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To: Cringing Negativism Network
"Free trade" isn't the only problem, but neither is free trade any kind of solution.

One problem I have with many who advocate "free trade" is that many places can have factories because American taxpayers have subsidized the infrastructure required to put factories there. At the very least, we should have a tariff on those goods to reimburse the taxpayer for those dollars and the interest on those dollars. Putting that kind of tariff on those goods would bring them back up to a true "free market" price because that price should include the full cost of the infrastructure needed to produce the goods.

We need to change some of the regulation that makes producing goods in the United States so expensive. If we'd reduce the cost of making things here, businesses would love to return. On the other hand, some safety regulations are worthwhile, and we should impose a tariff on goods made with slave labor or goods made in factories that are so unsafe that people are treated as disposable workers. There's no reason that Americans should have to compete with people who are being regularly disfigured in accidents and then thrown out to starve.

162 posted on 02/13/2011 6:11:49 PM PST by WFTR (Liberty isn't for cowards)
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To: WFTR

We don’t need tariffs. All we need is for the foreign companies to comply with all the same regulations that American companies have to.

EPA, OSHA, Labor law and so on.


165 posted on 02/13/2011 6:15:40 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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