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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ian@SI who wrote (46391)	5/8/2001 7:51:57 AM
From: willcousa	Respond to of 70976

The auto industry is a great example of how trade works. Either an industry becomes competitive or it languishes.

To: Ian@SI who wrote (46391)	5/8/2001 6:07:09 PM
From: Cary Salsberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Ian, My statement "Free trade is good for the world economy..." assumes the efficiency and productivity arguments you presented. In the context of the whole, you are correct and I have no disagreement. All reasonable economists will admit that mechanisms which raise the efficiency and productivity of the whole system have "collateral" costs, and these costs have been as severe as the death of inefficient and unproductive humans. Standard arguments about efficiency and productivity and "it all comes out in the wash" inanities do not address the potentially devastating "collateral" costs of using modern technology to export our economy to areas of much lower labor costs. As was pointed out, our economy has never been totally isolated, but the Henry Ford model of domestic workers producing cars for the consumption of domestic workers is far different from a model wherein a minority of affluent domestic workers get to buy cheaper consumer goods at the expense of a majority of domestic workers who must live without basic health care.