Written by: Anonymous

I agree with Answerman: nationalism is effectively ignored in the free-trade argument. But, so what? In effect the global free-trade argument, when taken to its logical extreme, nullifies any nationality discussion at all; save the differentiation provided by national currencies, global free-trade, in this context, eliminates borders. Raw mats will be procured and processed in the countries that have "volunteered" to host such activity and material such as the Bose-Einstein condensate will be produced by the countries that have the ability to host such activity. The simple point here is that economic activity will be relegated to the marginal provider--there is really little you can do, outside of artificial and despicable intervention, to arrest this process. It should happen.

Your point is well taken, that free-trade necessitates the continued existence of peace and cooperation. I think we are understating, or perhaps even ignoring, the possibility that the US is in a singular position to install and ensure the preservation of these qualities (but this may very well invite an entirely different discussion).

I found myself in an interesting argument with a seasoned macro professor a while back. I argued that the current account deficit that the US is currently running, and has been now for almost 10 years, will from henceforth on remain a deficit, save an unprecedented puke of the USD. He was astonished and began to vaticinate all sorts of doom. Why is this so bad? The world has become our grand outsource project--China included. They (the world) produces what we could but have found to be less than optimal, and we engage in the development of products and ideas that will only serve to enhance our dominance as the greatest experiment in the human condition. (Lest we forget, this is the country where a man who should have died in a coal mining accident finds himself with a six-figure salary and no responsibility) Just because China is involved in raw material processing and is gaining on a relative scale, doesn't mean that they have the domestic investment opportunity set that we here in the US do. We are progressing at a rate that China is categorically unable to replicate.