[Sam the Sham]

Over time, everyone in general benefits from free trade, although there are always going to be individual winners and losers when one is forced to compete.

History tells us that this is simply not true. History tells us that there are nations that win and nations that lose. If England, for instance, had ditched free trade and gone to protectionism at the turn of the 20th century, it would have strenghtened its industrial base sufficiently to be able to fight two world wars without hocking itself to America.

[1rudeboy]

If England, for instance, had ditched free trade and gone to protectionism at the turn of the 20th century . . . .

I may be wrong, but as long as the two of us are blowing smoke, England's economy at the turn of the 20th Century was mercantilist in nature. In other words, at the time, England was practising the sort of economics that gets Pat Buchanan all excited.