[hedgetrimmer]

In fact the Chinese constitution stipulates that the Chinese communist party must own 1/2 of all companies who do business there. This list includes nuclear power construction with Westinghouse Corporation— The US Export-Import bank approved $5 billion in loan guarantees for the Westinghouse bid, as part of a “free trade” deal.

It includes Ford, Motorola, IBM all the companies that used to be US blue chip stocks, but are now trashed and begging for the US taxpayer to bail them out. I guess that means “free trade” is just another name for a tax on American citizens.

[Myrddin]

The UAW ate the American car manufacturers...not to mention making some butt ugly vehicles. Motorola has been losing market share for some time. Their products just are up to the quality of earlier years. Their competition makes a better product. The consumer has spoken. IBM voluntarily walked away from a PC market where they could not compete on price or quality. They would be out of business if not for the midsize and mainframe product lines. Even those are threatened by commodity hardware and open source operating systems.

Free trade is what bring a plethora of products within the price range that most can afford. It puts fresh fruits and vegetables on your table all year round. The only people complaining are the union hacks who have priced themselves out of the market.