Protectionists are terminal whiners and losers, and have no future, and no hope that their tilting at windmills will succeed - the economic realities are simply too powerful. And that is unlike my psoriasis, which those evil drug companies are containing.
When NAFTA was signed, every voice of economic theory, every editorial page of every newspaper, every living ex president supported it. But it barely got through Congress.
Now, even the economists have to see what is in front of their eyes, that free trade does NOT benefit both parties. That the factors of production are indeed mobile. The ground has shifted out from under the free trade position. You are losing this debate both in academia and in the court of public opinion.
Funny you should mention drug companies.
Those same companies want to freely shop the world for the best markets and cheapest labor . . .
But they don't want American citizens to freely shop the world for the best prices on drugs.
And you can thank the American GOVERNMENT for most medical breakthroughs.
Most of the "research" dollars drug companies spend is on how to make their drugs different enough that they can patent them all over again after the original patent expires.
It's in government sponsored labs that most medical breakthroughs are made.
Well, it's nice to see FR get back to normal.
The malcontents are malcontenting away, the Keyesters are back in hibernation while Alan spends the leftover campaign money in some sorely needed home repair projects, the protectionists want to protect their jobs with my money, which of course they claim is different from welfare, and the ersatz Marxists are calling for government control of the evil capitalists in the name of the proletariat.
Sigh...
One starts missing the dog days of the John/John campaign after a while.