Theres alot of bull to this free trade thing.It's not as free as you think

When the US dollar was strong against the Canadian dollar (like during the prosperous Clinton years and NOT during the chimp's miserable tenure where our dollar went into a nosedive), I occasionally imported items from Canada for my business. Anyone who thinks you can just simply import anything you want and do it for free from a country you have "free trade" with will be unpleasantly surprised when they show up at customs with their goods.

$2000 is the limit for an informal entry (where you can cross without the services of a broker). If your load is worth one penny over $2000, you're going to have to use the services of a customs broker, which is not only expensive (easily over $100 in fees no matter how small the load) but a royal pain in the ass with all the paperwork and the time involved while you wait for clearance.

Or, if you happen to bring across the "wrong" type of item, for instance textiles made in Canada, you're going to have to use a broker even if your load is only worth $5. Cross one piece of cloth for the purpose of resale in your business and you're going to have to pay a broker some heavy fees, along with going through special red tape for those textiles.

Free my ass!

There's a bumper sticker for ya.

And it has multiple implications beyond your example as well...

Never mind the similarity it shares with the idiotic "Freedom isn't free" RW wacko bumper stickers :D

Free trade is for established big business's to avoid paying those that actually do the work, they can shop the world for cheap labor and then blackmail their workers by threatening to take their near slave wages elsewhere.

I believe that oil subsidies are what enables this global blackmail. I've heard it argued that only because the price of oil is "low" on the scale of other commodities, and that oil has an unaccounted for, future cost, that huge cargo tankers are feasible. These huge cargo transport ships move the cheap goods produced for pennies per widget on the opposite side of the planet to Western markets.

Truly "Free markets" would require an honest accounting of a resource's true cost, in monetary terms, that includes the impact on the commons, both locally where the items are produced as well as where the item is sold.

Free markets supposedly work only when the players have accurate information. Ignoring future ecological costs of a resource is short-sighted, and may make money in the short term, but is foolish in the long term.

If it is the responsibility of the government to enforce the free flow of information in the market via the SEC and the anti-monopoly arms of the government. The SEC is mandated to do this even if the market resists, or does not want to hear this information.

Of course since the oil companies pwn us right now, by way of their proxy veepee cheneybot and their muppet president, we wont see any change until 2006, and the big oil companies have budgeted plenty of filthy oil lucre to buy whomever wins in 2006 and 2008. (D) or (R)


One happy camper:
Profit Soars at Exxon Mobil
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072802085.html