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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bridge Player who wrote (84929)	9/16/2008 5:25:44 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541572

Forty years ago, countries in Asia like South Korea and Singapore were as impoverished as their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, hundreds of millions of people in Asia enjoy middle class prosperity, with hundreds of millions more soon following in their path. This is one of the great success stories of human history — and it was made possible by trade. Note he says in the last sentence that "it was made possible by trade." He does not say "free" trade. And in fact SK and Singapore--not to mention the biggest players, China and Japan--got wealthy by not practicing free trade. They had big tariffs. China has different currencies for themselves and for foreigners. The Chinese people can't buy anything in many stores in their own country with the local currency, they need to use foreign currency if they can get it. Japan was notorious for not opening their own country to foreign firms. All of them have high tariffs on many goods and subsidize favored industries, both local and foreign (Singapore became a favored haven for certain high tech sectors like disk drives by offering very sweet tax deals and financial aid to the firms locating there). In other words, US firms are not just battling low wage workers, they are battling governments determined to employ their people and have successful firms on their soil. It was one thing when small countries like Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were practicing a kind of mercantilism. It was even not too bad when a much larger country like Japan practiced it, showing other Asian countries the way to a trained workforce and a wealthier economy. But when China and India, two behemoths, do it, it becomes a different ball game. Especially when none of the above have the same environmental scruples that this country enshrined in law back in the 1970s, giving another financial advantage to less developed countries. We need fair trade as well as free trade.