You are personalizing my concerns for some reason I don't understand. Eustace is an unknown quantity to me, as is Jeff. I do form my opinions based on the posts I see and the results are not so favorable And in accordance to your desire to stick to the topic, let's resume discussing Free Trade,
I prefer Von Mises' opinion about the subject (Von Mises came over to the Univ of Chicago to teach Libertarian economic theory and avoid being imprisoned and/or killed when Hitler and friends took over Austria: libertarians and socialists are not a good mix). After emigrating to the US, he began teaching and writing. Von Mises theory on government is that there are only TWO legitimate Federal roles: to prevent fraud and prevent the imposition of force. The Free Market in Von Mises view is self governing and self correcting: if a vendor sells a poor product, the market will drive this vendor out of business. And if someone sells a product produced in a questionable manner (child or slave labor or a multitude of bad practices), the market will drive that person out of business when the information is made available. I find his ideals more and more realistic these days (at first I thought Von Mises was a bit of an idealist about the nature of humans). But reading his writings during the Clinton era was a good reason at the time to see mankind as irredeemably depraved.
Thank you for returning the discussion to its intended topic. I appreciate that.
As to the roile of the government, In tend to agree. But, when the Federal governent, through its policies, invites and encourages nations and entities to participate in the free market who are the anti-thesis of every defining moral principle that establishes that free market...it is not only allowing fraud, it is committing it.
I agree that there needs to be much, much less governmental involvement and regulation as regards the free market...but unfettered participation in the free market must be by those nations that are free. Otherwise you not only make a mockery of the free market, you corrupt it. That is exactly what is happening today IMHO.
As I have said before, otherwise you can compare it to hoping that your wife and children will be alright amongst known rapists and pedophiles whom you have invited into your home while you are away.
...and this does not even begin to speak to the national security issues of such so-called free trade with our technology and critical industries through outsourcing with nations like Red China, which outsourcing influence on the free market is what this thread was meant to be about.
But...in this I am repeating myself. See my post 307 for further thoughts regarding the same.