Posted on 10/04/2007 3:17:09 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
In response to Mary Anastasia O'Grady's Oct. 1 Americas column "Democrats vs. Central America":
While I strongly disagree with The Wall Street Journal editorial page's right-wing ideology, I'll give you points for persistence. Year after year, despite all of the evidence, you continue to be a cheerleader for the unfettered free-trade policies that, while benefiting multinational corporations, have caused so much economic pain for working families here in the U.S. and our trading partners abroad.
Ms. O'Grady is telling the people of Costa Rica how wonderful passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement will be for them. The Journal said the exact same thing to the people of Mexico during the 1993 debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement. And what happened with the passage of Nafta? In Mexico, the agricultural sector has been decimated by cheap exports from American agribusiness. Poverty has increased, the middle class has declined and people are literally dying in the desert trying to flee Mexico for the U.S.
Working families in Mexico suffer, the rich have gotten richer and we now have the obscenity of the wealthiest person in the world, Mexican Carlos Slim Helu, coming from a country in which millions of families struggle to feed their children. This may be the kind of economic development championed by you, but not by me. We can have trade policies that can do better, that must do better.
It's not only Mexico and other developing countries that have been hurt by these unfettered pro-corporate free-trade agreements. It's also the working families in the U.S. who are now engaged in a horrendous "race to the bottom."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.)
Washington
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Sorry. I consider Bernie to be not worth the click.
Wow, the NYT has an op-ed praising Bush on North Korea, and the WSJ has a column by New England's favorite socialist. Halloweenie came early this year!
I just posted it for giggles.
How can voluntary transactions act to the detriment of both parties? This makes absolutely no sense at all.
“Countries” don’t trade, individuals do. When individuals are free to engage in voluntary transactions, they will seek transactions tending to maximize their individual benefit.
Third parties who would seek to use coercion to restrain the freedom of individuals to make transactions may actually want to force them to make transactions benefiting themselves or may be misinformed and acting out of misguided humanitarian impulses. Or they may be well informed and want to use purported humanitarian ideals to force the parties to make transactions favorable to themselves.
In Sanders case, I believe he is well informed but champions misguided policies for personal political advantage.
More better full text link
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS242US242&q=%22Free+Trade+Treaties+Mean+Impoverishment%22&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn
I just read a telling reply of yours on a different thread, so I know that you’re a SoCon. Just curious, where do you stand on this op-ed? Do you have sympathies for what the socialist Bernie Sanders has written here?
“so much economic pain for working families here in the U.S.”
Yeah, right. 4.6% unemployment is shear “pain.”
I don't even know what a SoCon is, so how can I be one?
Just curious, where do you stand on this op-ed?
If you actually READ something he wrote you must be one of these SoCons yourself.
bump
I don't have a clue what data Bernie is looking at. Sounds like he's just making stuff up that sounds good to his constituents.
There are several good arguments to be made against these so-called “free trade” agreements. Sanders, however, doesn’t really make any of them here.
Bernie got me so angered at their plight, I tossed my gimlet across the lawn.
Were they rich at some point?
Please share with the class, AC.
The next "good" argument I hear against free trade will be the first one.
He’s looking at the following data: contributions and political support from labor union interests.
Bump
No, he's just a Socialist Democrat... At least he doesn't run from the label. But HL Mencken has the better phrase for these people... the Demogogue:
"The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."
That could be the Democrats campaign slogan.
In light of the abject idiocy we saw from the U.S. government during the softwood lumber dispute with Canada over the last five years, I'd say that any country that signs a "free trade agreement" with the U.S. is out of its freaking mind.
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