Should We "flunk" Our Free Trade Policy?

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Should We "flunk" Our Free Trade Policy?; Based on this performance i would.
Tweet Topic Started: Feb 17 2006, 08:11 PM (875 Views)
Fr. Mike	Feb 17 2006, 08:11 PM Post #1
Member Posts: 550 Group: Members Member #82 Joined: July 29, 2004	I just read this week's edition of Pat Buchanan's column. Sobering would be an understatement. I know many would cry protectionism if our Congress were to insist that we back away from some of the treaties and agreements that our President's have signed--but at what point do we as a country decide that we are headed for third world status if this keeps up? Or do we act as if there is nothing wrong and that someday we will reap some rewards? Or--maybe we should simply ask for foreign aid from the same companies we now have these deficits with. This just doesn't smell right to me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our hollow prosperity -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: February 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc. Now that the U.S. trade deficit for 2005 has come in at $726 billion, the fourth straight all-time record, a question arises. What constitutes failure for a free-trade policy? Or is there no such thing? Is free trade simply right no matter the results? Last year, the United States ran a $202 billion trade deficit with China, the largest ever between two nations. We ran all-time record trade deficits with OPEC, the European Union, Japan, Canada and Latin America. The $50 billion deficit with Mexico was the largest since NAFTA passed and also the largest in history. When NAFTA was up for a vote in 1993, the Clintonites and their GOP fellow-travelers said it would grow our trade surplus, raise Mexico's standard of living and reduce illegal immigration. None of this happened. Indeed, the opposite occurred. Mexico's standard of living is lower than it was in 1993, the U.S. trade surplus has vanished, and America is being invaded. Mexico is now the primary source of narcotics entering the United States. Again, when can we say a free-trade policy has failed? The Bushites point proudly to 4.6 million jobs created since May 2003, a 4.7 percent unemployment rate and low inflation. Unfortunately, conservative columnist Paul Craig Roberts and analysts Charles McMillion and Ed Rubenstein have taken a close look at the figures and discovered that the foundation of the Bush prosperity rests on rotten timber. The entire job increase since 2001 has been in the service sector – credit intermediation, health care, social assistance, waiters, waitresses, bartenders, etc. – and state and local government. But, from January 2001 to January 2006, the United States lost 2.9 million manufacturing jobs, 17 percent of all we had. Over the past five years, we have suffered a net loss in goods-producing jobs. "The decline in some manufacturing sectors has more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing than with a super-economy that is 'the envy of the world,'" writes Roberts. Communications equipment lost 43 percent of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37 percent ... The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30 percent. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25 percent of its workforce. How did this happen? Imports. The U.S. trade deficit in advanced technology jobs in 2005 hit an all-time high. As for the "knowledge industry" jobs that were going to replace blue-collar jobs, it's not happening. The information sector lost 17 percent of all its jobs over the last five years. In the same half-decade, the U.S. economy created only 70,000 net new jobs in architecture and engineering, while hundreds of thousands of American engineers remain unemployed. If we go back to when Clinton left office, one finds that, in five years, the United States has created a net of only 1,054,000 private-sector jobs, while government added 1.1 million. But as many new private sector jobs are not full-time, McMillion reports, "the country ended 2005 with fewer private sector hours worked than it had in January 2001." This is an economic triumph? Had the United States not created the 1.4 million new jobs it did in health care since January 2001, we would have nearly half a million fewer private-sector jobs than when Bush first took the oath. Ed Rubenstein of ESR Research Economic Consultants looks at the wage and employment figures and discovers why, though the Bushites were touting historic progress, 55 percent of the American people in a January poll rated the Bush economy only "fair" or "poor." Not only was 2005's growth of 2 million jobs a gain of only 1.5 percent, anemic compared to the average 3.5 percent at this stage of other recoveries, the big jobs gains are going to immigrants. Non-Hispanic whites, over 70 percent of the labor force, saw only a 1 percent employment increase in 2005. Hispanics, half of whom are foreign born, saw a 4.7 percent increase. As Hispanics will work for less in hospitals and hospices, and as waiters and waitresses, they are getting the new jobs. But are not wages rising? Nope. When inflation is factored in, the Economic Policy Institute reports, "real wages fell by 0.5 percent over the last 12 months after falling 0.7 percent the previous 12 months." If one looks at labor force participation – what share of the 227 million potential workers in America have jobs – it has fallen since 2002 for whites, blacks and Hispanics alike. Non-Hispanic whites are down to 63.4 percent, but black Americans have fallen to 57.7 percent. What is going on? Hispanic immigrants are crowding out black Americans in the unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled job market. And millions of our better jobs are being lost to imports and outsourcing. The affluent free-traders, whose wealth resides in stocks in global companies, are enriching themselves at the expense of their fellow citizens and sacrificing the American worker on the altar of the Global Economy. None dare call it economic treason.
	A humble servant of the Lord Jesus Christ Don't forget to say your prayers! The unborn have rights too.


Photobitstream	Feb 17 2006, 09:00 PM Post #2
Darron - Austin, TX Posts: 1,025 Group: Members Member #229 Joined: December 15, 2005	Quote: The affluent free-traders, whose wealth resides in stocks in global companies, are enriching themselves at the expense of their fellow citizens and sacrificing the American worker on the altar of the Global Economy. I've been trying to tell people about this for five years. Bush and Cheney are either the two most incompetent men who have taken office in the White house, or they are deliberately destroying our country just to make themselves and their friends richer. Glad to see a few people are starting to listen. "Old MacDubya's Barnyard," by Jay Sims Quote: The old homeplace ain't been the same since they been around And if they keep this up they gonna run us in the ground Oh the mud is gettin' deeper and the well is runnin' dry It's enough to make a farm boy want to cry CHORUS Here they go again just a-wallerin' in the pen Dirtier bunch of hogs I can't recall They don't know when to stop, Lord they'll go until they pop Tellin' you "Friends, this ain't no time to stall" Better pull 'em off the trough boys before they eat it all Well the fat ones just get fatter and the little ones can't eat Anything gets in their way and they just crush it 'neath their feet They keep a-gruntin' and a-squealin' but they ain't got much to say Soon there won't be nothing we can do but pray CHORUS BRIDGE Well the slaughterhouse is too good for 'em But we sure as hell just can't just ignore 'em Ain't no tellin' how low they can sink Most evil swine I've ever seen Lord they're muddy and they're mean And besides all that, whoa, they stink! So don't you think it's time we run these porkers off the farm Before they have a chance to do our children any harm It'll smell a whole lot better once them pigs is gone And we'll be a happy family from now on CHORUS
	"Their chief weapon, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, just how heartless and greedy they actually were." Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions


cmoehle	Feb 17 2006, 09:17 PM Post #3
Chris - San Antonio TX Posts: 36,959 Group: Members Member #1 Joined: June 6, 2004	Darron, you might well be having trouble telling people about the false dichotomy you've set up. Other than incomepetency or deliberation, it could be they have little directly to do with the economy, or it could be other economic factors like the price of oil or the rise of China's and India's economies or a lack of domestic savings or overdependency of the American people on government and other factors far outweigh what influence they may have. For a completely oppositve view, even of the Our hollow prosperity op-ed, see The Politics of Economic Nationalism: Quote: ...Immoral Government Debt What is immoral about government debt is the disconnect between the people receiving the benefits and the people who will bear the responsibility of repayment. When my credit card statement shows up, I know what I could have done differently to owe less money. My children won't have that same direct personal responsibility when they wind up having to pay taxes down the road to pay for government spending today. In fact, it is not just the intergenerational-shifting component of government spending that creates a moral disconnect. Even with a balanced Budget, the people paying the taxes are not directly in control of how the money gets spent. All that said, the nationality of the holders of our government debt is irrelevant. We are eventually going to be forced to pay taxes to cover the interest and the principal, whether the bondholders live in Tokyo or Peoria. If you want a useful measure of collective liabilities, look at the total future commitments of the government (including payments promised under Social Security and Medicare as well as outstanding debt). Those figures are much more important indicators of future problems than the statistics on the balance of trade or the amount of government debt held by foreigners....
	Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order. --Barry Goldwater


Stoney	Feb 17 2006, 09:41 PM Post #4
Huntsville, AL Posts: 2,771 Group: Members Member #216 Joined: October 22, 2005	On the one hand we welcome the illegal immigration because these people do what people on welfare or unemployment insurance won't do. On the other hand we criticize their willingness to work at wages others won't work for and say they are crowding out...crowding out who...the people who won't work at these jobs? Then there are these manufacturing jobs that are leaving the country. I don't see an explanation. Maybe it has to do with high labor costs, high taxes, high health insurance costs and the high cost of following government regulations, all of which lead to non competitive costs and prices. Foreign countries haven't created this mess. We have.
	The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. Henry David Thoreau


tomdrobin	Feb 17 2006, 09:52 PM Post #5
Member Posts: 2,531 Group: Members Member #27 Joined: July 2, 2004	Photobitstream Feb 18 2006, 03:00 AM I've been trying to tell people about this for five years. Bush and Cheney are either the two most incompetent men who have taken office in the White house, or they are deliberately destroying our country just to make themselves and their friends richer. Glad to see a few people are starting to listen. The free trade economic policies (ie; NAFTA), were instituted before GW was president. If anything he has been accussed of protectionism on occassion. Why is it that every perceived negative is the current administrations fault?



Photobitstream	Feb 17 2006, 10:18 PM Post #6
Darron - Austin, TX Posts: 1,025 Group: Members Member #229 Joined: December 15, 2005	Not all dichotomies are false, Chris. These guys have screwed up at every step. Their arrogance and cynicism know no limits. Just a short list of their offenses, off the top of my head: Dismantling three decades of environmental regulations. Cherry picking intelligence to build a false case for invading a sovereign nation. Have you forgotten the Downing Street Memo? Paying journalists to write positive stories for the administration's agenda (aka propaganda). Granting a White House press pass to a gay male prostitute so he could lob softball questions to the president. Changing their story on why they invaded Iraq after it became blindingly obvious there were no WMDs. Hurricane Katrina. Harriet Meyers. Illegal domestic spying. Plamegate. I'm sure I've left out several dozen egregious examples.
	"Their chief weapon, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, just how heartless and greedy they actually were." Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions


brewster	Feb 17 2006, 10:20 PM Post #7
Winemaker Extraordinaire Posts: 3,467 Group: Members Member #9 Joined: June 21, 2004	I doubt very much that the US problems stem from Free Trade... The spiralling debt has GOT to be a huge factor, the worst part about it being the money wasted just servicing the already accumulated debt, never mind what is being piled on. Not to boast, but as an example: Alberta and British Columbia are undoubtedly the strongest "Free Trade" jurisdictions in the world right now, and Alberta in particular has no debt, so with no debt sevicing costs, we are able to increase infrastructure dollars spent while reducing taxes. Here are the results (Edited for brevity): Quote: Notably, not all of this was directly tied to energy, as the province's shipments outside of refined petroleum products rose by 8.3 per cent. "Sweeping gains contributed to a healthy December in Alberta and British Columbia," StatsCan said in an analysis. "Shipments in Alberta surged by $149 million or 2.9 per cent to $5.4 billion, marking the fifth successive increase in the province's manufacturing sector." Alberta's machinery manufacturing, for example, rose 31 per cent, fabricated metal products gained 10.4 per cent, chemicals rose 9.3 per cent and primary metals added 17.9 per cent. Note 1: StatsCan is showing manufacturing export gains at 2.9% PER MONTH Note 2: All these figures are FACTORING OUT the Oil and Gas components! Note 3: Both Alberta and BC would be doing much better, but we are suffering an EXTREME labour shortage, in spite of some of the highest salaries in the world!
	My Favourite Campsite Bow Valley Provincial Park, Kananaskis Country, Alberta


pentax	Feb 18 2006, 02:52 AM Post #8
Kamloops - BC Interior Posts: 6,649 Group: Members Member #16 Joined: June 21, 2004	tomdrobin Feb 17 2006, 07:52 PM Why is it that every perceived negative is the current administrations fault? So what else is new? Ten years ago, Bill Clinton was to blame for everything from the flat tire on your pick-up, to you getting skunked bass-fishing last weekend.
	(thumbnail) "Kirk to Enterprise - Very funny, Scotty.... now beam down my clothes!"


cmoehle	Feb 18 2006, 07:56 AM Post #9
Chris - San Antonio TX Posts: 36,959 Group: Members Member #1 Joined: June 6, 2004	Right, the same old same old. We sit here and blame them. And then vote for the other weevil, and then blame them. Or we blame foreign countries. Always something else. I think Stoney got it right, we're responsible. Darron "Not all dichotomies are false, Chris." Of course not, wouldn't claim that. Just the one you raised, for the reason I gave.
	Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order. --Barry Goldwater


justme	Feb 18 2006, 02:43 PM Post #10
Member Posts: 434 Group: Members Member #55 Joined: July 18, 2004	So what is the solution.



cmoehle	Feb 18 2006, 02:47 PM Post #11
Chris - San Antonio TX Posts: 36,959 Group: Members Member #1 Joined: June 6, 2004	Free trade. On this issue, Bush, imo, has the right vision. So more free trade, NAFTA, CAFTA, and after. But Congress, and others, are stuck on the Politics of Economic Nationalism.
	Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order. --Barry Goldwater


justme	Feb 18 2006, 02:49 PM Post #12
Member Posts: 434 Group: Members Member #55 Joined: July 18, 2004	cmoehle Feb 18 2006, 03:47 PM Free trade. On this issue, Bush, imo, has the right vision. So more free trade, NAFTA, CAFTA, and after. But Congress, and others, are stuck on the Politics of Economic Nationalism. OH my Gawd, don't let the special interest groups see you said that.



cmoehle	Feb 18 2006, 02:52 PM Post #13
Chris - San Antonio TX Posts: 36,959 Group: Members Member #1 Joined: June 6, 2004	Includes, despite another special interest, Bush's idea of a guest worker program, defined either by McCain or Cornyn.
	Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order. --Barry Goldwater


Stoney	Feb 18 2006, 03:35 PM Post #14
Huntsville, AL Posts: 2,771 Group: Members Member #216 Joined: October 22, 2005	I guess we can isolate ourselves from the world economy, at least for a period. But I don't think we will. We're enjoying the lower costs too much. I also don't think we should, or can for very long. Maybe the next war will be an economic war. Our economy is dependent to a large extent on our ability to have the energy to propel it. OPEC could cut us off at about any time, but that would force us to seek other sources while we have the the strength to do it. A better tactic would be to raise prices and drain us of our financial resources and then cut us off. Is that overly pessimistic? I hope so. Our standard of living will steadily decrease as the welfare state increases. The middle class is paying and will pay the blunt of this. There's only so much the rich can contribute and penalizing those who create jobs will only expand the welfare base. There's a point somewhere to optimize this. I don't know that anyone knows where it is. We have to compete in global markets. In order to do that we will have to equalize our standard of living to some extent. Bruce is right about our debt. Not only dose it just add to our expenses, but we're making other countries richer, at our expense. But the solution is not higher taxes if congress is allowed to spend the extra money on bridges to nowhere. Somehow we've got to get a handle on this. We need to become more energy independent. We need to become realistic about entitlements. We need to start working on Social Security, our tax structure and health care in earnest. We can't afford to continue with our heads in the sand.
	The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. Henry David Thoreau


brewster	Feb 18 2006, 03:56 PM Post #15
Winemaker Extraordinaire Posts: 3,467 Group: Members Member #9 Joined: June 21, 2004	Well said, Stoney... It will take genuine study of the issues you mention, and not just instinctive reactions based on ideology, to turn things around. The US has the talent and the resources... Now we'll see if it has the political savvy and national will...
	My Favourite Campsite Bow Valley Provincial Park, Kananaskis Country, Alberta


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