think tank forum

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/05/051 … r-wsj.html

where do you stand?

i'm all for opening the borders. of course, i don't know if protectionist america can handle it. ideally, with some other globalization friendly policies, i think (gradually and carefully) opening the borders would be great.

Shit. Nothing will work. We could open the borders, but then we get flooded with immigrants and people would freak. We could close them off and become more xenophobic than we already are. We could allow 'work visas', or not. I've no clue. This is why I'm not a politician.

I'd like to say I'm for opening the borders, but that would do absolutely nothing to solve the problem of economic inequality between nations and would just cause chaos in The States. sure it might wake us up to the fact that there is such disparity between the wealth of our nation and the wealth of others, but it would do little to solve it.

so yeah, some combination of gradually opening the borders, but seizing screwing over the people of smaller nations with Free Trade Agreements and the like would be ideal. this isn't exactly going to happen though.

free trade agreements rule and do leadto equality internationally

try telling that to independent farmers in Third World countries who are put out of business or bought out when their borders are opened to Free Trade.

since when is being bought out a bad thing?

yeah, i really bet that those farmers will be angry that we'll be buying their sugar now...

it's a bad thing when their working condtions and income worsen.

I'm not by any means well-versed on the subject, and there are probably those who welcome being bought out by multinational corporations. but such buyouts usually entail exploitation, not good fortune.

that's why average wages decreased in Mexico after signing NAFTA, and most farmers oppose such agreements.

wages aren't the issue. standard of living is. look at wages vs. CPI.

and i think that a lot fo farmers don't support it simply because they are inefficient. montana farmers know that central america will kill them in competition, so they don't want to see cafta. ultimately, in the end, it does everyone good.

justifying an inefficient program is like justifying paying some dude to go around and break windows. if we fire him, he will lose his job, but after he finds one doing something productive, then everyone is better off.

First of all, about the farmer thing, third world countries are dying to get even fairly close to what our standard of living is. That means that their farmers are willing to work for less than our farmers, so why do you say their farmers are going out of business? It's our farmers who are struggling under free trade (although subsidies keep some of them thriving on uncle sam's dollar). To be fair, and to rebut lucas, do you honestly think the quality/health standards of beef in Nicaragua is the same as the US? I mean, the USDA does drive commodity prices up, but there is a gain in quality, which is why free trade can be unfair to our farmers, because Central American farmers are not held to the same standards. Think about it -- a farmer here has to pay US/state taxes, obey OSHA safety regulations, meet USDA quality standards, obey EPA environmental regulations... I'm not saying these are bad, but comparing these to a shithole country is like apples and oranges. We have different values as a developed nation and we shouldn't villainize anyone who can't turn a profit vs. people with no regulation.
The argument that it will drive third world farmers out of business is completely bogus. It will hurt our farmers first.