Comments on: Free Trade’s Never-Ending Battle

By: Jon Ogden

Jon Ogden — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:17:15 +0000

Sorry Gary, but without some metrics, your assurances don’t mean much. Produce more what? Frozen hamburgers instead of cars? earrings instead of computers? Whatever your measure of quantity is it doesn’t mean much unless the goods are equal 1:1 in value and the parts used to produce those goods are also made in a free country.

I’ve been hearing that litany about needing more time for 40 years. The standard of living for 90% of the Chinese is steal at peasant level and they are still treated like slaves or land-serfs. And why should you or I care what their standard of living is??? It is a FACT that the standard of living for the average middle class worker in this country has stood still or declined ever since we started dealing with the slaver countries.

It is you who misses the point.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:07:41 +0000

Charlie and John, you have both missed the point.

In truth, we produce more in the United States today than we ever did, it just happens to be different stuff than we produced before. You can look it up if so inclined.

We all enjoy a higher standard of living because we purchase goods produced at lower cost else where. We export much that is of high value and keeps much of our economy humming.

Even as China produces those inexpensive goods we all love, they are raising the standard of living for their people, and sowing the seeds that will one day overturn their current system of government. All we need it time.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:25:09 +0000

I must echo some of Jon’s sentiment. I feel that truly free trade can, and should only exist with free countries. The Chinese, through currency manipulation and their own barriers, have helped our own ignorant, misled politicians destroy our economy by causing too many of our own jobs to evaporate.

No country of any size can exist without means of production of material goods. A service economy does not last, and is the road to serfdom, and even many of these services are now being done overseas, eventually leaving very little (relatively speaking) for us to do for means of productive employment. As poor policy has driven our means of production overseas, we, for all intents and purposes, will be held hostage by a foreign power, and a dictatorial one at that. Hardly free trade- or freedom.

Free trade and open market theory in part believes that production will take place where the producer will find it most advantageous to produce. We can help alleviate that by tax reform and government reduction.

Truly free trade can, and should happen. And truly free trade will not bankrupt any country. Look at America today. Look at how the conditions have interplayed. And ask yourself the following question- freedome questions aside, is what we have really equitable?

By: Jon Ogden

Jon Ogden — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:39:46 +0000

For an organization that claims to respect and support the rights of free men, Freeman sure does publish a lot of articles wondering why we can’t reduce our workers to the state of Chinese and Indian slaves.

Free Trade is fine – between free nations. But it grants an immense advantage to any state that practices slavery.

By: Robert A. Fletcher

Robert A. Fletcher — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:29:16 +0000

Brings back memories of the conflict after WW2 about the Marshall Plan. Fortunately we had enough well informed people at that time. They realized that we could help Germany and Japan recover and thus rise to our lrvel of living, or leave them alone and sink to theirs. The free market has incentive, the controlled market is dementive.