We could use some tariffs again

[eridani]

http://www.truth-out.org/rebooting-american-dream-chapter-one-bring-my-job-home65127

A more contemporary example of the application of that wisdom can be seen in South Korea. In the 1960s Korea was an undeveloped nation whose major exports were human hair (for wigs) and fish and whose average annual income was around $400 per working family. Today it’s a major industrial power with an average annual per capita income of more than $32,000, and it beats the United States in its rate of college attendance, exports, and lifespan. Korea did it by closing its economy and promoting its export industries. A decade earlier Japan had done the same thing. Forty years earlier Germany had done it.

In July 2009, with no evident irony or understanding of how South Korea went about becoming a modern economic powerhouse, President Obama lectured the countries of Africa during his visit to Ghana. As the New York Times reported: “Mr. Obama said that when his father came to the United States, his home country of Kenya had an economy as large as that of South Korea per capita. Today, he noted, Kenya remains impoverished and politically unstable, while South Korea has become an economic powerhouse.”4

In the next day’s newspaper, the lead editorial, titled “Tangled Trade Talks,” repeated the essence of the mantra of its confused op-ed writer, Thomas L. Friedman, that so-called free trade is the solution to a nation’s economic ills. “There are few things that could do more damage to the already battered global economy than an old-fashioned trade war,” the Times opined. “So we have been increasingly worried by the protectionist rhetoric and policies being espoused by politicians across the globe and in this country.”5 But South Korea did not ride the “free trade” train to success.

South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang details South Korea’s economic ascent in his 2007 book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. In 1961 South Korea was as poor as Kenya, with an $82 per capita annual income and many obstacles to economic strength. The country’s main exports were primary commodities such as tungsten, fish, and human hair for wigs. That’s how the Korean technology giant, Samsung, started—by exporting fish, fruits, and vegetables. Today it’s the world’s largest conglomerate by revenue ($173 billion in 2008). By throwing out “free trade” and embracing “protectionism” during the 1960s, South Korea managed to do in 50 years what it took the United States 100 years and Britain 150 years to do.6

After a military coup in 1961, General Park Chung-hee implemented short-term plans for South Korea’s economic development. He instituted the Heavy and Chemical Industrialization program, and South Korea’s first steel mill and modern shipyard went into production. South Korea also began producing its own cars and used import tariffs to discourage imports. Electronics, machinery, and chemical plants soon followed — all sponsored or subsidized and tariff-protected by the government. Between 1972 and 1979, the per capita income grew more than five times. In addition, new protectionist slogans were adopted by South Korean citizens. For example, it was viewed as civic duty to report anyone caught smoking foreign cigarettes.

[defendandprotect]

1. K&R

[n2doc]

2. And in this country, it is considered unpatriotic by some to by american,

Because it happens to be made by Union workers. Which is one reason why we are sinking into 3rd world status.