Posted on 04/01/2016 4:40:29 PM PDT by central_va
Theoretically, “free trade” sounds like a great idea. Consumers get the benefit of increased competition for their buying dollars, manufacturers get to locate or source from the lowest cost labor pool, and exporters have the opportunity to sell into new markets with no tariffs. Unfortunately, there are fundamental real-world flaws that exist with “free trade” that have led to the most massive wealth transfer in the history of the world. The United States has not witnessed a trade surplus since 1975, and since then $10 Trillion has been lost through trade deficits caused by elimination of tariffs.
The most significant flaw with “free trade” agreements is that they are impossible to enforce, making competition impossible. “Free trade” depends on the premise that all countries will play by the same rules. However, in the real world assuring that this occurs is incredibly expensive, time consuming, and inefficient to contest. The reality is, tariffs are not the only barrier to fair trade. Trade is impacted by much more intangible state-sponsored “trade weapons” such as currency manipulation, technology transfer requirements, joint-venture policies, selective customs policies, underhanded government subsidies and countless other tools. Under “free trade” agreements, the U.S. essentially relies on faith-based economic policy with other countries.
Without the presence of tariffs, a “free trade” agreement places the country with lower overall wage rates in a superior position. When two countries with huge differences in labor costs engage in “free trade” eventually all the production that benefits the country with higher wage rates will be transferred to the country with lower wage rates.
(Excerpt) Read more at economyincrisis.org ...
Any healthy society needs job opportunities for people across the spectrum of intelligence and ability. Not made-up-by-government opportunities, but real free-market opportunities. The open-border so-called free trade arrangements migrate working-class jobs out of the country.
Sure, those in the upper echelons can find work in cutting edge areas, and get the added benefit of cheap Chinese imported goods. To those people, free trade sure sounds win/win. But, increasingly, the other end of society that used to be in blue collar trades, are being forced into multiple part-time jobs as waiters, barristas, security guards, etc.
America suffers, the people suffer, except at the top. I was one who bought the free-trade arguments 25 years ago, with the promise that (using an even older metaphor), as buggy-whip jobs got eliminated, well paying auto jobs would replace them. That has not panned out. Worse still, the job migration has been augmented with mass people migration, threating the very fabric of the West.
Stop it now!!
Many of our trade deals are based on geo political assumptions that no longer exist. Namely, we’re deeply in dept, depleted and demoralized forces. Our nuclear delivery systems probably aren’t up to good working order. We’re overrun with illegal aliens and we’ve squandered our international trusts.
In other words, we are no longer the foremost superpower. We are 1 of 3 of second rate super powers.
bump.
You post is dead on perfect!
This is EXACTLY why I am strongly supporting Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is saying (and it’s true) that for years, and years, and years American businesses have been sold off.
It is true. And everyone is involved. Everyone, in both parties, is selling us out.
Now, Trump is the first person with the determination, and the financial strength to actually say “let’s make America strong again”.
He is catching all sorts of grief for this, but he’s doing well so far.
He is 100% right.
Everyone is selling out America. Bring American jobs back home.
look at a calendar
it is not 1965 but 2016
the world you long for is different now
That is what you think. You are in for a shock.
I have been for Free Trade, just on principle, but it has become woefully apparent that Free isn’t necessarily Fair. So yes, in principle, free trade is a great idea, and I would tend to support it, but not when the deals you are making are screwing you royally.
Most of the Free Traitors™ on Free Republic are also Cruzers, are you a Cruzer too?
Which is cause and which is effect? Is the world different because of our free-trade policies, or are our free trade policies adopted because of a changing world?
I would argue that our world situation today has been largely brought on by the globalists and their schemes (think Soros).
And regardless of which is cause and which is effect, I stand by my statement that a healthy society needs to have job opportunities that span the range of intelligence and ability.
there are no freetraitors any where. there are only several misguided souls that have no understanding of the world and invented a vicious slur to cover their pitiful inadequacies
BTW, you think trump is an isolationist like you. his actions will not be to the degree you are slobbering over. Trump is a global businessman
Why can’t you answer a simple question, are yo a Cruz supporter?
I was one of those win/win types and found everything just grand with the economy (from my perspective). It was only as I see my children hitting the workforce that I realize that their opportunities are a pale shadow of what was available to me. If they are not in the top 10% of the game, they get left behind.
TPP, and its sister agreements on the horizon in other regions of the world, contain sections for goods and equally sections for WORKERS, immigrant workers.
The deal that the U.S. signs which opens our markets freely to a foreign nation's goods also opens and eliminates our borders freely allowing unlimited immigrants in, just as it allows the goods in.
Thanks to the Cruzs' TPA, it does not require any legislative approval, i.e., congress cannot approve it, deny it, or change it. Disputes, interpretations, etc.---the U.S. has no say in. It SURRENDERS OUR SOVEREIGNTY.
UNLIMITED IMMIGRATION is COMING to the USA unless Trump stops it. Think about what unlimited immigration entails. It's a dystopian, nightmarish future for our dissolved nation, the USA. Here it is, in black and white:
Singapore, a tiny little nation-state with hardly any manufacturing has it figured out. Every 11th adult is a millionaire.
The problem is that we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, to say nothing of the copious regulations and paperwork the government foists on business, while letting other countries take advantage of us. To be successful we simply need to turn the situation on its head -- the government should enact trade deals that force the market to favor America, then slash the taxes and internal regulations that are ruining Americans and then step out of the way.
Free trade, offshoring and de industrialization are wildly unpopular. The elites and the plutocrats thought we( the great unwashed like me) wouldn’t notice them turning us into a third world agricultural service economy.
Oh great we should emulate tiny little Singapore. LOLOLOL
On Free Republic Free Traitors™ are all Cruzers but the converse is not always true.
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