Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rich4eagle who wrote (236522)	3/11/2002 11:21:59 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

The subject was free trade. If you wish to contribute to the subject, please do so. One liner off topic comments do not further meaningful exchange. If you are for socialism, you may wish to point out any long-term success of the system. If you are for Capitalism, you accept that those create efficiencies are rewarded for their efforts. Free trade creates the environment of minimal intervention that allows efficiencies to be rewarded. Even those who labor at efficient enterprises are rewarded. How many millionaires work at Microsoft, Cisco, AMAT, etc.? How many jobs (primarily high paying ones) have been created by computer related industries? How does making Microsoft pay more for its metal desks, etc. help our society?

To: rich4eagle who wrote (236522)	3/12/2002 3:30:32 AM
From: craig crawford	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

>> You are correct we should go back to a system whereby there are vast number of poor low paid workers and a few overpaid fat cats. << hmm, by 1914, after 50 years of protectionist policies, american workers enjoyed 50% higher wages than the british (who practiced free trade) and twice that of the french and germans. of course we not only supplied arms and troops to britain in the first world war, but we also helped feed them as well. britain couldn't even feed itself after 1870, thanks to free trade. of course we went from half of britain's industrial capacity to twice that of britain in those 50 years as well. by world war two america accounted for 40% of the world's manufactures. let's take a look at what free trade policies of the last 30 years have given us: "How has Middle America fared? Between 1972 and 1994, the real wages of working Americans fell 19 percent. In 1970, the price of a new house was twice a young couple's income; it is now four times. In 1960, 18 percent of women with children under six were in the work force; by 1995 it had risen 63 percent. The U.S. has a larger percentage of women in its work force than any industrial nation, yet median family income fell 6 percent in the first six years of the 1990s." chuckbaldwinlive.com