What a convincing OP

ScreaminAsian, name who? Those credible economist that refute any of the three sentences?
Would you ask that I name credible astronomers that refute the earth orbits around the sun? I can't name one.

Respectfully, Supposn

Is there a youtoob I could watch to evaluate these claims?

OK but what do the incredible economists think?

Op, how do you feel about tariffs?

Trolly McTrollson, this is a transcript of my response to within another group's discussion thread.
Respectfully, Supposn
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MasterHawk, your interesting link to the Atlantic magazine site refers to the “IGM Economic Experts Panel”. Yes, the panelists responses were as you described them to be. I linked to the article's actual source,
www.igmchicago.org/surveys/free-trade .

[The free trade statement to be considered by a panel of 10 highly credible USA economists selected by the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. I do not doubt that the panelist are all credible economists, and I chose not speculate as to the impartiality of the school choosing the panelists.

The school's question we're discussing was, “Question A: Freer trade improves productive efficiency and offers consumers better choices, and in the long run these gains are much larger than any effects on employment”.

[Note the wording of the question does not refute those contending an annual trade deficit indicates its nation's annual GDP, numbers of jobs, and their aggregate payroll amounts were less than otherwise].

On a scale of 1 through 10, 35 of the responding panelists agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. Of the 6 remaining respondents, 2 were uncertain of the answer, and 4 chose not to answer the question.
Some of those experts accompanied their vote with an additional comment.
Four, (4) of those comments did not refer to any detrimental affects due to free trade.

The 13 other comments directly or indirectly referred to to segments of populations that were to some extent detrimentally affected by pure free trade.
I'm a populist that agrees with the contention that “we all do better when we all do better”. I'm among the proponents of the improved trade policy described within Wikipedia's “Import Certificates” article.

Respectfully, Supposn

Do you know there are credible economists who regularly post in this forum?

Should we ask them what they think?


(P.S. OP gives economists a bad name, but it is truly deserved.)

Markksman, refer to

whoosh...

Supposn,

You reference "credible economists" but you have not actually cited any. You are not going to do well in this forum if you don't support your hypotheses with data. If you don't want this thread locked as an apparent troll attempt I suggest you try a little harder.

Regards,

--jman220

(1) To the extent that USA products were “crowded out” of marketplaces by foreign goods, effectively due to USA's chronic annual trade deficits, our nation's GDPs were less than otherwise.
(2) A nation's lesser annual GDP reflects their lesser than otherwise numbers of jobs and aggregate payroll amounts.
(3) Annual trade deficits indicate the nation has purchased greater values of products than it has produced.

JMan220 and OtaTop, rarely if ever, do credible economists refute any one of these three contentions and this holds true even among those economists that may be the most ardent proponents of pure free trade.
It's unreasonable to require that I cite rare occurrences, that I believe may not have ever actually occurred.
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OtaTop, USA's chronic annual international trade deficit's effective detriments to their nation's GDP are ALWAYS net net detrimental to their GDP.

Although annual international trade deficits refer to particular years, The qualifier, “chronic” refers to our experiences within more than the past half century. This is particularly true for our trade deficits of product goods. The statements referring to USA's aggregate annual balances of trade are without regard for particular USA transactions or USA's trade with any particular nation.


I've chosen to defend a very broad position; I invite my critics to find some credible economists anywhere, any time, that have publicly refuted any of the three statements I've provided.
Some of my critics question my sincerity because I employ the qualifier “credible”. It would be a simple manner to test your own doubts, by choosing an some economists that you consider to be credible. My critics' task is finding any serious challenge to any of the three statements.

Respectfully, Supposn

So respectfully you've got nothing then? Why would anyone want to engage with your ideas exactly when you so clearly haven't bothered to educate yourself on the basics and are pretty just making things up?

You're going to have to show some stuff in support of your thesis before getting anyone else to do any homework on your behalf. In particular not some silly 'prove a negative' scavenger hunt. You're the OP which means you get to do 90%+ of the work or your thread should wither and die.

The absolutist position is trivially refuted by any number of poor small countries that export rare unprocessed commodities that are vital for any kind of production. Nauru is an extreme example of a country that ran a trade surplus and contributed to the GDP of its trading partners until it ran out of phosphorous and went broke.

The banning of all imports would then raise GDPand we'd only be exporting and we'd all be richer since we're only exporting but that goes against common sense

Oops bad typing. If we banned all imports and only exported then supposedly GDP would go up because we're only have trade surpluses but that we'd all be better off banning imports goes against common sense.

JT217, I'm a proponent of the improved trade policy described within Wikipedia's “Import Certificates” article. It's a unilateral and substantially market-driven proposal.

Annual trade deficits indicate their nation has purchased greater values of products than it has produced.
USA's adoption of Import Certificate policy would substantially reduce, if not entirely eliminate our trade deficit of goods. Due to the policy being substantially market driven, it would not necessarily increase or decrease the annual values of USA's imports, but it would increase our domestic production, (i.e. our GDP), more than otherwise.

What assumptions are you referring to?

Respectfully, Supposn

HueHueCoyotl, Import Certificate policy is substantially market driven. If there's an effective USA demand for any foreign item, a USA policy as described by Wikipedia's “Import Certificates” article wouldn't and couldn't prevent that item from being imported into the USA.

Respectfully, Supposn

Well I'm challenging the idea that trade deficits lower the GDP. Well I guess I'm challenging the meta issue of whether it's inherently bad that trade deficits lower GDP. It's not. It depends.

MicroBet, I assume you didn't carefully read Wikipedia's “Import Certificates” article? Your objection was explicitly addressed within the article.
Respectfully, Supposn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_certificates
“Many who are aware of the ”Balanced Trade Restoration Act of 2006” text find it has faults that could have been easily corrected:
They regret that assessments would not be adjusted to exclude the value of specifically listed scarce or precious minerals integral to the goods being assessed. We should discourage the export of cast gold paper weights encrusted with gems in order to facilitate importing high-tech or labor intensive goods. This fault could severely undermine the bill’s economic benefit to our nation.
Natural gas and oil should have also been included in such a scarce or precious minerals list. The proposal itself should not favor the export or inhibit the import of such scarce minerals. (The original U.S. Senate draft temporarily (for only 5 years) excluded the entire value of goods containing petroleum)”.

I don't know how to put this to you, but Wikipedia and You Tube are not the best way to learn about a subject.

I didn't read it at all. If you take that line far enough you'll exclude the import of all items and services for which become part of the goods or services in the importing country for which they can add value and that value adding is more productive economically than obtaining or creating the goods or services were for the exporting country. It'll pretty much reduce the whole thing to imports which lower GDP lower GDP.

And, lowering a rich country's GDP while raising a poor one's the same amount or more is good anyway.

Well there's your problem. The point of cap and trade was that there's some maximum amount in which we can't exceed carbon/pollution wise or we'll wreck havoc so we want a ceiling on that and then we'll let some market forces decide how to allocate it.

That's not true of foreign imports, at least in the catastrophic terms people talk about the trade deficit. There's no reason to put a cap on foreign trade just to reduce an accounting number. That's like saying we don't want to do more business because it might make our accounts payable number to go up.

WhosNext, you find fault with the messengers but you're unable to refute the messages? Not even with all of Google search powers to assist you? Are you more internet challenged than I, or (possibly as I posted), rarely of ever has any credible economists refuted any one of those bothersome three statements.

Would you argue those statements aren't pertinent to this topic? If you're less concerned about content or validity, that should be should be your next arguing point.

Respectfully, Supposn

It doesn't matter in the least, but I am a professional economist. And, yet, I have no interest or desire in joining a discussion led by you armed with wikipedia. So, you win. I concede.

Good point. Well made!