The purpose of "free trade" agreements is not to raise the wealth of other workers to the US level

[gollygee]

It is to lower the wealth of our workers to other countries' levels.

The only person I've heard say to me in person that free trade agreements had helped tons of people was a Rand Paul loving egotist. But then not many people in the rust belt are fans of free trade agreements, and there's a reason for that.

And I'm not sure that a horrible 16-hour-a-day job in an unsafe factory is a great improvement upon agricultural work. People's lives are not really improving much if at all anywhere, and people's lives here are getting worse by far.

[Gman]

1. Maybe not in reality lower so much as it is

Holding down wages here while poor nations rise. They want an international wage scale eventually.

[awoke_in_2003]

2. There is one here

who defends these trade agreements because it will raise the standard of living for workers in other parts of the world. It is a laughable defense.

[cloudbase]

3. Here's something from Stanley Mihelick,

former executive vice president at Goodyear:

"Until we get real wages down much closer to those of the Brazils and Koreas, we cannot pass along productivity gains to wages and still be competitive."