If one thinks logically instead of emotionally, your take here would be absolutely correct.
But, of course, protectionists want it both ways.
Posted on 02/29/2004 1:13:49 AM PST by sarcasm
WASHINGTON: Free trade is losing support in the US, in particular among high-income Americans, as more professionals feel threatened by job outsourcing to low-wage nations.
A recent poll by a Washington research group found falling support for free trade but the shift was most dramatic among those earning more than $US100,000 ($A130,000) a year.
The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes found the percentage of those earning more than $US100,000 who actively supported free trade slid from 57 per cent in 1999 to 28 per cent in January 2004.
These results surprised even the researchers.
"It is rare in any case that any demographic slice drops 20 or 30 points on any issue," said research director Clay Ramsay.
"It certainly provides evidence for the theory that job insecurity is creeping up the income scale."
The poll showed more white-collar Americans joining the blue-collar outcry against globalisation and cast a cloud on the ability of the US to remain a leader in free trade. It also suggested protectionist talk would rise during the presidential election campaign.
But researchers said the results showed a majority of Americans endorsed free trade in principle, even if they believed it was being handled poorly by Washington.
"Feelings about international trade have gone from lukewarm, to luker," said PIPA director Steven Kull.
"Two-thirds say they support the reciprocal lowering of trade barriers but feel more needs to be done to mitigate the effects on workers and the environment." But the trend towards outsourcing of software and engineering jobs to countries such as India had led to a rethink of the benefits.
Senator Charles Schumer wrote recently in the New York Times that free trade had to be reconsidered in light of new economic realities, notably that much of the outsourcing was going to "a relatively few countries with abundant cheap labour".
"When American companies replace domestic employees with lower-cost foreign workers to sell more cheaply in home markets, it seems hard to argue this is the way free trade is supposed to work," Senator Schumer wrote.
No, because I am an AMERICAN!
All of my family and friends are Americans!
I live in America!
I could give a s*** how well the economies and job rates are in Mexico, Red China, India, or anyplace else!
I vote for people who (supposedly) care about AMERICANS!
Thats why free TRAITORS got their name, they don't give a d*** about their fellow countrymen and their god is money.
No, there's nothing "free trade" about hiring and firing of employee's.
I am always amused by geniuses like you knowing more about what I do with my money than I do. Of course, the next step is those geniuses who think they can spend my money better than I can. I see little difference between those two.
ANd I don't drive a Lexus. I drive a Ford, a 1988 Jeep Wrangler and my wife drives drives a Jeep Cherokee.
Do you shop at Wal Mart? I also take your statement to me regarding Chinese goods that you have a house full of them. Is that incorrect?
If it isn't incorrect, could you tell me how you can whine about imports while stuffing your shopping cart with same?
If they're capable of doing the job(s) why do they need jobs of Americans to "raise their income level"? What happened to good old fashioned competition and business expansion?
By the way, if you are calling me a traitor, you're not worth talking with. So can you clarify that for me, did you identify me as a traitor?
Not cool at all, this free trade stuff is giving those who work for a living the shaft.
The GOP and Bush are for this? Really?!!
Sovereignity, sovereignity ... who has the sovereignity? That is the question.
The Cornucopia of real wealths opens fully only when that question is answered correctly. And in what passes for an answer from "free trade" crowd these days is nothing but excuses for theft. Grand Theft of that sovereignity.
"We the People" are the sovereign here in the US of A. That is the FIRST statement of the Constitution. That FACT of the national charter is DUE all the respect, fealty, and honor accorded the very similar statement of G-d, Himself, in the charter given to Moses at Sinai: "I am the Lord, your God, who led you out of bondage!"
No corporation or limited liability partnership exists without charter from a nation, and those WE have chartered OWE US WHATEVER DUTY WE SHALL LAY ON THEM.
It is not the Corportation (whatever "internationality" it may falsely claim) who is the Master -- although that is in too many ways the trump of the Senate and Beltway -- it is US. Moreover it is a DUTY we may not be absolved up or give up.
Because "We the People" are merely agents of our own Master, that same Master Who directed Moses himself.
It is a solemn and dread duty, and to fail at it will be our death and ruin.
You mean they've dropped all those laws like OSHA, workman's comp laws, harassment laws, minimum wage laws, FLMA laws and all the many others?
It would seem that what is being sold under the guise of Free Trade is actually a sell-out of the American wage-earner---correct?
Don't forget the trial lawyers who shove jobs out of the country.
It is fascinating watching you all try to blame Bush but are silent on the true factors shipping away American jobs. Envirowhackos, unions, and trial lawyers. All major parts of the democrat party.
You guess? LOL
Let me repeat this in language that you can understand. You claim that because I agree with a NYT editorial, I am an East-Coast socialist. I claim that because you agree with the Communist Party's Labor Chiarman, you are an unreconstructed communist. That better?
The issue is about putting America first or putting America last. There was a time, one recent enough that I can remember it, when both liberals and conservatives put America first without question; they just differed on how to go about it. That is no longer the situation, for either lierals or conservatives.
IMO and FWIW.
If one thinks logically instead of emotionally, your take here would be absolutely correct.
But, of course, protectionists want it both ways.
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