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The hidden cost of free trade
THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | September 18, 2005 | Jeffrey Sparshott

Posted on 09/18/2005 9:19:51 AM PDT by Willie Green

Angel Mills worked at GST AutoLeather in Williamsport, Md., most of her adult life. She cut, inspected, packed and shipped leather upholstery until she was laid off in June 2003 as the company scaled back local operations and shifted production to Mexico.

"It's sad. It's scary. I've been a factory worker all my life, and I didn't know what I wanted to do," said Ms. Mills, a 38-year-old Williamsport resident with a teenage son.

But by March 2004 she was taking a half-year course to become a state-licensed massage therapist. A federal program that helps workers who lose jobs owing to foreign competition paid for her training and offered extended unemployment benefits.

In July, she started working at Venetian Salon and Spa in Hagerstown, Md.

~~~SNIP~~~

Mr. Thomas said that for all trade adjustment program workers passing through the consortium, the average wage was $14.36 an hour before the layoffs, while after retraining it was $11.87 an hour, a decline that is common for factory workers who have to restart their lives.

U.S. Labor Department figures indicate that among the retrained, those that find new jobs end up making only 70 percent to 80 percent of their old wages on average.

(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: cafta; corporatism; freetrade; freetraitors; globalism; nafta; offshoring; protectmeplease; racetothebottom; thebusheconomy; wagesandbenefits
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To: WOSG
Protectionism is a permanent handicap on the economy

Its funny you should say this because the increases in the manufacturing sector in the last six months you "free traders" like to brag about are due in a large part to tariffs protecting various segements of the manufacturing sector.
181 posted on 09/18/2005 7:59:41 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: A. Pole

"I read Milton Freedman - I find him a moron and an intellectual fraud."

Er, that is *Freidman*.

I'm so glad you managed to expose that Nobel-Prize-winning economist for what he is - someone who threatens protectionists so much, they resort to empty name-calling.

Still, his "Free to Choose" book is great and accessible to
the 'lay person'. If you want to start simple, though, try:


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0517548232/002-9496711-3252046


Either that or stick with the nationalistic socialistic protectionist myth-economics.


182 posted on 09/18/2005 8:06:02 PM PDT by WOSG (http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/)
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To: A. Pole

"I read Milton Freedman - I find him a moron and an intellectual fraud."
*CORRECTION*

Er, that is *Friedman*.

My previous 'correction' was a mis-spelling as well. One of his books:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226264211/qid=1127099185/sr=8-6/ref=pd_bbs_6/002-9496711-3252046?v=glance&s=books&n=507846


183 posted on 09/18/2005 8:08:01 PM PDT by WOSG (http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/)
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To: hedgetrimmer
Its funny you should say this because the increases in the manufacturing sector in the last six months you "free traders" like to brag about are due in a large part to tariffs protecting various segements of the manufacturing sector.

Actually, what's funny is that you neglect to mention that all of the growth attributable to tariffs is subsidized by every American consumer as a form of hidden tax. The extra money that we are forced to spend for literally the exact same product is potential wealth that truly is destroyed, because were it not for the tariff imposed, that money would be used to fund our other wants and demands. That potential wealth that would have been created, was not created. But you can't see what never was. Opportunity cost is an intangible.

Instead you see the tangible of a subsidized steel industry, and collected tariffs that are mostly wasted anyway on welfare.

184 posted on 09/18/2005 8:08:59 PM PDT by v. crow
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To: WOSG
Er, that is *Freidman*.

Friedman.

185 posted on 09/18/2005 8:11:01 PM PDT by A. Pole (" There is no other god but Free Market, and Adam Smith is his prophet ! Bazaar Akbar! ")
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To: WOSG
Er, that is *Friedman*. My previous 'correction' was a mis-spelling as well.

Same thing :) This "man" should not have been "freed".

186 posted on 09/18/2005 8:12:32 PM PDT by A. Pole (" There is no other god but Free Market, and Adam Smith is his prophet ! Bazaar Akbar! ")
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To: A. Pole

It's a complete myth - created by Socialist professors no doubt - that free-market economies have large inequalities compared with other economies.

You are aware probably of the 'Nomenklatura' in Russia. You are aware perhaps of the socialist dictators in Africa who would amass huge Swiss bank accounts while their people lived in poverty. You are probably aware that Reagan's tax cuts ended up putting millions of lower income people *off* the income tax rolls while making the top 10% pay a larger share.

The idea that you have to screw up the economy with semi-socialism to avoid full-blown socialism is not based on reality of history. Free markets create economic booms, which increases social stability.

"Don't you remember how the greed of Latin American elites concentrated the land and other wealth wealth in the hands of the few, creating mass poverty, corruption and military dictatorships?"

This is a direct result of Government power being used for economic expropriation. Fascism and Communism are two sides of the same coin ... The OPPOSITE of this is to prevent any kind of such corruption, with limited Governments and free market economies.


187 posted on 09/18/2005 8:14:41 PM PDT by WOSG (http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/)
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bttt


188 posted on 09/18/2005 8:18:46 PM PDT by Coleus ("Woe unto him that call evil good and good evil"-- Isaiah 5:20-21)
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To: expat_panama

"This is the picture the tariff people paint --lower the tariff and people loose their jobs. "

Lower the steel tariff and you lose 20,000 steel jobs.
You likely know their names ...

"What they don't have is the actual headcounts of the job-losers compared to actual head counts of the job-gainers, along with the stacks of payrolls showing higher wages for all. It's a picture that simply doesn't match with reality."

Lowering the steel tariff would make a host of industries that employ *millions* more competitive and lower-cost, from construction to about every manufacturing sector ... you can't by definition know the names of the gainers since jobs are added due to demand and profit margins, and everything, not just one factor goes into how and when that can happen.

But rest assured, the steel tariff increase cost more jobs - far more jobs - than it saved, and undoing it was a net plus for the economy.


189 posted on 09/18/2005 8:19:48 PM PDT by WOSG (http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/)
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To: Iscool

"He didn't move to Mexico to be nice to Americans..."

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."


190 posted on 09/18/2005 8:30:04 PM PDT by Ninian Dryhope
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To: RockyMtnMan
"The ol' survival of the fittest sounds good to some but in practice most people cannot keep up and will end up on the government dole."

You are an optimist, I see.
191 posted on 09/18/2005 8:40:41 PM PDT by Ninian Dryhope
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To: PositiveCogins; JasonC
But the movement of wealth from one country to another without a back flow of trade to balance the deficit causes the importing country to become in debt to the exporting country.

This is your first mistake. You act like the dollars spent is wealth but the goods received are not wealth. What if the deficit was caused by dollars buying gold. Would you still call that a one way movement of wealth? What if it was dollars buying oil? Or dollars buying factories or shares of stock?

And all our buying doesn't put us into debt. We send them dollars and they send us goods. They have dollars, not IOUs. They then need to either buy our goods, buy US bonds, buy US stocks or stuff the dollars under their pillows. Tell us why any or all of these options are bad for America?

192 posted on 09/18/2005 8:44:05 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (If you agree with Marx, the AFL-CIO and E.P.I. please stop calling yourself a conservative!!)
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To: Iscool; Nathan Zachary
OF course we could...

What would we use for oil?

193 posted on 09/18/2005 8:47:45 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (If you agree with Marx, the AFL-CIO and E.P.I. please stop calling yourself a conservative!!)
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To: hedgetrimmer; WOSG
Its funny you should say this because the increases in the manufacturing sector in the last six months you "free traders" like to brag about are due in a large part to tariffs protecting various segements of the manufacturing sector.

Excellent!! All we need to do is double or triple those tariffs to grow the economy even more!! And there is no downside to these higher tariffs, right?

194 posted on 09/18/2005 9:00:26 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (If you agree with Marx, the AFL-CIO and E.P.I. please stop calling yourself a conservative!!)
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To: superiorslots
"Where did I say the gov't had anything to do with it?"

I am sorry. It seemed like you were saying that their doing drugs was the natural outcome of our government's move towards freer trade. I must have been mistaken.
195 posted on 09/18/2005 9:12:27 PM PDT by Ninian Dryhope
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To: Toddsterpatriot

LOL!!

Like the response to those who keep wanting a higher 'minimum wage' ... if higher is better, why not $100/hour?


196 posted on 09/18/2005 9:17:16 PM PDT by WOSG (http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/)
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To: Willie Green

Great article ! Free trade has been a disaster for America. We need to return to economic nationalism.


197 posted on 09/18/2005 9:45:45 PM PDT by RightDemocrat
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To: PositiveCogins
Are you in debt to your grocer?

I doubt you have a bilateral money surplus with him.

But it does not mean he has lent you money. It means you have spent at his store money you already earned. And that you got groceries for it. He is not richer by the amount you paid him, because he gave you groceries in return for your money. He may be richer by the amount of the difference, his total cost of getting you the groceries, and what you paid. You are better off to the extent you willingly gave up your money for groceries because you needed or wanted the groceries more than you needed or wanted the money you exchanged for them.

US citizens earn $12 trillion a year, about. If we spend some of it abroad rather than here, it does not make us poorer. Any more than you are made poorer by spending what you've earned at your grocer, instead of only buying carrots from your sister in law.

There are perfectly good reasons to dislike running trade deficits as large as ours in our present circumstances, or more exactly, to take it as indicating certain policies are unsound. But you haven't mentioned one of them yet, that is based on any real economic fact or effect. There are perfectly good reasons to oppose certain forms of trade we are currently engaged in. Not because it makes us poorer - it doesn't, it enriches us - but because trade benefits both parties, and some irresponsible parties it is not safe to benefit. Strategically, not economically.

There are reasonable arguments well informed people can and do have about trade. But this so far isn't one of them, because one party to it is laboring under the delusion that trade deficits mean we are "losing money" or signal that we are becoming poorer somehow, when they simply have no such meaning, and it is not what they measure.

198 posted on 09/18/2005 10:48:46 PM PDT by JasonC
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To: Dittohead68
And, you're saying that because people have made these prior choices in life that education isn't important (obviously, if they are illiterate) and that their survival in life isn't their responsibility......

What a sense of superiortity you have. I didn't say they made the choice to be illiterate or uneducated. They just are. Also, a lot of them are hispanics from another country.

then you're saying it becomes MY responsibility as a compassionate, understanding person to support these people who live off the government dole and game the system for everything it's worth?

They are not living off the dole. They are working. But, if you take their jobs away in a show of super-capitalism they will be living off the dole. Just so you could get a few more cents on your dividend check.

199 posted on 09/19/2005 2:49:10 AM PDT by raybbr
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To: raybbr

"What a sense of superiortity you have. I didn't say they made the choice to be illiterate or uneducated. They just are. Also, a lot of them are hispanics from another country....They are not living off the dole. They are working. But, if you take their jobs away in a show of super-capitalism they will be living off the dole. Just so you could get a few more cents on your dividend check."

It's NOT a sense of superiority - it's a sense of "been there, refused to become a victim & got out." It CAN be done. If I was you, I would wonder why these people that you're talking about are illiterate.... or functionally illiterate or can't speak English. Could it be that many of them are illegals?????

A while ago, immigrants used to assimilate to this country and LEARN English in order to make a living here in this country. Now, because of liberal guilt and hand wringing (the kind I'm hearing from you), we are forced to accept more and more people in the workplace that require bilingual assistance BECAUSE THEY REFUSE TO ASSIMILATE and learn English. MULTICULTURALISM AT IT'S BEST - and IT'S BRINING THIS COUNTRY DOWN.

I'll have no part in the handwringing.


200 posted on 09/19/2005 3:19:54 AM PDT by Dittohead68
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