How many decades of free trade (job losses, loss of manufacturing capacity, knowledge drain, wages below cost of living, increasing wealth disparity, growing national debt, etc) does it take for some people to realize it is a bad policy? The only thing free trade did was give us a short term high from getting to buy cheap imports, enrich the wealthy in the US and boost the economies of other countries. Meanwhile the foundation of the country was slowing being chipped away. It was as bad or worse of the idea of trickle down economics...
"We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, ... have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
... when [Mexico's] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals."
Ross Perot 1992 |
