free trade

Brexit is one sign, maybe. In the USA, both major candidates are against the TPP multilateral trade deal. One is really against it, the other I think put her finger in the wind and decided that it just would not be the popular position to take in the current political climate to be for it, so...

I guess this is an issue that divides Democrats. Obama is for it, but Elizabeth Warren is against it (more broadly, businesses seem to mainly be for it, with some exceptions, while labor and environmental groups are against it). Me, I'm generally in favor of freer trade and lower barriers to...

Just a status update: U.S. exports gain in first year of U.S.-Colombia trade pact Seems to be a success so far.

Iceland premier to meet Chinese leaders in Beijing A first such treaty between an European country and China. And I wish EU could move on with similar. "The prime minister of Iceland, Johanna Sigurdardottir, and her wife, Jonina Leosdottir, will be on an official visit to China on April...

Any economist would tell you, that we import from X because people at X are more productive. This is because they use qty/$ rather than qty/person calculations. Which just replaces real human worth with a dollar sign. Che! ;)

Isn't this even worse than anything Austen Goolsbee might have said to the Canadians about Nafta?

I was just going to title this thread “Agriculture Subsidies” but I figured that would probably not get much interest. So taking a page from Penn and Teller’s playbook, I figured that the best way to get a discussion started would be to say something a little more provocative. Also, before...

Trade protectionists often raise the specter of sweatshops and try to make you feel guilty for buying Nikes or other products made in poor countries. I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t feel the least bit guilty about it. Buying products made in developing countries helps poor people...

I admit I hadn't heard of this one till I saw an article in today's Post-Dispatch. Evidently, CT'ers see a "super" superhighway being built from Mexico, across the US, and into Canada, with the ultimate aim of one government for all three states, one currency (the "Amero") etc. The local...

(split off from this thread) I am not anti-trade. However, you (and the IMF) make it far too simple. For example, it is not beneficial for a country to replace the inefficient small farms that feeds the majority of the population with large farms producing export crops like flowers, coffee...

It strikes me that the dismantling of some welfare, social safety net programs like Social Security and some that Europeans are dismantling, are happening at the same time that free trade is increasing and workers are moving around at an incredible pace. It seems that to have a welfare system...

Yes, you don't just get a free trade agreement when you sign up with the States, you get the associated baggage like evergreen patents. One more example of Big Companies contempt for 'free enterprise'. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/06/1091732084185.html?from=storylhs Yep, a large...

Trust our toadying PM to negotiate a free trade agreement with the US, that isn't. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/19/1090089093287.html We lose, the US wins, all because he is a crawling little sycophant who said his greatest day in politics was when he addressed the joint houses...