Cheap Stuff or Good Jobs

I'm back! And it's my cousin's fault.  He keeps sending me stuff from the Huffington Post which is a very liberal (even by journalistic standards) news source.  In any case, I love getting the information because it is important to view and understand the different perspectives of our economic strengths and weaknesses.   Take a look at the following article that talks about how our monetary policy has increased the fortunes of the Chinese while killing American jobs:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/the-fed-works-for-chinese_b_811777.html

Monetary policy is interesting and complex.  There are certainly two opposing forces that are impossible to ignore.  One is the need and desire to keep “things” affordable to all Americans and the other is to create and maintain high paying jobs for all Americans.  Unfortunately, it has been difficult to do both.  In our history, we have seen where the force to create and maintain high paying jobs has crushed industries and almost crushed industries – think Auto unions and Teacher unions and Government unions.  And now, we have seen where the push to keep things inexpensive has crushed jobs.  A pair of pants or a shirt costs the same amount now as it did 20-30 years ago.  That’s only possible because of the outsourcing of jobs.  Which evil is worse?  I really don't know.

What do you think?  Should we be protecting our jobs at the expense of a standard of living and global competitiveness or should we be letting the free market do its job?   Not so fast though.  I'm a big believer in the idea of a free market ONLY if we are indeed being treated fairly by our competitors globally.  Are we?