Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!egvideo!gws
From: gws@egvideo.uucp (Geoff Scully)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Dram Prices...
Summary: Natural???
Message-ID: <1875@egvideo.uucp>
Date: 10 Jan 89 09:12:38 GMT
References: <18814@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <6175@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Reply-To: gws@egvideo.UUCP (Geoff Scully)
Organization: A Box In The Basement, Kitchener, ON.
Lines: 33

In article <6175@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> urjlew@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Rostyk Lewyckyj) writes:
>
>Oh come on now! both dumping and protectionist measures are
>perfectly good natural market forces. After all, how does one
>define natural? in a dog eat dog, survival of those who survive
>world of real competition.

Oh come on now! Both dumping (ie government subsidization to lower
export prices) and protectionism are perfectly rotten intervention
forces and have nothing to do with "natural" market forces. I would 
not dare try to define the scope of "natural market forces" but I
think I am quite safe in saying government intervention of this kind
is totally "unnatural" (but not unexpected).

>I think that the proper question to ask is - have the protectionist
>measures taken by the US government been on the whole effective
>or beneficial for the US economy?
>I claim that they have done more harm than good.

I claim that they can do *nothing but harm*. Ever.

>The US embargo is a knee-jerk reaction not well thought out
>and ineffective. This is not to rule out embargoes in general,
>or even an embargo against Japanese electronics if properly
>coupled with other steps.

Embargoes are a tool of politics, not free market economics. 
The two should not be (but often are) intermixed.

-------------
Geoff Scully
gws@egvideo.uucp
...!watmath!egvideo!gws