I would recommend this fool take a look at what has happened to two nations in the last twenty years.
China
The United States
Perhaps if he thinks about it long enough, he’ll be able to figure out which nation got the best of the Free Trade deal.
One nation is growing like gang-busters.
One nation is slipping over the edge toward third world status.
Right now were poised to slice and dice our military. China is building it’s military as fast as it can.
Anyone at this point, that can’t see the hand-writing on the wall as it relates to manufacturing at home and abroad, is a damned fool or an out and out traitor.
Out of all the variables in an international economy, how can you be so sure that it is free trade that caused the problem? Does monetary inflation play no part? Do high corporate tax rates have a role? Does government regulation matter? Do taxes on capital mean anything?
Free trade does not exist in a vacuum, you know.
You overlook the primary reason for the difference....... the people, the Chicaps if you will.
In China, there is some new freedom to engage in business and the world is beating their doors down for the products produced there. China has been bound by oppressive government, their own and the colonials for at least a hundred years.
Some left and became the overseas Chinese. Where ever they were they prospered..... Taipei, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, San Francisco. They represent the repressed entrepreneurial desire present and now unleashed in China proper.
To be certain, there is still a socialist government and the economy still has very strong governmental ties but the economic and academic and other freedoms have been used by the population to bring about unprecedented growth.
To blame the prosperity solely on an imbalance in trade is to overlook the part of the ordinary Chinese people striving for a better life, the life they see in Japan and America and Europe.
When you observe people in Chinese street scenes, none wear the gray of communist rule. They wear what they consider to be colorful, modern, stylish and up to date. My favorite indicator of the tremendous change in process is a video clip of some young girls. They were wearing Daisey Mae’s..... blue jean shorts. One wonders where they got them and what provoked them to wear them...... Daisey Mae’s are quintessentially American.
I think the certainty on how the change in China will progress or if the excesses of exuberant business experiments will cause things to come crashing down is unknowable. The certainty is that he days of repression and Mao are over and change is in process.
Here in America we still have a fantastically strong manufacturing base. We still make lots and lots of highly technical products and the world comes here to buy them. Our exports support the economy. We do not make paint brushes or commodity refrigerator compressors like we once did because we have moved on. We subcontract the manufacturing to get the best price. Americans demand a good price and will not pay an excessively expensive price.
Part of the manufacturing by American companies is to gain markets in those areas. It is profitable to establish foreign plants for products sold in the foreign markets. It is not competitive to make the stuff here and ship it abroad.
But to sum it up, China is and not only that is going to become more is as the current trends continue. China is after all the most populous nation and that populations wants to improve the quality of life. It is only rational to assume that once the pent up power and desire to throw off poverty change will occur.
international trade is essentials.
would make no sense to build worthless widgets in this country
the problem is that this government has the highest corporate tax rates on Earth and is hostile to investment... what did they think would happen?
The results you cite are true, but what is the reasoning? China is growing because it’s population is producing value. The US is declining because we are producing less value - the reason? Our popular culture and leadership have become shallow and tribal.