Alan Tonelson at American Economic Alert really hammered liberal TINA pimp, David Broder, and I will join in in the slam fest a bit here. Broder hand-rings about Bush's loss of Fast Sell-Out Authority and he's in lock step with the apocalyptic forecasts of Kommissar Schwab. Free Trade is good for the world, according to Broder, because "95% of the consumers live outside the United States". Out of all the apologetics for laissez-faire, this is one of the most dense. Namely, no other nation on the planet has our consumer oriented market culture and neither the buying power. Other nations, such as in the western EU ones, may have a higher standard of living, yet they still retain their savings panache and have less household debt, etc. The fact exists that the nation is losing a gold-mine because of our consumer/post-industrial economic and trade structure;implementation of tariffs would be a check on our American Consumer Religion, and also would provide the federal government with revenue, and lots of it. Feature that many of these free-traders also want to keep taxes low and decry deficit spending; liberal globalists want money for programs such as health care and the general social safety net. Okay, why not have China and others indirectly pay for them?

Broder is wishy-washy, like most globalist liberals, and believes that "labor and environmental standards" in free-trade agreements is enough to offset shortcomings. History lesson, Mr. Broder: Clinton slipped them in with NAFTA and look at the result. They're empty symbolism. Even if they were abided by, the de-industrialization of the USA is continuing, real wages have not experienced significant growth with GNP since 1973, and our once second-to-none manufacturing base has transcended into McJob, service-oriented crappy positions. Jobs that free-traders like Broder and his Wall Street Journal fellow-travelers haven't found a way to outsource elsewhere. If they could, they would.

As I've stated before, I yearn that these professionals will someday feel the pinch of their own globalist outsourcing agenda:

'First globalism came for the factory workers;
I wasn't a factory worker, so I didn't speak out..

'Then it came for the software industry,
I didn't work in the field, so it meant nothing to me....

'...then globalism came for my job.
But there was none left to speak out for me.'