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Has free trade been good for the United States?

Has free trade been good for the United States

  • Yes

    Votes: 10 37.0%
  • No

    Votes: 17 63.0%

  • Total voters
    27
Economists have advocated the notion of comparative advantage to advance the cause of free trade. The idea is that group A can produce a commodity B more efficiently than group C. C can produce commodity D more efficiently than A. Therefore A and C should trade B and D instead of trying to produce it themselves. It sounds good in theory, but when applied on a global level between nations, problems can arise.

Actually that's not comparative advantage. That's a common misunderstanding of what comparative advantage is.
 
The manufacturing jobs will be automatized regardless. It's not unavoidable, you can require that the manufacturing be done here when possible or impose tariffs to take away the incentive to outsource.

it's really not that simple. the incentives to outsource are so great that it would require serious tariffs that have absolutely no chance of becoming law, and if those tariffs were put into place, technology would replace workers. the best bet is to not enter into free trade agreements with nations that don't observe OSHA and pollution controls, but even that's a done deal now.

honestly, i'm all for the tariffs with sweatshop labor markets regardless, but it will not be the protection for labor that you think it will be. the only thing it will accomplish is to give government more money to hire people, which frankly needs to be done. the private sector simply isn't providing enough good, secure career opportunities at this point.
 
This is a dangerous concept. Karl Marx predicted that once capitalism conquered the entire globe, raising wages around the world would lead to mass unemployment and of course the breaking down of barriers creating the working class and the owners. We are ever creeping closer to this reality.

Once owners move to have machines replace people, the world will be a very dangerous place as global wariness of the super rich is ever growing. While I am a firm believer in capitalism, I am afraid that the system has become too stacked to really call the global market free and competitive. At some point, if changes are not made, the whole house will come crashing down.

Come crashing down to what is the question. Perhaps a system in which the powerful have private armies that simply enslave people.
 
Actually that's not comparative advantage. That's a common misunderstanding of what comparative advantage is.

Well it's been a while. That's what I remember off the top of my head. Please tell us what is the correct understanding.
 
it's really not that simple. the incentives to outsource are so great that it would require serious tariffs that have absolutely no chance of becoming law, and if those tariffs were put into place, technology would replace workers. the best bet is to not enter into free trade agreements with nations that don't observe OSHA and pollution controls, but even that's a done deal now.

Let's ignore the obstacles for enacting the tariffs into law. What I'm saying is that technology would replace workers anyway and at least we would not be sending money to places like China. Not only that, but I think at a certain point, technology will reach it's limit. It requires energy and the supply is finite. It ruins the environment and one day that will ruin into it's upper limit as well.

honestly, i'm all for the tariffs with sweatshop labor markets regardless, but it will not be the protection for labor that you think it will be. the only thing it will accomplish is to give government more money to hire people, which frankly needs to be done. the private sector simply isn't providing enough good, secure career opportunities at this point.

If the government used the money for educating people properly and creating the infrastructure for a sustainable economy, e.g. renewable sources of energy and localized, environment friendly farming that doesn't rely on huge transport costs, it would be well worth the investment.
 
Besides the jobs going to those countries and Americans having to rely on and be at the mercy for other countries to produce goods we need, those American dollars are going towards increasing and strengthening that country's military..Look at China for example their military is growing stronger everyday because of sell out companies outsourcing to China.What the **** did the traitors in office think China was going to do with all that extra revenue,give it to the poor in their country?

That is a very good point, and I left that out on purpose. I'm glad you brought that up because it is very important.
 
Let's ignore the obstacles for enacting the tariffs into law. What I'm saying is that technology would replace workers anyway and at least we would not be sending money to places like China. Not only that, but I think at a certain point, technology will reach it's limit. It requires energy and the supply is finite. It ruins the environment and one day that will ruin into it's upper limit as well.



If the government used the money for educating people properly and creating the infrastructure for a sustainable economy, e.g. renewable sources of energy and localized, environment friendly farming that doesn't rely on huge transport costs, it would be well worth the investment.

i don't disagree, and have argued for the same thing repeatedly on this site. however, i'm pessimistic that we can bring back well paying private sector manufacturing jobs. those in charge of making things pretty much only care about two aspects of it :

1. growth

2. profit

that's why i'm for more public projects and public / private partnerships. but i'm all for infrastructure and replacing our energy model / significantly upgrading the electrical grid.
 
What is more disturbing than the actual money is that corporations have given technology transfers to the Chinese just to take advantage of the cheap labor and low environmental regulations. For example, GE provided the Chinese government with their jet engine technology in order that they could produce appliances in China and have access to the Chinese market.

I consider such acts by American corporations to be treason.

I didn't get into the details, but this was rather interesting

Washingtonpost.com: Key Stories on Chinese Missile Allegations
 
those in charge of making things pretty much only care about two aspects of it :

1. growth

2. profit

That's the problem, proper leadership. That's were democracy is supposed to kick in and people put in the right leaders in place to enact change. But we don't educate people properly so they are easily deceived by propaganda.

And maybe that's why we are not educating people properly. Perhaps the powerful want people to be ignorant so that they can be exploited. Part of me does not want to accept that, but maybe it's the case. I actually heard one very popular talk radio host say one time: "why are we teaching people political science anyway?" The point was that it was making people to "uppity."
 
That's the problem, proper leadership. That's were democracy is supposed to kick in and people put in the right leaders in place to enact change. But we don't educate people properly so they are easily deceived by propaganda.

And maybe that's why we are not educating people properly. Perhaps the powerful want people to be ignorant so that they can be exploited. Part of me does not want to accept that, but maybe it's the case. I actually heard one very popular talk radio host say one time: "why are we teaching people political science anyway?" The point was that it was making people to "uppity."

it's less a nefarious conspiracy than it is neglect. those who are in power are just interested in other things. also, they don't really prioritize education except as a political issue.
 
it's less a nefarious conspiracy than it is neglect. those who are in power are just interested in other things. also, they don't really prioritize education except as a political issue.

Perhaps. Then my response is that is also the result of ignorance. And that brings things back to square one, why are people so ignorant? It is the result of the influence of materialism. Materialism makes people ignorant, because it is based on ignorance.
 
Perhaps. Then my response is that is also the result of ignorance. And that brings things back to square one, why are people so ignorant? It is the result of the influence of materialism. Materialism makes people ignorant, because it is based on ignorance.

mostly, it's confirmation bias. many of us think that we have it figured out, and we search out evidence that reinforces our views in favor of evidence that might challenge these views. and there's always some "other" to rail against. i am far from perfectly objective, myself. what we need is to brainstorm without namecalling and categorizing. i struggle with this like anyone else, because it's difficult when the primary reaction is visceral rather than logical.
 
Can you point to some reference that supports your assertion that economists regularly recognize that free trade benefits only a few?

I said that economists regularly recognize that free trade can benefit only a few. To restate in a more words: In some cases free trade can result in benefiting only the few, while in other cases it can result in benefiting the majority.

You asked for a link, and I will give you one. However, I have a degree in business, and the school I attended specialized in economics. We had excellent economics instruction, and I excelled in economics. What I have stated above is one of the many aspects we were taught about free trade in certain circumstances. However, I can't stand it when people won't provide a link on here, so as I have said I have found a very good article to share. It is by an economist. Hopefully it will help readers to think through the issues for themselves.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/the-free-trade-blues/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Here is one quote that I thought was interesting: "Many economists continue to believe that increased foreign trade is a rising tide that will eventually lift all boats." I sometimes laugh heartily when economists coldly calculate the impact of economics on regular people. Notice the weasel word 'eventually' in that sentence. With that word in the sentence, I actually believe that the sentence is true in probably 100% of cases. But 'eventually' can be a significant amount of time. In bad situations it can be 50 or more years. And things can really suck pretty damn bad, and get worse for a while, for a significant portion of a people. But, it always immediately benefits wealthy people. In such cases, free trade should hardly be called good economic policy, whatever the eventual benefits.

I became a computer programmer, because I knew that the career would likely ride out the tides that I knew were coming to our middle classes. Now those tides have arrived, and I have been doing dandy while others struggle. It is easy for me to take some solace on behalf of those others in the fact that those tides will eventually lift all boats. But I would nevertheless sorely hate to be one of them. And I could be, should conditions change and my strategy ultimately fail.

The American people have been sold a load of bull**** about the way this whole globalization deal was going to work out for them. It was largely sold to them through manipulative storytelling based on oversimplified views of the way economics works.
 
mostly, it's confirmation bias. many of us think that we have it figured out, and we search out evidence that reinforces our views in favor of evidence that might challenge these views. and there's always some "other" to rail against. i am far from perfectly objective, myself. what we need is to brainstorm without namecalling and categorizing. i struggle with this like anyone else, because it's difficult when the primary reaction is visceral rather than logical.

Well I hope I'm not being misunderstood here because I am just as much a victim as everyone else. But sometimes you have to call a spade what it is otherwise there is no way forward. One can try to dispute the notion that there is a living being who is the observer, that is constrained in knowledge through a particular set of senses from which it is receiving input from the environment, and a mind through which it is interpreting that input, but it will remain so. Just like a computer has devices through which it receives input, the living being is receiving input from it's senses. And just as a computer needs an operating system and programs through which the input is received and interpreted, the living being has a mind that is receiving the input and interpreting it as good, bad, important, not important, etc. When the living being is too overwhelmed from input from it's senses, say for instance in the experience of hunger or sex impulse, it's knowledge becomes restricted. At that time it has the tendency to focus on obtaining what will satisfy it's senses and tuning out everything else. Indeed persons under such influence can forget everything about right or wrong, as what becomes right is what will satisfy that need. Lying, stealing, killing can all become means to the end. Such a distortion of priorities is the result of a mind focused on material objects, i.e. materialism. I really don't mean to be calling names, but that is the dilemma.
 
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So the question is, has free trade been good for the United States?

It could be but we don't like it. America is having trouble adjusting to our new status as second, third, fourth or fifth place in the world.

There has always been free trade whether we like it or not. You can make laws but people will break them when it comes to making money. America is about to see a big boom again once we accept our different role(s) in the world economy.

We'll be fine. Free Trade is bad in the short run. For example: If I have the only grocery store in town and someone opens a new grocery store next door, that would be very bad for the grocery store owner but very good for the community.

The temporary losers will always cry foul because they enjoy being in an advantaged position. What the temporary loser doesn't realize is that competition allows the grocery to become even better and better. There is no room for mediocre service or mediocre quality when there is competetion.

Free Trade is great for the United States. We just have to give it time to ride the bumpy waves of transition.
 
Exactly! Why pay a man 15 bucks/hour in America when you can make some kid in China do it for 35 cents/day. Why pay for environmental protection when you can get some country that has no quarrels polluting the earth and dumping toxic chemicals in the water. It's a lot cheaper when you don't have to pay your workers or clean up after yourself.

I think the days of economies based on mechanized technology are numbered. The environment will simply not support it. Either we will run the environment in the ground and people will start to die off in large numbers and it will stop, or humans will realize it's simply not sustainable and return to a sustainable, agrarian based economy. That's what's coming.

The world will NOT turn back an agrarian economy. That is simply not an option.
Mechanized economics is the only way to go. If the USA would not have had the powerful union laws it had, the industries would have mechanized and automated and more of the labor would be done by machines than by people and there would still be a good manufacturing base in the USA. Also, it would also go greener because why not. And they wouldn't be moving to China. But they have and that's that and because China doesn't care about the environment, 21% of all cancer cases reported globally are in china.

The future is technological. it may not be those beautiful white cities with the cool looking buildings and trams that go fast on lines in all directions in our lifetimes... but at some point in some places in the world, that's coming. Heck, China made enormous efforts to make their cities greener too. So have all the western countries.
Green tech, green energy, smart computers and automated industry.
 
Free trade is almost always good, imo.

It makes consumer prices/costs lower through less tariffs/taxes/fees and better competition.

And if another country won't play ball...don't buy their stuff.

And if another country, like America, has gotten too fat, bloated and lazy to compete...then they better smarten up...or die.

Survival of the fittest...not the flabbiest.
 
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Free trade is almost always good, imo.

It makes consumer prices/costs lower through less tariffs/taxes/fees and better competition.

And if another country won't play ball...don't buy their stuff.

Of course free trade is more efficient. It will have effects, however, that will discomfort some people in the real world. That total welfare in the economic sense is higher is nonetheless true.
 
Economists have advocated the notion of comparative advantage to advance the cause of free trade. The idea is that group A can produce a commodity B more efficiently than group C. C can produce commodity D more efficiently than A. Therefore A and C should trade B and D instead of trying to produce it themselves. It sounds good in theory, but when applied on a global level between nations, problems can arise.

Today we see the United States runs a huge trade deficit with China as a result of the implementation of such ideas. In fact the United States does not have sufficient commodities or manufactured goods to trade with China. The deficit is only maintained because China is willing to accept US dollars as payment for it's goods.

This arrangement has resulted in the loss of US jobs to other countries which has hurt many Americans. Not only that but it has increased the debt of individual Americans and the US government.

So the question is, has free trade been good for the United States?

It is not the free trade that is a problem.

I do not want to be boring and go into too much detail. But fixing or pegging currencies against each other causes vast problems. We saw, what fixed rates do, when Bretton Woods collapsed and it was just demonstrated by Euroland, where the fixed rates have caused 15 years of successive miseries.

That the Chinese or Eurocrats have verbose explanations why their's is an exception to reality is for fooks.
 
Is free trade good for the United States? Who is the United States?
It's good for business.
It's not good for the average American employee.
Do the poor matter?
If the poor starve how does that hurt the rich? Which is considered "the United States" the rich or the poor?
The corporate states of America will flourish if we don't pander to the weak. If we allow the weak to die off leaving more resources to those at the the top our country will become stronger. The question is who in the united states matter so we know who it is we are talking about when you say United States.
 
I said that economists regularly recognize that free trade can benefit only a few. To restate in a more words: In some cases free trade can result in benefiting only the few, while in other cases it can result in benefiting the majority.

I'm sorry. I misunderstood.

Here is one quote that I thought was interesting: "Many economists continue to believe that increased foreign trade is a rising tide that will eventually lift all boats." I sometimes laugh heartily when economists coldly calculate the impact of economics on regular people. Notice the weasel word 'eventually' in that sentence. With that word in the sentence, I actually believe that the sentence is true in probably 100% of cases. But 'eventually' can be a significant amount of time. In bad situations it can be 50 or more years. And things can really suck pretty damn bad, and get worse for a while, for a significant portion of a people. But, it always immediately benefits wealthy people. In such cases, free trade should hardly be called good economic policy, whatever the eventual benefits.

I agree with what you have said here with the exception that 100 percent of the time it will lift all boats. I think what it eventually does 100 percent of the time is to level out an uneven situation between two economies. For example, I think the outsourcing of labor will eventually have the effect of driving down wages here until they are in equilibrium with the other countries. Something that will be very painful for people living here.

I became a computer programmer, because I knew that the career would likely ride out the tides that I knew were coming to our middle classes. Now those tides have arrived, and I have been doing dandy while others struggle. It is easy for me to take some solace on behalf of those others in the fact that those tides will eventually lift all boats. But I would nevertheless sorely hate to be one of them. And I could be, should conditions change and my strategy ultimately fail.

That's interesting. What sort of programming do you do and what languages do you use?

The American people have been sold a load of bull**** about the way this whole globalization deal was going to work out for them. It was largely sold to them through manipulative storytelling based on oversimplified views of the way economics works.

I agree with you. I also think that economists put too much faith in the theory of comparative advantage. Like I said, I think one big flaw is that it assumes that everyone can engage in the production of the goods that might be most efficiently produced by an economy. And that simply is not the case. Not everyone in the US is cut out to be an aerospace engineer.
 
It could be but we don't like it. America is having trouble adjusting to our new status as second, third, fourth or fifth place in the world.

There has always been free trade whether we like it or not. You can make laws but people will break them when it comes to making money. America is about to see a big boom again once we accept our different role(s) in the world economy.

We'll be fine. Free Trade is bad in the short run. For example: If I have the only grocery store in town and someone opens a new grocery store next door, that would be very bad for the grocery store owner but very good for the community.

The temporary losers will always cry foul because they enjoy being in an advantaged position. What the temporary loser doesn't realize is that competition allows the grocery to become even better and better. There is no room for mediocre service or mediocre quality when there is competetion.

Free Trade is great for the United States. We just have to give it time to ride the bumpy waves of transition.

I don't think the big problem is so much quality, although in some cases that is true. The problem is that there are simply different costs and standards of living. As a result of that, US workers are at a disadvantage.

Like I said to someone else, I can only see wages being driven down here as a result, as well as standards of living. I don't think that is good.
 
The world will NOT turn back an agrarian economy. That is simply not an option.
Mechanized economics is the only way to go. If the USA would not have had the powerful union laws it had, the industries would have mechanized and automated and more of the labor would be done by machines than by people and there would still be a good manufacturing base in the USA. Also, it would also go greener because why not. And they wouldn't be moving to China. But they have and that's that and because China doesn't care about the environment, 21% of all cancer cases reported globally are in china.

The future is technological. it may not be those beautiful white cities with the cool looking buildings and trams that go fast on lines in all directions in our lifetimes... but at some point in some places in the world, that's coming. Heck, China made enormous efforts to make their cities greener too. So have all the western countries.
Green tech, green energy, smart computers and automated industry.

China has very few labor and environmental laws. I don't buy that this is all fault of the Union. Its easier for corporations to support child labor and massive pollution than to pay the engineers to automate a work force. So long as they have the reasonable option to use cheap labor, they will not tech up.
 
The world will NOT turn back an agrarian economy. That is simply not an option.
Mechanized economics is the only way to go. If the USA would not have had the powerful union laws it had, the industries would have mechanized and automated and more of the labor would be done by machines than by people and there would still be a good manufacturing base in the USA. Also, it would also go greener because why not. And they wouldn't be moving to China. But they have and that's that and because China doesn't care about the environment, 21% of all cancer cases reported globally are in china.

The future is technological. it may not be those beautiful white cities with the cool looking buildings and trams that go fast on lines in all directions in our lifetimes... but at some point in some places in the world, that's coming. Heck, China made enormous efforts to make their cities greener too. So have all the western countries.
Green tech, green energy, smart computers and automated industry.

I don't agree with you. It may take a devastating event like a nuclear war to make it happen, but it will happen eventually. The large scale use of technology requires the use of limited resources such as metals, oil, coal, uranium, chemicals, etc. These things cannot be replaced as rapidly as they are used when there is the large scale use of technology. Then there is the harm to the environment itself that will render it unsuitable to sustain life.

Furthermore, the technology itself becomes dangerous. Like I said, unless the leaders of the world change, it is very likely that there will be a big nuclear war. There would be very little left in North America that would be able to sustain human life. The human race would survive, but there would have to be some drastic changes in the way we live.
 
It is not the free trade that is a problem.

I do not want to be boring and go into too much detail. But fixing or pegging currencies against each other causes vast problems. We saw, what fixed rates do, when Bretton Woods collapsed and it was just demonstrated by Euroland, where the fixed rates have caused 15 years of successive miseries.

That the Chinese or Eurocrats have verbose explanations why their's is an exception to reality is for fooks.

If the Chinese didn't to that we would cheat them by devaluing the dollar. It's a problem for us because we have to pay back the money that we borrowed because we don't have enough to trade. And that is a result of the difference in wages and as some have pointed out different environmental and safety standards.
 
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