America's massive trade deficit: Why BIG tariffs won't hurt the United States

[Zalatix]

133. The Smoot Hawley Zealots have not shown any evidence to support their claims.

The burden is not upon me to show evidence when the other side has shown none at all. "Correlation isn't the same as causation" applies more to them than to me.

As for convincing others? The DU used to be dominated by free traders. Since I've gotten here, COINCIDENTALLY, it has become the exact reverse. Granted, I was lurking most of the time that this change occurred and I've had little to do with the change, but that just goes to prove - the pro-offshoring zealots don't have much influence anymore. Them's the breaks.

Now, since you mentioned correlation and causation, there isn't even an effective correlation relationship between Smoot Hawley and the drop in trade.

[img][/img]

As you can see from this chart, I mentioned in my OP that during the Depression, we did not run a trade deficit during the Smoot-Hawley years. This is supported by the historical charts. The conditions during the Smoot-Hawley years were fundamentally different than what's going on now.

And you can also see that the drop in trade during Smoot-Hawley wasn't disproprortionate to the drop in GDP.

Thus, the Smoot-Hawley fairy tale fails to even establish correlation.

The pro-offshoring zealots fail. Miserably.