Since Free Traders believe that America should lower its standard of living to help the third world [View all]

[Zalatix]

Last edited Mon Jan 9, 2012, 03:18 AM - Edit history (1)

and they are unwilling to address the consequences of this belief, I am going to start listing the consequences of this belief. Might as well sticky this, since the consequences will just keep on coming.

Free traders can start telling these people that they need to keep being poor to help the poor outside of America. Well, America, it's time to RISE UP. Write to these Free Traders and share with them the sacrifices that you are making to help the poor in other nations rise up the ladder.

Demand from them an answer to the question of why Americans should be forced to suffer through this:

Number Of Americans On Food Stamps Hits Another High Years After Recession's End
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/number-of-americans-on-snap_n_1074344.html

Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?_r=2

Formerly Great Cities All Over America Are Turning Into Open, Festering Sores
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/formerly-great-cities-all-over-america-are-turning-into-open-festering-sores

Nearly half of Americans either live in poverty or are low income, census data says
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/nearly_half_americans_either_l.html

^^^ Yes, I know, poor here is better than poor in China. Oh wait a second...

More Americans than Chinese struggling to put food on the table: Gallup Poll
http://blogs.cfed.org/cfed_news_clips/2011/10/more-americans-than-chinese-st.html

"I think I upset my friend by telling her to brace herself for foodstamps... "
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002131625



And if the Free Trade counter response is, once again, that Americans use more resources than the rest of the world, then perhaps they would like to explain how this is happening in foreign countries where American jobs are going?
[img][/img]


http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/collaboration/2007/summer/outsourcing-pollution.shtml
A recent Carnegie Mellon study finds that the United States may be reducing its own carbon emissions by importing goods from countries that are creating even more emissions in the production process than the United States would have originally.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/how-big-deal-outsourced-pollution
It's a dicey question, though the first step is to get a handle on how much carbon pollution actually gets outsourced. And the answer seems to be: quite a bit. A new study by Steven Davis and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science finds that the United States outsources about 11 percent of its emissions abroad, while Japan outsources nearly 18 percent and European nations outsource anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of their emissions—most of it to developing countries. On the flip side, nearly one-quarter of China's emissions, for instance, go into making goods for other countries. Here's a map showing annual net flows (in millions of tons of CO2)

How exactly is all this outsourced pollution benefitting the poor of the third world?

Oh and free traders might also want to consider how much slavery they are promoting with "free trade":
http://slaveryfootprint.org

Oh and some people in these outsourced countries might also differ with the claim that we're helping them. Like the farmers in Mexico:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/130,000_farmers_protest_in_Mexico_against_NAFTA

http://www.eurasiareview.com/21102011-nafta-is-starving-mexico-oped/
Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became the law of the land, millions of Mexicans have joined the ranks of the hungry. Malnutrition is highest among the country’s farm families, who used to produce enough food to feed the nation.


Edited to add, 01/08/2012:
You can also ask these free traders this: What will the poor people of the third world do when America's economy collapses and we can't support them anymore?