Looks like a 10 point swing in betting odds

[Jolly]

You can't have free trade without fair trade.

[xenon]

@Jolly said in Looks like a 10 point swing in betting odds:

You can't have free trade without fair trade.

What does that mean? What’s the definition of fair trade?

[Jolly]

Let's try something like dumping steel. Is that fair?

[xenon]

@Jolly said in Looks like a 10 point swing in betting odds:

Let's try something like dumping steel. Is that fair?

That's not a definition. According to free trade principles, Americans would be better off if someone "dumps" product here - because a foreign entity is making it way cheaper than we could domestically.

If someone decides to "dump" a commodity on the world market, it doesn't matter if one country stops them. It'll bring down the global price anyways.

It's like trying to plug a water leak, the water flows elsewhere.

[Jolly]

Steel is a strategic product for a country like the U.S. Dumping steel and trying to undermine the domestic steel business, would be less than fair trade.

[xenon]

@Jolly said in Looks like a 10 point swing in betting odds:

Steel is a strategic product for a country like the U.S. Dumping steel and trying to undermine the domestic steel business, would be less than fair trade.

Now you're talking about a national security issue - not free trade. We wouldn't care if the domestic hammock industry died out if someone made them at a quarter of the cost elsewhere. Is that fair - even if there's no chicanery involved? When's the last time you bought an American TV?

If we need steel making capacity for emergency purposes, perhaps the U.S. government takes over a few idle steel plants and staffs them in the case of an emergency. Or there could be other solutions.. strategic stockpile - but's that's not related to the principles of free trade.

[Jolly]

It's still a free trade/fair trade issue. Since the country dumping the steel is undermining an essential business, they are causing harm. They are doing that by fixing an artificial price.

If something is priced artificially, how does that meet the definition of free trade?

[xenon]

@Jolly said in Looks like a 10 point swing in betting odds:

It's still a free trade/fair trade issue. Since the country dumping the steel is undermining an essential business, they are causing harm. They are doing that by fixing an artificial price.

If something is priced artificially, how does that meet the definition of free trade?

This is a predatory pricing issue. You have these domestically as well - but we don’t call free markets “free and fair markets”.

If someone said “you can’t have free markets without fair markets” there’s no clear definition for that. Free markets is clear, fair markets isn’t.

And to my earlier point - predatory pricing is easier to deal with domestically (though very hard to identify), than through trade. You can affect the global price for a commodity without having to trade it with everyone in the world.

[Klaus]

@Jolly said in Looks like a 10 point swing in betting odds:

If something is priced artificially, how does that meet the definition of free trade?

Anyone how prices something artificially is only shooting himself in the foot in the long term. It's good for the other party, even though there may of course be short-term negative consequences, too.

If you find another person in the world and would like to make a transaction with him or her and the two of you agree on the conditions, isn't it a fundamental freedom of the individual to be able to execute that transaction? It's just as fundamental as free speech or the right to property. I'd say that a society without free trade isn't free.

The notion of "fair trade" is just a populist term to find convenient scapegoats. It has no meaning otherwise.

[Copper]

You can't talk about trade without including security.

There is no such thing.

[Larry]

Some of you actually believe that Biden has a chance....

BWAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

[jon-nyc]

[Mik]

@Copper said in Looks like a 10 point swing in betting odds:

You can't talk about trade without including security.

There is no such thing.

Yup.

[LuFins Dad]

Betting odds just flipped - 65 Trump, 35 Biden

[jon-nyc]

[Loki]

@LuFins-Dad said in Looks like a 10 point swing in betting odds:

Betting odds just flipped - 65 Trump, 35 Biden

Where? But I agree something is going on for sure.

[LuFins Dad]

Fox News announced it. The News Channel seems to be more positive about Trump than the website.

[Loki]

Jake Tapper at CNN just sputtered that he doesn’t know if it’s 2016

[jon-nyc]

[jon-nyc]

Betting odds for PA.