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To: Ilaine who wrote (21373)	8/18/2007 5:19:12 PM
From: Slagle	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 217891

Llaine, No, I don't like "free trade" one bit. Each nation should make their own socks, teddy bears and machine guns. The only need for foreign trade would be to obtain something that cannot be obtained locally. I will give you an example: Back when Mao closed China off from the rest of the world, there were exactly two items that had been sent here before 1949 that were missed afterwards. One thing was a particular type of wool that came from a sheep that lived in the Gobi Desert, and this type of wool was very good for particular types of brushes and for carpets, as the harsh desert environment caused the wool to be very stiff and coarse, like a brillo pad. It was much to scratchy to use for apparel but made great rugs, brushes and filter elements. Some wool from the American West comes close in toughness to the Gobi Desert wool. New Zealand wool is used for rugs but is not near tough enough, due to the more moderate environment. The only other thing that came from China of any importance was antimony oxide, which is a useful flame retardant and pigment. After 1949, we got along just fine, lacking the Chinese supply of both items. <grin> "Free Trade" globalism is the most destructive thing the world has ever encountered, causing vast damage to the environment and a rapid pace plundering of precious and irreplaceable resources of all sorts everywhere. It is socially and culturally destructive too. If you think for a minute that the vast number of Mexican farmers forced from their ancestral homes by changes wrought by globalism is a good thing for the world then maybe you don't know what is going on there. "Globalism" is not long for this world. Do you really believe that the world has sufficient resources to keep the skies full of jumbo jets and the oceans full of container ships shipping useless gee-gaws all over the world decade after decade? You believe, I suppose that we will have ethanol powered jumbo jets? What we will likely have is John Keegan's "empty ocean", empty because submarines make surface traffic risky, and because the world of the future will likely be fraught by resource wars, caused by the great wastage of resources due to globalism. Slagle