Free Trade Promotes Prosperity & World Peace
- Thread starter Ponca Dan
- Start date
When I would drive through small towns in the 1990s and see once-thriving Main Street businesses closed down —
and only Wall Mart (filled with cheap Chinese junk), Pizza Hut, McDonalds and Taco Bell left (with their artificial foods)
— I knew something was seriously wrong.
We paid a serious price for utopian “free trade” fantasies (cheap Chinese goods weren’t worth boarding up our main streets) — these same small towns are where the opioid addiction is skyrocketing today.
#Why-Trump-Won
#Bring-On-Trade-Wars
and only Wall Mart (filled with cheap Chinese junk), Pizza Hut, McDonalds and Taco Bell left (with their artificial foods)
— I knew something was seriously wrong.
We paid a serious price for utopian “free trade” fantasies (cheap Chinese goods weren’t worth boarding up our main streets) — these same small towns are where the opioid addiction is skyrocketing today.
#Why-Trump-Won
#Bring-On-Trade-Wars
We don’t have free trade. We have unfair trade. How are Americans suppose to compete w slave labor in Chinese sweatshops (just one example)?
“Americans don’t want those jobs.” Well no, not at slave wages. Anytime Apple virtue signals about their moral superiority, never forget that they employ slaves.
It’s really not that difficult a concept. Cost savings = better bottom line for big business. Elephants cheer. Out of work unemployable citizens = Dem votes. Donkeys cheer.
It’s a really good con.
Edited to add Dems are just as in bed with big business now via Healthcare, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, etc.
“Americans don’t want those jobs.” Well no, not at slave wages. Anytime Apple virtue signals about their moral superiority, never forget that they employ slaves.
It’s really not that difficult a concept. Cost savings = better bottom line for big business. Elephants cheer. Out of work unemployable citizens = Dem votes. Donkeys cheer.
It’s a really good con.
Edited to add Dems are just as in bed with big business now via Healthcare, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, etc.
In all of your talk, and that of NZ’s above, you’re leaving out one ingredient. In fact the most important ingredient: the consumer. In business, in the free market, the consumer is the king. Every merchant on every street corner, every mega corporation like Walmart, has one goal in mind - and only one goal - satisfy the consumer. I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma in the 50’s and early 60’s. Main Street was thriving with Mom & Pop stores, stores with a very limited supply of products at high prices. Sam Walton started with just such a store in NW Arkansas. He figured out a way to bring a plethora of products to the consumer at affordable prices. Large, clean stores packed to the ceiling with almost anything you could want at prices you could afford. No longer did the townsfolk have to drive to OKC or Tulsa. It was right there in their own home town. And it employed far more people than all of the Mom & Pop stores combined. Main Street dried up, a victim of progress. It was sad to see the closed down shops. But no one in their right mind would want to go back to that day and age. Today we see Walmart getting pinched by Amazon. Amazon delivers right to your front door almost as fast as if you bought it in a store and brought it home. It’s called progress. It’s fine to recall the “good old days,” but what needs to be understood is that these are the good old days! Right now!
As regards the “slave labor” comment. International corporations may be involved in using companies that use slave labor. I won’t say that’s impossible. But I will say it’s highly unlikely. There are 1 billion people from second world countries that are now out of poverty only a few years removed. That’s something that should be celebrated! You complain the workers are getting “slave wages.” And compared to American wages you may be correct. You may not understand the dynamic involved. A worker in China, for example, may deem his value to be X dollars/hour. That’s what he thinks he is worth to an employer. If the employer offers that wage the Chinese employee takes the job. Both he and the employer are better off than before. What that means is the Chinese worker has a comparative advantage over the American worker for that job. That’s because the American worker has higher skills and is better educated, giving him a comparative advantage over the Chinese worker at more demanding jobs, jobs that pay a higher wage. Sure the American worker may lose his job and have to retrain into something else, but those jobs are out there for him. Second world countries that adopt a minimal aspect of free markets drag themselves out of poverty, which ultimately enriches us all.
Sermon over. Carry on!
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I fully understand the concept of India and other countries opening up their markets and lifting billions out of poverty. That is wonderful. What I don’t like are multi-country “free trade” agreements that are 20,000 pages and do not serve the National Interest. They should be bilateral.
