Customer Reviews

The Fair Trade Fraud

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
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I bought the book because Bovard clearly wasn't one of the two-week Okura Experts. For those not familiar with the local jargon, Okura Experts are Washington, D.C. appointees who run our trade policy based on a two week stay at the Okura, a luxury hotel near the American Embassy in Tokyo.

Like me, Bovard has been in the trenches and seen trade issues in Japan face-to-face. If you are willing to discard your media managed notions about how Japan cheats and is unfair on trade and look at the whole picture, this book is well worth the read.

Bovard is neither an apologist nor a basher, but I'll guarantee that if you read this book, you will never look at trade issues in the same way again.

Bovard clearly expounds on the fact that our very own government is hiking the prices of consumer goods through the vehicle of trade restrictions. Via anti-dumping, quotas, arbitrary tariffs, and other forms of trade restrictions, America is violating the very principle of the free market that it worships. Full of countless statistics and facts (look at the number of footnotes), Bovard belabors his point beyond the threshold of absurdity.

If you still believe that the US is the epitome of free trade, this book is for you. (If you don't, this could be for use as ammunition) This book chronicles the harm of protectionism (higher prices) and the many shams put on by the US government in the name of old fashioned protectionism. Whether it's farms, textiles or industrial goods, Bovard highlights the problems and perils of protectionism - by whatever name it goes by.

The only big issue is the book's date - 1992. A lot has happened since then in both free trade, and unfree trade. (It would be interesting to know Bovard's take on NAFTA and the recent steel tariffs) For even more politically tense works, you can read his more current bookes.

James Bovard is in my view the most objective, incisive investigative journalist on the planet (past or present). Like Freedom In Chains, Lost Rights, Feeling your Pain, Terrorism and Tyranny, The Bush Betrayal, and Shakedown(How the Govt screws you from A to Z), James is a master at identifying the criminal excesses of government operating outside the bounds of the Constitution sub calore juris, sub pretexto juris. James also provides enoough documentation to engender the hatred of the collectivist-socialist members of both houses of Congress and the collectivist-socialist media who would burn him at the stake for exposing them if it were possible for them to do so.
If readers want to view a long list of abuses and usurpations which identify "what the Government is doing to us", who is responsible and why, like Lemming we are all marching over the proverbial cliff followng the leader while ignoring the greatness we once almost achieved under an almost laissez faire Capitalist system, read all of James Bovards books. he is the best!

So say I,

Dr. Robert Ingram Powell, Ph.D.
w6vro@msn.com

Bovard does a great job exposing protectionist idiocy, and his writing style makes a somewhat dry subject interesting.

I was interested in the premise of the book, and was anxious to gain more insight into what I already knew was happening. Unfortunately the author lists statistic upon statistic and makes redundant points that the book becomes a dull read. There is no doubt what the author states is true and readers will learn more on the subject. But in my opinion, it is plain dull.

The main thesis of this book is great and perfectly worth the effort that Bovard has made in exposing a real problem. However, you have surely never read a more repetitive book in your life. Here Bovard tackles the inefficiency and capriciousness of US "free trade" laws and the bizarre politics at the Commerce department. US trade officials make an art of penalizing foreign companies for behavior that US companies are subsidized to commit, and have attitudes toward imports that we pledge to go to war to prevent in other countries. All the rhetoric about "free" trade from politicians is swamped by protectionism in real life, with unfair and often ridiculous consequences. For example, politically motivated tariffs against imported steel, designed to save a few jobs in the American steel-production industry, have destroyed a far larger number of jobs in American steel-using industries.

Once again, the points here are excellent but the book isn't. First, Bovard is prone to blanket statements and polemics like "The U.S. International Trade Commission is a loose cannon on the shipdeck of the American economy." Worst of all, Bovard's main point of argument is the fact that there are thousands of extremely arbitrary and unfair trade sanctions in US trade relations. That's good to know, but Bovard apparently feels the need to explain just about every one of them in a ridiculously repetitive fashion. Bovard's main points could be made much more effectively in an in-depth magazine article, rather than a rambling 300+ page book that becomes a never-ending and mind-numbing list of numbers and regulations. Bovard apparently doesn't notice that he makes the same point several hundred times. [~doomsdayer520~]