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"I get a kick out of these smug people that have a job and no sympathy for the ones that are being displaced. Answer me this, if low wages are good for a country, way are places like India, Pakistan and Vietnam such $hit holes. When you get your wish and we have destroyed the middle class, who are you going to sell your talents to?"

I'd like to say I get a kick out of people who are so abysmally ignorant of basic economics, but I don't. And unfortunately, the line stretches all the way from you up to Ross Perot and Patrick Buchanan.

I've been through this whole territory before, and in the unlikely event that you actually care about facts instead of rhetoric, you can check out this thread in which I talked about the fact that globalization in the form of NAFTA has generated good effects for our economy instead of the bad ones Perot and Buchanan predicted.

As far as your claim about India, et.al. being $hit holes, you've got things quite mixed up. Low wages there are just a symptom. They all have suffered through lousy governments for decades. Corruption, shaky property rights, government subsidy of all kinds of stupid things, etc. This has mired them in bad economic conditions, and that lead to low wages.

Instead, you should be looking for a country that has had a free, open, globalized economy for a few decades and nevertheless is an awful place to live. I can't think of one. Does that not suggest that globalization is a good thing?

Finally, I always have sympathy for folks without jobs. In fact, I'd say I have more sympathy than you, since I support polices that have been demonstrated historically to lead to more employment. Sure, we could have a protectionist economy, with lots of rules that protected people's jobs. Then we'd be Europe, who oddly enough in spite of their rules, unions, and laws have much higher unemployment than us.

Sure, we could have a protectionist economy, with lots of rules that protected people's jobs.

And yet we're supposed to compete against countries like China and India whose governments not only protect their jobs but actively promote business while ours runs business out with extremely high taxation and regulation. In China when a tool and die shop opens, that government provides the building, electricity and even materials ---here the government does what it can to destroy the business.

Well said (as always), Joe. People would be well-advised to study the issues (http://www.freetrade.org). It is a proven fact that countries with open trade policies (I'm not talking about allowing dumping and other illegal practices) have lower unemployment, greater growth, lower taxes, and greater prosperity. This is counter-intuitive -- just as it is counter-intuitive to realize that lowering taxes actually increases commerce and bolsters federal revenues.

Many, many policitians and governments don't want to accept this reality because their constituents simply lack even the most basic understanding of economics. They find it safer to sell the message of protectionism ("Wink, wink. We're raising tariffs because we're looking out for your jobs..."), even though it has precisely the opposite effect.

India is not a Third World sh!thole -- any more than the U.S. is a sh!thole, considering the fact that poverty does (and will continue to) exist domestically. India, like many other countries, is a stratified society with two essential social castes: the rich and poor. There is not a big middle class. Over time, this middle class will form. But it will take time.