There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. The price we pay in increased social spending, crime, and taxes as a result of “free” trade must be one we are willing to pay.
Exporting our jobs means that the engine that drove American prosperity is shut down. Those that used to be able to support a family, buy a house, send their kids to college, now can’t. Many of the ills we here on Free Republic complain about (welfare, the housing crisis, the trillion dollar college loan racket, etc.) can be traced to “free” trade.
Don’t get me wrong, I think free trade is the right way to go, but we have to be willing to pay the price.
Those are hardly the result if free trade. Those are political decisions made outside the market and according to different principles.
The so-called “free trade” currently destroying America is a deliberately constructed one-way mess primarily with COMMUNIST China.
China in no way is liberalizing itself. It is just taking over.
America continues to support this, as the part of the total we receive gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller.
We need a new way.
Not sure exactly how to improve things, but what we have not isn’t it.
Know hoe I know free trade didn’t cause those problems? The solutions popped up before the engine of prosperity was shut down in the manner of which you speak. Back then they blamed free trade, too, among other things. It was the poor farmers, left behind in a cruel new world of largescale manufacturing. There was a Welfare State, then, before free trade was allowed to grind us down as you imagine happening now.
Know how I know free trade didn’t cause those problems? The solutions popped up before the engine of prosperity was shut down in the manner of which you speak. Back then they blamed free trade, too, among other things. It was the poor farmers, left behind in a cruel new world of largescale manufacturing. There was a Welfare State, then, before free trade was allowed to grind us down as you imagine happening now.
There is a presumption that America is rich because of massive superiority
That is not completely true . T he wealth is largely the result of having won and being unscathed. By WW II
The effects have worn off and others are or have, caught up
We must compete to continue. All this thought About what was continuing is just so mu h falderal. The easy times Are over