Mark St. Angelo comments are spot on! At the risk of sounding insensitive, the displaced worker in the US could care less about helping lift millions out of poverty. They are rightly concerned about not entering poverty themselves.



That said, far too many discussions of "free trade" seem to place blame for job losses on trade, which is ignorant at best, totally divisive at worst. Several months ago I read an article that estimated the US economy has permanently lost 7.5-8.5 million jobs since 2000. Of that total, approximately 1 million jobs were lost as a result of NAFTA. Another approximately 2 million jobs were lost as a result of our trade imbalance with China, which is NOT due to free trade. The balance of job losses were attributable to technological advances - robotics, process automation, smart networks, etc. The article went on to estimate another 40+ million jobs will be lost over the next 20-30 years as technological advancements eliminate not just manufacturing jobs, but jobs within the services and administrative fields as well. Coupled with the jobs already lost, that represents nearly a quarter of US employment.



You can have all the free trade you want. If people don't have jobs and adequate income to support their families, just who will buy all the cheap crap being traded?



I surely don't have an answer. We can't stop innovating and I doubt the majority of the 45-50 million displaced workers will have the means or opportunity to seek retraining or go back to school in order to enter a new career field. In the meantime, employers are continually looking for ways to reduce overhead, which inevitably translates into fewer full time, benefitted employees. And the concept of transfer payments is so flawed I won't even go there. So what is the answer? I'd really like to see the economists and politicos from both sides of the aisle address this coming crisis with real world, cost efficient but effective and fair proposals.



Then again, I'd also like to win the lottery...