[Richard Kimball]

I'm generally a believer in free trade, but I remember when Reagan was in office, his commitment to free trade did not override common sense. It became apparent to him that the Japanese government was underwriting the Jap bike manufacturers in an attempt to run Harley-Davidson, the last American bike manufacturer out of business. They were dumping bikes at below cost on the US market. Reagan did not pull an Annie Hall, and go, "well lah-de-dah." He did enact tariffs on Japanese bikes until such time as they dropped the bike dumping.

A lot of people are so bound to an ideology, that they ignore when other countries are gaming the system for the purpose of bankrupting another player.

[1rudeboy]

And look what we’ve gotten . . . over priced, crappy motorcycles, and a firm that’s destined for a bailout.

[OldDeckHand]

"A lot of people are so bound to an ideology, that they ignore when other countries are gaming the system for the purpose of bankrupting another player. "

I am generally a free trader, but we do have to interject some common sense into our trade policies. And, it's tough to have discussions about trade policy absent discussions about the labor market and labor laws (and other regulations) in this country.

I was reading my some of my Apple SEC filings, and their primary OEM, Foxconn caught my eye. Their main assembly location in China employs hundreds of thousands of people - in one location. It's a shame that a great company like Apple can't build those iPhones, iPods and iPads in this country. But, if they did, the prices would probably be 4 to 5 times the current retail price, and of course no one would buy them, so there would be no market; No market, no jobs.

It's a vicious catch-22. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but transferring the kind of wealth we are to both the Chinese and the Arab states isn't going to be sustainable for much longer.