U.S.-EU Free Trade Agreement: Global Game-Changer?
Under this scenario, the transatlantic economy, the largest commercial artery in the world, would be revived. The global clout and credibility of the United States and Europe would be restored. By coming together as opposed to drifting apart, the U.S. and Europe would remain the standard bearers of the global economic architecture. Whatever the common standards of a free trade and investment agreement, and whatever the harmonization and standardization of industry/sector regulations, a transatlantic deal could become the template by which the United States and Europe negotiate with various emerging market economies — China included.
In this sense, a transatlantic free trade and investment agreement would serve notice to the developing nations that the world’s two largest economies can still work together, and when they do, they still have a great deal of global economic leverage over most, if not all, developing nations.
In the end, a sweeping free trade and investment agreement between the United States and the European Union would be a global game-changer. The deal would reverberate around the world. And in time, Washington and Brussels would come to realize that the best way to promote growth and rise to the challenge of emerging powers like China is by working together, not apart.
While bureaucrats find central control intoxicating, I prefer ordered liberty.
What this would do is not free commerce but chain it to a centralized hyper-regulatory hydra, benefiting government. We don't need more steps in the direction of an Orwellian end state, a human face stomped on by a boot, forever.
Here is a counterproposal for our ingenious authors. Let's try having free trade, economic freedom that is to say, the corrolory of freedom writ large, AT HOME in the USA. You know, let me buy an insurance product of my choice out of those that insurance companies coast to coast would like to offer me, free of government mandates and intrusions. Let me buy a pistol in another state than my home state. Basics.
It must be recalled that the establishment stuffed shirts (experts) are the people who helped our society get into the sad state it is in today!If we were to to put a name on all of this we could call it the "Krugman effect".
These guys nibble around the edge of a huge economic crisis that is coming down on the world at this very minute.They speak of bandaids for a global economy which is suffering from fatal hemorrhaging.We are in a series of financial traps with no visible way out & these guys are offering nickel & dime cures which will do very little for our problems!
The only thing that will happen by "harmonizing" obscure, bureaucratic rules is that the more bureaucratic option will always, always, dominate.
I know that this will cost the US money, lots of money, the author sites the "post war" economic order, but then there is the pesky memory called the Marshal plan. If you tie two balloons together they will become the same size as the gas equilibrates.
This is another step toward becoming Europe, a step backwards and a huge mistake on every level. In my simple, non-economist, realist opinion.