The problem with deciding on the wunnerfulness of "Free trade" by looking at the price tag is that all the real costs of dependency and profiteering are not in the price on the tag: the "Market" doesn't include those costs because that would reveal "Free trade" as a catastrophically bad deal for the people whose nation becomes dependent on others for their essentials.
Since we gave up making essentials as a waste of time, now we're consumers, and so it's our "Right" to waste as much as we want: we waste 40% of our food, energy, water, healthcare spending, etc.
We get real huffy and defensive when this reality is pointed out: it's our "Right" to waste as much as want and not have to pay any price for that squandering.
Boo-hoo, we ran out out money to waste, so print us up another couple trillion dollars to blow, Jay Powell-and make it snappy.
If you want to build back better, then we're going to have to re-learn how to build quality goods here, not in a distant environmental wasteland.
We're going to have to incentivize efficiency and durability rather than waste, fraud and profiteering.
The true cost of our wasteful, fraud-riddled, dependent-on-distant-others Landfill Economy have been hidden because waste is easy while trade-offs are hard.
https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/03/if-you-want-to-build-back-better.html
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