Their economy is getting ever more precarious and unstable

Much of their growth is artificial and manufactured

It is going to catch up to them soon enough

yeah, but they have successful infiltration operations and stole so much american intellectual property that now they can successfully challenge the pax americana weve all (the world) enjoyed for so long

especially american military IP

@campodin Government Contracts (to private companies) drive the most innovation

Since it's instant motivation, unlike a regular market where it takes a multitude of time to innovate

Lol, no China is not challenging the pax Americana. Trump has showed just how weak they really are

China can't hold off against the U.S in a trade war

thats naive

China is already outsourcing itself @Jay1532

they are not weak

They are investing into new companies in Africa

only if xi loses power will they have been shown to be weak

they are planning on nuking the petro-dollar behind the scenes

Xi is basically neo-mao, have fun trying to convince it's popular to rebel

and if turkey and others are any indication, they are receiving an audience thats listening

China will never be a sole superpower, they will follow the path of the soviet union

@Doctor Anon government contracts doesn't drive the kind of innovation that leads to more prosperity though. Most of that innovation is expensive and not practical until the market gets to improve upon it

@campodin It does get to improve on it, most contracts are for military, which almost always translates into civilian tech

Oh, in regards to contracts for military tech I'm all in favor of it.

What's expensive and impractical on the market shouldn't be a consideration for defense

idk though, theres a compelling argument that free trade can also hinder research

since it creates a climate of long term uncertainty for certain products

Im 50/50 on free trade

I'd support national free trade, but not global free trade

look how ford and other american car companies bought outsourced vehicle parts in the 90s to compete on PRICE, not to innovate on quality

and theyve been playing a losing game ever since

A nation should always strive to be able to sustain itself with *0* imports

i dont know if id go that far. The best case scenario is import what we cant make well ourself, and export what we excel at

and make sure that important industries are protected

I didn't say no exports, i meant no imports

anyone that thinks we could wage war without domestic steel production is probably a commie infiltrator

as for the 0, i mean in terms of goods needed to sustain a country, for example during a war so supply lines cant be cut off

yeah

There are some things that are not economically good short-term, such as protectionism, but are necessary

- Protectionism sacrifices the benefits of comparative advantage for BOTH countries, but it encourages localized production of goods, which is essential if you ever go to war, because once you go to war you can't use the other country's industrial capacity anymore.
- I would argue that a libertarian "free market" actually doesn't make sense unless there is protection against trading with non-free markets. This kind of trade favors the non-free market, which is likely controlled by an authoritarian power actively seeking to undermine neighboring libertarian societies.
- The hidden benefit of protection is that when companies are producing locally, it becomes MUCH easier for independent citizens to compete in the marketplace, because they can work for themselves for free, whereas larger companies must pay relatively high wages. So while we might be theoretically "poorer" by not producing in the cheapest way across country lines, the protection creates a situation in which the protected market has more competition and relative equality.

saving this

The Chinese government, for example, limits how wealthy its people are getting by producing most of our goods through extreme inflation of their money - that is to say, they're using the money supply to confiscate most of that wealth. So rather than companies having to increase their wages for Chinese workers and rather than Chinese workers being able to afford goods and services from the United States, the price of their labor is kept artificially low and the proceeds go to funding the expansion of Chinese power.

By allowing trade with China, we make it so that the most powerful corporations in the United States are the ones that use Chinese slave labor. Meanwhile, these same companies that do all of their business with China lobby for higher regulations in the United States, either to virtue signal or to cripple competitors who try to produce domestically within the United States. If their production is oversees then environmental and labor regulations here don't apply - if they did, it wouldn't be so much cheaper to ship everything from China. This is why you don't see corporations giving any funding to libertarian political candidates, even though they could easily justify giving some proportion of what they give to Democrats and Republicans. Free markets aren't in the benefit of international corporations - they want politically protected profits.

I would also surmise that we're hearing 10-100x more negative news about Donald Trump than we otherwise would because national borders and traditional values are also inconvenient impediments to the supremacy of international corporations. It is in their financial interest to water down our political consensus and to lower our wages through H1B skilled immigration. This is the major scam of progressivism - capitalists scamming socialists into dis-empowering their workers relative to capital in the name of solidarity.

Workers

Better Workers