Trade, Then and Now

    by Art Woolf

It's somewhat ironic that an anthropologist studying Native Americans in Vermont has a better handle on the benefits of trade than a U.S. Senator.  The Freeps reports on Johnson State College students, under the supervision of Professor Corbett Torrence, doing an archeological dig on the banks of the Lamoille River:

The students have uncovered evidence of trade. The rocks for spearheads came from New York, New Hampshire, the Lake Champlain shoreline and the Otter Creek area.  Trade was not simply an economic exchange, Torrence said. “We need to think about it in a social context. Trade is friendship,” he said. “Vermont has a long history of barter, exchange and cooperation. We see that in the original Vermonters.”

Trade is friendship.  It's a simple concept but exactly right. 

Then we go to Senator Sanders' website and find

Senator Sanders is a leading opponent of our disastrous trade policies, including NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, and others. Sanders believes that our unfettered free trade policies have largely contributed to our shrinking middle class, job loss, and the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor.

Maybe Prof. Torrence's students will find evidence that some Native American chief was protesting about the disastrous impact free trade with the Native Peoples of New York was having on the local community.  But I doubt it.

Comments

[RFC]

Bernie can't always be right, but I suppose we have a right to expect that his average should be better than just 13% of the time.

[Bob Zeliff]

Mr. Woolf it is fine to disagree with Sanders' trade and health care positions. Alternate ideas are good. That is why I check this blog out. However your two recent posts are just loopy meanders that do not really go to Sanders points but are just forums for you to expound tangential or totally unconnected antidotes. Leno and Letterman do this for humor. While you are mildly funny, they have not shown that you have better ideas than Bernie's. No harm done if readers don't confuse humor for fact.

[GreggB]

Hey Bob, I don't quite understand your point could you elaborate a bit?
Thanks

[sceptical]

All Bob is saying is that everything Bernie says is fact. Bernie saying it is enough to make so. Art should be more respectful of this.

[Bob Zeliff]

GreggB Woolf parses Bernie's words with tangential or illogicial but cute counter points. Example Bernie is substantially against "free trade" which does not mean he wants no trade. Woolf talks about the interesting but unrelated fact that the early indians traded amoung the tribes and europeans. It is not a logical answer or counter point, and does not go to why
Bernie is wrong in oposing "Free Trade" or why "Free trade" has been good for us.

Woolf used the same technique in parsing Bernie's words in his "Health Care Realith Check".
example Bernie says (to broadly in my opinion) that our current health care system is "wasteful...." Woolf come back with a snipes that Government Agencies are "efficient... " when he really means they are not (another to broad statement, and a smear of all government workers) but more importantly the health proposal that Bernie supports still relies on choice of private and public so the reference to government efficency or lack there of does not address Bernie's aligation of waste in the current system.
The next exampe is Woolf's quote Bernie statement thaat 20,000 people die because the do not have health insurance. Woolf say 50,000 die thru medical error. Both are terrible but the latter certainly does not make the former, Bernie's point moot. I think you get the idea. Clever side steps to not make a credable answer. Usually Woolf does a lot better.
PS Sceptical, I do not agree that every thing Bernie says is fact. He ofter over simplifies and is some time ourright wrong. I try to be knowledgabel enough to know the difference. This blog some times helps me with that knowledge.

[GreggB]

sceptical I think you are wrong it is apparently about the funny. I'm pretty sure Bob's point is that: Bernie is as funny as Letterman cracking on Sarah Palin's daughter. Prof. Woolf is funny, but not quite as funny. And regardless of humor Bernie's economic ideas are correct and should not be challenged only as a joke. Hey Bob help us out here. Thanks

[Paul]

If it is true that 61% of Americans are against free trade (and I believe that statistic), why is it that the 61% need the government to solve the problem If the 61% would immediately stop buying foreign the problem would be solved overnight without government help.
Of course, men would have to be willing to pay $99.00 for an American made dress shirt rather then $14.95 for the foreign made Van Hussen dress shirt from Costco's.

[Ed G. Mann]

If that $99.00 will go to the toiling workers making the shirts and not to the capitalist bosses who live off the sweat of the masses, then the cost of the shirt is justified. Let the Wall Street lackeys and factory owners pay back what they stole from the masses.

Finally, all workers can afford their own shovel and not rely on the government to issue a cheap short handled tool.

The 61% can then feel proud of themselves.

All power to Bernie the Economist par excellence.

[Paul]

Let Bernie start the parade. Ask to see his labels and see how many $99 shirts he owns. He wouldn't even buy an American car until the unions embarrassed him into it.