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Free Trade Is Plutocratic Propaganda
Submitted by Dark Bid
Free Trade Is Plutocratic Propaganda
With the looming Trans-Pacific Partnership dominating the headlines, now is a good time to revisit an old scam called "free trade."
In 2003, Kevin Flanagan was an information technology employee at Bank of America. They told him he was being replaced with foreign labor, and he was ordered to train his replacement. After he completed his assignment, he was laid off. Then he went to the parking lot and shot himself.
That's "free trade."
Like The Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984, sometimes, the most effective way to lie is to use the most innocent words. No word is more susceptible to propaganda-leveraging than "freedom." Attach that word to any concept, and all of a sudden, it's unassailable. That's exactly what happened with "free trade."
Proponents of free trade will often use the simplest analogies to convey their point, as if you were retarded. The reason they have to resort to such caveman illustrations is because free trade does not exist in the real world. There is no such thing as equality of bargaining power. If someone has ten million dollars and you have zero dollars, anything above zero is an "improvement" in your situation. The free trade economists will say this person with zero dollars is "free" to work for $1 per hour, and they will do so because it improves their situation. This is what "freedom" means to free trade economists.
If you doubt the free trade economists, they will call you a "protectionist," as if protecting your country's economy were some kind of grievous transgression. In fact, nothing is more American than shunning free trade nonsense.
Ian Fletcher calls free trade the myth of "cowboy capitalism." According to Fletcher, all four presidents on Mt. Rushmore were protectionists. The entire American Revolution was fought because the colonists were tired of being economically exploited by the British. Alexander Hamilton realized that British dominance in manufacturing and American reliance on agriculture were dooming us to a banana republic future. The solution? Tariffs. By taxing British goods, the United States boosted its manufacturing industry. By 1820, tariffs were at 40%.
Abraham Lincoln said, "Give us a protective tariff, and we will have the greatest nation on earth."
One of the fascinating parts of this history is that the South was opposed to protectionism. They wanted free trade. Why? Because free trade was necessary for the international slave trade from Africa to the United States.
Fast forward to 1994. That's when the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted. The result was nothing less than the wholesale destruction of the American manufacturing industry. And where did these displaced workers go? In the 1990s, 98% of all net new jobs created were in the service industry, which has lower wages.
This is what free trade looks like. I love the smell of freedom in the morning.
One doesn't have to look hard to find free trade evangelists in the corporate world. Apple, the world's largest company, is also the largest example of how free trade is a game of heads I win, tails you lose. Only 5.6% of Apple workers are in the United States. There are 43,000 Apple employees in the country and 20,000 employees overseas. However, Apple is nothing without its global suppliers, where 700,000 workers make the next round of flashy gizmos that nobody needs anyway. These suppliers should be included in the worker count because they are directly involved in the manufacturing process.
In February 2011, President Obama asked Steve Jobs, "Why can't that work come home?" Despite having the last name of "Jobs," Steve Jobs made it clear that he didn't care about jobs. He only cared about money. He said, "Those jobs aren't coming back."
In 1983, Jobs used patriotism when it was convenient for him. He called the Macintosh, "a machine that is made in America." Later, he said, "I'm as proud of the factory as I am of the computer." But by 2004, patriotism gave way to profits, and Apple became an American company in name only. It relied on foreign manufacturing.
Betsey Stevenson, former chief economist at the Labor Department, said, "Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn't the best financial choice. That's disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity."
Of course, Apple falls back on the timeless corporate lie that American workers are not skilled enough. One anonymous Apple executive said, "We shouldn't be criticized for using Chinese workers. The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need." They were skilled enough before NAFTA, but after NAFTA, all of a sudden, they all forgot how to do their jobs. It's funny how that amnesia works. Now, for every two American college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, only one of them is hired into a job in their field. Sounds like a real skills shortage.
Alan Blinder, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said, "Contrary to conventional wisdom, the more offshorable occupations are not low-end jobs, whether measured by wages or by education. The correlation between skill and offshorability is almost zero."
The anonymous Apple executive made it clear that Apple was really a country to itself and did not care about jobs or social effects, "We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries. We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems."
Manufacturing analysts estimate that if Apple paid Americans to build iPhones, it would cost an extra $65 per iPhone. With hundreds of dollars of profits per phone, Apple would still be profitable.
While Obama asked Steve Jobs about bringing jobs back to America, the Apple executives had their own suggestions. They wanted more visas so they could bring in more foreign workers. They wanted a tax holiday so they could bring back some of their overseas profits at no cost. They wanted government funding to train American workers. Notice a pattern here? They want to exploit government assistance so they can maximize their profits, which would boost their stock options. On and on it goes.
You may be familiar with the term "corporate raider" from the 1980s, but what is happening now is on a scale much larger than that. It is "country raiding." Entire countries are being exploited and saddled with the burden of supporting multi-national behemoths who tell you that your very demise is actually your greatest freedom. Some Americans are catching on to this scam and are actually leaving the country in pursuit of opportunity. Imagine that: leaving America for economic reasons. Ellis Island has been flipped on its head. "Give me your tired and your poor" has been replaced with "Let's GTFO!"
As Zero Hedge reported, in the first quarter of 2015, a record number of Americans renounced their citizenship.
One expatriate, Emily Matchar, described her experience, "After applying for 279 jobs over two years, my husband finally got the offer he'd been hoping for: a well-paid position teaching philosophy at a respected university. We should have been thrilled. There was just one little thing. The job was in Hong Kong. My husband said, "I feel like we're being deported from our own country."
Meanwhile, in China, Apple continues to thrive on its masses of slave labor. Like the antebellum South, Apple supports free trade because it makes their slave labor possible. Foxconn, Apple's major supplier, is located in Shenzhen. Do you know how they keep their unemployment rate down? If you are a migrant worker who has been unemployed for more than 3 months, it is illegal to rent housing. So you can either be homeless or leave. I'm sure the people at the Bureau of Labor Statistics would love a policy like this in the United States. Then they wouldn't have to bend over backwards to goal-seek all their employment data to conform to the official "recovery" story line. If you're not unemployed in Shenzhen, you're probably getting beaten by Foxconn security or jumping off buildings to escape your miserable existence.
So you can imagine my level of trust when President Obama says this time will be different. He called the Trans-Pacific Partnership "the most progressive trade deal in history." And yet he doesn't want to tell us anything about it. With NAFTA, 5 million American manufacturing jobs were lost, and 57,000 factories shut down. What will the Trans-Pacific Partnership do? It's like a sequel to a movie that was terrible in the first place.
Obama visited Nike's headquarters as part of his political rally. One of the high-quality jobs at Nike is held by a 32-year-old mother in Indonesia who processes 100 shoes per hour for 83 cents. I'm sure she is a free trade supporter.
After awhile, you start to realize that the people who love free trade so much are economic hacks and the uber-rich. They use sterilized language and hollow arguments to convince you of the positive ideals of free trade. In all honesty, it's a great theory. It really is. But then the moment you start believing it, they start working in all sorts of exceptions - usually for themselves. Before you know it, you're an unemployed American or a Chinese slave at Foxconn. And the uber-rich are in the Bahamas laughing about it, thanking the economists for playing along with the story.
One thing is for sure: The Founding Fathers would have never put up with this bullshit. Neither should you
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If Obama is for TPP then it is very bad for people. Obama is a sociopath. Little wonder the details are top secret, even from members of congress who are supposed to vote on it.
Statist tripe.
Hint: The state is your abuser, not your savior, and arguing (endlessly) over how it should use violence for the good is ridiculous.
If obama wants it, then it ain't good for you. If obama doesn't want it then it's good for you. He is a fucking liar.
It is now obvious that TPP will work in conjunction with Jade Helm to attempt the final takedown of America. Hope and change.
If a company can pay a Vietnamese worker less than an American worker for the same product, I don't begrudge the company that advantage.
If that worker is a slave, or if there are untold economic costs to shipping all of a nation's jobs overseas, then there are other factors to consider than simply the price of a wage.
But I'm not opposed to foreign workers competing against American workers.
Is that what the free trade discussion is about?
What gets me is that the guy actually complied with his superior's orders, and then quietly offed himself.
He should have locked down everything he was in charge of, emptied his desk, and walked off.
If the company wants help from him after that to run shit and train a foriegn replacement, his fees should start at $1000 per hour for consulting.
From his perspective (presumably before he decided to off himself) if he did what you suggested, then he would be quitting - thus no unemployment and he would not get a letter of recommendation from his employer so his chances of getting another job in his field would have been severly limited...I hear what you are saying, but the practical realities of what his choices were are not what we all automatically assume....
TPP, NAFTA, etc. have as much to do with free trade as "liberalism" has to do with liberty. These are just words, used to divide through collective identification. Free trade doesn't need several hundred-page "agreements". Just repeal the violence carried out against people who are trading. NAFTA, TPP are about favoring corporatist oligopolies through more regulatory capture. Please don't be fooled, the State is not there to protect you.
The fear of Job Loss is > Patriotism & Honesty
So, bacially, you say "hell yeah, sacrifice the middle class lifestyles in this country so multinational corporate profits can be maximized". A sutainable economy should have a plan for how its citizens can earn living wages, and if it doesn't, eventually there will be a civil unrest which leads to instability and revolution.
But, perhaps even more concerning, from what we know from leaks about the highly secretive Trans Pacific Parnership (TPP), US citizens would be giving up the rights of our (theoretically) democratically elected government to regulate working conditions, the environment, intellectual property, product safety (including toxic foods and poisonous air/water) in our country, handing it over to multinational corporations, to a corportely controlled world government that is unaccountable to sovereigns.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-ttp-and-ttip-trade-agreements-a-dystopi...
I say a corporation should be free to hire workers at the lowest wage at which those workers are willing to do the job.
An economy doesn't have a "plan;" an economy is a living collection of producers and consumers. Civil unrest and revolution are symptoms of imbalances in a real economy.
I still feel like I'm missing something, because what libertarian is not for "free trade?" It seems as though "free trade" in the case of the TPP is really code for all sorts of statist "anti-trade" policies, but the details about those policies are sparse.
What you fail to see is that the "living collection of consumers" lose the ability to consume when their wages are driven down by multinational wage arbitrage, and the whole system falls apart.
And the statism of the TPP is globalist totalitarianism rule by oligarchs at the expense of sovereign states. It seeks to fill the void left by loss of national sovereignty. The idealized libertarian "free trade" is a myth to be exploited by corporatists who would see us as global worker units, to be subjugated to the by powerful elites.
Actually, the answer usually lies one level abstracted from the playing field.
They, as in they, never give names casually, announce dates casually or any such thing. This is a highly choreographed drama with every set piece named and identified.
So yes, it is free trade, but to whom?
Trade is free when you do not have to recognize borders and/or tarrifs. Ergo, supranational entities.
United Nations, IMF, World Bank. (edit, to add to this list City of London, Vatican, DC and Switzerland and thus the BIS.)
That is the end game...unless...
Meanwhile: 19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzESrhRrkTI
>>>>>Alexander Hamilton realized that British dominance in manufacturing and American reliance on agriculture were dooming us to a banana republic future.
One of the original traiters.
He needs to be dug up & shot again.
The author has no grasp of history.
Aaron Burr was 10 years too late.
You are quite right Willy. I quit reading when he stated that the civil war was caused by the South wanting free trade to import slaves. The civil war was not about slavery. The south had very little manufacturing and wanted to import cheap manufactured goods from Britain and pay for them by exporting ag products. The north enacted a high tarrif on goods from europe and high taxes on ag products. The goal was to keep the south in perpetual poverty and servitude to the north. The south revolted. This author only knows .gov disinformation.
Set the comments on the South aside.. the rest of the piece had some good stuff.. find the nuggets reject the dross.
Secret courts, secret evidence, secret committees, secret laws, secret treaties. That's an nice democracy you have there.
Welcome to FEUDALISM 2.0
Where the 1.0 version was a National game, 2.0 is the Global Game.
And where individual banks participated in American Capitalism (funded real capital at first, and later provided fiat Debt), only the largest players (TBTF) participate in 2.0 -- with the liquidity backing (Reacharound) from its CB (the private bankster cartel).
And that's the NWO: one country and global region at a time.
Sounds like someone wants a one-way trip to a black site.
Obama is a front man for the US oligarchy, as was GW Bush, Clinton & Reagan. Daddy Bush on the other hand was actually part of the oligarchy.
You don't know the half of it bro...
http://wellaware1.com/
More 411 here...
https://www.youtube.com/user/dallasgoldbug/videos
It is not just the USA workers who were hurt by NAFTA. Three million farm laborers in Mexico lost their jobs 20 years ago thanks to Mexican companies importing cheaper subsidized American corn. Carlos Slim, now one of the world's richest men, made his fortune from buying most of the Mexican government telephone monopoly on credit and then charging high call rates to the Mexican expatriates in the USA, forced to leave a Mexico wrecked by President Carlos Salinas and his drug peddling associates. Obama is just a darker version of Salinas, whose brother arranged the killing of their main political opponent (a crime which Mexico is delaying the prosecution of, especially with PRI now in charge). Obama also has a secret "kill list" to bump off his enemies, from Michael Hastings to talkative Navy SEALs to even Joan Rivers (you don't believe that story about her botched medical procedure, do you, right after Joan made fun of Michelle, calling her a "tranny").
If you want power you have to do murder--plain and simple ---most people are nice and won't do murder--some people just murder for fun and get nowhere---some murder for power -they become powerful--you have to murder with a purpose-- just saying--If you want to take power from the powerful you have to murder the powerful--history is full of those lessons--
From NYtimes today: "President Obama is aggressively courting Republicans and Democrats to grant him accelerated power . . ." That's the way it is with sociopaths; there's never enough power to get more OPM (Other People's Money). But they fly so high on it. And the masses keep giving it to them.
But we have always "given it to them".
Yes, we have been lied to and manipulated forever. Seriously...forever. For the entire history of humanity.
WE gave away our jobs. WE bought the foreign made crap...and we knew what we were doing.
Yes they lied and said we could have it all....and we believed them.
It is amazing that we have been manipulated, tricked and lied to forever and even still, we feel robbed while simultaneously resent being treated as sheep. The offer of "something for nothing" has never failed to sell. We will watch it once again with this latest atrocity. We will line up to suckle at the poisonous tit. Easier than putting out poison for the coyotes.
EAT IT UP
"One of the fascinating parts of this history is that the South was opposed to protectionism. They wanted free trade. Why? Because free trade was necessary for the international slave trade from Africa to the United States"
Really? It was that simple? Kinda like that "freedom" word, can't argue that point because we are retarded?
Wasn't the importation of slaves into the USA abolished in 1807?
no, only in somewhere near 1900...
Idiot Kowalli, March 2 1807 is when the law was enacted to prohibit the importation of slaves. You have something in common with the author of this article, no knowledge of history.
Because American slave manufacturers didn't want to compete with low cost African slave manufacturers.
yes it is that simple.
that is the complex reality of 'free trade'. someone always benefits more than another party from any state of affairs. history is a dynamic IM-balance of winners and losers.
the civil war was about economic systems vying for dominance over one another. it just so happens that one was fully dependent on cheap labor, as much as is the TPP.
is the TPP wrong? i don't know is slavery wrong? is ultra cheap unregulated labor wrong?
shades of gray or black and white?
TPTB are interested in whatever enriches them and hurts the individual.
That's it. The rest is talk.
Irregardless of their lackeys, it is what the Plutocracy wants:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiT30N6ti4&feature=player_embedded
Seriously, does anyone think that it is actually Obama pulling the strings? Obama is an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.
The central issue here is what this is actually doing to US - and tacitly to other nation states is that these secretive agreements are transforming our (former) rule of law into a corporatist amusement park where the serfs will have no recourse. Good thing that we have a choice of red team or blue team. I for one cannot wait to take my country back. <sigh>
Oligarchy - the ultimate Free Shit Army.
No offense HowdyDoody, but ain't nothing free bro, they be stealin our laborz, and I know cuz uncle Tom told me so...
Kevin should have at least done us the favor of taking his boss along if he was exiting.
'Kevin should have at least done us the favor of taking his boss along if he was exiting.'
Indeed, too bad he didn't.
I know, doesn't it strike you odd that people don't turn around and off the person that ordered the end of their livelihood?
People can be laid off and desperate and still pay heed to their inner moral compass.
They have always worked, played by the rules and have acquitted themselves admirably all their lives. Killing themselves is one thing, doing murder over anger is another.
They just feel hopeless, without a future. Killing the old boss won't fix the situation, it would only bring condemnation and shame on the family name. In anguish, they off themselves.
You are right, of course.
I was one of those on the chat board who spoke with Kevin during his last six months as a living person.
Others advised him to look for work during the six months he was training his replacement droid, while I mentioned to him I was the type of person who would have told them to shove it and walked out.
(BofA shittards threatened him with no reference, or a bad reference, if he didn't train his replacement. But under the law, once you know a corporation plans to lay you off, you can leave and file for unemployment. Something which many have us had never filed for as there use to be more work to be found, however low-level, while today finding any work is a major undertaking!
They do, it's called "going Postal" here in the States.
Nice explanation Conax.
Well I was just about to point that out myself.
And well, if free trade is a reason why banksters kill themselfs, lets have moar of it!
You have to take down the whole system . his boss is one more cog who probably got axed a few months later. The SYSTEM that has evolved since the 80s in particular is at fault ..not one bank or one individual ..
Yes the complexity and interdependence is stunning.
Central power seems to be in VICHY DC and VICHY Wall Street... if not VICHY London Bankers.
Trust in Leaders, Free Trade Treaties, and a headless corporate system seems very odd. I think people have natural trust if their parents give it to them when they are young. They also learn to trust the system and our patriarchs.
Leaderless Samuri - Ronin must be all over the USA though.
How can Power be so obviously corrupt and moving in dangerous directions with few questioning the trust they put in people they never even met.
Free Trade, NAFTA, Right to work, Affordable Healthcare Act, If you don't know the link you need to go back to skool. always, ALWAYS name the bill something warm and fuzzy then your political cronies write the guts of it. Been going on a long long time.
Yes and now there's free organ transplants--in China that is--lots of Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans and House Christians for outsourcing:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/china_is_still095871.html
"After applying for 279 jobs over two years, my husband finally got the offer he'd been hoping for: a well-paid position teaching philosophy at a respected university"
Well now, there's someone who will surely be a contributer to society! Congrats on taking the job in the exact moment that your 99 weeks ran out.
Congratulations for you both as deserve to celebrate this.
My longest known friend applied for 250+ jobs before he blew his brains out with a .357 magnum. I still miss him.
Well now, there's someone who will surely be a contributer to society! - Your sarcasm is misplaced. The ideals that you surely hold dear, democracy and whatnot, were thought up and promugated by who? - oh yeah, philosophers and teachers of philosophy...so scoff all you want but they contribute more to society and the direction that society takes than you can obviously comprehend...
"Free trade" is as stupid as a phrase as "free for all." It just means the biggest can trample others freely. I'd much rather see "fair trade" and "fair markets." Of course, they'd lie about that, too.
How do you define "fair"?
It is hard to do - and no doubt the way you define it would be different than they way I would define it if we were trying to set up a trade agreement.
SCREW trade agreements.. let every company do their own deals with other companies abroad.. as long as no major laws are broken .. trade agreements are a govt. . big govt. and big monopoly way of picking winners and losers.
You might be right here. Bears more thinking.
I see the Free Trade Policy that which trades Bread and Butter Jobs for Bread and Circuses.
Seems like Tariffs on one hand, and free trade on the other.
Tariffs can vary widely across items and industries, but one thing does stand out about how they may be useful or how National Programs could substitute for them.
National Stockpiles, War reserves, National Oil Reserves, National Oil Refining Capability, Crop Reserves, Commodity Reserves, Rare Earth Metals Reserves, National Forest Reserves, National Water Reserves, Mining Reserves, Steel, Aluminum, Copper, Tin Reserves, Cattle Reserves, National Utilities, Road and Port Making Materials Reserves whatever.
So if we don't have Tariffs to protect industry maybe we need to make sure we have Public utilities and some reserve manufacturing Capabilities.
It begins with the FedRes' printing of theft.
To manage the resulting price inflation they must control exchange rates. Part of controlling exchange rates is having production move off shore.
Then they must control wage increases, and so layoffs, and/or imported replacements.
The FedRes, and their criminal and treasonous violence-puppets need to go, and go hard.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Guillotine the Fed. Audit the heads..
Now you are talking like a banker, er... pardon me for saying so.
I understand that the FED doesn't worry about USDs overseas outside of our country. Well and I also heard that they don't worry about the Counterfeit USDs much either since there isn't enough of them to harm our currency.
But change is eternal.
What if Japan and USA are used for Carry Trade, and US Long Term Treasuries are used as Safe Harbor Investments for most developed countries. At some point Creating Dollars to go to Allies comes back to the USA in Investments and creates inflationary pressures unless they destroy more jobs and more industries...?
I always suspect that FX is rigged by dominant players so the USD can sit wherever they want it to (value).
Guessing seems like USD value is supposed to have to do with Trade Strength, and Trade Strength is directly related to Labor Rates in the USA.
So I guess I understand what you are saying.
Took you long enough. Use internal dialogue next time.
It is the Fed and their interst rate (and ergo FX rate) policy that enabled Bill Clinton to get NAFTA and repeal Glass Steagal. That all broke in 2000 and again in 2001 (9/11). The Fed just kept on printiing and when that was not enough they had to PRINT a whole ot more.. QE 1,2,3...^.
It all is indirectly enabled by the Fed. It's going to get violent, thats why all the so called theorectical "threats" as defined by HMS (which shoud be immediately disbanded) are from "right wing" extremists. Y'know... the Constitutional types.
Because upholding the Constitution puts a stop to all of the banker and political sociopath control.
I have some problems with visualization or tying ideas together.
Why would FED Interest Rates mean anything to Bill Clinton or US Congress? I don't get the connection to NAFTA & Glass-Steagal.
Bill's Affordable Housing seems like part of his Domestic Policy... but idiots bought houses at any interest rate and variable interest rates and even on sub-prime loans.
We know Bill Was a captured President or Puppet who did the worst kind of damage to the USA implementing Banker Policy, Free Trade and Most Favored Nation Status for China. Plus we got Derivatives which would have a direct relationship to Interest Rates Set by the FED (Thanks Greenspan!).
But I don't think that was your point.
See I just don't get the Foreign Exchange and how it works or is influenced by the FED.
Maybe will surf for it.
Want to see "free trade" grind to a screeching halt? Outsource lawyers. Let any lawyer on planet earth operate inside USA (from a remote location).
Try that shit on for size. Oh, wait, you don't like that?
That's Free Trade.
yeah and any judge from anywhere gets to run the trial and a jury from anywhere-- maybe thats what TPP is all about--just saying-- however your point is well taken-- just suggest to do things fair and it goes nowhere fast.
Oh, never fear---the grunt work associates used to do can be outsourced, and more and more is being outsourced every year. Partners pocket the difference, and sleep better at night, knowing fewer young hotshots posing a threat to their careers will ever get a foot in the door.
Outsource congress as well.
Just give them a copy of the constitution for a rule book and anyone caught "fixing" be executed. End of problem
Kind of like that Harvard Yuppie who wrote Obamacare, he was hella mad when he found out he had to pay for it too... L O L Z!
Its amusing to see that this TPP thingie brings out all the contradictions in ZH forum.
1° We don't like the private sector Oligarchy so we don't want TPP. Its reminds us too much of TBTF and crony capitalism gone global.
2° We don't like state programs that could define rules which enact legislation to breakdown the Oligarchies THAT HAVE GROWN IN THE USA SINCE REAGANOMICS WAS EXPORTeD WORLD WIDE AND OUTSOURCING BECAME RELIGION.
Why? COs its STATISM, aka Communism. FDR prime example from past!
So...we are stymied between the devil and the deep blue, and libertarians just can't dig their heads out of u know where!
The west is now going oriental, can't decide what decision making in a responsible way means !
Maybe the East will go rational and show us the way of how to be balanced and pragmatic without going ape shit paranoid!
Some about turn that would entail.
"The west is now going oriental..."
ok, sorry, I have to do it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tbobaz8nn4
There are other factors at work as well. Allowing China into the WTO without any protection against their manipulation of the exchange rate has been catastrophic. Given the imbalance in trade the yuan should have appreciated substantially but American companies were profiting so handsomely that any attempt tro raise this issue has been quashed...every year. That's "free trade".
isolato There are other factors at work as well. Allowing China into the WTO without any protection against their manipulation of the exchange rate has been catastrophici
Don't forget to mention wage arbitrage and no Chinese equivalent of EPA or OSHA.
The thing that gets me is that so many Americans are BROKE
They will never own homes or retire.
They will be perpetual debt serfs for eternity.
They all have new iPhones.
Oh, and how did USA fund itself before the implementation of the Slave (income) Tax? Before property taxes?
Taxing goods coming to and leaving the country?
Wow! This article has the same analytical rigor of a CHS piece.
Is 'free trade' really the reason why American jobs have been exported?
Nothing to do with our forcing a fiat dollar reserve currency regime that has consistently overvalued the Dollar? Nothing to do with our 'liberal' comrades in government doing all the can to regulate and stymie small business creation? Nothing to do thousands of pages of new legislation dictating everything from pasture setbacks from imagined wetlands that drain into The waterways of the U.S. to imagined AGW????
Let's set aside the one way power of unions in once dominant industries such as textile, steel, mining, automotive, etc where featherbedding, labor rules, wage scales, etc dominated any potential cost savings that could be achieved via automation or plant improvement.
Yup, it's all the 'free trade' guy's fault -- whatever that means. Dark Bid must be French
You are not that clear either with all the possible causes of US Jobs Losses. Worker Rights and OSHA were all passed by 1970 and I contend that Executives knew at this time that US Labor would become very expensive. Now Labor Rights seem to make sense and think they found a balance between giving power to the unions and then providing more power back to the Employer. But US Produce had been coming from foreign shores since before Smedley Butlers campaigns (United Fruit & Dole). In the 1960s our Big 3 Auto Makers already had some foreign production, so by 1970 they must have seen this as a big opportunity in the Industry.
But beyond Worker Rights what other factors are there?
- History of Slave Labor
- History of Immigrant Labor Pickers
- History of Hacienda use of Peons
- History of Trade as Competition, Cheap Goods from Abroad, UK Model, East India & Hudson Bay Trading Companies
- History of Privateering & Piracy
- History of Privatization of Government Facilities, Jobs, in the Defense Industry or in utilities like Energy
- Business mandate to cut costs
- Business History shows Risks of Over Investment in Domestic Markets, in reaction Under Investment, Under Development, and Decapitalization of Industry present themselves
- Rising Labor costs due to older employees, pensions, benefits
- Competition within industries who can't find any costs to cut or new production technology
- Energy Crisis and Inflation in the 1970s
- Industry Mergers to realize cost savings
- LBO using Banks and Financial Schemes
- Government Capture, Regulation Capture, Swinging Door to Industry
- Accounting Control Fraud,
- Competition from firms that were Deregulated
- Market Opening to China & Development in Asia
- BCCI Corrupt Banking showed how easy it was
- US Savings and Loan Scandal showed Financing could be Gamed
- Certain US Products enjoyed more Tariff protection that others, so why not lobby for relaxed tariffs to import company materials or products
Sorry I feel like I missed something and didn't get things in order very well.
Sheeples deserve to shoot themselves.
Free trade is an essential need of Capitalism .... to deliver it's promise .... yet unrealized .... but, don't call the socialist trade mish mosh that we have .... free trade !
"Free Trade" is indeed a race to the bottom, using the self-leveling principle of water.
Also... inasmuch Free Trade is used to subsidize business models with cheaper labor costs, so does Illegal Immigration.
Both allow for labor rates that would otherwise not be possible, and would force a biz model to change. It would be forced to change either into a more clever version, or it would reduce the wealth spread between top management and basic workers.
This is the real truth that they don't talk about, and the company's PR machine, its bought politicians, shills and dumb-ass lackeys all align in perfect harmony.
Hey, Bill Clinton and others promised that NAFTA (and GATT) would ENHANCE the American workforce.
/Fastforward15years. See the Textile industry? No you don't. Because it's overseas getting paid .90 / hr.
And that was a huge lie. The drum beat was that anybody against "free trade" was narrow minded, the buzzwords were "isolationist" or "protectionist".
The manufacturers flocked to where they could exploit slave workers, zero pollution standards, etc., then at the same time turn around and sell their wares right back here for more profit. The weasel politicians should have imho put a tariff to....yes protect the workers here, but they fucked everybody instead. They got bribed. That's what NAFTA was all about.
Same with the politicians in the exploited places, they got bribed and fucked their own workers too.
Pretty soon everybody will be fucked because humans are so greedy. It's always moar, moar, moar.
Stupid story, inflaming nationalilstic ideas...
If there is somebody in this world that can make it cheaper, why paying more?
That is simply economical darwinism.
If Anericans want to sell abroad, which they need when looking at their balance of trade, they need to make it cheaper than anybody else.
Stop whining like bit....
You invented a new word .... well, your spelling error helped me invent it .... your "nationalilstic" (nationalistic ?) tweaked my fertile brain .... my word of the day is "nationihilistic" !
"nationihilistic"
Good neologism!
Your screen must obviously have a better contrast than mine...
Unfortunate to know that the form prevails the substance on ZH!
The slightest deviation from Capitalist orthodoxy .... hurts people .... and denies us our full potential .... of an abundant and harmonious life worth living !
Multinational corporations have absolutely no allegiance to any country and are happy to buy governments wherever and whenever necessary. Here are "The Yes Men" pulling a ruse in Finland by giving a talk at a business conference about "remote labor" and how it is far less expense than providing housing, clothing, food, and medical care for unpaid (i.e., slave) labor in a developed "1st world" nation (video possibly NSFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-1W_8otS4
It's a big lie.
No country got rich by exporting agricultural products and commodities, while buying finished goods back for 10 times the price. It's a reason free trade is offered to countries with little manufacturing; its to keep them poor.
The diminishing returns in commodity sector countries can not compete with the increasing return in manufacturing countries.
For free trade to be mutaly benefitial you must have equal levels of advanced manufacturing and commodity sectors in the countries in the deal, this is seldom the case.
Every country can't have every industry .... globalization spreads the work .... to those who need it most or do it best .... life isn't fair .... boo hoo, bitch !
The great sellout goes on. Look around its global.
If this is our future? I say nuke it from orbit.
Yes!
Plutocratic propaganda.
However, those treaties are also legalized treason.
After the international bankers recaptured control over the American monetary system, the vicious spirals of money through the political processes automatically made that worse, faster. Therefore, the most "successful" politicians are puppets of the plutocracy, who regularly vote against the interests of the vast majority of the people. Indeed, the monetary system has now become a totally metastasized cancer, that is killing its host. However, there are no operations nor remedies that could cure that sickness of runaway social insanity, without simultaneously killing the "patient," as that society as a whole. Civilizations controlled by enforced frauds become terminally sick and insane. There are no ways to fix that. They have already gone MAD, and they are going to destroy themselves.
And take the rest of humanity with them.
Yes RM. Mutually Assured Destruction. Insane.
Weirdly I sometimes think of Lloyd Blankfien and Hank Paulson and think they didn't even expect it to go this far. Like it was a Joke to see if Lobbying could get some of this stuff passed, take out Glass-Steagal, Prevent a new Resolution Trust corporation from appearing again, to get the Govt or FED to socialize the Losses, to get GS, JPM, CITI employees in the Treasury and on the White House Staff, to get NAFTA passed, to get Ross Perot ridiculed by MSM, to mandate US Corporations fire employees in mergers to Cut Costs and Cut total Benefits, and ....
To use Nazi Like Principals of Efficiency to hammer for more cost cutting, outsourcing, off-shoring, use of temps, use of cheap labor, and usher in a new era of Banking and Finance. An New Era of Total Banking Power. Where they can write what they want in accounting, bookkeeping, auditing, and financial ratings of their products and organizations.
"Hey, it was a joke but you never told us to stop". "Take it easy"
Remember Ross Perot:
The "giant sucking sound" was United States Presidential candidate Ross Perot's colorful phrase for what he believed would be the negative effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he opposed.
In the second 1992 Presidential Debate, Ross Perot argued:
This simplistic socialist scare mongering .... from the hand grenade with a bad haircut .... who divided the Republican vote .... and gave sixteen years of Clinton/Obama .... that is the real sucking sound !
Or we could do something to change this path to a better one.
The slightest deviation from Capitalist orthodoxy .... carries a frightful price !
Worse than the slavery of many generations to come? I think not.
If there is a Capitalist Orthodoxy who do you trace it back too?
European Tradesmen??
European Jewry??
European Mercantilism??
European Industrialization??
I believe it took Decades for the Catholic Church to hold Councils and achieve Orthodoxy.
Maybe Roman Traders inherited Capitalism from older peoples and they spread the word as Rome Conquered and brought their Logisticians and Traders.
Obama will be leaving office in 1 years but his TPP legacy will continue to haunt even unborn American for life!! Just like the new poor in America trapped in perpetual poverty for generations.
Populist bullshit. If protectionism is so great then let's set up trade barriers between states. Why stop there? Let's stop trade between counties. We will all be better off in our little autarkies.
atomicwasted: Populist bullshit. If protectionism is so great then let's set up trade barriers between states. Why stop there? Let's stop trade between counties. We will all be better off in our little autarkies.
One more time, how was our country funded for 100+ years?
Tariffs, duties and fees?
The government was great in those days. No meddling in your life, no money to meddle, kept small enough to drown in a bathtub.
My kinda government.
Small
very small
protectionism made the US the richest country in the world in the 19th century, it also made Japan, South Korea and Taiwan rich.
"The entire American Revolution was fought because the colonists were tired of being economically exploited by the British. Alexander Hamilton realized that British dominance in manufacturing and American reliance on agriculture were dooming us to a banana republic future."
Truer words were never spoken. England was practising Banana Republic politics and trade with the Colonies. As long as England ruled, it would have stayed that way, with wealth flowing in a river straight to London. Economists are cunts. They rarely ever work in the real world of capitalism they trumpet. Most live off of government money via education posts, government posts, or live off corporate whore payments to sit on think tanks and spew what the 1% want spewed. Show me any economist who has ever run any business, even a fucking lemonaid stand. Cunts!
Thanks for the Reminder. Good stuff.
I was just going to ask what Economic system we are using if not British Trade Model with London Financial Model. These Seem to have Developed under the Manor System with Lords and a Monarchy. A very Royal System we have here.
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What Model allows Corporations Sovereignty to not only ship jobs overseas to slave trade, avoid patriotic duties, but to systematically disassemble US Industries one after another?
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Duc ya beat me to it. Thanks.
The "Founding Fathers" lived very well off African slave labour, thank you, who did for nothing what the white peasantry would have demanded to be paid for in gold and silver coin.
Most of American history is an object lesson on how expensive cheap labour really is for everyone but the extremely rich.
"Most of American history is an object lesson on how expensive cheap labour really is for everyone but the extremely rich."
You might be right and I wonder if we should allow kids to home school if their parents have a business MHO. I also wonder if we should let 16 year olds or 10th Grade Students enter apprenticeship programs in the USA to get them used to work and give them skills. After all families used to build businesses with their kids till they could expand, finish expansion, or become secure and well known. Foreigners in the USA might be doing this right now.
But I think there were white slaves in the world and didn't matter what color you were if Pirates got you. There was even well known White Slavery Practice among Arabs if the internet is correct.
So not sure I have the true picture of World or US Slavery.
I think young girls leave school at a young age in China to make clothes for the USA and often are not paid for hours worked, have only 15 minute breaks, work for 15 hours, and have to pay for their own food and miss meals since they work for pennies and have abusive working conditions. Sounds like Slavery to me.
Even some of the fish we eat is processed by slaves in Asia according to a report on a fish and shrimp distributor who's boats apparently captured people for the work.
Yeah, well. Giving white kids real-life work skills risks making them a threat to the cushy sinecures of the banksters' designer babies. The thing to remember about our masters is that they consider anybody with an IQ above 70 and with any business living outside an institution a threat to their rule, to be dispensed with as soon as is expedient. They hate us with every fibre of their being, even if (or especially if) their own families were proles.
They can't wait for the day when the only white proles left on earth will be the ones raised for meat and for use in increasingly horrific and bloody sex games, invariably ending in the death of the prole to be slaughtered when his master is quite finished draining his sack. When you have more money you can ever spend, the only thrill left after a while is the thrill of making people suffer just because you can.
The thing is -
Protecting some industries - say autos - and you can then pay auto workers much more - give them all kinds of benefits - health care retirement - blow jobs - let them come to work drunk & high - who gives a fuck - we have no real competition - so Fuck you Japan and Korea your cars can't come here.
The result for the auto workers is sweet - they earn $95K and another $50K in benefits and don't need to work all that hard.
But the poor mother fucker that works in a job that is NOT government protected that needs a car ends up still working for $10 an hour - but now that 1985 quality 2015 Ford Escort sitting on the car dealers lot has a MSRP of $72,000.
So you really want to have the government (or some other central planner) decide every fucking part of the economy? This would be outrageously fucked up because then you would have assholes like Chuck Schumer, Sheila Jackson Lee, Maxine Waters and Hank Johnson deciding every detail of the US economy.
"Protecting" some products helps the companies and employees of that industry - but hurts everyone else - I can't see this any other way.
Would Ford & GM be making the quality of cars they do now - and pricing them like they do now if Honda and Toyota could not have ever imported a single car?
What we have in most of these cases is a group of people wanting special protection that a trade barrier gives them - so they don't have to compete with anyone and can still get paid.
To a point I agree with what you say. But thats not the bigger picture.
The wage and costs of doing productive work here tips the field in favor of the multi nationals. I doubt it has worked out well for regular people that do real productive work anywhere. It has not made life better for regular folks in Mexico. They are leaving South America by the train loads.
The $64,000 question is -
Who should decide what you can buy?
You want to buy a new car - your choices are a
Chevy Cruze built 100% in Detroit - it has 74 HP and gets 19 MPG on the highway with a 12 month 12,000 mile warranty. Cost is $64,000
Or
Hyundai Elantra - it has 145 HP gets 38 MPG on the highway with a 10 year 100,000 mile warranty. Cost is $18,000.
Oh wait - government just decided you can't buy that Hyundai after all because some lazy UAW worker needs his retirement package. He is happy getting 90% of his current $95,000 per year salary while retiring at 55 - and health care for life is expensive.
Do you want a 30 year mortgage on your Chevy or will you be paying cash?
Free trade between like economies is one thing. Like say Canada and the U.S. But free trade between third and first world economies results in all third world economies. Which if you are in the .1% works just fine. So bit your little hearts out. Change will not come that way cause the .1% owns politics.
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Free Trade with Canada and the US?
Go search for nearly anything on Amazon.com then Amazon.ca and be prepared for a shock.
Just like The Best Buy site, or pretty well anything else. And they tell you that they 'can't ship to that destination'.
Like shipping to Toronto from New York costs anything more than to Buffalo, or Vancouver for that matter. I'll pay the extra shipping!
Canadians are paying 20-60% more on most stuff.
I had a gal in Amazon a few years ago tell me that she was going to get an answer why the same piece wsa 60% more in Canada.
Weeks went by and eventually she got back to me, after a few "I'm still working on it." calls.
"I've got no good reason. I'm being stonewalled." was the answer from her.
Even shit made in Canada is cheaper in the US than is sold for in Canada!
And a few years ago, we got all the horseshit about the exchange rate, until our buck hit $1.10 American, then the screaming started.
The Canadians are getting @#$%ed, that's what.
All the jobs are going overseas to cheap, foreign labour.
How did that happen without a 'free trade' deal with those pieces of garbage?
•?•
V-V
My doctor is from Canada - he says it is the "free" Canadian health care that drives up the cost of everything.
Naphta is a Sumerian word for oil or bitumen.
Naphta is also an oil refinery process.
NAFTA is sucking the Oil, Mining, and Lumber Resources out of Canada is my guess.
Canadians are getting rich from the Mining Industry and exporting oil sands/mud sands.
No system is perfect.. capitalism is one more imperfect system .. prior to the income tax. the govt. funded itself on tariffs and fees etc. .they did it in during the most significant growth of the US economic model in our history.. free trade is not free as long as govt. is involved in the process... its one more statist attempt on control outcomes . pick winners and losers.. what is the BEST system .. hell if I know .. all I know is the way 'free trade' has been used in the USSA . along with money printing .. and private federal reserve. the over all economic picture has favored the few over the many .. except for a brief period between about 1948 and 1965 or so .. as for unions . they have done a LOT less damage than the Federal Reserve system . or the likes of fascists like JP Morgan and Rockefeller who used their big stick over government to get special deals and set asides.. our system is screwed up . we need something else.. but predatory crony capitalism or a system defined by Wall Street is not one of them. We need to get beyond Adam Smith .. Hume or Ricardo .. in a world of robotics, technology, and capitaists or Davos men who have NO loyalty to any nation . the NATION has to begin to consider how to protect itself from THEM. Its a balance . and we have not found it yet. Too much govt. or too little . .either way . the system goes to hell.. David Stockman wrote a book about it and so did Paul Craig Roberts. each of them has a big part of what went wrong particularly since the 80s.. remember it was Paul Volcker who said in 1979 before passage of the Monetary Deregulaiton Act . American living standards would have to decline so the rest of the world could rise . if that is not central planning NOTHING IS .. I though capitalism created a bigger pie to be shared by as many as possible . guess not... at least according to the Fed . .the central planners and guys like Volcker to name only one.
Thanks.
There should be a Profound Realization out there about the Nature of Big Government, Big Power, Big Authority Figures, Exponential Growth in Federal Government Budgets, Exponential Fakery in Creating Derivatives, TBTF Banks creating Money out of thin air,... in Contract to the Stark Reality that Jobs are not coming back ever (PCR).
This is like a religious Experience.
Automation, Computers, Robots, underemployment world wide, unlimited labor pool...Jobs are not coming back.
"there is a man starving in India today, and you won't enter that sewer pipe and clean that mess up".
Today's Dystopian Reality is straight from a "Heavy Metal" magazine from 30 years ago.
Reality = Corporate Socialism and Social Welfare don't make up for disregard of Investment in Infrastructure, Domestic Planning, and Manufacturing.
Demographic Reality = All Trends are negative except for Illegal Immigration.
In the End there are Winners and Losers, there is no plan for the losers/how to use them/what to use them for, and NO PLAN on how to make up the lost Consumption, Revolving Credit, Debt, and Tax Revenue of these Losers.
TPP is not free trade. It is managed trade. A real free trade agreement would be one sentence: "Anyone inside the US can buy anything from or sell anything to anyone else. whether inside the US or not." This is what we need, it is the only system compatible with freedom. No forced record keeping, no taxes, no fees, no regulations: just freedom to do as you please, to buy what you want, to sell what you produce. Every factor, including labor, would earn its marginal value product and no one would have any room to bitch.
National borders are just lines drawn by politicians, Just because you were born on one side of the line or the other does not entitle you to sell anything (including your labor) at a certain price. All markets are world markets, including the labor market. Deal with it.
If there was a society anywhere on Earth that had complete freedom (which would include free trade as defined above) it would be by far the most prosperous area on the planet, but also the most competitive. The smartest people would do whatever it took to get there because it would be the one place they could be sure they would be paid what they were worth and would be able to actually use the value that they produced to buy whatever they want. Value is subjective, what one person may want to do with their income may be totally different from what another would do, but that is how it should be.
Firest read and then think in terms of the US Constitution. Then rewrite your post.
The US Constitution is just another set of rules made up by politicians. It has no power to bind you, me, or anyone else. The control freaks in Washington know this. It's time the people realized it as well. Freedom doesn't come from a piece of paper, it comes from the blood of tyrants.
https://mises.org/library/no-treason-no-1
Absolutely right. Most people think slavery is freedom, and that borders are not the walls of their jail, but comforting protection against barbarian hordes.
Most people are very stupid. Not ignorant, not fooled by propaganda, but 100% full on fucking morons. That's why the 3rd rate propaganda works on them in the first place.
And those of average intelligence who should know better are greedy. That's why they love the State, because their greedy little black hearts imagine they can share in that power to steal from strangers. Between these two groups, the State has been able to maintain power all this time.
But things are changing now.
You could edit FRED into FiRED and no one would notice
On the TPP
The TPP is A. Targeting global internet suppression of alternative sites like Zerohedge and B. Targeting local anti-GMO laws.
The free trade sell out of American jobs are just part of the bribery campaign to entice foreign countries to agree to the internet and anti-GMO provisions that are the principle goal.
The TPP is a desperate globalist power play to keep the Western Black Nobility parasite attached to the public host using their Masonic, Zionist and Jesuit agents.
Web sites like Zerohedge expose the central banker parasites and sites like naturalnews are exposing the poisoning and handicapping campaigns of fluoride,
vaccines and GMOs that keep the public chemically dumbed-down and emotionally disabled, lethargic, anxious and depressed through toxic injury.
The globalist want to over-ride anti-GMO laws to keep the public's health disabled and handicapped so they don't figure out and threaten their central bank theft and counterfeiting scams.
On Tariffs
Because the world is now overpopulated, global competition is fierce and Americans and the West are in denial about it’s bloated Big Government cost structure burdening it’s manufactured goods.
The future belongs to the low cost producer of goods. History has shown that gimmicks like tariffs are not the answer. We have to compete in the global economy and trying to shame US companies for off shoring jobs is also not the answer.
The Poisoning Agenda
The poisoning and handicapping campaigns of fluoride, vaccines and GMOs create sheeple that are sick and dependent on Big Government to protect them.
Most Americans are sick and obstruct cost reform and are going to massively die off in the next financial crisis. Americans and much of the West are an extinct species and don’t know it yet.
After the global reset to a gold standard of genuine money, the independent, healthy survivors will adopt local non-governmental private contracts to manage their roads, infrastructure, schools and trade agreements.
The internet, shame and guns will replace standing armies, police, judges, prisons and other wasteful institutions. In fact the cost structure will become so lean that shipping costs will become the best mechanism for preventing job off-shoring.
I know this all sounds crazy but few understand that overpopulation will now act like a cleansing sword sweeping over the land eliminating excess costs burdening our goods.
Ideal Anarchy
There will be less jobs and wealth in our global future because there won’t be any more counterfeited currency artificially stimulating GDP, economies and birthrates.
The healthy, independent, lean survivors will have far less need of consumer goods and low cost leisure and sports activities will become commonplace. A new era of consciousness-raising, independence and health will emerge.
As one becomes healthier, detoxifies the fluoride, vaccines and GMOs out of their body and becomes poison-free, they will have far less need for expensive ego, drugs, food, sex and other stimulating distractions.
As I said before the future belongs to the low cost producer of goods.
The era of healthy, independent producers will have arrived and the era of expensive, sick, poisoned, handicapped, dependent, delusional sheeple and the sick Western Black Nobility that poisoned and exploited them will become a curiosity of the past.
Anonymous – Ideal Anarchy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpITUBX0FV4
Blaylock – The Poisoning Agenda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB3xcN_eoPo
"As Zero Hedge reported, in the first quarter of 2015, a record number of Americans renounced their citizenship."
Folks, as much as I LOVE the IDEA that was America, and what made me emigrate to this country years ago (with degrees, marketable experience, and a job offer in hand), I am irreparably saddened at its decline and decay. Real life experience plus 2+ years on ZH will do that.
At this point, "Citizenship" of this or ANY other country, is merely the modern and human equivalent of COW BRANDING. It lets other owners know whom you belong to: Who gets to herd, milk, shear and fleece you"
I think that is a Feature of the British Manor System, the Peonage.
How did the US become the super-power it is today?
In the 18th and 19th century the UK was the workshop of the world and the home of the industrial revolution.
How did the US and other Western European nations catch up with the UKs more advanced factories and cheaper products?
Was free trade the answer?
Are you mad? Tariffs were the order of the day.
Tariffs made cheap UK products more expensive in the US and Western Europe allowing them to catch up on the UKs industrial advances.
Eventually, the US over-took the UK as the workshop of the world, thanks to tariffs.
In a free trade world, the UK, being the home of the industrial revolution, would have maintained its advantage forever.
Now, fast forward to the 1990s ...... the West has all the advantages and superior technolgy and doesn't want anyone else using tariffs to catch up as they did in the past.
Free trade is the answer.
Somehow it all went horribly wrong and China looks set to become the next super power.
Probably off shoring all manufacturing to China wasn't a good idea, the workshop of the world is usually the dominant super power.
1800s - UK
1900s - US
2000s - China
Giving up tariffs or trade or investment barriers or incentives equals to abandonment of ANY economic, industrial and social policies and to expose the country to predatory practices of foreign capital. It results ultimately in loss of sovereignty as we all observe over last decades. Destructive global trade madness must be stopped. Replace globalization with internationalization where not multinationals but interest of sovereign nations are first.
Ross Perot was right.
There is no real "free trade" like there is no real "free market". These are all meaningless buzz words used to cover up the theft of hard work of generations of Americans and beyond.
Trade and markets are ALWAYS managed by strongest market players or traders and as Adam Smith stated "those who manage trade are those who profit from it and nobody else".
True and honest account of what market, trade and money really is can be found at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/invisible-hand-and-ot...
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/plutus-and-the-myth-o...
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/slaves-of-wage/
might be a helpful piece:
Elinor Ostrom received a Nobel Price in 2009 for studying how societies deal with Tragedies of the Commons. She has a list of rules for succcessfully managing them:
1. The commons must be clearly defined, as must the list of individuals who can use it.
(Everyone must understand the group interest and know what the group norm is.)
2.What can be taken out of the commons, and what sort of resources are needed to maintain it, must be suited to local conditions.
(The group norm must be something that the group actually wants.)
3.Those affected by the rules of the commons need to have a say in how those rules can be modified.
(The group mus be able to modify the norm.)
4. The group charged with monitoring or auditing use of the commons must be accountable to the individuals being monitored.
(Any institution delegated with enforcing the group norm must be accountable to the group, so its effectively self regulated.)
5.Individuals who overuse the commons must be assessed graduated penalites, in line with the seriousness of their offense.
6. Individuals must have access to quick and cheap mechanisms to resolve the inevitable conflicts that come up.
7. Individuals who use the commons must be able to come up with their own rules for managing it, without those rules being overruled by outside powers.
8. If the commons is part of a larger system, all of this needs to be nested in multiple layers operating along the same lines.
cheers;)
I challenge the free trade whingers to reduce any political or economic philosophy to the level of individual anecdote without running headlong into unpleasant details. Anti-capitalist screed in drag is the refuge of the pining socialist, an assertion lent weight by the consistent absence of clearly stated alternatives. It's just the flip side with a laundry list of specious "supporting" arguments; and if you don't like the principal tune, you shouldn't buy into the anti-tune either.
Well its about time we stop the BS Steve Jobs hagiographies. For all his ambition and drive, the guy was a moral cretin.
For those who have never been to India, Pakistan or Africa, there are literally BILLIONS of people who want to get into the USA or work for a USA company. Billions.
Free Trade just means your boats float at a lower level set in the rest of the world.
The only answer is for US Citizens to take back America by each local government town by town til you get to DC.
That or revolution.