"the iraqi shoemaker is unemployed, cannot buy shoes, cannot buy a hat, cannot buy chocolate.."

Wrong, he's not unemployed for long, because there is new demand in the hat and chocolate industries. Or the multinational shoe company employs him.

What you are saying by disagreeing with me is that everyone in Iraq should pay double the price for their shoes, just to keep this one shoemaker in his job. That's crazy.

"he could get as job as a prison guard in a new prison,"

He doesn't need to but whatever floats your boat.

"or perhaps commit a crime to feed his family and end up as a prison inmate, along with most of his ex shoe making mates..."

No, that's what Iraqis had to do under Saddam when he starved them and spent the money on palaces. But why would he need to do that now? As explained, the availability of outside goods does not increase unemployment levels, actually, new jobs are created because people have more cash to spend, so create new businesses. So he's employed, and now his mates are as well, and has better access to cheap shopping than before. This is bad why?

"and that's not even getting to the bit about the poor asian sweatshop worker who's slavery is now endorsed by a 'free' market in Iraq."

"Whose", not "who's". The asian is working in the sweatshop because the "sweatshop" has better pay and conditions than his previous job in the boggy rice field.

"not to mention the extra resources needed to tranpsort the shoes from asia to iraq."

Remember how the "asian" shoes were the same quality, but half the price? The cost of a product is the price of the resources used to make and ship that product. If one company can produce the same product cheaper than another company, then the "cheaper" company must be using fewer resources to make it. It is in a company's interest to use as few resources as possible to make their product, because then they can sell them cheaper and be more competitive.

Another example that might be clearer: It is very expensive for Iceland to grow fruit and vegetables, because it is cold. It is easy and cheap for Brazil, because it is nice and warm. So a month's supply of fruit and vegetables in Iceland costs $1000, and a month's supply of fruit and vegies in Brazil costs $100.

Imagine you were an icelander. Would you buy Iceland fruit and vegies? Or would you get some sent from Brazil and pay $50 for shipping? OF COURSE you would get them from Brazil. A few Iceland farmers have to do a different job, but jobs are so easy to find now that Icelanders have so much spare cash that the economy is growing very fast. Ah but all that diesel burnt by the container ship carrying the food causes more pollution you say. Wrong.

Because you can grow food 10 times as fast in Brazil, then you only need to use the farm machinery (and everything else) a tenth as much per unit of food, so only a tenth of the fuel is used. So fuel is saved overall. Even the farm uses manual labour instead of machinery, an Iceland farm needs 10 times the workers per unit of food, who use more than 10 times the heating, ten times the housing, etc etc, all of which creates far more waste and pollution than the container ship will burn.

Geddit?