You have to take into account absolute free trade, which the last 3 presidents have all been for. Ross Perot tried to scare us with his "giant sucking sound towards Mexico", when speaking about NAFTA, but I don't think he could have even imagined the sucking sound towards China, of which the economists got exactly backward. They thought opening trade with them would open up new markets for American products. For some reason they forgot to take into account that the vast majority of Chinese could never afford American goods but were willing to make stuff for Americans for 50 cents an hour.
The knee jerk reaction is to not shop at places like Wal-Mart who import a majority of their goods from China. However why should I cut into my own buying power when my less scrupulous co-workers don't? The 30-60 dollars a week extra that I would spend else ware translates into a 3-7% pay cut across the board for me, or a 3-7% pay increase for my less-than-scrupulous co-workers, depending on how you look at it. Better to slowly make it harder for retailers to exploit third-world countries. As business is forced to come home, or new manufacturers spring up in the US, prices will rise but commerce and jobs will also be created.
