Oh you're paying more for those than I suspect you realize, Bern.
In the form of welfare, and higher taxes to make uup for the millions of Americans who cannot pay their share of taxes because they lost their jobs to FREE TRADE.
I seriously doubt that any saving you've enjoyed as a result of free trade aren't more than lost in the problems associated with it.
Try looking past the OBVIOUS and start thinking more deeply about the other effects FT is having, would be my advice.
No ed. The problem with you lefties is make things far more complex than they are.
Really? I had no idea macro-economics was such a simple subject.
Okay, guess I must be a moron.
Part of my flawed thinking must stem from the fact that much of what we are losing isn't easily quantifiable, of course.
But hey, let's just pretend that everything that makes up the quality of our lives can be put into an accounting ledger, shall we?
Left and right are really relative terms, amigo.
To you I no doubt appear leftist, but to many leftists I appear to be an apologist for the right.
I'll try harder. I'm fairly sure I can come up with things that you'll believe are even dumber than that.
Assuming you buy into those numbers, I'm sure you're accurate.
Less, obviously.
That's the current theory of a healthy macro-economy...one that has about a 5% unempliyment rate, true.
And you want to convince me I would have seen signifcantly lower taxes as a result? You really are dreaming.
WEll I cannot know what YOUR taxes would be, but I can tell you that in part the reason that the middle class's share of the taxes is so low is because our incomes have been declining (in purchaing terms) for about the last 40 years.
The shortage has to be made up, and guess what segment of the population has been taking on the neck?
The affluent upper middle class, mostly.
If that's the socioeconomic class you're in?
yes, I feel pretty confident that you are paying more taxes than you would if our frade policies weren't nuts.
Can I prove it?
No.
It merely follows logically based on the assumption that more workers who are paid better working in manufacuting jobs CAN PAY higher share of the total taxes than less workers whose jobs are in the poorer paid SERVICE sectors.
Now I know this flies in the face of everything you have been taught to believe, but THINK about it.
What I am proposing is not socialism, nor communism, it is economic NATIONALISM.
What you are proposing (and what our economy is becoming) is really economic INTERNATIONISM.
I have thought about it ed and what we're talking about AT BEST is a 2% difference in the employment rate. Maybe you're not saying what it sounds like you're saying, but what it sounded to me like you were saying is that had we had whatever trade policy you would deem as 'good' would have made for less unemployement, which 'of course' (I say that sarcastically because what government would have done to tax rates as result of that difference is certainly no garuantee) would have caused government to lower taxes enough to compensate for the extra I am paying for goods and services because my only option is to buy american. We weren't talking about intangibles it didnt' seem like. We were talking about how much would be coming out of my pocket your way vs. my way.