Shannon on the bailout and trade PDF Print E-mail
Written by Stumo   
Thursday, 25 September 2008

This was placed in a comment by Frank Shannon, owner of Finishes, Ltd. in Colorado Springs.  I wanted to make it a full article.

There is a correlation between the current financial market meltdown and our trade meltdown that was a precursor to the current economic problems.  Neither market has the proper oversight.

Markets work for everyone when there are rules and someone is watching the activities in the market.  The human condition is such that when people are tempted with great wealth, some will cheat the system. 

Ronald Reagan said, "trust but verify".  In the financial meltdown unfolding before our very eyes, we trusted but didn't verify.  As a result, otherwise virtuous men were tempted to be not so virtuous and began "gaming" the system since nobdoy was watching and/or they bought the watchers.

In trade, we made even more gross mistakes.  Besides making bad agreements and then ignoring the agreement and the rules, we trusted foreign nations known not to be virtuous and we expected them to behave like we do.  They never have been trustworthy before so why would we expect them to be so now?

When we began deregulating many of our markets, it could be argued that they were, in fact, over-regulated and maybe even stifled.

So we proceeded, as we always seem to do, to go to the other extreme and abandoned proper oversight allowing people to ignore the rules and "game" the system.

Markets do NOT function properly when there are no rules.  We do not have "free trade" or "free markets" without rules.  Without rules, we can't have agreements/contracts.  Without agreements/contracts we can't have laws.  Without laws, there is no redress and we have chaos.  Does this sound a bit familiar?

In our present environment of trade anarchy, the most aggressive, ruthless, unethical, immoral win and those of us who follow the rules and are guided by ethics and morals lose.

Goodbye "American Dream"
Thank you Washington
 

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A Nation conquered by tricky keyword......... No such thing as free trade or Free lunches
written by Theresa , September 27, 2008
Divide/Conquer and confuse the masses. Coke or Pepsi both equally not good since both have benzene. "free trade/free market/free enterprise/fairtrade/balanced trade/etc. " No doubt citizens are confused and we need a real discussion on Trade alone perhaps on public TV and in a Public Debate with the key players on both sides discussing the issues, slides would help, projector etc. http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/...mar96.html smilies/shocked.gif
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State Senator-retired
written by Paul Muegge , September 26, 2008
Far to many economist that always spouted the free market are suddenly silent and yet not held accountable for their ignorance and unwillingness to even debate the issues of globalization and trade.
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A few thoughts about manufacturing:

There is a great misunderstanding of the relationship- between money and wealth.  The beginning principles with which we can all agree are a few and simple noble truths:
 
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