Fair Trade
One of the issues, that should cross parties, but instead sems to be a minority belief in each party is that of fair trade. I don't see how shipping jobs, factories, overseas and bringing them back here, even at a reduced cost, helps our economy. i stated in another thread that even if the economy rebounds, that trade could be an issue that could cost Bush. Skilled jobs, are getting harder and harder to find. If you do, you seldom get what you should be paid for them.
Pat Buchanan revisits this issue this month in an article.
Death of Manufactoring
Some key bits..
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Lastly if you are conservative as I am.. consider this part..
Nick
Pat Buchanan revisits this issue this month in an article.
Death of Manufactoring
Some key bits..
Quote:
Across America the story is the same: steel and lumber mills going into bankruptcy; textile plants moving to the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and the Far East; auto plants closing and opening overseas; American mines being sealed and farms vanishing. Seven hundred thousand textile workers?many of them minorities and single women?have lost their jobs since NAFTA passed in 1993.
Across America the story is the same: steel and lumber mills going into bankruptcy; textile plants moving to the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and the Far East; auto plants closing and opening overseas; American mines being sealed and farms vanishing. Seven hundred thousand textile workers?many of them minorities and single women?have lost their jobs since NAFTA passed in 1993.
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Quote:
Every month George Bush has been in office, America has lost manufacturing jobs. One in seven has vanished since his inauguration. In 1950, a third of our labor force was in manufacturing. Now, it is 12.5 percent. U.S. manufacturing is in a death spiral, and it is not a natural death. This is a homicide. Open-borders free trade is killing American manufacturing.
Every month George Bush has been in office, America has lost manufacturing jobs. One in seven has vanished since his inauguration. In 1950, a third of our labor force was in manufacturing. Now, it is 12.5 percent. U.S. manufacturing is in a death spiral, and it is not a natural death. This is a homicide. Open-borders free trade is killing American manufacturing.
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Quote:
History teaches otherwise. In 1860, Britain abandoned its Britain First trade policy for the free-trade faith of David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and Richard Cobden. By World War I, Britain, which produced twice what America did in 1860, produced less than half and had been surpassed by a Germany that did not even exist in 1860.
Free trade does to a nation what alcohol does to a man: saps him first of his vitality, then his energy, then his independence, then his life.
America today exhibits the symptoms of a nation passing into late middle age. We spend more than we earn. We consume more than we produce.
History teaches otherwise. In 1860, Britain abandoned its Britain First trade policy for the free-trade faith of David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and Richard Cobden. By World War I, Britain, which produced twice what America did in 1860, produced less than half and had been surpassed by a Germany that did not even exist in 1860.
Free trade does to a nation what alcohol does to a man: saps him first of his vitality, then his energy, then his independence, then his life.
America today exhibits the symptoms of a nation passing into late middle age. We spend more than we earn. We consume more than we produce.
Lastly if you are conservative as I am.. consider this part..
Quote:
In the protectionist era from 1789 to 1933, U.S. taxes rarely took more than 3 percent of GNP, except in wartime. Government relied on tariffs. Before 1913, except for the Civil-War era and briefly under Cleveland, we had no income tax. But in the free-trade era, U.S. tax rates on incomes, currently 35 percent, have risen as high as 70 percent, and spending has exceeded 20 percent of GDP in peacetime. The free-trade era is the era of Big Government.
In the protectionist era from 1789 to 1933, U.S. taxes rarely took more than 3 percent of GNP, except in wartime. Government relied on tariffs. Before 1913, except for the Civil-War era and briefly under Cleveland, we had no income tax. But in the free-trade era, U.S. tax rates on incomes, currently 35 percent, have risen as high as 70 percent, and spending has exceeded 20 percent of GDP in peacetime. The free-trade era is the era of Big Government.
Nick
Comments
I sympathise.. But this is not just a USA issue, this is effecting all western countries including most of western europe & Australia, Japan, South Korea etc.
Economies like ours have effectively sidelined themselves out of the manufacturing markets.
It is due to a number of factors,
Including.
( A ) Zero population growth. (allied to that is the increasing age of our population base)
( B ) Share market expectations of a " profit " at any cost mentality. So if it means downsizing, not updating equipment or moving overseas they will do so without compunction.
( C ) Third world countries offering international companies like Nike etc huge tax breaks & other financial inducements to set up shop in their countries. India, Malaysia, Indonesia, China etc are good examples. ( American tobacco companies are creating huge asian markets & profits by using this stratagem ).
There are other reasons, but tax isn't really a biggy in the final analysis..
Government laxitude, moribondness of industry & a general malaise seep into to the day to day mentality of most developed societies.
& no, I don't have any solutions....yet...
Originally posted by trumptman
In the protectionist era from 1789 to 1933, U.S. taxes rarely took more than 3 percent of GNP, except in wartime. Government relied on tariffs. Before 1913, except for the Civil-War era and briefly under Cleveland, we had no income tax. But in the free-trade era, U.S. tax rates on incomes, currently 35 percent, have risen as high as 70 percent, and spending has exceeded 20 percent of GDP in peacetime. The free-trade era is the era of Big Government.
ie everything was rosier then.... Bullshit. I am sure the boom -bust cycle of the 1800s isnt forgotten? The massive revolutions and social strife. TB, literal class warfare? What about infant mortality rates? Literacy rates? Proportion of population with the right let alone the access to vote? Yeah, trumptman go back with Buchanan to the wonderful period about which he writes where the white elite land owners controled the direction and freedoms of all those 'below' them. BTW, It is an understood economic fact that tariffs hurt both sides of the table, one side more than the other perhaps, but both sides.
Our steel industry was dry before free trade, our cotton dry, our mines forgotten. It is a matter of logic that a population used to living at the highest quality will necessarily depend on the work done by those used to living at the lowest quality. Coal miners do not live easy lives, niether do farmers, nor do steel workers. When the general population can afford two cars, cable, cell phones and are not working their asses off getting those things, then those that live among them that work these jobs have every expectation to get paid so that they can afford that quality of life. That makes things expensive, that makes it more reasonable to move such "blue" class work off shore to areas that expect to live in mediocracy. American steel is too expensive. American cotton, too expensive. Its coal, forgotten, unclean, and too expensive.
Originally posted by billybobsky
ie everything was rosier then.... Bullshit. I am sure the boom -bust cycle of the 1800s isnt forgotten? The massive revolutions and social strife. TB, literal class warfare? What about infant mortality rates? Literacy rates? Proportion of population with the right let alone the access to vote? Yeah, trumptman go back with Buchanan to the wonderful period about which he writes where the white elite land owners controled the direction and freedoms of all those 'below' them. BTW, It is an understood economic fact that tariffs hurt both sides of the table, one side more than the other perhaps, but both sides.
Our steel industry was dry before free trade, our cotton dry, our mines forgotten. It is a matter of logic that a population used to living at the highest quality will necessarily depend on the work done by those used to living at the lowest quality. Coal miners do not live easy lives, niether do farmers, nor do steel workers. When the general population can afford two cars, cable, cell phones and are not working their asses off getting those things, then those that live among them that work these jobs have every expectation to get paid so that they can afford that quality of life. That makes things expensive, that makes it more reasonable to move such "blue" class work off shore to areas that expect to live in mediocracy. American steel is too expensive. American cotton, too expensive. Its coal, forgotten, unclean, and too expensive.
Way to rant and totally avoid the point!
The point was where the taxes to pay for things came from. Since they no longer from from tariffs, they have to come from income tax. As for what the general population can afford. The cell phone is prepaid, the cars are on seven year loans, the cable is stolen and these folks are in debt up to their necks.
Do you realize that two car payments plus a house payment is likely $1800-$2000 a month? That is of course AFTER TAX. So in reality the household needs to earn $6000 per month (Only 31% of total income should be used to service debt.) That is a minimum of $60,000 a year per household...minimum.
Might be possible but not if the service sector keeps getting bigger while the manufacturing and skill jobs leave. You aren't going to make that delivering pizza.
Nick
It's a fundamental tenet of conservativism that the market knows. The market decides. If company A can't make it as good or as cheap as company B, well, tough. Goodbye company A.
All conservatives know that the market is God. So why the hell are you complaining if your country can't make things cheap enough any more? If poor people in another country will work for less then Americans, then tough luck America, good luck international capitalists elsewhere. All hail the market.
And another thing; you never tire of trumpeting the wealth and power of the USA. It's an incredibly wealthy and powerful place. But without fair trade / free trade, people go on starving and are unable to get their countries on their feet: that's what the CAP in Europe and the American versions of these illegal commercial practices do. They crap all over the world's poor, feeding nothing but anger, hostility and instability while we're rich enough to tap into nice expensive Macs and get fat.
We don't win the war on terror without making a fairer world. The horrible fact for the richest country on the planet is that the things that keep it so rich and powerful are not permanent, and need to go. Either America goes properly fascist and runs the world's economy, with some serious terrorist results, or it plays by the same rules as everyone else. And that means a readjustment in that country's wealth relative to the rest of the world.
trumptman you claim the point is about taxes, yet you don't seem to realise that propping up failing manufacturing *is* a form of tax, and it's not paid by those damn foreigners either.
Undeniably, free trade has delivered for consumers. A trip to the mall, where the variety of suits, shoes, shirts, toys, gadgets, games, TVs, and appliances abounds, makes the case.
See, everybody gains from free trade, that's the whole point. By forcing up the price of basic goods, you force up the price of everything and everyone pays.
It is a tax, just the same as all the monopolies, patents and overlong copyrights that the government grants to corporations are a tax, because consumers pay more and recieve less than they should.
If people were really worried about the structural unemployment that results when industries fade out then they would be investing in retraining. Instead you get lobbying from entrenched corporate interests for government handouts and right-wing pundits crassly appealing to their blue-collar audience's fear and racism.
This is not a left-wing/right-wing conservative/liberal issue. Most of the free trade stuff is actually harmful to smaller countries who would love to build trade barriers to protect their nascent industries (just like the US did in its growth period) but the US knows it will win on 'a level playing field' so their desires get trampled.
To now start whinging about losing the dangerous, low-skilled jobs to these countries is a joke.
Originally posted by Harald
Call yourself a conservative?
It's a fundamental tenet of conservativism that the market knows. The market decides. If company A can't make it as good or as cheap as company B, well, tough. Goodbye company A.
All conservatives know that the market is God. So why the hell are you complaining if your country can't make things cheap enough any more? If poor people in another country will work for less then Americans, then tough luck America, good luck international capitalists elsewhere. All hail the market.
And another thing; you never tire of trumpeting the wealth and power of the USA. It's an incredibly wealthy and powerful place. But without fair trade / free trade, people go on starving and are unable to get their countries on their feet: that's what the CAP in Europe and the American versions of these illegal commercial practices do. They crap all over the world's poor, feeding nothing but anger, hostility and instability while we're rich enough to tap into nice expensive Macs and get fat.
We don't win the war on terror without making a fairer world. The horrible fact for the richest country on the planet is that the things that keep it so rich and powerful are not permanent, and need to go. Either America goes properly fascist and runs the world's economy, with some serious terrorist results, or it plays by the same rules as everyone else. And that means a readjustment in that country's wealth relative to the rest of the world.
No one said that to be a conservative you have to believe in pure laissez faire capitalism. I suppose I'm not a conservative if I believe other companies shouldn't use child labor to put grown men out of work in the United States?!? We may not be able to make a product as cheap as child/slave labor, but that doesn't mean the market is right in that instance or that we should ignore, nor not complain about it. It isn't a sign of weakness to expect folks not to be treated that way.
Likewise folks might work cheaper that is true, but we are under no obligation to help companies move or to let the goods that flow from that country freely enter the U.S. when the world complains that the respective country is abusing it's workers, making them work in unsafe conditions, or dispoiling the land, etc.
As for crapping on the world's poor that is just bull. If anything we can use tariff's to enforce working conditions, environmental laws, and workers rights in countries where they currently have none. The products aren't just cheaper because of the labor. It is also the surround practices. As a country is willing to adopt those practices, the tariffs can be lowered, but of course the cost of business has gone up from adopting things like recycling, 40 hour work week, allowing unionization, etc.
Terrorism has little to do with the wealth of the United States. It has much to do with some countries that refuse to adopt market principles or even modern ideas. They are tribal and undemocratic. If the U.S. lowers the standard of living for it's democratic citizens so that countries like communist China can basically take wealth from us, where is the incentive to give the individual rights, give them the vote, give in to democracy? Instead they can say, see, the U.S. believed in individuals and they fell faster than any previous great power. So now Allah says women back in the kitchen, and no voting for you.
Nick
Originally posted by stupider...likeafox
Jesus, that article is crap, constantly harping back hundreds of years as if things haven't changed at all.
trumptman you claim the point is about taxes, yet you don't seem to realise that propping up failing manufacturing *is* a form of tax, and it's not paid by those damn foreigners either.
It is paid by them. It is called a tariff.
See, everybody gains from free trade, that's the whole point. By forcing up the price of basic goods, you force up the price of everything and everyone pays.
First of all you assume internal competition wouldn't keep down the price. Secondly suppose the price of basic good rose a bit, that would be okay because instead of throwing certain folks out of jobs they would keep them. Which means less need for unemployment and continual retraining. Secondly in case you weren't reading it basically means no more income tax. That would put more than enough money back in the pockets of folks to cover those increases while keeping our sovereignty intact.
It is a tax, just the same as all the monopolies, patents and overlong copyrights that the government grants to corporations are a tax, because consumers pay more and recieve less than they should.
If people were really worried about the structural unemployment that results when industries fade out then they would be investing in retraining. Instead you get lobbying from entrenched corporate interests for government handouts and right-wing pundits crassly appealing to their blue-collar audience's fear and racism.
We pay it now and on top of it, the jobs disappear. When you take away the tariffs, they take away the job. Then they add the income tax which you now have to pay up to 35% of your now lower income from. Meanwhile the other country has the factory, the jobs, and no workers demanding raises to cover their ever increasing income tax. How is that a winning proposal?
Companies do reinvest in retraining and also attempt to become more productive. However they are more likely to forgo this when another company in another country doesn't have to upgrade their productivity, they just pay their workers less or demand they work longer hours. So again free trade causes that problem, and doesn't solve it. Likewise we invest in retraining now, but then that becomes the next series of jobs to be shipped off. So the autoworker is mad that his job was shipped to Mexico. He is retrained in computer support which is then shipped to India.
How long and how many retrainings can the average person be expected to go through?
This is not a left-wing/right-wing conservative/liberal issue. Most of the free trade stuff is actually harmful to smaller countries who would love to build trade barriers to protect their nascent industries (just like the US did in its growth period) but the US knows it will win on 'a level playing field' so their desires get trampled.
The U.S. has a great economy. There should be a price of admission. Otherwise you have happening in other countries for certain, what people claim happens even in the U.S. That is monied interested oppressing the rights of the common man/woman. Pitting them against each other instead of letting them demand their due from the people in charge. The U.S. doesn't necessarily win on a level playing field. The richest might, the multinational might, but that doesn't guarantee the U.S. might. Corporations care for themselves, not the country in which they reside.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
One of the issues, that should cross parties, but instead sems to be a minority belief in each party is that of fair trade. [...]
Pat Buchanan revisits this issue this month in an article.
There is a lot of BS in what Buchanan writes, but this sentence is especially dumb:
"In the protectionist era from 1789 to 1933, U.S. taxes rarely took more than 3 percent of GNP, except in wartime"
Right. So?
I guess, everyone is able to see that the standard of living today is way different than it was in the 1800s. I'd rather live with todays taxes than without a computer, car, TV etc.
There is a lot more money going into public services, infrastructure, science, schooling than back then. If all the money had to come from taxes, most consumer items would be unaffordable for the masses, in effect creating a class society.
He is right on his overall theme, though: internalization leads to the loss of jobs in the western world. This is the same here in Germany than in the US. It does lead to more equal distribution of wealth and a narrowing of the gap between the developing and the industrialized countries - but it seems that we are the generation who have to pay for this.
And it will get worse. China is so big a country, it will suck a lot of jobs from America and Europe and due to its population count will one day be the strongest industrial nation, no doubt. However, there is no way to stop them. They are industrializing and short of a nuclear war, you cannot hinder them. Some decades in the future, western nations will have to deal with China to get a favorable trade status, else their industries will not be able to survive without access to the large market there.
Industrial titans of the past like Great Britain, France and Germany are no longer able to compete on their own and have founded the EU to create a larger common market. We might see the same with the US some years down the road.
Originally posted by trumptman
The U.S. has a great economy. There should be a price of admission. Otherwise you have happening in other countries for certain, what people claim happens even in the U.S. That is monied interested oppressing the rights of the common man/woman. Pitting them against each other instead of letting them demand their due from the people in charge. The U.S. doesn't necessarily win on a level playing field. The richest might, the multinational might, but that doesn't guarantee the U.S. might. Corporations care for themselves, not the country in which they reside.
The US doesn't win on a level playing field ...
Corporations care for themselves, not the country in which they reside ...
Monied interested oppressing the rights of the common man ...
DAMN Nick, welcome aboard. You're no conservative. You be'z a socialist!
Originally posted by trumptman
As for crapping on the world's poor that is just bull.
snip
Terrorism has little to do with the wealth of the United States. It has much to do with some countries that refuse to adopt market principles or even modern ideas. They are tribal and undemocratic.
No, it's not bull at all. You wail on steel dumping but ignore the cotton and agriculture dumping the US does.
Why?
Anyway, this prevents people whose lives you cannot comprehend (they are so poor) from kicking off a decent economy. The effect is profound, unlike a bit more unemployment in US steel towns, as it's their 'starter' industry. Their only industry.
I'll go further; US foreign policy is designed to keep the world economically favourable to the US: there are plenty of disguised subsidies-as-aid that benefit corporations like Monsanto. USAid says "Are you hungry? You can have US GM grain or starve." GM grain means changing the way you grow, and becoming reliant on Monsanto seed -- this isn't conspiracy, USAid's website advertises that the purpose of the programme is to promote US industry.
My heart fckuin' bleeds for the poor starving yanks and Europeans, wondering where we'll find the money for our next Mac, while we stuff our faces. We've got all the money in the world, dipshit.
Next, terrorism comes from poverty and anger. If the policies of the US keep people poor because the playing field is uneven, the world is unstable and terror breeds. So yes, terror is directly relateable to US wealth, and the policies in place to keep it wealthy.
Originally posted by Harald
No, it's not bull at all. You wail on steel dumping but ignore the cotton and agriculture dumping the US does.
Why?
I never claimed people were perfect, nor that the U.S. was perfect. I would expect the countries affect to by that to do just what they have always done and also what the U.S. does. That is raise tariffs to prevent the destruction of those industries. This is a consistant view.
My heart fckuin' bleeds for the poor starving yanks and Europeans, wondering where we'll find the money for our next Mac, while we stuff our faces. We've got all the money in the world, dipshit.
Really I'm sure then that we can now eliminate all those policies from rich to poor with Europe and the United States since all those folks have "all the money in the world."
How cold hearted of you. Sure having electricity and running water puts them in the top 3% of the world economically. So I guess they don't deserve anything about that. Forget education, medical, retirement or any of those things.
Next, terrorism comes from poverty and anger. If the policies of the US keep people poor because the playing field is uneven, the world is unstable and terror breeds. So yes, terror is directly relateable to US wealth, and the policies in place to keep it wealthy.
Really that isn't what I have read.
Osama is millionaire. Where does his discontent come from?
Nick
Next, terrorism comes from poverty and anger. If the policies of the US keep people poor because the playing field is uneven, the world is unstable and terror breeds. So yes, terror is directly relateable to US wealth, and the policies in place to keep it wealthy.
he didnt say that terrorism comes only from poverty. It also comes from anger. Now while I will agree that that is an innane statement (I havent really seen any happy terrorist, though), Harold did not claim just poverty as the root cause of terrorism. I would argue poverty helps make suicide bombers, but the terrorist leaders have alternate agendas always etc etc etc...
Originally posted by billybobsky
trumptman read carefully:
he didnt say that terrorism comes only from poverty. It also comes from anger. Now while I will agree that that is an innane statement (I havent really seen any happy terrorist, though), Harold did not claim just poverty as the root cause of terrorism. I would argue poverty helps make suicide bombers, but the terrorist leaders have alternate agendas always etc etc etc...
If you read up the psychology of anger, you would know it isn't a base emotion, but a secondary one grown from frustration. The article itself dealt with an array of issues aside from just poverty.
What is implied is that the anger results from the frustration of dealing with the uneven playing field of weath versus poverty. Thus the anger can't be a root cause, it is a secondary cause related to dealing with the frustration caused by the poverty and inequality of wealth of Islamic nations compared to Western nations. (Note that Islam doesn't promote equality so we won't get into the paradox of longing for equality while promoting inequality)
Likewise in nations where Islam has taken root, there is not necessarily a lack of wealth, it is just not distributed fairly. Saudia Arabia, where many of the September 11th bombers came from, is quite wealthy. However seeking a more equitable distribution of that wealth would require seeking democracy (instead of monarchy) and other western ideas about individual rights. Islam again, does not promote these so saying that they are causes is, if anything, a western worldview imposed upon Islamic society.
Nick
If you read up the psychology of anger, you would know it isn't a base emotion, but a secondary one grown from frustration.
Really? Is that an observation or psychological bullshit?
I guess you are citing the most recent pet theory on anger...
Well, I think anger comes from the anger fairies...
Originally posted by billybobsky
Really? Is that an observation or psychological bullshit?
I guess you are citing the most recent pet theory on anger...
Well, I think anger comes from the anger fairies...
Really can you find anger fairies on the American Psychological Association website?
Controlling anger
Why don't you do a search for my word...frustration or your cause... anger fairies and see which one pops up more?
They also have a nice article on terrorism here.
I mean I know here is only the APA president and and professor in psychology at Stanford, but that really don't mean much does it?
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Really can you find anger fairies on the American Psychological Association website?
Controlling anger
Why don't you do a search for my word...frustration or your cause... anger fairies and see which one pops up more?
They also have a nice article on terrorism here.
I mean I know here is only the APA president and and professor in psychology at Stanford, but that really don't mean much does it?
Nick
No more than all those kids have ADHD.