Originally Posted by butterflywing
something to think about when we buy from china and turn our backs on people who need help feeding their families.
I think there are plenty of people in China who need help feeding their families too.
Protectionism is not the answer. There are plenty of poor countries who have an advantage in producing some crop or commodity and it is totally immoral for rich countries to deny them access to their markets because they want to protect their local jobs to produce the same thing at three times the cost.
Did anyone clock the word Pakistan in that? Does anyone think that if Pakistan had a better and more reliable income from what it can produce (like cotton) that there would be less support there for extremists? Now THAT would save money, and lots of more important things besides.
I say again- protectionsim is immoral and not in line with my morals. Free trade is the way (with social protections, which I do realise are absent form the textile industry in many respects, but let's work at getting that built in, instead of having a knee jerk reaction that everything should be produced wherever WE happen to be)
Have any of you ever been to a Third World country? They deserve a fair go. They don't want charity, they want access to world markets so they can earn their living and, yes, feed their families, just like we do.