Owww!!!! Stop It!!! You Meanies!!!! EU Attacks A Dying US Industry!!!

I saw this on Fox’s business sight…..

Experts: E.U. Tax Hike Designed to Hurt U.S. Denim Manufacturers

It’s funny.  Here’s how the story starts…..

American jeans have been flying off the shelves in Europe – but they might not be available much longer.

U.S. denim manufacturers last week woke up to a sharp slap in the face from a European Union tax hike, which makes it much more expensive for European stores to stock made-in-America jeans.

Yeh, apparently there’s still a denim industry in the U.S.   Who knew?  And, apparently, there’s people with money in Europe.  Who knew? 

Here’s the brass tacks.  The denim industry is all be dead in the US.  Our free trade agreements all but killed it years ago.  For example, there is no Levi production plant in the US any longer.  Don’t get me wrong, I wish this wasn’t true.  But, it is.  Here’s another truth.  Marketing towards Europe is stupid.  Their economies are shrinking, and their populations don’t grow.  Apparently this is a slap back from an old law with lasting affects.

Specifically, he says, it’s a retaliation against the 2000 Byrd Amendment, which gave the U.S. the rights to distribute money from duties on unfairly traded imports to the American industries affected by these trade practices. The World Trade Organization found this payout illegal in 2002, and the Byrd Amendment was officially repealed in 2005, says Lamar.

“But we left in place a transitional piece, and residual duties could still be disbursed,” says Lamar. And for as long as this goes on –and Lamar says industry insiders expect it will happen for the foreseeable future, the E.U. can retaliate by imposing duties on products, up to a certain level each year.

A lesson. 

There is no such thing as “free trade”.  Or, more apt, “fair trade”.  It doesn’t occur.  It can’t occur.  The so-called free market advocates are simply as delusional as Marxists who believe we can all share and be happy and productive with unicorns and rainbows surrounding us. 

Another lesson.

There are many who use the “free market” idea as an advocacy for globalism.  If you wish to see what globalism does, look at the Euro zone and imagine it an infinite amount more. 

Put simply our interests are not the same as other people’s interests around the globe.  If they wish to trade with us, that’s fine.   Let’s trade.  If some other nation or entity wishes to put constraints on us for such trade then screw them.  It isn’t that complicated.  But, people make it complicated under the guise of the never ending search for “fair trade”, which can never happen. 

It behooves us to address reality as much as we would wish the lunatic left to address reality.