Reply #11: We would have to go quite a ways before we were overboard.

[JDPriestly]

We need to have balance, and the costs and benefits of trade need to be shared.

As it is, India and China and Central American workers do the jobs American workers used to do. The Indians, Chinese and Central Americans do it for less than Americans did it in recent years. The products the Indians, Chinese and Central Americans produce are, however, not as good, not of the quality that the products the Americans produced were.

Americans are unable to get work and can't earn decent salaries because they can't get jobs because the new jobs are being created outside of America. The Indians, Chinese and Central Americans, however, can't buy the products they so cheaply (and sloppily) produce.

What we need at the moment is tariffs and then a gradual opening of "free markets" for international trade. The opening of international markets to the US market was too much too fast.

The fundamental idea of more trade is not bad. It's the speed and mania with which it has been done that is really stupid.