If you’re so against free trade or don’t understand why it’s such a good thing, then why don’t we just prohibit the importing of oil into this country as well? That would allow the domestic producers to charge $200 per barrel of oil and help bail out our domestic oil industry. Who needs cheap crude from Canada, Russia, the Middle East or Venezuela? We need to keep our money at home.
We could save all of our domestic industries this way and even save the UAW’s job bank at the big three auto companies. I love the idea of auto workers having jobs for life, even if they don’t have to work on the assembly line! Driving around in shodily-built, union-bum mobiles from the early 1970’s makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. These guys had an entitlement mentality and were able to extort white-collar wages from the manufacturers. The manufacturers had a huge fixed cost in plants and other capital-intensive equipment that could not be moved to Mexico, the South or offshore and would just acquiese to get some labor peace. They raised their prices to cover the cost simply because at that time the US had about 50% of the world’s manufacturing capability and little of the world’s populace.
Another factor that led to this unusual prosperity was that about 3 billion people were mired in socialist/communist utopias and so would never be able to compete with the capitalist world. That era has been ending since 1980 up to the present time. Everyone in Asia wants your job or at least your money. They need it more than you. If you want more money, then go get a second job, get your wife a second job or go mortgage your house again.
I agree that the people in the US will have a lower standard of living than we would otherwise had these people in the former communist countries, China, India and other former socialist countries not cast aside their irrational economic policies. The 1950’s are over. Forever. Get used to it. Free trade or Fortress America, the American century is over.
