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Free Trade

Answer to the Below Question

  • Strongly Agree

    Votes: 7 36.8%
  • Agree

    Votes: 5 26.3%
  • Uncertain

    Votes: 1 5.3%
  • Disagree

    Votes: 3 15.8%
  • Strongly Disagree

    Votes: 3 15.8%

  • Total voters
    19
Joined
Jun 1, 2012
Messages
132
Reaction score
33
Location
Southern California
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Slightly Liberal
Do you agree that free trade improves productive efficiency and offers consumers better choices, and that in the long run these gains are much larger than any effects on employment?
 
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I strongly disagree with that. The only reason for free trade is to outsource to a country where you can pay workers a drastically cheaper wage. 80 hour work weeks, 23-37 cents an hour, lack of worker protection laws and lack of environmental laws is why companies outsource to China.Free trade just means businesses can pocket more money at the expense of workers. This does not in any shape or form improve the product or choices. It just means it is another corner to cut and that companies without any restrictive tariffs in place can undermine actual American companies and goods.Which causes those local companies to drastically cut corners on their products in order to compete with outsourced companies,this is why some American products are crap now.All the big screen TVs at wal-mart don't mean dick if your decent paying job is outsourced and as a result you have to take a lower paying job.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22507-2004Feb7?language=printer
Li said these factories often require employees to work as many as 80 hours per week during the busy season for $75 to $110 per month, violating Chinese labor laws.
 
Do you agree that free trade improves productive efficiency and offers consumers better choices, and that in the long run these gains are much larger than any effects on employment?

not without similar worker safety and environmental protection measures in the nations that are part of the agreement. it's simply a race to the bottom without some regulation.
 
I strongly disagree with that. The only reason for free trade is to outsource to a country where you can pay workers a drastically cheaper wage. 80 hour work weeks, 23-37 cents an hour, lack of worker protection laws and lack of environmental laws is why companies outsource to China.Free trade just means businesses can pocket more money at the expense of workers. This does not in any shape or form improve the product or choices. It just means it is another corner to cut and that companies without any restrictive tariffs in place can undermine actual American companies and goods.Which causes those local companies to drastically cut corners on their products in order to compete with outsourced companies,this is why some American products are crap now.All the big screen TVs at wal-mart don't mean dick if your decent paying job is outsourced and as a result you have to take a lower paying job.

washingtonpost.com: Chinese Workers Pay for Wal-Mart's Low Prices
Li said these factories often require employees to work as many as 80 hours per week during the busy season for $75 to $110 per month, violating Chinese labor laws.

You use ONE example of the most repressive countries on the planet, that I agree should have moderate tarrifs applied to its goods. But think that "protectionist" argument through a little bit more. Try using a county, state or even a region within the country and apply that same "logic". The problem is that all raw materials and skilled workers (the means of production) are not evenly distributed, just as not all land is suitable for farming, and even that which is, may not be suitable for certain crops. If place A is well suited for cotton farming, but not for lumber milling, and place B is good for lumber milling yet not for cotton farming, it is best if they simply trade with each other and not try to wall out "competition" and each try to do both things for themselves.

It is a good thing to trade instead of trying to do all things well only for yourself. Specialization increases efficiency and reduces costs; you don't grow your own food, make your own clothing or build your own home, yet you want and need all these things, so you provide a different product/service and trade that for those other things.
 
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You use ONE example of the most repressive countries on the planet, that I agree should have moderate tarrifs applied to its goods. But think that "protectionist" argument through a little bit more. Try using a county, state or even a region within the country and apply that same "logic". The problem is that all raw materials and skilled workers (the means of production) are not evenly distributed, just as not all land is suitable for farming, and even that which is, may not be suitable for certain crops. If place A is well suited for cotton farming, but not for lumber milling, and place B is good for lumber milling yet not for cotton farming, it is best if they simply trade with each other and not try to wall out "competition" and each try to do both things for themselves.

It is a good thing to trade instead of trying to do all things well only for yourself. Specialization increases efficiency and reduces costs; you don't grow your own food, make your own clothing or build your own home, yet you want and need all these things, so you provide a different product/service and trade that for those other things.
Why would I apply that to states and counties? That doesn't make any sense.Were talking about free trade with other countries.
 
You use ONE example of the most repressive countries on the planet, that I agree should have moderate tarrifs applied to its goods. But think that "protectionist" argument through a little bit more. Try using a county, state or even a region within the country and apply that same "logic". The problem is that all raw materials and skilled workers (the means of production) are not evenly distributed, just as not all land is suitable for farming, and even that which is, may not be suitable for certain crops. If place A is well suited for cotton farming, but not for lumber milling, and place B is good for lumber milling yet not for cotton farming, it is best if they simply trade with each other and not try to wall out "competition" and each try to do both things for themselves.

It is a good thing to trade instead of trying to do all things well only for yourself. Specialization increases efficiency and reduces costs; you don't grow your own food, make your own clothing or build your own home, yet you want and need all these things, so you provide a different product/service and trade that for those other things.
If I understand jamesrage's argument correctly it's the same as mine and it would easily stand up to your other state/region assessment because, in this country at least, the environmental, industrial, and labor laws are all the same across the nation. A factory in Alabama has to pay the same minimum wage, work with the same overtime rules, meet the same worker safety standard, and meet the same environmental goals as the same kind of factory would in Washington State. The factory in China has none of these requirements, or if they do they regularly break those rules and the Chinese government looks the other way.

Slapping "tariffs", or whatever you want to call them, on goods from countries that don't even come close to meeting the same standards we have is not "protectionism" it's leveling the playing field. Otherwise it's exactly as Helix has stated it - a race to the bottom.
 
Why would I apply that to states and counties? That doesn't make any sense.Were talking about free trade with other countries.

The U.S. was started as independent states, united under a free trade and common protection agreement.
It's been absolutely horrible for us, to trade freely between the different states, right?
 
Do you agree that free trade improves productive efficiency and offers consumers better choices, and that in the long run these gains are much larger than any effects on employment?

I disagree.

Rather than Free Trade I want Fair Trade.

That is I think we should pursue such free trade policies with countries who allow their citizens to exercise their human rights.

The reason why is because what tends to happen in countries that commit human rights abuses is the corporations there exploit the population to make more of a buck to the countries they are exporting to.

So this creates a race to the bottom of which country allows their businesses to treat their workers the worst.

So what I want is a series of tariffs on any nation that abuses the human rights of their people. That way those nations that respect such human rights may compete on a level playing field with those who don't.
 
The U.S. was started as independent states, united under a free trade and common protection agreement.
It's been absolutely horrible for us, to trade freely between the different states, right?

Except that the states have pretty comparable human rights protections with each other.

Nations can vary wildly in that regard. Which is why I want to put human rights tariffs on products imported from nations that abuse human rights.
 
Free trade has been wonderfully beneficial to economic growth on both a local and global scale over the years, if anything, I'd like to see further reduction in trade barriers in the immediate future.
 
Along with most economists, I agree that freer trade policy generally increases overall welfare.
 
I don't like the idea of unlimited free trade that allows international corps to dump cheap products on the US made elsewhere, sucking all the wealth and jobs out of this country. There has to be a compromise that protects and balances the economic equation besides capitalism unchecked. I've long held that fair trade is a combination of rules, regulations and tariffs that gives other nations that want our business reasonable guidelines to follow besides anything goes.
 
I don't like the idea of unlimited free trade that allows international corps to dump cheap products on the US made elsewhere, sucking all the wealth and jobs out of this country. There has to be a compromise that protects and balances the economic equation besides capitalism unchecked. I've long held that fair trade is a combination of rules, regulations and tariffs that gives other nations that want our business reasonable guidelines to follow besides anything goes.

Yes, free trade doesn't mean absolutely unbridled trade policy. Obviously there should still be regulations and standards involved. But on the whole, I'm against economic protectionism.
 
I tend to agree with everyone who thinks free trade is a race to the bottom and is harming the US economy but…….
If you look at this in the big picture and think ahead a generation or two free trade may be not only a good thing but an unavoidable thing. After WW2 the US was basically the only industrialized nation that didn’t have its infrastructure and economy destroyed. For many years we had a virtual monopoly on production, we built what we wanted to sell, the world paid our asking price and US comps compensated their workers handsomely with luxurious pay and benefit packages.
As Europe and Japan rebuilt and got back on their feet we faced some stiff competition for the first time in decades and Japan took over electronic manufacturing and made huge inroads into our auto industry. Now the entire third world is joining the club and they are willing to work long hours at low wages to insure a position in the club.
As they dump this cheap stuff on the market wages in the US go down and we lose jobs but this may be a necessary and inevitable fact of life. As the third world prospers they will become educated and expect a better life style and higher wages. At some point a balance will be achieved and everyone will start moving up together. The era of the US being the top dog economic super power may be winding down, things change.
 
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Perfectly free trade is ideal on paper, and compromised in real life.

If it was used to capitalize on comparative/absolute advantages, I'd say go for it. If it's an attempt to circumvent nations and attempt to "equal" an unequal race, I'm against it.
 
Yes, free trade doesn't mean absolutely unbridled trade policy. Obviously there should still be regulations and standards involved. But on the whole, I'm against economic protectionism.

Multinationals are avoiding paying fair taxes with offshore banking and accounting tricks. They buy legislation that favors their tactics, using desperate people as cheap slave labor, which leaves everybody hurting but them. The extremists from one end say capitalism is self correcting and the other end wants complete gov over-control. There's got to be a happy medium.

Some amount of patriotism is not protectionism. If we wanted to have absolutely no barriers of economic protection against intl corporate raiding, then we might not as well bother with borders or calling ourselves a separate nation. Let's just drop the pretense that The United States of America exists and call us the 50 states of the world. If we are willing to spend billions in defense funds and sacrifice soldiers lives to protect strategic petroleum assets, then why not regulate some of the trade/markets better?
 
Except that the states have pretty comparable human rights protections with each other.

Nations can vary wildly in that regard. Which is why I want to put human rights tariffs on products imported from nations that abuse human rights.

Errr, the South had slavery, north had little to no worker protections.
I think you need to reread these things.
 
Errr, the South had slavery, north had little to no worker protections.
I think you need to reread these things.

Yes, which is why they are still comparable - workers had it horrible in both the North and the South prior to the Civil War.

But during the Progressive Era and after, things were able to get a little better for all involved because the federal government was able to establish certain nationwide standards for all businesses, especially regarding the safety of their products and the safety of their workers at the workplace. The federal government could enforce basic worker protections between the states.

We don't have anything like that on an international level, though, and the bulk of the profits made on these free trade deals are going to multinational corporations, their shareholders, and their executives rather than going to the workers. It's only now that Chinese factory workers are demanding more wages, more benefits, and more rights, which will inevitably increase the costs of importing goods from them. And we'll see if the Chinese government will provide those them to their workers.

And if we don't, Africa may be next target for cheap factory workers.
 
Why would I apply that to states and counties? That doesn't make any sense.Were talking about free trade with other countries.

You do not seem to see what the effect of tarriffs are, so I thought perhaps if you thought about it on a smaller scale that you would then see the effect. If nation A has 70% of the shoe export market, and nation B has 70% of the wheat export market, does sit make any sense to ignore that and insist on nation A trying to produce its own wheat, and nation B trying to establish its own shoe industry? It saves both nations a lot of time, money and trouble to simply trade with each other. I guess you think that the USA can be totally self contained, just like you are, since you grow (or hunt for) all of your own food, make all of your own clothing, furniture and appliances (and are thus likely way too busy to make anything to sell). Nations, just as people, cities, counties and states would be foolish to try to do everything for themselves and ignore trading with others, selling what they can make a surplus of and then buying what they lack.
 
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Do you agree that free trade improves productive efficiency and offers consumers better choices, and that in the long run these gains are much larger than any effects on employment?

Free Trade offers Consumer more choices, I will agree with that part, but with a hidden cost.

Does it produce more efficiency, maybe.

Does it kill US employment, yes.

Free Trade has brought in thousands of Junk Imports, many of those products are laced with Lead and others have killed our Pets, made people sick, etc.

Due to Cheap Import Products, many US companies have moved manufacturing to cheap labor Countries.

Call me crazy, but if 80% of the foreign imports were no longer available, I would not be sad, yes I would be willing to pay more for American Made, but also most of my fellow Americans would have a job too :)
 
Free Trade offers Consumer more choices, I will agree with that part, but with a hidden cost.

Does it produce more efficiency, maybe.

Does it kill US employment, yes.

Free Trade has brought in thousands of Junk Imports, many of those products are laced with Lead and others have killed our Pets, made people sick, etc.

Due to Cheap Import Products, many US companies have moved manufacturing to cheap labor Countries.

Call me crazy, but if 80% of the foreign imports were no longer available, I would not be sad, yes I would be willing to pay more for American Made, but also most of my fellow Americans would have a job too :)

Any Capitalist...regardless of stripe...must inherently see Free Trade as worthwhile.

These companies will succeed or fail, based on income.

There is no negative in a capitalist formula.
 
I strongly disagree with that. The only reason for free trade is to outsource to a country where you can pay workers a drastically cheaper wage. 80 hour work weeks, 23-37 cents an hour, lack of worker protection laws and lack of environmental laws is why companies outsource to China.Free trade just means businesses can pocket more money at the expense of workers. This does not in any shape or form improve the product or choices. It just means it is another corner to cut and that companies without any restrictive tariffs in place can undermine actual American companies and goods.Which causes those local companies to drastically cut corners on their products in order to compete with outsourced companies,this is why some American products are crap now.All the big screen TVs at wal-mart don't mean dick if your decent paying job is outsourced and as a result you have to take a lower paying job.

washingtonpost.com: Chinese Workers Pay for Wal-Mart's Low Prices
Li said these factories often require employees to work as many as 80 hours per week during the busy season for $75 to $110 per month, violating Chinese labor laws.
Conservative?
This is one conservative who can think for himself.
 
The U.S. was started as independent states, united under a free trade and common protection agreement.It's been absolutely horrible for us, to trade freely between the different states, right?

The United States is one country.We're not trying to become one country with China,India or some other country companies outsource to. If a company outsources from New York to Oklahoma the only difference is that the wages might be slightly less.There won't be no 80 hour work weeks, 23-37 cents an hour, lack of worker protection laws and lack of environmental laws for a company to exploit.
 
You do not seem to see what the effect of tarriffs are, so I thought perhaps if you thought about it on a smaller scale that you would then see the effect. If nation A has 70% of the shoe export market, and nation B has 70% of the wheat export market, does sit make any sense to ignore that and insist on nation A trying to produce its own wheat, and nation B trying to establish its own shoe industry?
It saves both nations a lot of time, money and trouble to simply trade with each other. I guess you think that the USA can be totally self contained, just like you are, since you grow (or hunt for) all of your own food, make all of your own clothing, furniture and appliances (and are thus likely way too busy to make anything to sell). Nations, just as people, cities, counties and states would be foolish to try to do everything for themselves and ignore trading with others, selling what they can make a surplus of and then buying what they lack.

I never said I was against trading with other countries.Not once did I say the US should be self contained. What I do not support is unrestricted trade.I do not support companies being allowed to outsource so that they can have workers work 80 hour work weeks for 23-37 cents an hour, lack of worker protection laws and lack of environmental laws. No American company can compete with those things without drastically cutting corners to their products.
 
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