[oldvirginian]

Oh, another thing.
Joe Blow doesn’t think about the economy as long as he can get cheap stuff at WalMart, or wherever.

You can see it in their eyes when you try to talk about job loss and made in China crap.
They figure, “as long as I still have a job, so what”.
It’s really sad to see.

[pierrem15]

This behavior is also a peculiarity of English speaking countries. A lot of libertarian types make the mistake of thinking everyone around the world makes choices bounded mainly by the conditions described by classical economics.

They do not: look at Japan and Germany, where locally produced goods command quite a premium, even when the real quality is the same or even worse. To me "German engineering" means something overly complicated that works very close to its maximum tolerances and so requires constant maintenance and operation within a closely bound set of parameters (temperature, pressure, etc.) otherwise it breaks down.

The only way to guarantee that US firms aren't getting the shaft from unfair trade practices is to have the government watch and restrict the imports.