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The true decimation of the economy came from the credit bubble, loose credit at the root of that

"free trade" was the tool that allowed foreign investment in our domestic housing stock. That helped to push the price of homes so high that average Americans couldn't afford to buy and keep them anymore.

"free trade" changed our banking laws so banks could sell the debt overseas. The 'bailout' of the foreign countries and foreign corporations that invested in this debt is party of the new debt "free traders" have forced on Americans.

"free trade" was also the tool for allowing illegal immigrants and other noncitizens to purchase homes in this country they couldn't afford, couldn't pay for and by any stretch of common sense should never have been able to apply for a loan for it. A "free trade" agreement in Monterry Mexico, based on previous agreements with the UN in Montreal set up Congress to override the department of Homeland security and allow banks to loan to these people.

The UN working with the "free traders" declared that nationals of foreign countries could not be treated differently than citizens here, and must be allowed to have bank accounts and loans. The government colluded by allowing people to use phony matricular consular IDs to open bank accounts and drivers licenses. The big banks, bank of america, citibank, etc were slavering for a change in banking regulations also, to allow them to be used to send remittances out of the country and therefore collect fees on the nearly $100 billion annually. It is because of "free trade" that Mexico could then instruct the banks to loan money to the illegals for homes as part of the UN/"free trade" treaties.

"free traders" have made a monstrous mess out of constitutional government, it has corrupted every aspect of our government and our ability to exist as a nation. You go back to the 19th century argument that a producer (a US CITIZEN)shouldn't be able to petition congress. A foreign producer, in the minds of you "free traders" can use the UN, the WTO, and our own congress to corrupt our laws and advantage themselves in our domestic markets.

It makes you think that "free traders" hate America, they're willing to advantage communists and totalitarians. That doesn't PRESERVE freedom, it DESTROYS it.

"free trade" changed our banking laws so banks could sell the debt overseas. The 'bailout' of the foreign countries and foreign corporations that invested in this debt is party of the new debt "free traders" have forced on Americans.

Ok, you have a point there. I was mainly thinking about goods and services. Take Icelanders for example. If they are able to freely trade their frozen fish or whatever else they make for oranges, they will have a bit better life. It would not make sense to protect their own (obviously indoor) orange producers. But where they went wrong is deciding to borrow a trillion yen at low rates (or more precisely, offer CD's at high rates to Japanese) and then use those proceeds to buy banks in the rest of the Europe, that kind of trade destroyed their economy. If you want to call that "free trade", I guess I can't argue with that.