Tapsearch Com EditorForget Free Trade
April 23rd 2009 17:40
From Cleveland Plain Dealer letters about Free Trade
Free Trade to blame for unemployment
I commend the Plain Dealer's effort to show the human side of unemployment brought on by the economic downturn. ( The Plain Dealer gave the profiles of about eighty unemployed workers with their pictures.) - It is unfortunate that you are unable or unwilling to connect the dots back to Free Trade as the cause.
This newspaper's editorial position must find a way to fit in the global economy is not necessarily true. Just who deemed this to be so?
If unemployment, low wages and fewer benefits are the price of admission, then I, for one, prefer a policy of economic isolation.
Joe Lebon
Strongsville Ohio USA
Free Trade to blame for unemployment
I commend the Plain Dealer's effort to show the human side of unemployment brought on by the economic downturn. ( The Plain Dealer gave the profiles of about eighty unemployed workers with their pictures.) - It is unfortunate that you are unable or unwilling to connect the dots back to Free Trade as the cause.
This newspaper's editorial position must find a way to fit in the global economy is not necessarily true. Just who deemed this to be so?
If unemployment, low wages and fewer benefits are the price of admission, then I, for one, prefer a policy of economic isolation.
Joe Lebon
Strongsville Ohio USA
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Hell, any of the Tigers are free trade success stories.
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If you want to get into the meaning of words, Free Trade is not trade as historically practiced and defined.
Free trade is based primarily on moving production from place to place anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor. It makes production portable - ready to be moved again and again, leaving burn out communities each time a factory is moved. The U.S. moved more than 4000 factories to Mexico and it did not stop the tide of illegal immigrants coming to the USA seeking economic survival.
Another term, free traders like to use to defend their position is "protectionism" and blamed the Great Depression because of it. However, it is a mock term because the problem was not tariffs but a money crisis which triggered the stock market crash. Trade was down because nations did not have any money to support it.
President Roosevelt had many options to raise or lower tariffs at will but he found out nothing would work until trading nations had money to support trade. The Great Depression was suspended when Roosevelt triggered the Lend Lease Act and start shipping goods and food to the allies without worrying about payments upfront. He said he was not going to let the silly dollar stand in his way. Then World War 2 came and with Lend Lease, the U.S. ramped up the most awesome industrial might the world had ever seen. Why anyone would want to smash this economic power that had a chance to create local value added economies in balanced geopolitical settings across the globe, it unbelievable.
It was because big money messed up again. The globalization of money came in 1956 and in that same year, the U.S. Federal Government sponsored the moving of factories outside the USA. It was supposed to be a temporary program but it never ended and evolved into what is called Free Trade. ( Search under Lend Lease was real free trade and not chop liver as in the Globalist World for hundreds of references ) In the final analysis, you can't do business with people who do not have money.
Our current economic crisis is based on making money on money instead of making things and the process has burned out. The bail outs of big money act as tariffs on future generations. In the end, Free Trade has taken tariffs off products and put on our children and their children for generations to come.
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Your misunderstanding the point. They are building their economies at our expense. They would never allow the dismanteling of their industries as we have.
Completely, absolutely, 100% wrong. Singapore built their fortune on cheap labour, much as China is doing now. As their standard of living rose, it became impossible for them to compete for low-skilled manufacturing jobs. Instead of whining about it and blaming free trade, they educated their populace and brought in more skilled (and better paying) jobs. Now they're losing their edge in that respect... so they've become Asia's financial hub. Singapore is one of the most expensive places to do business in SEA, but their economy is still doing just fine. They embraced free trade, and have prospered because of it.
Instead of trying to protect uncompetitive industries, the US should be retraining workers. One country cannot be competitive in every field (the theory of competitive advantage)... you have to focus on what you can do efficiently, any protection of uncompetitive industries is a gross market distortion that should not be allowed.
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The financial communities are parasites in the biggest scam of the century - Free Trade and Globalization. The only real value we have - the value of work and workers - has been deflated. Any defense of so called Free Trade or any financial market anywhere does not compute. See Free Traders Scam of the Century - America you been had