![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
For decades, Alan S. Blinder -- Princeton University economist, former Federal Reserve Board vice chairman and perennial adviser to Democratic presidential candidates -- argued, along with most economists, that free trade enriches the U.S. and its trading partners, despite the harm it does to some workers. "Like 99% of economists since the days of Adam Smith, I am a free trader down to my toes," he wrote back in 2001.
Politicians heeded this advice and, with occasional dissents, steadily dismantled barriers to trade. Yet today Mr. Blinder has changed his message -- helping lead a growing band of economists and policy makers who say the downsides of trade in today's economy are deeper than they once realized. ...
he is saying loudly that a new industrial revolution -- communication technology that allows services to be delivered electronically from afar -- will put as many as 40 million American jobs at risk of being shipped out of the country in the next decade or two. That's more than double the total of workers employed in manufacturing today. The job insecurity those workers face today is "only the tip of a very big iceberg," Mr. Blinder says. ...
Some trade critics are bothered by the disappointing performance of Latin America since it slashed tariffs in the 1980s and 1990s while more protectionist China and Southeast Asia sped ahead. Others are struck by the widening gap between economic winners and losers around the globe. The rethinking on trade issues is the most significant since the early 1990s when many in the U.S. worried that Japan would overtake the U.S., a fear that has since abated..."
http://www.finance-mentor.com/is-free-t
America's Middle Class Has Become Globalization's Loser
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1
"What remains
This undoubtedly superior United States doesn’t exist anymore. As a center of power, it is still more powerful than others, but for some years now that energy has been flowing in the opposite direction. Today, Asian, Latin American and European nations are also playing a role in the United States's productive core. The world's greatest exporter became its greatest importer. The most important creditor became the most important debtor. Today, foreigners dispose of assets in the United States with a net value of $2.5 trillion, or 21 percent of gross domestic product. Nine percent of shares, 17 percent of corporate bonds and 24 percent of government bonds are held by foreigners.
Neither laziness nor the obvious American penchant for consumerism can be blamed for this changed reality in America. US industry -- or at least what little is left of it -- is responsible. In the span of only a few decades, US industry has shrunken to half what it once was. It makes up only 17 percent of the country’s GDP, compared to 26 percent in Europe.
Every important national economy in the world now exports products to the United States without purchasing an equivalent amount of US goods in return. The US trade deficit with China was about $200 billion dollars in 2005; it was a solid $80 billion with Japan; and more than $120 billion with Europe. The United States can't even achieve a surplus in its trade with less developed national economies like those of Ukraine and Russia. Everyday, container-laden ships arrive in the United States – and after they unload their wares at American ports, many return home empty.
Those looking for something good to say about the superpower won't find it in the trade balance. The growing imbalance can't be attributed to natural resources or the import of parts for manufacturing firms. Oil imports, for example, don't make as significant a difference to the trade balance as is often assumed: They account for only $160 billion dollars, a comparably small sum. Instead, it's the top products of a developed national economy that the United States is importing from everywhere in the world – cars, computers, TV sets, game consoles – without being able to sell as many of its own products on the world market."
angry
happy
