Originally Posted by
DFWAviatior
Free markets created the demand for globalization. Rapid transportation, information technology, and advanced telecommunications (to name a few) created the means by which globalization occurred.
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Another take...
So called "Free Trade Agreements" had more of an influence in globalization. Once the so called "free trade agreements" were put in place it became more econonomically viable to do the following:
-Off Shore moneys
-Out Source labor
-Move production lines out of country
-Shipping of products
The idea is that if you want to dominate a sector you can do it more easily by maintaining a labor cost advantage as well as a regulatory advantage. If you can hire people for one dollar an hour and not deal with the EPA and avoid tariffs, then who wouldn't move their company overseas? You can keep stock prices high while keeping production costs low. Sounds like a win-win for the shareholder.
Problem is: Free Trade agreements like NAFTA aren't so free to the country that is losing the jobs and the tax revenues that are essential in maintaining local infrastructure as well as improving the bottom line of the country's GDP, trade surplus (or deficit), and national Tax policy (IRS income).
NAFTA is a shafta, and the downside of these agreements has now come home to roost. Open Skies is the airborne equivalent of NAFTA. If the "free markets" were to actually determine the value of a widget we wouldn't need a free trade agreement to bring those products to market. Shipping costs went down drastically after NAFTA, coupled with no import tariffs to offset the cheap cost of labor and decreased standard of labor of competing nations.
If there are two signees to an agreement such as NAFTA, one's GDP will go up, and another's will go down. In Summary, Free trade agreements don't lead to free trade, they lead to the down-fall of the more powerful and robust economy. It's a zero sum game. Energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, only transferred. it's allot like wealth. Wealth doesn't get created, it gets transferred. The wealth our country enjoyed prior to NAFTA has now been transferred to Latin America and Asia.
For a country 21 trillion dollars in debt, these free-trade agreements aren't so free. They are quite expensive to Americans and to the 11 million people who have been put out of work since NAFTA.