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

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (46439)	5/8/2001 9:24:28 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Cary, I'm impressed that we now seem to have reached agreement that "Free Trade is good, at least at the macro economic level." I don't believe for a nanosecond that there's a direct, causal link between Free Trade and an increase in Suicide rates. Suicide is, and has been, one of the top 3 killers of middle aged or older males. This has not changed regardless of whether or not protectionist or free trade policies were followed. Rather, I'd suggest that the increased prosperity resulting from Free Trade, could allow all parties if they so chose to raise the educational and health care standards available to their people. I would further observe that completely Isolationist states, of which there haven't been many, tended to have more poverty, more despair, and poorer overall quality of life than seen by people living in the most open countries. Many developed nations have chosen to provide health care to their people; and have continued down a path to more free and fair trade. This obviously doesn't have to be an "either/or" choice. Cary, I don't expect that you and I will ever see eye to eye on this particular subject. I would suggest that protectionist policies are far more devastating to the resulting unemployed children and young adults in developing countries than to those "free trade unemployed" in the developed nations. IMO, Ian.