[jonrick46]

I know that the concept of Free Trade is only as good as the humans that work it. I am not sure it is a good idea to throw it overboard because of a few rotting apples. The following from Vox Day gives the impression that working for Free Trade is like:

"that of the public-school teachers who insist that merely spending more money on teachers will lead to better public schools, and socialists who argue that despite dozens of failed historical examples, the One True Method of communism has not yet been applied. At some point, even the most lovely theory has to pass the more prosaic test of practice or else be relegated to the children's nursery of daydreams and wishful thinking."

There are things that are unseen in the dynamics of human commerce that hinder Free Trade. They operate like viruses below the surface which cause the best efforts to go wrong. Mr. Vox Day was not very specific as to what went wrong with NAFTA and the European Union concept. I am sure they would make an interesting study.

I am curious. Did you read Stephen Spruiell's article?

http://www.aworldconnected.org/article.php/489.html

[Paul Ross]

No. But I have now. It is essentially regurgitating the arguments of the hyper-liberal Thomas Friedman. And also the arguments on the select case of the Steel Industry made by Daniel Griswold of the CATO lobby. His arguments were entirely dependent on grotesque numbers made by the steel import lobbyists, who exaggerated the price increases dramatically, and also the claims of 'dependant industry' job losses. It turns out that the U.S. was in fact suffering from foreign countries...not companies...dumping practices which unchecked would have totally destroyed the U.S. integrated steel operations...which are vital for national security. The hand-waving of the author on the issue is not only not persuasive, it tends to destroy any credibility he had.

For example, even after the tariffs were in place...it turns out that the U.S. steel market was still the cheapest, most competitive in the world! The jobs lost weren't from suddenly excessive steel prices, but turn out to in fact have been lost more to a recessionary contraction. The steel import lobby issued numbers which were biassed by counting in jobs lost from almost 6 months prior to the President announcement of the temporary tariffs, which were tailored only to the offender in reciprocal fashion.

The opponents claimed that the industries couldn't be saved. They were wrong. They were. And then, prior to the EU issuing sanctions pursuant the WTO declaring our soveriegn actions "illegal" (which completely ignored the endangered industry ruling of our ITC, and the reams of data supporting it...all valid pursuant to the WTO Charter)...the temporary tariffs were lifted.

And today our steel industry, having had a breather remains competitive. And U.S. steel market prices are still the cheapest on the planet. Not those 6 other countries which a Heritage scholar misleadingly ranked as "freer" than the U.S.

And the dependancy argument is real. It is a serious issue. It represents the core of national argument over this issue.