Free Trade...and conservative opposition.

[mojojockey]

I still do not understand conservatives who oppose NAFTA. From studying free trade, I think the free market moves assets to where they are needed the most. But a hour or so ago, I heard a fill in host on Michael Savage's show advocating that NAFTA isn't good for our country. He cited "outsourcing" as bad for this country, and saying that the messed up, harsh working conditions that China workers face, is what we will eventually face on American soil if we allow free trade economics such as NAFTA. I find this sort of logic, hard to follow.

[xcamel]

NAFTA is just intra-country wealth distribution. As instituted, it's an oxymoron.

[xcamel]

NAFTA is just intra-country wealth distribution. As instituted, it's an oxymoron.

[mojojockey]

I thought free trade ultimately benefited everyone.

[Dog Gone]

It does.

[seastay]

More American lives were lost in the civil war than any other our history, but now as we open with free trade to obtain goods manufactured from slave wages, one has to wonder if as a nation we learned our lesson , or what will be our future as join other nations who don't have laws protecting human dignity.

[mojojockey]

Well, I agree that slave labor is bad, but in economics from what I understand a truly free market will fix all the kinks.

[nanak]

Free Trade agreements like WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, are nothing but surrender of our sorveignity to bunch of third world bureaucrats who can over-rule our laws and our constitution.

Also, I want to ask the FREE TRAITORS that how come when we didn't have FREE TRADE and very few illegal aliens, even a janitor could afford to buy a house(AMERICAN DREAM)?

[mojojockey]

I mean American workers do pay a cost for free trade, but there is always a cost for every benefit. When the supermarket started selling milk in cartons the door to door milkman lost his job. We can give him back his job, if we wish to go back to buying our milk from the milkman instead of the grocery store.

[Remember_Salamis]

Increased productivity and lower-costing goods is the only true path to wealth creation. It's difficult to notice nowadays because we live in an inflationary era:

"In an economy with an expanding money supply, it is conceivable for everyone to earn more money at the same time, and for the prices of all goods to rise on a steady and regular basis. This, of course, is a description of the American economy for most of the twentieth century. But these features of our inflationary economy obscure the actual process by which our living standards are increased, because they mislead us into thinking that the source of our increased prosperity is the greater quantity of dollars we tend to receive over time for our services. For the sake of conceptual clarity, therefore, we imagine in what follows an economy with an unchanging quantity of money.

The key to the process whereby the unhampered market increases the average standard of living involves business investment in capital goods that increase the productivity of labor—that is, the amount of output that each worker is capable of producing. A forklift makes it possible for a worker to move and stack far more pallets than before, and to reach heights that would have been impossible with his bare hands. Other kinds of machinery can multiply the efficiency of a single worker many times over, sometimes even by orders of magnitude. The amount of goods the economy is capable of producing rises, at times even explodes. This is how wealth is created."

[26lemoncharlie]

You have removed one peel from the Onion. The main underlying part of free trade is CONTROL. Control of the regulations to produce products and the control of the pricing and distribution. This will ultimately lead to control of the WORLD. SOmething the Eletist of both Parties want to achieve. The goals are the same, they have different ways to achieve it.

[nanak]

You have removed one peel from the Onion. The main underlying part of free trade is CONTROL. Control of the regulations to produce products and the control of the pricing and distribution. This will ultimately lead to control of the WORLD. SOmething the Eletist of both Parties want to achieve. The goals are the same, they have different ways to achieve it.

I agree. The elitist bankers of COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS(CFR) and TRILATERAL COMMISSION want to control the world. In fact after the FTAA has been negotiated, the negotiaters have been told to report first to CFR and then to the congress.

"One who controls the currency controls the country; and we control the currency."---Federal Reserve at the time it was created

[Coleus]

nafta is NOT "free" trade, quite the contrary it's "managed" trade with over 900 pages of regulations.

Very simply, let the free market keep trade free. The Corporations know better. There is NO need for us to give up our rights. Did you know that within the 900 pages is a court system. What happened to our constitution and our rights?

www.stoptheftaa.org

[rcocean]

It hurts some people and helps others.

If you don't have to work for a living or you have a well-to-do job that is immune from global competition -like say economic professors or lawyers - its a good thing since it lowers the cost of goods and services.

Otherwise, you're screwed.

For the country as a whole it transfers economic and therefore political power the USA to other countries and international bodies.

[mojojockey]

No matter if we say yes or no to free trade, there is a cost for both. We should decide which costs us less, and choose that one.

[Dog Gone]

With free trade agreements, the stuff I buy costs less and American companies and farmers get to sell more stuff abroad. Sounds fine to me.

[mojojockey]

Ok, my misunderstanding, I thought you were against free trade. I myself am very much for free trade.

[William Terrell]

In the past we produced what we needed here and sold to each other. Since we produced here, the job market was plush and workers got good wages, which enabled them to buy products produced here at higher prices. Any surplus was shipped overseas.

This very simple process made America happy, healthy and wealthy, the people sovereign, and encouraged innovations that amazed the world. That situation was intolerable and a bad example to those third world hellholes who wanted to dominate and enrich themselves from their population.

That intolerable situation has been assaulted for decades and, through corruptible and feckless politicians, has gained momentum. The goal is obviously world government, where the rest of the world is not brought to the level of America, but America is lowered to the level of the rest of the world.

"Free trade" and it's confusing, opaquely complex explanations of its benefits, sets the stage for that world state because once trade is worldwide and governed internationally, the rest will follow as a matter of course.

"Free trade" is not free; it costs Americans a price which, if presented as a bill up front, they would turn down the job. The only way to get us is to sneak up on us under cover of obfuscation.

It is working.

[mojojockey]

There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

[rcocean]

Good write up. IMO, this is why the left, which should oppose NAFTA if they really were for the poor and the "working man" - is for it.

The biggest loser in free trade is the man with a high school education who works with his hands and produces things. He is now in wage competition with people around the world making $2 an hour.

They, the left, always favor the UN, immigration, and free trade at whatever cost to their beloved "average man". There is nothing "conservative" about free trade.