I don't think fairness matters. If I purcase a good from a person the transaction is mutually fair. Other peoples opinions about my transaction is inconsequential. Regarding labor laws... From the POV of the producing nation: I think that is a temporary situation. As investment increases, jobs increase. As jobs increase, tax revenue increases and thus investment in education increases. Eventually the biggest polluters and biggest slave wage providers will have to account to the public and/or government and conditions will get better. Labor laws come through an evolutionary process. That's how it happened here and we are better for it. From the POV of the consuming nation: If you are willing to look the other way (many are not), your hard earned dollar will go a long way.
There has definately been a loss of manufacturing jobs. Some of those people moved to either the service sector or technology sector. But the middle class is shrinking and the gap between the rich and the poor is growing. This is because manufacturing has always been the lynchpin of a strong middle class. Here is a conservative commenting on the fragility of today's two income middle class: http://www.rapidtrends.com/blog/2008/08/13/shrinking-middle-class-us-economy-home-price-down/ Europe calculates unemployment differently than we do, our unemployment is only slightly less than Europe. But I think we're going around in circles here. So let me put it this way. I say that free trade has hurt the middle class and you say "well we have low unemployment and high wages". But I think it's all a facade. Since free trade and global deals became huge over the past 20 years the Federal Reserve has kept the economy afloat with low interest rates. Anyone could get cheap money and everyone was buying real estate. There were also two huge bubbles that popped. The housing buble was tied to the easy money policies of Alan Greenspan. Now all those loans couldn't be paid back and now there is a housing crisis, banks are going under at a rate not seen since the depression, unemployment is rising, inflation is rising.....there isn't much good news these days. So my point is that we are now seeing just the start of the problems caused by the global economy. It's the microsoft comparison again. You're right. American sugar costs too much. There are examples where some companies benefit from tariffs and other situations where it doesn't. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about all the negative warning signs coming this way in terms of the economy. Not suprised.
You keep saying that. And you keep dodging the questions I've asked.... 1) are you concerned with the shrinking middle class? 2) are you concerned with our so called middle class is now bankrolled by credit? 3) are you not concerned that the economy is showing signs of a total economic collapse? Simply put this Country will not survive the loss of manufacturing, the degradation of the middle class, high inflation and deep debt. I was predicting that the credit crisis wouldn't hit until 2009 or 2010. I was suprised it happened in late 2007. I see no way out of it either in this global economy. What is going to happen is that people will either be rich or poor, the poor will only work in the service sector. It's already starting to happen now. But then Nike or Apple will just move on to the next 3rd world slave trade once producing in India or Taiwan becomes too expensive. Labor laws came during a time of tariffs. Most people who shop at Walmart just don't think about it. They just want cheap items. I've stopped buying products made in China altogether. It's a shame I can't find any 100% American electronics anymore but it is what it is. It's going to take about 5 years for this thread to have a winner. I really hope the Federal reserve doesn't keep giving us these short term fixes because then we won't be an empire anymore in 10 years.
But the housing bubble isn't a product of our economy. It may affect the overall economy, but it has absolutely zero to do with free trade. Wrote a whole bunch more, but I really don't have the data to back it up and we can go around and around in circles, which I don't really care to do. I am curious as to how Europe counts unemployment differently than we do and what the adjusted numbers would be.
A shrinking middle class doesn't bother me at all since we've had such a bloated MC for 50 years. Right after WW2, we were the only industrialized nation in the free world for a decade and American manufacturing thrived, thus providing the need for more middle management, and therefore accessable higher education. Thus, we got two whole generations of people who expected to at least live a bourgousie lifestyle if they just made it through college. That gravy train started running out 20+ years ago when the Japanese evened the economic race, thus making our company's bloated and ineffecient by comparison. Add the half dozen other economies that have joined the lead lap and it's no surprise that our middle class is feeling the squeez, as they should be. It would be even worse had the MC been as irrepsonsible with their birth rates as Latin America or the Muslim world. What also doesn't help is the fact that this country has spent the last 20 years importing poverty and non-skilled labor at a ruinous rate. If not for that the working class who were squeezed out middle class could have a place to go. Of course, if you bring up that fact then you're considered racist...
The latter. I wasn't saying I wanted an end to the middle class, just that its been too big (or at least the amount of people who expect to live that lifestyle) since the rest of the world started to join the industrial revolution. Huss' servers don't have enough memory for that response...