Free trade is not free. It comes at a heavy price for those who can least afford it.
Pat Buchanan and his ilk do not like free trade.
In fact, Buchanan even wrote a piece on how "Reaganism and Thatcherism" exploits workers.
Somehow, I don't see how America would be better off in the long run if we paid $200 for a $65 pair of shoes because they are made in America or if a new "American made" computer costs $1800 at Best Buy instead of a foreign made one at $499.
People would be getting their shoes re-soled and keeping their existing computers longer.
Anti-free traders seem to think that Americans could continue their present consupmption even when the price of their goods quadruples.
I don't buy it.
You can make the exact same statement, fully justified, against capitalism in general. I work for a small company. What chance would I have in a government which gets to pick winners and losers, even more than they do now? We find our small niches. Protectionists are blind to companies such as the one I work for (a manufacturer by the way..which does some exporting of techology.) Small companies employ more people than the big names, if I'm not mistaken. The American steel industry took a big hit but learned enough to survive and prosper as a totally different industry. That's the answer, not turning to the demagogues.
I'm very tired of hearing the whining & woes of the free market labor troubles.
I am a survivor of the first round of plant closings as a result of NAFTA. The fact of the matter is that The Trade Act provided job & education assistance. I was able to go back to school (was working my way through, anyway) while my unemployment benefits were extended. THE PROGRAM DIDN'T WORK FOR ME - I MADE IT WORK FOR MYSELF AND MY FUTURE.
Now, 10 years later, I have gone from making 7.00 per hour in a textile mill in NC to making over 45K as a degreed accountant in OH.
Plenty of my friends had the exact same opportunities (and even started school with me), but squandered the opportunity to make something else of their lives. It was the difference in goals and outlooks of life that did it. I wasn't happy living in sub-standard poverty and was willing to do whatever it took to lift myself out of it. The others..... well, they gave up and, once the unemployment benefits dried up, they were back where they started with no one to blame but themselves.
Don't sit there and tell me that Free Trade is a bad thing because it displaces workers. It was the best thing that ever happened to my life!
The Americans who bought products made with leather from GST AutoLeather will save some of their own money in the form of less expensive products thanks to a more efficient factory in Mexico. On the average, they will then use this money to satisfy other wants. Ultimately, this indirectly manifests itself in Angel Mills finding a job as a massage therapist.
If Americans instead chose or were forced (by tariffs) to buy products made from leather from GST AutoLeather's plant in Maryland, they would pay a higher price for a less efficient plant, and on the average, America would be poorer. Instead of being able to afford both a leather couch and a massage, they would only be able to afford the leather couch.
With unfettered trade between Mexico and America, however, it may be more cost efficient to have the plant in Mexico instead of Maryland and to import the leather. Imported leather is paid for with dollars, which then are used to pay for American exports in industries that are most cost-effective and efficient by being located in America. The same goods, at a cheaper price, means that consumers can spend their money on their other demands. It means that a consumer can have both his couch and his massage, instead of wasting part of the price of the leather in the couch for an inefficient plant in Maryland.
It also means that Angel Mills is re-employed more efficiently as a massage therapist. Jobs are not a scarce resource, gentlemen, because human demands for things are unlimited. That is how and why a free market works to my understanding, and I'm not even an economist.
Factory work does not pay too well these days. She should consider a career change.
....Free trade is not free.....
The marginal costs noted are insignificant when balanced against the benefits.
Free trade is not what gets people riled, change is what riles. The inability to accept change is a mortal disease
No wonder we are no longer one of the "super powers" left on this planet.
We are the only one left. Go figure....
FreeDOM trade is not free. It comes at a heavy price for those who can least afford it. must give their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to defeat the enemies of free men, the authoritarian thugs who sell favors to some in return for power.
Those people are the "domestic" in the phrase "all enemies, foreign and domestic".
Yup, amongst whom is the tax payer stuck with the tab of paying for the retraining, with lower tax values on the land and paychecks, with unemployement costs, higher police costs due to higher crime due to lower employment, and many other "little" costs.