For some reason, the media seem to think that any statement to advance the current trade agenda is justified, no matter how utterly absurd it might be. How else to explain the fact that trade representative Ron Kirk is not being laughed out of office after saying: "we now have a visible manifestation of what happens when the world stops trading. It's not a pretty picture." Yes, the current picture is not pretty. The economy is in its worst downturn in 70 years because the promoters of the current trade agenda have mismanaged the economy for the last two decades. One result of the downturn is that world trade has plummeted. That one should be pretty evident even to a supporter of this trade agenda. In other words, the causation went from economic collapse to reduced trade, not the other way around. Where's the ridicule?
--Dean Baker