A Critical Analysis of Free Trade

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America is at an important time in its history where its economic future is looking catastrophic and the worst of any time in its history, excluding the great depression. The wealth gap in America is one of the worst in the world, our middle class is shrinking, and over 70% of corporations that make billions pay zero federal income taxes. While the leaders at Capitol Hill are trying to come up with ideas to prevent this from continuing; the answer is right in front of them, reorganize and fix the free trade agreements in place. Free Trade is wrong for America and is the reason for outsourcing and the decline of our once great manufacturing sector Since the year 2000 America has lost 5.5 million manufacturing jobs; 2.2 million of those jobs were lost after 2008 showing a steep decline in the sector that is theorized to decline even faster with more trade agreements being negotiated. Big businesses are essentially relying on America to be a nation of consumers and sustaining an entity of such large proportions without creating anything is un-executable. If businesses just sold products and made nothing the bulk of the money would always go to the nation of makers since the profit for selling is lower than creating. The middle class has always been largely made up of blue collar workers but while they’re being destroyed the white collar sector is not safe. During the 2000’s, a substantial influx of tech jobs being outsourced to India and China was seen. Customer Service Call Centers are being placed in India along with in-house tech assistance departments. White collar jobs previously considered to be safe are being sent offshore including accounting, stockbrokers, data entry, etc. Once considered the holy grail of jobs that canno... ... middle of paper ... ...china/gdp-per-capita>. Elk, Mike. "Chinese Tire Tariffs Saved Jobs—So Will Dems Take Action on Chinese Currency? - Working In These Times." In These Times. IN THESE TIMES AND THE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS, 3 Sept. 2010. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. . McCormack, Richard. "The Plight of American Manufacturing." The American Prospect. The American Prospect, Inc, 21 Dec. 2009. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. . Yeebo, Yepoka. "Corporate Profits At All-Time High As Recovery Stumbles." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc, 25 Mar. 2011. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. .

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