The new line of the day is... "Don't worry about free trade agreements because marital divorce is worse."  

David Brooks, the NY Times op-ed contributor, is afraid of the push for better trade policies.  The old ones are just fine.  Just sign every document shoved in front of Congress' fact that says "free trade agreement."  Don't read it.  Don't criticize it, because if you do you are a protectionist.

Huckabee and Obama won Iowa yesterday.  Brooks says this on the trade issue, when commenting on the caucus results:

Huckabee understands how middle-class anxiety is really lived. Democrats talk about wages. But real middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has.

Yes, David.  Divorce is worse than a trade agreement.  Serial killers are worse too.  So are forest fires and natural disasters.  And death is really bad for a person's "lifetime prospects." 

But those issues have nothing to do with trade.  And, given that financial stress is the biggest cause of divorce, how many divorces have resulted from the outsourcing, low wages, and business loss caused by trade agreements?

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