Reason.tv: Bernie Sanders’ War on Chinese Bobbleheads!
by Reason TVIn the midst of a massive fiscal crisis, a take-no-prisoners budget battle, a historically long recession, and two (make that three) wars, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) knows what really matters.
He’s pushing the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. to only sell bobble-heads, T-shirts, snow-globes, and other souvenirs that are made in America. After getting a letter from and taking a meeting with the self-described Green Mountain State socialist, the folks at the Smithsonian have agreed to increase the amount of domestically produced junk for sale in their gift shops. They’re even constructing a new gift shop solely to products manufactured in America that will be called the Price of Freedom.
During a recent trip to the National Mall, Reason.tv found that such nativist grandstanding plays well with the man in the street, but CATO policy analyst Sallie James says protectionism doesn’t come cheap. In fact, top-down attempts to keep Americans in low-level manufacturing jobs is a great way to ruin the economy, whether we’re talking about Founding Father thimbles or higher-end electronics.
Produced by Joshua Swain, with help from Meredith Bragg, and hosted by Michael Moynihan.
Approximately 3 minutes.
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54 Comments
Sanders proves you can be a socialist and a patriot – more so than neocons.
This video illustrates the vapid nature of libertardism at the Cato institute. Notice this dingbat has NO example of this "new industry" that Americans are supposed to be leading in…..THAT is because unlike some academic nitwit she doesn't understand that these industries build on each other. If what she said were true, why not have Liberians creating new industries? BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE THE OLD ONES. You aren't going to jump in to building some sort of miracle anti-gravity drive if you can't make the tools for it or the components for it. Hey, the neocon solution is to import H1B filth to design something….then send off to China to make it all. And…what have it put together here by illegal aliens? Oh, and the H1B filth will just give all the info to their native countries as will the ones we contract to make it all. Just WHAT part of this does she expect us to harness? But that is the sheer idiocy you get from the Cato morons who live in some fantasy world in their heads.
Blatant lying and Marxist hyperbole. A deranged Bernie Sanders blaming the rich, and not the Democrats' for overspending, and for the deficit.
Well Bernie, YOU'RE FULL OF IT:
Bernie, you and Nancy Pelosi are a LIARS, LIARS with pants on fire, or better put, the most ethical liars in Congress. e.g., At her final press conference as house speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, "deficit reduction has a high priority for us. It is our mantra pay-as-you-go."
The numbers tell a difference story. When the Pelosi democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. The last of the 111th Congress and Pelosi's speakership, on December 22, 2010 the national debt ballooned to $13,858,529,371,601.09 – roughly 5.2 trillion increase in just four years. Furthermore, the year over year federal deficit was roughly quadrupled during Pelosi's four years as speaker, from $342 billion in fiscal year 2007, to an estimated $1.6 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2010.
Yes Bernie, you're definitely FULL OF SH*T.
Just Buy American and STFU.
Damn RINOs.
That explains why Nicholas Cage had to spend so much money for that extra copy of the Declaration of Independence in National Treasure.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Aircraft?
Heavy equipment?
Semiconductors?
Next time, you might want to, you know, watch the clip before you gallop off on your latest hobby horse and prove irrefutably just how foolish you can be.
Try to get the permits to build a factory in Vermont. After the years it will take to get the permits, if you get them, you will be so taxed, your product will cost 5 times what the imports would be.
What does Bernie have against China? Their government believes in the same system of economics he does.
Maybe Senator Sanders should try to manufacture some home made "American Common Sense."
What an irrelevant tool!
I'm thinking union made polititians in Wash. DC is a much bigger problem.
Bingo!
Hey, Idon'tknow,
You babble like a brook in spring time.
Glad to see sanders' priorities and his head are in the same place….up his @ss. +Hanzo+
I wonder why Vermont is so determined to have an admitted socialist represent them?
Symbolism is BIG with the non-reasoning Left, donchaknow . . .
Hey, give comrade Bernie cred, he does know how to get his name in the headlines . . .
Happy Trails!
; )
That "Made in the USA" section in the Smithsonian gift shop will fit inside a cowboy hat at the checkout counter. Hey Bernie, ya commie, none of these products are made here anymore. Thanks to your tax policy, we can't compete. Instead of wasting your time on this crap, how about doing a little soul-searching to figure out why? Here's a hint for you, our businesses have the highest tax rate and regulation compliance.
Start there.
The gal in the vid, Sallie James?, she should be the Senator from Vermont.
Not only beautiful to look at but made more smart points in 3 minutes, than Sanders has said in his whole sorry class envy, redistributionist life.
Pinhead …Next time watch the vid.
If there was an Institute for the Hoplessly Pathetic, you'd have a shot at a job…
But you would think on his salary he could have a professional cut his hair.
Aircraft?
Heavy equipment?
We are losing and China is gaining. How did they do this? Same way the Japanese did…..but starting off with bobble heads.
Semiconductors?
You are a little behind the times. We lost that a long time ago.
None of these are new things anyway.
I wonder why Virginia has a Zionist Jew loyal to Israel – oh, wait, they aren't the only ones…..
If by "tax policy" you mean NOT his and the policies of no tariffs (unlike most other countries) and policies that REWARD "American" companies for sending jobs overseas….
The Libertard viewpoint expressed here says that it doesn't matter how the hat got there….if it is cheaper it is better. This also justifies buying stolen goods. Doesn't matter – price is lower…..right? OR do you have to admit the FLAW in this Cato-version of reasoning – that HOW the product is delivered is NOT irrelevant – that there are social costs associated with actions.
State directed Industrial policy is also known as Fascism.
No tariffs? Get a clue dude. Our import duties on most products range from 6% to over 100%. The more connected the industry is to Washington, the higher the duty. Where do these funds end up? In the general slush fund.
Yeah, your progressive structure really promotes jobs huh. All it does is line the pockets of big government while driving jobs offshore and artificially raises prices to the consumer.
It think it is funny you say the "industry" connected. FOREIGN entities (government subsidized business like in Israel, China, etc…) have more connections to our government than the few remaining American companies (if there are any left.) Look at the way Bush let China get away with anything at all. Funny how "freedom" was a word he used as a weapon on smaller countries he wanted to bully…but China could STEAL ONE OF OUR PLANES right out of the sky and Bush couldn't give the country away faster to them.
Hurr durrr…. libertardism!
As an aside, good God she's beautiful. No idea who she is, but wow.
You just don't know when to quit, do you?
Aircraft: Boeing. Northrup Grumman. Sikorsky. Pratt & Whitney. You're so smart? Name their Chinese counterparts. Fact is, you can't – there aren't any. The only global concern that's even remotely competitive is Airbus Industrie. FAIL.
Heavy equipment: Case. Caterpillar. Deere & Co. Ingersoll. Navistar. Their chief competitors are Japanese, not Chinese, genius. FAIL.
Semiconductors. The Japanese, Taiwanese, Koreans, Filipinos and Malaysians have been manufacturing semiconductors for more than a generation now, but there's a huge difference between making according to specs developed by others and designing. For that, you need an Intel or an Apple. The Chinese don't develop squat. FAIL.
Friendly tip: Next time, read up on global manufacturing and supply chains before your keyboard starts spewing mass quantities of intellectual diarrhea again.
This video demonstrates that we even import smart, beautiful libertarian women! Of course, there's a reason we like Honda, Toyota, and Sallie James. They're obviously well-made.
Of course, she's right. It's ridiculous grand-standing by Sanders.
dln
Have you ever considered tax policy, regulations, or minimum wage laws here in the US, before you spout off?
I thought not..
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it…..
Protectionism does not work….the Wilsonian disciple, father of the raw deal and another nitwit progressive FDR, tried this and turned a depression into the Great Depression…..
It’s so nice to have insane progressive nitwits like Sanders in Washington who want to do what does not work over and over again…
What does Bush, foreign countries and airplanes have to do with tarriffs? Try to stay focused.
Sorry, but that's a really dumb comment.
Libertarians and most conservatives think free people should have the right to buy whatever legitimately available goods and services they want for whatever reason they want; and people who knowingly sell or buy stolen goods, steal things, or buy things with stolen money, should be forced to pay restitution to their victims.
Liberals think differently:
- If the liberal thinks the people should buy a $20 hat, but they prefer the $10 hat, then the government should take away their choice.
- If the liberal wants a car buyer to choose an overpriced Chevy Volt, but the buyer chooses something else because a Volt isn't worth its outrageous price, then the government should entice the buyer by giving him money it steals from someone else.
- Liberal logic: "Price of Freedom" means eliminating choices to support gouging.
+1. Two thoughts:
• I was born two decades too soon. * sigh *
• Don'tThinkNow has never, and will never, hit anything even remotely as hot as Ms. James. That's all we need to know about his "dingbat" ad hominem.
Pregressive logic: "Price of Freedom" means eliminating the freedom to choose the $10 hat.
She is really pretty, isn't she.
How do those things relate to eliminating less expensive choices?
Sanders is going about this all wrong. He should mandate that GM must retool to build snowglobes and other souvenirs. That will really improve the living standard in Detroit. And certainly if we increase our souvenir production, people will buy. Not just here, but we can have little Eiffel towers, London bridges, et al. That'll put us back on top as leading producer of trinkets…..////
Do you hate Jews?
Is that why his head looks like a toilet brush?
Look! It's a broken record! It keeps playing the same riff over and over!
Let me try this from another tack, dingbat: Senator Socialist wants us to manufacture gewgaws, trinkets and snow globes in a world of iPads, Droids and incipient extraterrestrial travel. (Ask Richard Branson about that last one.) It's like the 60s all over again, except this time, we decided that, instead of producing 300-hp muscle cars with names like Chevy, Ford and Dodge, we would manufacture two-stroke motor scooters on four wheels called Trabant, Moskvitch and Lada. Never heard of them? There's a really good reason for that.
Time to take off the tinfoil hat, son. The Chinese, Cato, the Illuminati or the Bilderberg Group ain't responsible for holding you back.
Just buy whatever you want, and to hell with anyone who doesn't like it.
I'd say she's under 30… With an amazing brain… Is there anything higher than a 10? * sigh *
I don't even think he even noticed she was attractive. He thought she was Chinese. Remember he didn't bother to watch the vid…
That is a sad little chump…dontlooknow
KSR
" If the liberal wants a car buyer to choose an overpriced Chevy Volt, but the buyer chooses something else because a Volt isn't worth its outrageous price, then the government should entice the buyer by giving him money it steals from someone else"
That is not only true and poignant but f**kin' brilliant. A+ Matey…
By making items more expensive, maybe we could make a hat to compete with the Chinese if there were less regulation and lower taxes.
Was that a rhetorical question? You are NOT a pinhead, I've read your latest posts…
If we were only 30 years younger…<sighing wistfully..>
.."…. insane progressive nitwits like Sanders in Washington who want to do what does not work over and over again…"
Right…Albert Einstein, he ain't…
You worry too much about the wrong things. The Chinese know that if the U.S.A. goes down, they're screwed, because they'll eat the $Trillion the U.S. government owes them, and there won't be anyone to buy their cheap hats, bobble heads and U.S. Government subsidized windmills. That's why they've tried to get Obama and the Democrats to cut spending (except to them) and reduce the debt.
What a freak!
You hit new lows everyday..
Congrats, Pinhead..
I agree with Sanders somewhat.
Next, top subsidizing NPR for buying Elmo and every other kind of trinket from China. While we're at it, the US military buys uniform items such as berets from China, as well as their military challenge coins.
And then Food Channel and its cookware.
Then Costco, Sam's Club for all the Chinese crap they import by the shipload.
And then Apple, Intel, Dell, HP, and others for items made by Foxconn.
The gift shop at the Smithsomian should be a beginning, my friends – just a beginning.
No, not rhetorical; I didn't get what you meant. I'm sure that the cost of complying with government makes it a lot more expensive to make hats in the U.S. I also suspect that the $20 American made hat is at least four times the quality of the $10 Chinese hat and less likely to give you cancer.
It was a mistake for the Western World to transfer manufacturing technology to China and other Third World countries.
Manufacturing is only low wage work now because companies can move production to low wage nations.
We should enact tariffs and ban the transfer of manufacturing technology to third world countries. If they want to compete with us, let them invent the means to do so themselves.
Boeing, in the name of globalism, has increasingly used China for manufacture – handing them industry secrets. But they won't misuse them, I'm sure…..
Intel invested a BILLION dollars in India.
I find your patronizing attitude hilarious – them swarthy foreigners will never figure it out, right?
China has the whole world as a market. And as Americans have little to spend – less and less as all the jobs are moved out and production dries up – they won't care a jot or tittle about the US. They will control us financially, – you have a point there… But, hey, we get things "cheap" in the mean-time. Stupid short term thinking.
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