[sixmil]

Actually, I should just add this to my list of things you need to believe in order to believe in free trade:

1. Free trade wins big in the end by declaring bankruptcy!?
2. Workers are better off with low wages
3. The price of a good or service has nothing to do with supply and demand. Price is determined by how much it costs to produce the good or service
4. Dollars overseas are simply pieces of paper with no value, unless we are talking about the trade balance, then they can be used as foreign 'investment'
5. The savings from buying foreign goods is passed directly to the consumer
6. The price of labor is not determined by supply and demand
7. Running a deficit with your grocer is the same thing as running a deficit with China (nanoeconomics)
8. Money coming in from international tourists is good, losing tourist dollars is bad - this does not apply to trade, the grocer argument is a better analogy
9. There is a shortage of workers in America
10. We are near full employment

[FITZ]

Add that government spending on all the many social programs for those unable to work is at an all time low!

[LeGrande]

Let me help you out here by ignoring your straw-man arguments.

Lets say I make two widgets that cost me one dollar each to make and I sell them for two dollars and I export one of them. That means I add 2 dollars to the trade balance and I made a profit of two dollars

Now lets say that I have the widgets made in Mexico for fifty cents each. I import one of them back to the States and sell the other to my overseas client. Now I have affected the balance of trade to the negative by 4 dollars, but my profit has gone up to 3 dollars.

That dramatically alters the balance of trade, but the reality is that I (and America) am richer by a dollar. Of course someone in Mexico is richer by a dollar too, but that is a good thing. All I have to do is sell a widget to someone in Mexico and the greenback gets even stronger : ) And I get richer.