Free trade has the ability to help specialize a nation and enhance productivity, but is this a good thing all around? In a country as large and diverse among land and people as the United States, is the notion of free trade actually hampering our economy and status as a world super power? With unemployment rate higher than it has been in decades, we must look back at reducing costs and reevaluate or decisions in order to rebuild our own nation. Does it make us feel better buying cheaper goods knowing that a child working an 18 hour shift may have produced that good? The free trade theory embodies the belief that it could ultimately be the solution to world poverty, but by producing goods in sweatshops the world may be growing poorer with these terrible working conditions that hamper the overall quality of life. The Wal-Mart discussion just furthers the question of is it helping or ultimately hurting the world. The note that "wealth may be accumulating in the hands of a small group of privileged elites" cannot be ignored.

The comic at the top of page 52 amused me. The irony of the situation is largely arguable. We have a heavy (clearly well fed) sweatshop protester telling a begging, malnourished male not to worry because some day we will essentially find a cure to hunger in Africa. What if this sweatshop was the cure? Is the $35/wk worth the strenuous labor of the sweatshop? Only the workers themselves can answer that question for us and it seems even they are unsure.

It is important to note the idea of free trade with minimal government intervention. Although tariffs and port regulations increase costs of global trade, must we also note the importance of regulations on what comes into our nation. Drug trafficking is already a problem as well as the smuggling of illegal immigrants. Without government interference we must note the safety hazards that may occur.

We must unite as a nation before we can unite as a planet. We live in a nation so divided over issues on our own turf that we must learn to look oversees and realize that it is not only we that can help ourselves, but other nations as well if it is gone about correctly. However, the question still remains - what is the correct way to enhance economic conditions worldwide?