Toby :: Free-Trade

"Free trade stops wars!" Yay Toby!

I can't believe I agree with Toby on something! Too bad our president doesn't... its amazing how much "progressive" labor and Lou Dobbs nativists have in common on this issue.

This is what I love about the West Wing: It prompts these kinds of discussions. And whether you agree with each other or not, and however angry you all are at each other, there's a debate about free trade between total strangers that's been started by a popular television series. It's television that makes you think.

And also Toby is hilarious when he rants. I love that, too.

Free trade would be an even better idea if workers and consumers had the means to form more co-operative and democratic workplaces and markets.

The problem with the current brand of so-called "free" trade, is that monopoly and concentrated wealth now exist on a global scale. They are able to act as the unaccountable, distorting middlemen between what would be freer, more diverse, more competitive and more perfect markets without them.

Labour and consumerism continues to be institutionalised.

No outdated information applies to this

The Stolper and Samuelson theorem (1941) says that the wages of workers would rise higher than the costs of imported goods *when a tariff is imposed*! Basically the theorem refutes the belief free trade will guarantee the rise of real wages of workers. In other words, international trade actually lowers real wages and thus makes imported goods more expensive because workers have less to spend on goods.

As I read it, the Stolper and Samuelson says the wage of the scarce factor of production will decline whereas that of the abundant factor will increase. Basically, it predicts that free trade causes the wages of unskilled labor to go down in developed nations and up in developing nations, and vice versa for more advanced nations.

In other words, trade restrictions only help some workers by hurting others (while hurting all the consumers).

If the US government was corrupted, what makes one think that a one world government would not be corrupted?

What happens when that one government is corrupted? There is no other choice and then the people are screwed and things are not so peaceful. The entire crap about free trade promoting peace is a lie to sell you so that the power elites can reign in the ultimate of all power; control of the world!

Free trade means that elites have the freedom to control and ruin you and your nation.

No, free trade means the elites have less control, that the market controls things. If elites are free to make controls on people as they see fit, they will make the controls how they see fit. Free trade allows people to exchange goods and services with each other across national boundaries.

The elite run a rigged game and their game is not free trade. 19,000 pages of NAFTA is not free trade, it is 19,000 pages of pay off to the elites that call it free trade to divide the people: that is the first rule in ruling: divide the people. I agree world gov will be worse than current as the corruption will be un stoppable. True free trade is the answer as it destroys rigged games currently used by the elites.