Free traders, and I mean all of them, worldwide, do you understand what's wrong here?

[ComplimentarySwine]

43. It appears that you haven't thought this through...

and you seem to be presenting mutually exclusive arguments.

First, you say that some of the richest people in the nation's history got so incredibly rich because of globalization in the early 1900s, then you turn around and argue that increases in CEO pay in the last 30 years are because of modern globalism. I don't see how you can have it both ways.

You're being silly when you say that recognizing that other countries depend on our imports somehow equates to them being lesser people than us, or stupid. I've already pointed out that the US is listed as the 3rd largest exporter in the world. Does that make the US inferior to all of the people we're dependent on in other countries that are buying our exported goods?

I didn't address your World Bank quote because it seemed irrelevant. Since you insist, I sugest that you go back and read the quote over again. They recommended against other countries relying on exports because of a slowdown of richer nations decreasing their imports. In other words, they recommend that developing countries don't export goods to us because of the very policies that you're espousing.

I'm not against American workers having jobs, but I'm also not for Americans having jobs just because they're Americans. If we're unable to compete on our merits, an equitable solution seems to be that we need to either work to bring our competitors' standards of living up, or work on lowering our standard of living.

I'm interested to hear what you expect to happen to American workers when we cut off imports from overseas (thus drying up the supply of the majority of consumer goods and several brands of tools and parts) along with other countries subsequently cutting off the over $1.2 trillion that the US exports in a year. I wonder how many Americans are employed to supply those $1.2+ trillion worth of goods...

I notice that you have an interesting signature line at the bottom of your posts that seems relevant to this discussion. As a country, it seems to me that we've worked hard, done well, walked through that doorway of opportunity, now you're wanting to slam that door shut on all of the other countries working to follow in our footsteps.