[Reaganwuzthebest]

Therefore, if the policy is a bad one, which I believe it is, then we're stuck with it.

For now. It's probably going to take millions more lost jobs and billions in tax revenues before we see any meaningful changes.

[kittymyrib]

The president could only devote one line in the SOTU message to the millions of manufacturing jobs lost because he was pressed for time, having to explain the critical importance of athletes taking steroids. I really do wonder who wrote that speech and why he wasn't fired as soon as he sobered up.

[Euro-American Scum]

For now. It's probably going to take millions more lost jobs and billions in tax revenues before we see any meaningful changes.

By then it will be too late. By the time that happens, the US will be a third-world backwash with India-China as the new world economic and military power.

That's right. Military as well as economic. We can't offshore manufacturing and high tech without there being consequences of exactly this sort.

[jpsb]

I the the plan is to let the dollar fall until our goods are competitive with third world goods. If so then the dollar won't buy much. And us dollar workers will be third world poor. Notice that the dollar has lost what 40% in the last couple of years? I wonder that all those Chicom and Saundi banks think about losing 60 or 80% on their holdings.

[KC_for_Freedom]

The idea that trade should be “free” of government involvement or simply made “fair” without concern for the outcome, implies that either trade is of too little consequence to require state supervision – a clearly disingenuous and thus untenable position, or that private “market” results will automatically provide the best outcome for society. It is this last notion about a benevolent “invisible hand” that has paralyzed U.S. policy. It is the wishful thinking of liberalism masquerading as theology. It has two basic tenets. First, the world is basically a harmonious place where conflict can be avoided by a mutually beneficial division of labor that integrates the world. Second, the division of labor can best be managed by private enterprise pursuing its own ends without being held accountable for any larger consequences.

This paragraph basically explains the author's desire to live in an economy managed by the government for the benefit of all the people. This is a basic idea that is born of the elite upper class and is suggestive of socialism and its sister communism. The hint that free trade needs to be held accountable for the larger consequences of a society implies that someone must manage things for the little people. This is such bull I can't believe you think it will work here any better than it has in Cuba.