France: Yet another nation turns against globalism: 80% see it as a job-killer

[JDPriestly]

5. It's very high, and the Democratic Party and liberals are making a huge mistake

in agreeing to more trade pacts that don't require equality in trade.

We should not run trade deficits. We hear a lot about our budget deficits. Personally, I think that there is a link between trade deficits and budget deficits but no one talks about it.

In my opinion, the link has to do with available income to generate tax revenue. Global markets have resulted in higher unemployment, probably much higher than our statistics reflect, in the US. The unemployed cannot and do not pay taxes. They receive assistance in some cases, but cannot pay much if anything in taxes. They are unemployed because we are importing more in dollar value than we are exporting. In addition to our huge military expenses overseas, we pay far more out overseas than we receive from other countries.

Of course, we have a hole, a huge one, in our tax revenue since the money we spend overseas does not show up as taxable income on what we might visualize or understand as a sort of national balance sheet. I am just speaking in a sort of metaphor. We don't really have a national balance sheet that reflects the relationship between our foreign trade deficit and our budget deficit and tax revenue deficit. But If we did, I think we would change our trade policies.

We are using overly generous trade policies to buy friends abroad. It's a stupid idea.

Trying to buy friends is something politicians like to do. But it didn't work in the third grade and it doesn't work for adults either. We should try to be fiscally responsible and that means being responsible about what we spend in the global marketplace.