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Someone sold you something if you think free trade is a beneficial condition worth striving for. It benefits a handful of major corporations at the expense of t

Someone sold you something if you think free trade is a beneficial condition worth striving for. It benefits a handful of major corporations at the expense of the populace.

aianus 11y ago
Would love to hear more in detail about how free trade hurts the population at large.
- knieveltech 11y ago
  I'm quite certain that's sarcasm. If it were actually true you'd have already googled the subject and be quietly reading right now. Edit: what the hell, I'll play your game. "Critics of the TPP reference the failures of NAFTA, which was first conceived during this period by the original champion of trickle-down, Ronald Reagan. Leading up to the 1994 elections, NAFTA garnered bipartisan support, but lone wolf, Independent candidate Ross Perot warned of the "giant sucking sound" that America would hear if NAFTA passed and American jobs were drawn south. Global Trade Watch's assessment of NAFTA's "20 year legacy" demonstrates just how right Perot was. An estimated one million jobs have been lost to NAFTA. It's put downward pressure on wages, and exacerbated America's income gap. And while pre-NAFTA, the U.S carried a trade surplus with Mexico, and was just $26 billion in the hole with Canada--as of 2014, we had a combined trade deficit with both countries of $177 billon." From the following article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-gautney/why-the-transpacific-part_1_b_6598604.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-gautney/why-the-transp... So, in summary: it suppresses wages, costs jobs, and exacerbates income inequality. Market efficiencies created by globalization also have a tendency to drive all but the largest players out of any given market. Surely you don't claim lowered wages and pressure on small to medium sized businesses to try to compete on a global scale are in any way beneficial to the larger populace? You don't honestly believe having access to cheap goods is more beneficial than plentiful, well-paying jobs? Edit: some additional light reading: http://www.citizen.org/nafta http://www.citizen.org/nafta
  - wpietri 11y ago
    If you believe that trade hurts workers, shouldn't we also cut off trade between the states? I think it's hard to deny that in general free trade produces net benefits. (If it didn't, then we would presumably each make all of our own stuff and never trade.) I could well believe that a particular trade deal has problems or is even net bad, and I don't have a strong opinion on NAFTA. But but even if NAFTA is bad says very little about whether all trade is bad.
    - knieveltech 11y ago
      I said unregulated trade hurts workers, not all trade. Stating unregulated trade hurts workers isn't a "belief". It's not like it's a faith-based assertion lacking any real world evidence to support it. Trade tarrifs have been used as a revenue stream for the federal government and as a protective measure for domestic industry since the 1700s. The heart of the issue is working class humans benefit from a certain level of market inefficiency. Having many small local concerns engaged in a a particular market segment is inefficient as each has to capitalize equipment and labor force to do essentially the same thing. When the market "optimizes" one of two things happen, wages in that market segment make a run for the bottom, and smaller concerns either consolidate through a series of mergers and acquisitions or they are squeezed out of the market. What you're arguing in favor of is one of the major market forces that is driving income inequality in the US. Are you proposing that trickle down economics actually work?
      - wpietri 11y ago
        I am not proposing that trickle-down economics work. Again, if you believe that unregulated trade hurts workers, shouldn't we stop trade between the US states? My guess is no. Because it's not like your proposing an optimum economy size for maximum worker friendliness. You're just opposing a kind of change from the status quo. I agree that too much industry consolidation is a problem for workers. But I don't think that's a problem of trade. That's a problem that comes whenever you a) increase disparity in power between workers and employers and b) decrease opportunity to switch to a different employer. If we had a situation where no countries traded but each country allowed monopolies to form, workers would be screwed. If, on the other hand, we have free trade but vigorous enforcement of anti-trust and merger review, I think workers can do pretty well. I also agree that increasing trade can shift what industries do well in particular locales, which is good for some workers but bad for others. The obvious solution there is not to protect the inefficient jobs, but to tax the people doing better (some workers, all consumers) and pay for excellent retraining, and to pension off the workers who can't be retrained, and/or fund nonprofits to employ them doing something societally valuable but not profitable. As an example, look at the American auto industry. As a Michigander, I know how devastating the rise of import cars was. But honestly, that industry needed some devastation. They produced low-quality, low-reliability products and then milked consumers on repairs and flim-flam sales techniques. They did provide jobs, but often pretty terrible ones. And none of this was necessary; it's just that consolidation (which, remember, happened without trade) made a cozy oligopoly, leaving management to focus on exploitation. 40 years later they are still struggling to break this pattern, but at least now Americans can buy decent cars at reasonable prices. If you want to hear the costs of your protectionist approach, listen to this TAL episode: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/NUMMI http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/N... Listen to the pain in the GM workers' voices. Listen to the change that came from working for one of those foreign companies. And then tell me again of how workers benefit from economic inefficiency.
- hellbanner 11y ago
  Read this http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-about-Capitalism/dp/0141047976 http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-about-Capitalism/dp/0... Discusses how all free-markets are somehow government regulated.

Someone sold you something if you think free trade is a beneficial condition worth striving for. It benefits a handful of major corporations at the expense of the populace.

aianus 11y ago

Would love to hear more in detail about how free trade hurts the population at large.

knieveltech 11y ago
I'm quite certain that's sarcasm. If it were actually true you'd have already googled the subject and be quietly reading right now. Edit: what the hell, I'll play your game. "Critics of the TPP reference the failures of NAFTA, which was first conceived during this period by the original champion of trickle-down, Ronald Reagan. Leading up to the 1994 elections, NAFTA garnered bipartisan support, but lone wolf, Independent candidate Ross Perot warned of the "giant sucking sound" that America would hear if NAFTA passed and American jobs were drawn south. Global Trade Watch's assessment of NAFTA's "20 year legacy" demonstrates just how right Perot was. An estimated one million jobs have been lost to NAFTA. It's put downward pressure on wages, and exacerbated America's income gap. And while pre-NAFTA, the U.S carried a trade surplus with Mexico, and was just $26 billion in the hole with Canada--as of 2014, we had a combined trade deficit with both countries of $177 billon." From the following article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-gautney/why-the-transpacific-part_1_b_6598604.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-gautney/why-the-transp... So, in summary: it suppresses wages, costs jobs, and exacerbates income inequality. Market efficiencies created by globalization also have a tendency to drive all but the largest players out of any given market. Surely you don't claim lowered wages and pressure on small to medium sized businesses to try to compete on a global scale are in any way beneficial to the larger populace? You don't honestly believe having access to cheap goods is more beneficial than plentiful, well-paying jobs? Edit: some additional light reading: http://www.citizen.org/nafta http://www.citizen.org/nafta
- wpietri 11y ago
  If you believe that trade hurts workers, shouldn't we also cut off trade between the states? I think it's hard to deny that in general free trade produces net benefits. (If it didn't, then we would presumably each make all of our own stuff and never trade.) I could well believe that a particular trade deal has problems or is even net bad, and I don't have a strong opinion on NAFTA. But but even if NAFTA is bad says very little about whether all trade is bad.
  - knieveltech 11y ago
    I said unregulated trade hurts workers, not all trade. Stating unregulated trade hurts workers isn't a "belief". It's not like it's a faith-based assertion lacking any real world evidence to support it. Trade tarrifs have been used as a revenue stream for the federal government and as a protective measure for domestic industry since the 1700s. The heart of the issue is working class humans benefit from a certain level of market inefficiency. Having many small local concerns engaged in a a particular market segment is inefficient as each has to capitalize equipment and labor force to do essentially the same thing. When the market "optimizes" one of two things happen, wages in that market segment make a run for the bottom, and smaller concerns either consolidate through a series of mergers and acquisitions or they are squeezed out of the market. What you're arguing in favor of is one of the major market forces that is driving income inequality in the US. Are you proposing that trickle down economics actually work?
    - wpietri 11y ago
      I am not proposing that trickle-down economics work. Again, if you believe that unregulated trade hurts workers, shouldn't we stop trade between the US states? My guess is no. Because it's not like your proposing an optimum economy size for maximum worker friendliness. You're just opposing a kind of change from the status quo. I agree that too much industry consolidation is a problem for workers. But I don't think that's a problem of trade. That's a problem that comes whenever you a) increase disparity in power between workers and employers and b) decrease opportunity to switch to a different employer. If we had a situation where no countries traded but each country allowed monopolies to form, workers would be screwed. If, on the other hand, we have free trade but vigorous enforcement of anti-trust and merger review, I think workers can do pretty well. I also agree that increasing trade can shift what industries do well in particular locales, which is good for some workers but bad for others. The obvious solution there is not to protect the inefficient jobs, but to tax the people doing better (some workers, all consumers) and pay for excellent retraining, and to pension off the workers who can't be retrained, and/or fund nonprofits to employ them doing something societally valuable but not profitable. As an example, look at the American auto industry. As a Michigander, I know how devastating the rise of import cars was. But honestly, that industry needed some devastation. They produced low-quality, low-reliability products and then milked consumers on repairs and flim-flam sales techniques. They did provide jobs, but often pretty terrible ones. And none of this was necessary; it's just that consolidation (which, remember, happened without trade) made a cozy oligopoly, leaving management to focus on exploitation. 40 years later they are still struggling to break this pattern, but at least now Americans can buy decent cars at reasonable prices. If you want to hear the costs of your protectionist approach, listen to this TAL episode: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/NUMMI http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/N... Listen to the pain in the GM workers' voices. Listen to the change that came from working for one of those foreign companies. And then tell me again of how workers benefit from economic inefficiency.
hellbanner 11y ago
Read this http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-about-Capitalism/dp/0141047976 http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-about-Capitalism/dp/0... Discusses how all free-markets are somehow government regulated.