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First, the terms "free trade" and "free markets" are made up corporate buzz words, nothing more. Free trade and free markets imply that all parties to a transaction have equal ability to bargain over all aspects of the transaction. That may be true in the case of flea markets and rummage sales, but does not apply to a majority of economic transactions today.
Trade and markets are controlled by the largest corporations through corporate cartel agreements such as NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF. the World Bank, and their ilk.
People who assume that imported products are always cheaper assume incorrectly. The imported "designer label" is almost always higher priced than the American made store label, and the U.S. made product is usually better quality. (This is true when you can still find an American made product.)
Moreover, the U.S. has experienced hidden creeping inflation for the past 25 to 30 years. Those American branded Chinese made products today cost as much or more than comparable American made products of 30 years ago. This is true for clothing, shoes, tools, appliances, almost across the board.
The term efficiency has an entirely different meaning for business than for the engineer. Most people think of the engineering meaning of efficiency such as getting more miles per gallon from your car.
What the capitalist means by increasing efficiency is getting more profit from a given monetary investment. The latter usually entails reducing costs by cutting worker wages and benefits, firing employees and making the remaining employees work harder and more hours for the same or less pay, and the most recent large scale practice of offshoring jobs to low wage countries such as China.
What the article at the link describes are anticompetitive business practices which the big corporations could practice even without the availability of "cheap" imports.
The problem for the U.S. economy caused by offshoring jobs can be explained by analogy to an automobile's cooling system.
An economy is foremost a circulation system. In a car's cooling system, coolant absorbs heat from the engine and is pumped through a hose into the radiator where it loses heat to the atmosphere. The cooled coolant then goes via another hose at the bottom of the radiator back into the engine where it absorbs more heat to be sent back to the radiator for more cooling.
Money is to an economy what the coolant is to an engine. Money is a circulating medium. An economic depression occurs when money stops circulating. If one of the hoses in the cooling system of a car develops a leak, then the cooling doesn't take place, the engine will overheat, and eventually the engine will seize up and quit.
When people work and earn money, they buy goods made by other people, the money circulates, and the economy works properly. When Americans make things, and they spend the money they earn on goods made by other Americans, money circulates within the U.S. economy and we have prosperity.
When most of the money Americans earn flows out of the country because what they buy is made elsewhere (such as China), this is equivalent to a leak in the radiator hose. The leak has to be stopped and more coolant added to prevent the engine from quitting.
The stimulus money added more "coolant" to the system, but the leak hasn't been stopped. The stimulus money is leaving the country rather than putting Americans to work.
The idea promoted by politicians that we can solve the trade deficit problem by increasing exports is no longer a viable solution. The U.S. can never produce enough exports to compensate for the flood of imports because anything we can produce here can be produced in other countries at lower cost. The corporations know this and that is why they will continue to offshore jobs at a record pace.
The ONLY solution to the U.S. economic problem is to bring jobs back to the U.S. so that most of the money spent by Americans stays in America to provide income to other Americans. If that requires import quotas and tariffs to level the playing field for American companies to use American labor and still make a profit, then that needs to be the course of action.
This country has to decide between allowing current trade practices to continue or saving the U.S. from a serious depression. The ONLY solution to prevent a depression is to put Americans back to work making the everyday products that we buy such as shoes, clothing, toys, tools, appliances, and more.
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