote but rather as witty response to @argonaut , unless i'm missing something else entirely here and the downvotes are warranted.
  - teh_klev 10y ago
    See: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." Rallying the crowd for up-votes (even for another user's post) falls pretty much in the same ballpark.
    - maskedinvader 10y ago
      like I said, I didn't read it as a rally for upvote, but rather a witty response to the previous comment. Unless he/she actually was rallying for upvotes and I read it wrong.
      - esterly 10y ago
        Thanks man. I have plenty of other stuff I used rally-ing up on ;-) next time all say 'well played' instead of up vote
arey_abhishek 10y ago
Argonaut, are you suggesting that the chart shows transparency of nations?? That's inferring a lot from one chart :) I don't think America is the most transparent country in the world. Credit Suisse did the research and reported the chart+numbers. From Global Trade Alert's website: 'Global Trade Alert provides real-time information on <i>state measures</i> taken during the current global downturn that are likely to affect foreign commerce.' It is not a list of petitions by companies. Here's the original report from CS: https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?document_id=x657558&serialid=CKNMlWfHjw7rZyk%2BUGmvnQWrpsyCCwGev4oQ/ngdrE8%3D(Chart https://doc.research-and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?document... appears on page 20) And Trump is all about protectionism. If America wasn't the most protectionist country before, it certainly will be very soon.

rgbrenner 10y ago

That chart at the top the _number_ of protectionist actions... As in, Country A takes 2 actions that affects $1 in trade. Country B decides in 1 action that no imports are allowed. And so it concludes Country A is clearly more restrictive. Does that conclusion seem correct to you? Don't you think you need more information than just that?

bduerst 10y ago

> Protectionist laws are a legitimate tool for social and economic progress. Just not technological progress. The auto manufacturers in the U.S. are a prime example of how protectionism stagnated industry development.