The problem with Free Trade

[The Dharma Bum]

[Bauce]

I doubt coffee bean farmers in columbia accept bitcoins.

[The Dharma Bum]

[PoS]

[nordictruce]

Free Trade is a lot like the Holy Roman Empire in the late Byzantine age in the sense that it wasn't holy, it wasn't roman and it wasn't an empire anymore lol

It's not free becuase it costs us jobs and considering we don't really give them anything lol, it's not trade. What we call free trade is basically we'll buy cheap shit from you to keep your economy up therefore since we are your main consumer you can't bomb us lol, I can 'live with that.

[eynon81]

we seem to have gotten nicer about it since the cold war when the mantra was "get that stuff by any mean necessary before the f**k Reds do!". lots of coups during that cold war.

still I can't think of a single country we have truly free-trade with, not even Canada. all trade is restricted to tweaked to the benefit of powerful business interests.

[Professor]

[gla22]

[PoS]

The problem is that the US wants free trade yet it has priced itself out of the low skilled labor market simply because its own citizens are enjoying too many free perks that the government cannot pay for- if you want to compete against the 3rd world then youre gonna have to get rid of worker entitlements and mandatory compensation, you cannot have both. And its better than the alternative of setting up a new iron curtain to protect yourself because the rest of the world will leave you behind just like it did the USSR and its satellites if you are stupid enough to do that.

[eynon81]