Your opinion of free trade?

[Cuda1447]

For it or against it?

 

[ScrewFace]

I'm all for free trade but only with other developed nations. We should have it with Canada, the U.S., Europe, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Taiwan and Mauritius where wages are mostly livable wages. We can't have free trade with 3rd-world banana republics where these loser countries are so hard-up for any kind of jobs that they'll shoot anyone who dares try to stand up for human rights. How can we compete with, say, Indonesia where the average pay is $.85 a day!!!:disgust:

 

[Gravity]

It's a simple question to a complex issue. Done correclty, it should help us and other nations prosper. Prosperity can be good but also bad when unbridled.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

I'm for trade.

CADkerryGuy

 

[LordMagnusKain]

for it w/ everyone but the commies.

 

[sandorski]

For.

 

[NonSequiter]

For. While it may cause temporary trauma for some individuals who get displaced (admittedly, sometimes even longer term trauma), it not only makes the rest better off but also generates yet more jobs to replace the ones which were lost.

Capitalism is the art of creative destruction, and if we try to keep things static so that no one ever gets hurt or loses their job, even temporarily, we'll lose the ability to create new opportunities as well. If those who oppose free trade had their way, we'd have fought to protect the workers in the domestic buggy whip industry against foreign competition. Sure, we'd have saved a few jobs in the buggy whip industry, while the rest of the world was starting to build automobiles instead.

 

[Zebo]

Nothings free. Every sacrifice people have made before us is being jeapordised by labor funneling off to third-world-shyt-holes which pay 38 cents a day and have zero enviromental/labor standards. If you wan't to compete you will have to lower your expectations and accept these similar conditions to keep capital/jobs here. I don't blame the CEO's I'd do the same...after all it's stockholders paying me not labor. and since both resources and demand are finite you go to the place which maximizes return.

 

[Czar]

both ways

when the infastructure can handle it then I am all for it but certain basic industries should be protected if there is need for it

 

[GoPackGo]

Since when is it our responsibility to make sure every country gets more prosperous?

Did other nations do that for us when we were a new nation? Of course not.

 

[RadBrad]

(Feel) Free (to) Trade, (USA trade rules to dictate, of course)

 

[DoubleL]

I would say I am against free trade, I am for fair trade though

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: RadBrad
(Feel) Free (to) Trade, (USA trade rules to dictate, of course)

That seems to be the biggest problem with it. Though I support "Free Trade", I think certain sectors of the economies of nations should be protected, such as Agriculture. Not in the way that the US and Europe has done it though, a nation's protection should not affect Global Prices.

 

[conjur]

When Free Trade equates to Bush ignoring the ITC's recommendation several times to protect domestic industries from less-than-cost products from China, I'm against it.

 

[Zephyr106]

.

 

[Jadow]

I'm all for it. And our screwed up unionized American industries can either adapt or die.

 

[EXman]

Well it ain't free it costs us jobs and makes slaves of third world workers. Really I cannot think of anything I had to have that could not be made here. I shop American all the time and it is getting harder and harder. Doesn't Walmart own China?

 

[buckmasterson]

Against...

The free trade ageement is the republican way of making two classes, upper, and peasant!

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: RadBrad
(Feel) Free (to) Trade, (USA trade rules to dictate, of course)

That seems to be the biggest problem with it. Though I support "Free Trade", I think certain sectors of the economies of nations should be protected, such as Agriculture. Not in the way that the US and Europe has done it though, a nation's protection should not affect Global Prices.

Agreed.