Then just sit back and watch the fun…

Protectionism caused the Great Depression: The depression was already well under way when the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act was passed. The effect it had was probably very small anyway, U.S. imports at the time were only 4.2% of GNP and exports were 5%.

Protectionism caused the current economic downturn: Some site The 2005 Bankrupcty Reform Act as being a key factor for this financial collapse, because it caused people in trouble to make their credit card payments instead of their mortgage payments. When, in truth, it probably just sped up the inevitable. Hundreds of billions in loans to unqualified borrowers had been made, our fate was sealed. It is also popular to blame this debacle on human greed, and yes it’s a given, people are extremely greedy. And apparently, they couldn’t see past their own greed to refrain from destroying the entire system. However, greed wasn’t the real reason. After all, it’s been built into the system from the beginning. The main reason was repealing The Glass Steagall Act in 1999, (Thank you, Senator Phil Gramm from TX and to Bill Clinton for signing it on his way out of office) which removed all protections separating commercial banking from investment banking. This allowed the creation of the sub prime mortgage backed CDO. So really, anti-protectionism and deregulation is what caused this entire collapse.

Protectionism will drive us into a deep depression: The powers that be, will do everything they can to protect their ability to exploit cheap labor markets around the world. To do this they need to convince everyone that any kind of regulation, protecting U.S. labor markets will somehow be the undoing of the entire economy. Understand this, exporting American jobs has done nothing to stimulate the economy. No matter what anyone says, the main catalyst for this economy has been credit expansion, and not the type of globalized free trade that has been practiced.

Protectionism will spark a trade war: The balance of trade is way off. We import so much more than we export it’s ridiculous. We can’t keep borrowing to pay for all the crap we import. We have reached the end of the line, as far as credit goes. Also, China protecting their currency from appreciating against the dollar hasn’t sparked any trade war, why should focusing on creating some American jobs be the end of the world?

What’s amazing to me is the big uproar over the “Buy American” clause that Obama wanted in the stimulus bill. One expert after another coming on TV and telling America how horrible and unfair it was going to be if U.S. Tax Payer Money was actually going to go to U.S. companies and create American jobs. Yeah, so unfair… The fact is, these “experts” are advocating for the agenda of big business and not the American public.

There is no doubt these corporations need to be reigned in. If a company is receiving “welfare” from the government then they should be under a microscope. Actually, I would like to see all of the executives who are responsible for mismanaging their businesses be fired! All expenses should be scrutinized. But, the fact is, it’s no more expensive to have a corporate meeting in Las Vegas than anywhere else, and in a lot of cases it’s cheaper. After Obama’s remarks about Vegas, Wells Fargo canceled a three day meeting scheduled in Las Vegas and moved it to San Francisco. San Francisco ?? It’s one of the priciest cities in the country. After the expensive hotel, dinners, drinks, golf, and massages, they were probably in for a lot more $$$ than they would have spent in Las Vegas. But because Vegas is “Sin City” Obama thought he could score some political points at the city’s expense (literally).

So President Obama, just shut up about Vegas and as long as you have the printing presses running send us some cash to build some new solar energy plants or something…

So, whats the point you may be asking ?

It illustrates a couple of interesting concepts: 1) There does seem to be point of critical mass where some new information or behavior reaches a certain number of monkeys ( or people) and then spontaneously spreads like wild fire, just completely goes viral. 2) The behavior of the Japanese monkeys suggests that information is able to spread through some collective consciousness, some kind of hive mind.(yeah, I know, this sounds kind of out there.) In humans it’s not so easy to observe this, but in some less evolved species maybe there’s some evidence. A school of fish comes to mind (and I observed this first hand while diving in Maui). A fish all the way on the right moves exactly the same as a fish hundreds of fish over to the left, and at the very same instant. These fish do not seem to be following each other,there is no time lag. The outer fish move in complete unison. They appear to be following the exact same impulse, a collective impulse.

So, thats it. Just an idea that interests me, and that may apply to human behavior as well.