Jim,

>SNIP
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>>So.. Again.. What's a nation to do when a nation bends the rules and dumps steel in an attempt to gain market share? If nations can do this why can't Microsoft (allegedly) do this with their software or Standard Oil with their oil as Rockefeller did?
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>We agree, Doug!!!

LOL.. Quick, call a doctor! <g>

>But I do wonder if there is ACTUAL "dumping" going on.
>"Dumping" is the act of selling goods below their cost of production (and transport to market I presume).
>Are we sure that the cheaper steel is actually being sold at a cost below production/shipping costs? I mean there are lots of countries where wages are $1.50US-$5.00US per day, or even per week!! So if they have coal dug at those prices and ore dug at those prices and both transported at those prices and produce the actual steel at those prices, then is their cheaper steel "dumping"?

Well, here's where the 'true' free traders will step in and agree with you. The problem is is that when goods get subsidized it will come out of another area of the economy. Higher taxes etc.

As I've mentioned I am most likely a true free trader but that doesn't preclude a President doing with President Bush has done IMO. He has a lot more information here than I do. <g>

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>I look at running shoes and I know that, 7-8 years ago, the cost to Nike of a pair of shoes costing $100. in the U.S. was $11.00 to get them ashore in the U.S. from wherever. That included all their costs!
>They used much of that cost/price differential for marketing, and when they saw a bad year coming they just cut some matketing so that more profit was retained for the company books.
>Now if another company came along and sold similar shoes for, say, $22. (a handsome profit of 100%) would they be accused of dumping???? Sadly, of course, this doesn't really happen, because GREED causes the other company to see that they can set their price at $50-$80 to start.
Well, sure.. What I recommend is that people read Thomas Sowell at this point. He's a very bright individual and he deals with this issue quite well IMO.


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>As you say, this is all very complicated stuff with hidden factors all over the place and mankind's lesser traits only make things worse.

Yup..

The failure of communism wasn't in their ideal to make the world a better place (really a fake front but let's acknowledge it anyway), but in their arrogance in thinking that man was a machine and they could remake human nature.

The socialists in this country are equally stupid about mankind. As a 'free trader' I'd open up the US school system to competition for example as the NEA and US Government have a monopoly here and have artificially inflated the costs (he says starting yet another 500 message thread. <g>)


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>>IOW, I thnk there's a lot more to this than meets the eye but your raising the issue is IMO great!