or are we guilty of buying shoddy merchandise (think people weren't forced to buy the stuff) and unionizing so that broom pushers were paid as much as school teachers or more ... or better yet having contracts where employees were paid to sit and watch tv etc. (thinks auto makers)

free trade is simply a way for capital to migrate to where the factors of production are lowest ... like most economic model key assumptions are invalid ...

when a society i.e. North America develops a sense of birth right to jobs and a certain standard of living rather than working for it, that seed of moral decay sets the stage for economic decay.

when gov'ts service business/bankers not citizens you can expect the degradation of living standards for the citizens and increase wealth accumulation for business/bankers.

when the importing of good occurs without duties or levies to even the playing field, be it enviornmental/safety/human right(including a fair wage), you actually encourage the relocation of business to where the factors of production are cheaper.

effective public policy requires those items produced in a country not to be protected from real competition, but real competition must ensure an even playing field.

Duties and levies would have protected an environment where laws exisit to ensure basic human rights, safety, environmental protection etc yet still compete against jurisdictions that do not

In order to encourage international good will, such import fees could be excluded from general government funding and used as foreign aid, thus improving living standards ... of course ... the foreign aid could be used as an incentive to ensure the free flow of goods to the aid receiving country, hence propping international living standards instead of reducing them to the lowest common denominator which is currently underway NA.

Ineffective public policy is to blame, not citizens of oppressed nations trying to make a better life for themselves ... helping them by hurting yourself is bad policy and without ensuring a level playing field and negotiating fair trading by all means necessary, you are performing a disservice to those who elect you and pay your wages.

Strange the private sector understands the need to be focussed and efficient, to avoid empire building and bloat ... good government is small government and needs to focus on being the following

1) experts in the interpretation of its citizens values

2) experts in defining policy that best achieves those values

3) experts in the development of a simple tax structure/including minimum compensation levels

4) experts in effectively enforcering such policy, and addressing in a way that reflects the social values of its citizens, whenever non compliance to the adherence of such policy occurs.

they should not be involved in things that are charity based, they bureaucrats can not compete with the mother teresa's of the world, and if they can the second generation won't ... IMo they need to focus on education and providing a bare minimum subsistence level ... this provides the tools and motivation to encourage those who can help themsleves to do so. Of course the truly handicapped should be helped in a just society, but the are the vast minority.

Government manufacturers dependence on government ... as citizens who should understand that "The only thing in the world proven to grow continually without intervention is the size of government." is a fact of life, those who do not protect against the elimination are destined to become employees of the United Soviet States of North America.

orgy