I get it. Because there are rules, regulations, taxes and restrictions on trade, we should ask for more of the same, instead of less.
Repeat after me: There is no spoon.
Yeah, you're the one. LOL!
No, we should recognize that the “free trade” and “free markets” dogma is simply nonsense. There are no “free” markets or trade, period, thanks for playing.
There are always regulations and externalities in markets, and as we’re now seeing, monetary policy is a huge gaming of markets and trade. In none of the “free trade” treaties is there any mention of the role of central banks in monetary or currency policy to game trade and markets, yet that is exactly what the PRC does and has been doing for more than 10 years.
Thanks to the policy of “free trade” we’re rapidly approaching a point where major trading partners (first the Arabs and oil producers, then China, and now Japan) are talking about wanting to move away from the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Should they do that, even on a regional basis (discussion of which is even now underway in Asia - prompted in part by the Fed’s actions, and in part by the fact that the Asians remember TurboTax Timmy quite well from 1997/1998), will cause a very large disruption in the US, which is now an import-based economy.
This is obvious to all but the pinheads who have an analytical ability that can be completely contained on a bumper sticker.