re: USA is a net EXPORTER of diesel

quote:

---

The future. I dont want to live, nor do I want my kids growing up under a marxist gov

---

You're promoting leftist economics via the government to avoid a Marxist government

The free market is the opponent of Marxism.

quote:

---

You want cheap products at the expense of a free America? I have a hard time believing that.

---

Your argument is against freedom (the reason "free market" uses "free" is important, if you didn't know)

quote:

---

Most of the diesel we do import comes from Canada. Good thing Trump is about to hit them with 100% tariffs.

---

Its 10%, nice informative post as expected

quote:

---

Most of what you posted is not close.

---

It's 100% accurate.

quote:

---

By that definition, everybody in the USA is a populist.

---

That's because it's a shitty definition. And you should be able to tell that it's a shitty definition just based on the fact that—as you pointed out—it literally doesn't exclude anyone. Definitions are supposed to clarify ontology by pointing out distinguishing characteristics. A definition that ends up proposing literally no distinguishing characteristics is worthless.

quote:

---

I don't know of any conservative that feels like the GOP has had their backs.

---

An actual conservative isn't looking for a party to "have their backs." That's a classic populist ideal. A conservative is looking for a party that will advance conservative agendas based on conservative principles, even if those ideals in any given application are inconvenient to them personally. A populist doesn't want that at all. A populist wants the government to manipulate circumstances to their liking regardless of principles.

quote:

---

Again, all are populists.

---

You can keep repeating it, but that won't make it true.

quote:

---

Now do we expect the gov to act in the best interest of America and it's citizens? DAMN STRAIGHT we do.

---

quote:

---

Do we expect the Fed gov to honor the constitution? Hell yeah we do.

---

No, a conservative absolutely, specifically, does not expect that. A conservative expects the government to feed itself and grow beyond its legitimate boundaries and tyrannize citizens every chance it gets. That's exactly why a conservative—an actual conservative—believes in keeping the government as small as possible and only responsible for a few legitimate functions, and an actual conservative expects to have to watch it like a hawk and trim it back continually to keep that all from happening.

quote:

---

That's a bs comment and you know it. I don't know of a single conservative, now populist, who thinks that. Not one. Sure we expect the fed gov to NOT ENACT policies that harm it's citizens. It's more than insane to suggest the fed gov (people we elect) should not be held accountable and that we should sit idly by and blame everybody BUT them for doing things that harm our people.

---

Regardless of the bad faith framing you are using here, it's obvious that what I posted is 100% true. Populists want government to specifically enact protectionist mechanisms—which is much different than just "not harming"— they (you) want government to engineer artificial economic conditions to benefit a certain group of Americans at the expense of all other Americans.

This is where your bad faith framing falls apart, btw. Things like tariffs benefit maybe, at the very, very most, a few million Americans. And the other 330 million Americans pay for that benefit with higher prices.

Like I said earlier, it's nothing but a jobs program-wealth transfer scheme, just like Obamacare, welfare, or thousands of unnecessary government jobs.

So your silly rhetoric about the government "helping American citizens" is bullshite. The vast majority of American citizens are hurt, not helped, by such leftist schemes.

And if we're not talking about being able to make $90,000 a year for unskilled labor by "bringing back manufacturing," then what are we talking about? I've seen plenty of populists on here posting propaganda about manufacturing jobs in the 50s and 60s paying for a house, two cars, and a roast in every pot on a single income, and saying that that's what we need to return to. That that is what made 'Merca great.

So if that's not what we're talking about, define it for me. What are we talking about? I'm not sure how you get the 2 cars, house, and roast in every pot for much less than that in today's economy.

quote:

---

What about the above is wealth distribution?

---

I'm starting to think you might be too stupid to have this discussion. This is the problem with populism. It appeals to the dull among us.

The government artificially creates a circumstance in which Americans have to pay more money—they have no choice, as a direct result of government mandate.

That money goes to pay for labor that could have been purchased for much cheaper, only the government didn't allow that purchase to happen.

The beneficiaries of that government restriction are a small group of Americans who are providing the labor at prices higher than market value.

So the difference between what the labor should have been purchased at and what the government forced it to be purchased at is wealth that is collected from everyone else and distributed to American factory workers. By government mandate, with the force of law.

Now, that's if the tariffs are successful in re shoring jobs. That's best case scenario, because at least some small percentage of Americans do benefit from that wealth redistribution.

If it's not successful, then everybody just takes it up the butt and it's nothing more than an additional tax on Americans.

quote:

---

Vertex is the only active one, Theres another one in South Mobile Co. thats been shut down for years. The second one I was thinking of is a gas plant I was in error.

---

Meth heads ransacked the place over 20 years ago. Demolished several years ago. I've been through it with a client back then.

quote:

---

Anybody who knows tis guy understands he is a troll.

---

I've been consistently arguing for freedom/capitalism for over 20 years. The fact you think me continuing to argue for freedom/capitalism is a "Troll" says a lot more about you.

quote:

---

He's clueless.

---

I'm clueless because I understand how Leftists argue that socialism uses words like "honor the Constitution" to support their policy positions on eroding freedom?

The question is why you dislike freedom and want government to take over and remove freedom in economic decisions of citizens and American companies.

You never used your lefitst logic to explain this, mind you:

quote:

---

and should we decide to keep it, our prices would go WAY down.

---

How would this even occur? It makes no logical or rational sense. Why would these companies freely sell to American consumers below the market rate?

And let's just presume your socialist dreams come true and government forces them to sell below market via price controls. Do you understand what this would do to our economy? Do you understand how you would hurt these companies that are a backbone of our national economy and make them uncompetitive and potentially unprofitable?

This is the problem with leftist-based economic theory. You only look at the initial policy and ignore the secondary effects.

Here are some quotes for you:

quote:

---

The Constitution of the United States was a layman's document, not a lawyer's contract... The Constitution of 1787 was not a docket for dead issues; it was a mechanism for living people... The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written

---

-FDR

quote:

---

Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must develop. All the progressives ask or desire is permission—in an era when 'development,' 'evolution,' is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle... The laws of this country have not kept up with the change of economic circumstances in this country... Business is in a situation in America which it was never in before; it is in a situation to which we have not adjusted our laws. Our laws are still meant for business done by individuals; they have not been satisfactorily adjusted to business done by great combinations, and we have got to adjust them.

---

-Woodrow Wilson

quote:

---

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men—yes, Black men as well as white men—would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.' But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt

---

-MLK

quote:

---

The Constitution was not framed to prevent the people from governing themselves through their chosen representatives in the economic field any more than in the political field... We must recognize that the Constitution is not a barrier against economic democracy; it is an instrument whose General Welfare and Commerce powers were drafted precisely so that the nation could master its own material destiny.

---

-Rexford Tugwell

quote:

---

The preamble of our Constitution speaks of 'promoting the general welfare.' It does not say promote the welfare of the corporation, or the welfare of the wealthy, or the welfare of the organized few. It says the general welfare. A nation that allows systemic poverty, malnutrition, and joblessness to persist in the midst of abundance is failing to execute the very purpose for which our constitutional government was instituted.

---

-Hubert Humphrey arguing for the Great Society and War on Poverty legislative efforts.

It has been a trope of the economic left for over 100 years to use the General Welfare, Taxing/Spending, Commerce, and Necessary/Proper powers to authorize national economic action. This is always spun as a way to help the individual from larger organizations (typically corporations, trusts, etc.).

What is your argument based on, exactly?

Might it be the General Welfare, Tax/Spend, Necessary/Property, etc. clauses? Might it be to help individuals from larger organizations (like corporations or "globalists")?

quote:

---

Regardless of the bad faith framing you are using here, it's obvious that what I posted is 100% true. Populists want government to specifically enact protectionist mechanisms—which is much different than just "not harming"— they (you) want government to engineer artificial economic conditions to benefit a certain group of Americans at the expense of all other Americans.

---

You can not be seriously suggesting that traditional conservatives never supported government policies that deliberately altered economic conditions in ways that imposed costs on some Americans, that claim is historically indefensible.

By making that argument you, yourself, are contradicting your whole stance. After all, those policies are ACTIONS by a gov. You cannot honestly claim that “real conservatives” have always opposed government intervention that creates winners and losers in the economy.

That's also the flaw in your populist argument. The mere fact that a government policy changes economic conditions, benefits one group, and imposes costs on another does not make the policy populist. Governments have been doing that for centuries under conservative, liberal, progressive, nationalist, and populist administrations.

The actual conservative argument is whether that intervention is justified by legitimate government purposes and consistent with conservative principles. A conservative populist can make precisely that argument.

So if you want to argue that a particular protectionist policy is economically harmful or inconsistent with classical liberal economics, make that argument. But claiming that traditional conservatives never supported policies that deliberately altered markets and produced economic winners and losers is simply false.

You are a citizen who claims the conservative title while supporting the gov creating policies and putting them into play that do just what you are arguing against.

quote:

---

This is where your bad faith framing falls apart, btw. Things like tariffs benefit maybe, at the very, very most, a few million Americans. And the other 330 million Americans pay for that benefit with higher prices.

---

Treating the existence of winners and losers as proof that a policy is populist? That doesn't follow. And historically, conservative U.S. governments have repeatedly used tariffs and other economic interventions.

You're arguing that tariffs deliberately change economic conditions, benefit some Americans, and impose costs on others. That's been a feature of American economic policy under plenty of governments that nobody would seriously describe as populist.

Conservative U.S. governments have used tariffs throughout American history. Reagan imposed major trade restrictions, including tariffs and quotas, when he believed they served American industries.

So you can't define populism as “government deliberately changes economic conditions to help one group at the expense of another” because conservative governments have been doing exactly that for generations.

You may believe the costs exceed the benefits—and you may be right in a particular case—but that doesn't establish that the people supporting tariffs are abandoning conservative principles or acting merely out of personal self-interest.

The actual conservative debate is whether government intervention is justified by a legitimate national interest and whether it remains consistent with constitutional and conservative principles.

quote:

---

Like I said earlier, it's nothing but a jobs program-wealth transfer scheme, just like Obamacare, welfare, or thousands of unnecessary government jobs.

---

That's actually where your argument falls apart. Free trade itself has always involved massive transfers of wealth between economic groups.

So the government doesn't have to impose a tariff to create winners and losers. And historically, conservative American governments have absolutely participated in this process.


Recap, we have established that either you are wrong about the meaning of populist, conservative populists, and gov "interference" or you are correct and you area populist by our own words.

History isn't on your side by your very own words OR you truly believe that the USA has always been a leftist nation.

quote:

---

The mere fact that a government policy changes economic conditions, benefits one group, and imposes costs on another does not make the policy populist.

---

When you try to justify this leftist economic policies with the 'populist" trump card (no pun intended), then it makes the policy populist by default.

quote:

---

The actual conservative argument is whether that intervention is justified by legitimate government purposes and consistent with conservative principles.

---

The "consistent with conservative principles" is the difficult part with economic intervention.

You have to change what "conservative principles" are in hindsight, which, again, is an example of leftist rhetoric (language destruction).

This is why you see so much reliance by the low-IQ parrots using "national security" to try to avoid this leftism, but it's only on the surface. It doesn't survive legitimate, rational scrutiny, especially on the heels of the infamous "infrastructure" debacle of the Biden era. National security = infrastructure, and intelligent, principled people realize this.

quote:

---

Free trade itself has always involved massive transfers of wealth between economic groups.

---

There is nothing wrong with this as long as those transfers are private in nature and made via choices and freedoms in a free market.

What you quoted (" it's nothing but a jobs program-wealth transfer scheme, just like Obamacare, welfare, or thousands of unnecessary government jobs.") is nothing like private transfers among private parties in a free market scenario.

quote:

---

So the government doesn't have to impose a tariff to create winners and losers.

---

No. However, the behavior at issue is when government does create winners and losers.

You're confused about the basic fundamentals of this discussion. You're conflating government action with private action.

*ETA: and before you try to pivot and attempt big brained arguments, a policy of absence of government isn't a policy of government actively promoting certain outcomes. That's terrible leftist drivel that doesn't even deserve to be called an "argument".

quote:

---

All I wanted was for you to tell us why Free Markets are a bad thing in your eyes. That’s it.

---

I personally don't think it is as advertised.

quote:

---

Maybe they agree and maybe they don’t.

---

In general I do agree. I would like to hear more however.

quote:

---

It’s too conspiratorial

---

Interesting. What part? Classic free-trade models assume:

-roughly reciprocal openness,
-private firms that cannot be conscripted by a party,
-adjustment that is national and quick,
-rules that are enforced.

The U.S.–China arrangement violated all four.

quote:

---

and I am not a fan of government intervention which your position will require.

---

Once again, we have always had Gov interference. Always. The only question is why.

quote:

---

Which nations are those that can be reliably counted on now and into the future? Argentina and Venezuela for now… Japan. Then who? Maybe South Korea and Israel? What does that do to our import and export market? How does that impact domestic jobs? Take our Ag industry which does a ton of business overseas and supports millions of jobs across the nation. Restricting trade will do extreme damage to it and the families that are supported by it. My family being one of those not all that long ago.

---

Maybe back up in history and read what could be considered your own words from the people your model destroyed. 2 sides to every coin. Which is why I stated that on paper it's great. in practice, not so much.

Free trade created identifiable winners and losers. The winners often received diffuse benefits through lower prices, while the losers could suffer concentrated losses—lost factories, lost careers, lower wages, and devastated communities. That's an economic redistribution just as surely as protectionism is. The legitimate debate is whether the aggregate benefits justify those concentrated costs, not whether redistribution occurred.

One of those is that we transferred wealth to places like China while placing people on welfare here.

Once more, 2 sides to a coin.

quote:

---

Interesting. What part? Classic free-trade models assume:

-roughly reciprocal openness,
-private firms that cannot be conscripted by a party,
-adjustment that is national and quick,
-rules that are enforced.

---

This is not true. I've posted Milton Friedman clips specifically addressing most, if not all of these...clips from the 70s and 80s.

quote:

---

Free trade created identifiable winners and losers. The winners often received diffuse benefits through lower prices, while the losers could suffer concentrated losses—lost factories, lost careers, lower wages, and devastated communities. That's an economic redistribution just as surely as protectionism is.

---

Holy shite. You're doing the leftist thing I spoke of above, conflating free market dynamics with governmental policy.

Also, your framing of the "losers" ignores their own agency and individual choices that are really why they became losers. You know who loves doing this? Leftists.

You keep making arguments that leftists make in the economic sphere, and then claiming you aren't supporting leftist economics. It's strange.

quote:

---

The legitimate debate is whether the aggregate benefits justify those concentrated costs, not whether redistribution occurred.

---

The lower cost side has won this debate. A long time ago.

The only counter to this is dishonest arguments, bad faith arguments, and redefining terms post hoc.

quote:

---

One of those is that we transferred wealth to places like China while placing people on welfare here.

---

Perfect example of what I just described.

The free market/low cost scenario has "transferred" much more wealth to the US in this era. China also becoming successful is irrelevant to a discussion of American wealth. It's leftists who try to spin economic development into a zero sum game. Rational people understand both sides can benefit when economies develop. China becoming more wealthy took nothing from the US and framing this as somehow stripping America of wealth is completely dishonest.