Posted on 01/06/2008 1:03:48 PM PST by null and void
January 2008
an executive viewFree trade? C'monBy Brian Sullivan We should rename "free trade." Because it isn't free and it isn't fair. Since it's trade that's regulated in favor of multinational special-interest groups, why don't we call it for what it is: rigged market trade?
Why are we so afraid to call a spade a spade? There are 36,000 fewer U.S. factories than there were eight years ago. One in five manufacturing jobs has been lost nationally in the last 10 years. If we don't stem the tide of multinationalism through trade law reform, then between 42 million and 56 million of the 140 million U.S. jobs could be moved off-shore within 20 years, including all 14 million current jobs in manufacturing. We'll be left without any manufacturing, which is at the core of our country's national security. Members of the Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Association (TMTA) wonder if things will change in time. They know that most of their woes emanate from disastrous trade laws written in Washington DC.
When the concept of free trade was thought up, did the corporate-controlled multinationalists anticipate that America would cease to be a land of broadly shared prosperity? What's happened to the concept of social morality? It's been thrown out the window.
Corporate greed feeds on itself and U.S. manufacturing suffers. In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail, social anthropologist Jared Diamond, describes an American society in which "corporate elites cocoon themselves in gated communities guarded by private security, fly in corporate aircraft, depend on golden parachutes and private pensions, and send their children to prohibitively expensive private schools. Gradually these corporate elites lose their motivation to support the police force, the municipal water supply, Social Security, and public schools. Any society contains a built-in blueprint for failure if corporate elites insulate themselves from the consequences of their own actions."
I suppose there are some reading this who believe this article is leaning a little to the left. Actually, it's not. Increasingly, trade policy and the effects of multinationalism are not partisan issues. The signs of broadening resistance to globalization and a fraying of Republican orthodoxy on the economy have been reported on page-one in The Wall Street Journal. The morally shameful I-don't-care-about-you-because-I've-got-mine mentality exhibited by Congress and this administration is a national disgrace. Our representatives and legislators, collectively, have been responsible for trade policy that has resulted in a cave-in of the manufacturing industry.
At the end of the day, there's only one way there's going to be any relief for all of us in manufacturing, and that's through Washington, D.C. Most of manufacturing's problems, your problems, my problems, are as a result of bad trade laws. When the grassroots electorate becomes engaged in this fight, we'll change bad free-trade laws into good fair-trade laws that will reflect the interests of small manufacturers who've been absent from trade policy deliberations far too long. We need fair-trade reform, and we need it now. The first thing that should happen is to freeze all new trade agreements, especially by this current administration, until major pro-domestic producer and worker trade strategies are put in place. Congress must create a National Trade Commission. Congress must pass currency manipulation legislation. Congress must address the unfair advantage caused by the rebate of value-added taxes by passing a border equalization tax. Congress has to enact countervailing duty laws. Congress has to pass laws that standardize Rules of Origin. It has to pass laws that address infrastructure imbalances including regulatory standards and enforcement standards. In this general election cycle now, we have the real opportunity to make change. Politicians are up for election or re-election. The Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Association (TMTA) has aligned itself with other organizations such as the Organization for Competitive Markets and the Coalition for a Prosperous America, like-minded groups that are actually holding politicians' feet to the fire relative to trade reform issues.
In the last election cycle held two years ago, 15 politicians who were manufacturing-unfriendly and electorally vulnerable were targeted for defeat. The "kill rate" was 15 out of 15. Brian Sullivan is director of sales, marketing, and communications for the Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Association. His e-mail is brian@thetmta.com.
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Putting it in the best light, Mr. Sullivan wants to replace one set of regulations by another which he sees as better for himself. How, then, is he less greedy than the corporations he attacks?
While I largely agree with you, it seems likely that wages in other countries being pennies on the dollar would certainly have a good bit to do with it too.
There is no way that we can compete with that, and we should not have to.
*sigh* I have no doubt that your words are true.
Rather than teach economics 201 myself. I suggest you read the following column by the renouned Economics Professor, and frequent Rush guest host Walter Williams. If you are still a protectionist when you get done, let me know.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2006/10/25/should_we_trade_at_all
Right, because competition is evil. Wouldn't want to actually increase the choices consumers have now would we?
I don’t think arming the Communist chinese is “overrated” any more than I do feeding our children and pets poisons to eat or toys to play with.
However, I understand that globalists have no other concern than money and profits for themselves, regardless. The “peons” are merely serfs and, therefore, expendable (just like this country’s language, culture and values), after all.
Sad but true. It will happen and I have a very strong suspicion we are watching it all unfold.
For economists I prefer Craig Roberts, who was greatly responsible for developing supply side theory and policies when he was a Republican staffer during the Carter and Reagan years. His writing on the conflating of trade with labor arbitrage is another valuable insight:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/071008_cato.htm
If you don’t want China to use U.S. dollars to by missiles, then you need to cut off all trade with China. That’s a whole other discussion, one that I haven’t weighed in on.
I’m just addressing the protectionist “fair trade” rhetoric.
You mean the same Paul Craig Roberts that thinks that 9/11 was an inside job?
This isn’t a discussion of his peculiar views on 9-11. I suppose if you had anything relevant to share about his writing on the subject at hand you would have posted it.
Roberts whines about offshoring yet fails to mention the benefits that have been seen. I, for instance, greatly benefit by having a larger selection of goods at lower prices. Offshoring occurs because doing so decreases the cost of production. Competition forces businesses to sell goods at lower costs. In the end consumers as a whole benefit.
The rhetoric is coming from the global sell-outs that unfair trade is somehow “fair trade” and “good for America and Americans” when it’s anything but that.
All the reduction in the size of the middle class in the past 15 years has come from people moving *above* it, into the “make more than $100,000 a year” range.
Good point. Too bad it is ignored by so many.
Cocoa, coffee and saffron aren't quite the same as electronics components, armor plating or guidance systems we've outsourced to China and others.
It's about more than spices and seasonings. Our national security is being outsourced.
Roberts writes scholarly articles about how a confusion of absolute advantage with comparative advantage has led to errors in calculating the effects of offshoring. For you, this amounts to “whining” and the advice that “Competition forces businesses to sell goods at lower costs. In the end consumers as a whole benefit.”
I suggest you publish your wisdom asap, there’s surely a prize of some sort in your future.
Yes, comrade we must take from the rich and redistribute the wealth. Then we will all be living in a worker’s paradise.
It’s never worked before, but let’s try it anyway.
bmflr
It's called inflation.
Roberts has been whining for years that the American economy is doomed, yet that never happens. In fact, it's quite amazing that his arguments have so much in common with what the political left has to say.
As for Roberts absolute advantage argument, if that is indeed the case, why are there any jobs left here in America, if offshoring indeed gives one an absolute advantage?
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