'fair trade' not 'free trade'

i am an advocate of "fair trade" not free trade.... or at least "managed trade", not laissez faire trade. the primary flaw with free trade is the idea of the "race to the bottom". countries compete with each other so much that it's a detriment to everyone.... they have to start cutting regulations and wages etc just to compete. perhaps for a country that is just starting to develop, or in the process of developing, they being on the receiving end will reap benefits of something they wouldn't have had otherwise. but for a countries that are already considered developed nations like the US, it leads to problems. this is especially true if you consider that for most effective purposes, we have an infinite labor pool. you can always find a schmuck to take less when he's in poverty, as the world has tons of, the idea of putting our labor somewhere else. for example. mitt romney talked about cutting out labor's union stronghold, saying that it costs two thousand dollars more per car here than other places. he's talking about cutting out pay and benefits, then, just to increase profits. we might agree that the unions get and had too much (eg before the bail out when they didn't have to take as many concessions), but that don't mean there's things being cut, the point of race to the bottom. there might be some benefit to some people, with lower prices in goods.... but not for everyone, and over the long run, it brings everyone down. like that motto.... "out of a job yet? keeping buying foreign". wages jobs etc fall. also, if you look at the share of the middle classes income compared to the richer etc, over time, it not only stalled but started to decrease. especially if you look at it after inflation. what could have caused this? perhaps the free trade act that bill clinton enacted in 1995. (we saw a boom soon after that, due to the internet boom or trade or what is interesting to speculate). even if it was a boom for the corporations as it was... that don't mean it wasn't for everyone, or at least that it'd last. we are essentially making the US meet the with everyone else.... causing us to become a third world nation etc. ---------- we can all agree unnecessary regulations should be cut. if the regulations are "necessary" then cutting them will be problematic. i tend to think most of our regulations are there for a reason, though. what reason do you have to think otherwise other than your mere assertions? we cut environmental regulations, people die, things get ruined... we cut safety regulations, people die, get seriously hurt etc, we cut financial regualtions, people abuse the process... we cut labor regulations, people get abused, like children or whatever. on and on. perhaps we can agree that there might be a side effect that is good with free trade that unnecessary reglations being cut could be a good thing. also, the employers might not have to cut labor with free trade, but they do. they put plants in mexico instead of the US, or even reestablish them there. the rust belt is an example... instead of hiring the masses of unemployed there, they hire out and off source jobs. as to the price argument.. i'm not sure how you're tying this to free trade. a person cannot just "lower prices", they have to have the ability to. infering what you might meant... free trade might cause lower prices... but that only benefits some people, while hurting others. i mean, the guy who lost his job or had his wages cut might benefit when the tires he used to make or makes for a lot less are now cheaper... but that doesn't mean he's better for it. there's only a set pool of money and resources, at elast as an initial supposition. eg, bob makes ten dollars an hour, 120 per day. his boss cuts his job to five dollars an hour, 60 per day. his boss pockets twenty of that savings, and passes on the rest to everyone else. in this case boss got richer, and everyone else saved some,but bob lost out. but then what happens when 'everyone else' also eventually gets knocked down? all their jobs get cut or reduced or not starting out as high, whatever. eventually everyone will be working for nothing while the boss makes beans. i didn't say the free trade act caused inflation... i said it caused our wages to decline. look the rust belt, it collapsed. loook at shoes or all the products that were once made here now being made there. as that site from heritage you quoted said, manufacturing jobs are lost. it didn't say how that's good. sure it might mean some lower prices, but as is with Bob, it's not all around victory. even if the poor get richer at a faster rate than the rich... that only means there's upward mohility. that means you can go from nothing to something significant realtively quick. but, that doesn't mean much as far as free trade. instead of getting to something more significant, you get to less when you're poor. i don't know how you can make such a blanket assertion that technology makes everything okay. it may be true that GM starts to use robots instead of workers to comepete with others... but that only means GM made more money. some might be passed on to the general population... but when they ahve to take a cut of the profit, the balance means more goes to teh rich and the supply side, less to the demand side, the side that stimulates the economy and is more important. innovation still occurrs without free trade. windows the operating system and compuaters woudl have been madea nd sold regardless of if we had free trade.