Free Republic

ost of the pharmacies in China that dispense Western-style medicines have an antiquated, if reassuring, air about them. There are no posters on the walls for brand-name drugs. Candy is not for sale. Photo processing is not available. Druggists work in long white lab coats and surgical hats that could have been salvaged from a World War II hospital ship. Some pharmacies require prescriptions for the most potent drugs, others only an earnest chat with a druggist. Drug orders create paperwork that passes through three or four bureaucratic layers before reaching the solemn cashier, who issues a handwritten receipt. Such...

The White House Conference on the Economy was held December 15-16 to highlight domestic priorities for the second term of President George W. Bush. Areas of concern were clearly marked out: tax reform, lower health care costs, tort relief, job creation, and privatization of Social Security. Unfortunately, little of substance was discussed. Instead, the closed, invitation-only event was a celebration of the Bush administration’s first term accomplishments (and the president’s re-election) and a listing of principles that it wants to govern the wide range of changes that the White House hopes to push through the 109th Congress. Vice President Dick...

STORY HERE: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/opinion_18970006.shtml

Job loss worse than the Great Depression's in Milwaukee's urban center By JOHN SCHMIDjschmid@journalsentinel.com Posted: Dec. 4, 2004 First of three parts No major urban center in America has suffered as much as Milwaukee's from the economic upheaval of a globalizing economy, an exhaustive analysis by the Journal Sentinel has found. No other African-American community worked as intensively at manufacturing products that are no longer made here, or was less prepared for a historic shift from unskilled labor. Still Separate and Unequal Special Report Photo/Gary Porter Frank Thompson came from Alabama in 1965 to work at the industrial flagships A.O....

[snip] SEARCHING FOR COMMON GROUND AND AREAS OF BASIC AGREEMENT In its deliberations, the Commission to Review the Trade Deficit encountered a great variety of public policy issues, many of longstanding. We succeeded in reaching agreement in a significant number of instances, but we were unable to do so in many others. This statement attempts to develop some common ground while candidly describing the different approaches that Commissioners developed on the remaining issues. Where those disagreements are important, we undersigned Commissioners provide our own viewpoint. All Commissioners share common principles and believe that these should form the foundation for a...

LONDON (AFP) - Watch out Starbucks. British beermakers are wooing the caffeine-crazed with a new beer made from fair-trade coffee beans, to be launched on Friday. Coffee beans from the central African country of Rwanda are mixed with barley grown in Britain, creating a beer with the same amount of caffeine in one bottle as in a cup of coffee. Drinkers can get an added buzz from the political correctness of their coffee, labelled fair trade -- meaning it has been grown in conditions which ensure the fair treatment of and living wages for workers in developing countries. British supermarket...

GUILDERLAND, N.Y. -- Mark Van Wormer is a fair trade coffee guy. He drinks it at home. He persuaded the private school where he teaches to make the switch. And he always requests a fair trade blend at Starbucks. "I was very attracted to the notion of buying a product that could actually put a little bit more money in the pockets of the smaller farmers," said Van Wormer, an Albany area resident. Socially conscious consumers like Van Wormer have made fair trade brews a rapidly growing niche of the coffee market. The beans can now be found on supermarket...

BEIJING (AFP) - US Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans arrived in the ancient capital of Xian for a week-long visit to China, officials said, where he is expected to champion fair trade and seek ways to lower a ballooning trade deficit with the rising Asian nation. During an 11-day, three-nation trip, Evans will also visit the northeastern city of Harbin and hold formal talks in Beijing before heading on to the June 24 US-EU summit in Ireland and a bilateral trip to Mexico, US officials said. On Sunday, he is expected to meet with Shaanxi provincial Governor Jin Zhibang, US...

<p>Ronald Reagan's independent thinking on international trade is best illustrated by the varied and profoundly contradictory descriptions of his policy. Mr. Reagan broke ground in trade. He pushed for a new global trade round and, as part of those talks, presciently called for a 10-year phase-out of all direct and indirect agricultural subsidies that distort trade and barriers to farm exports; the main sticking points of today's ongoing trade round. He signed in 1988 a free-trade agreement with his Canadian counterpart and laid the groundwork for NAFTA. Mr. Reagan also angered staunch free traders by leveraging America's economic prominence to challenge what he saw as unfair trade practices.</p>

Predictably, the Bush administration and its media mouthpieces trumpeted the latest U.S.-China trade agreement as a solid win for the United States. Just as predictably, their conclusions are ludicrous. In the wake of the late-April trade sessions, Vice President Cheney’s visit to East Asia, and an extraordinary China press conference held by four Cabinet officials shortly thereafter, it’s painfully clear that the Chinese are running rings around the United States economically, politically, and national security-wise. The main reason: Although the administration views China policy as an exercise in public relations and election-year politicking, the Chinese view their America policy as...

In a May 4 editorial, the Wall Street Journal accused Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry of having a “paranoid” worldview and engaging in “xenophobia” because he has been talking about taking action to open foreign markets to U.S. exports, revive American manufacturing, and regain some of the 2.6 million manufacturing jobs lost since 2000. I will not discuss Sen. Kerry’s proposals, which are far too timid to make much of a dent in the massive and growing U.S. trade deficit – likely to hit $600 billion this election year. Instead, this column will examine what the WSJ’s extremist rhetoric...

The Bush administration said Wednesday it has decided not to investigate allegations of Chinese labor-rights violations and currency manipulation, arguing that diplomatic engagement is a better way to combat America's record trade deficit with China. Some business groups praised the decision, saying the administration had exhibited political courage to choose diplomacy over confrontation with China, especially in an election year where rising anxiety over job losses to foreign competition has become a major issue. The United States ran up a record $124 billion trade deficit with China last year. But the AFL-CIO, which had petitioned the government to take its...

Clarifications on the Case for Free Trade by Paul Craig Roberts [Posted January 10, 2004] Free trade has necessary conditions. Today these conditions are not met. This point has escaped Joe Salerno and George Reisman (both writing on Mises.org), as it has a vast number of other people. The case for free trade is based on David Ricardo&#8217;s principle of comparative advantage. Ricardo addressed the question how trade could take place between country A and country B (England and Portugal in his example) if country B was more efficient in the production of tradable goods (cloth and wine in his example) than...

"This is the first generation in all of recorded history that can do something about the scourge of poverty. We have the means to do it. We can banish hunger from the face of the Earth." - Hubert Humphrey, 1965 When Hubert Humphrey said this almost 40 years ago, concern about the wretched of the Earth was the almost exclusive preserve of American liberalism. Barry Goldwater sure did not talk that way. < SNIP > The Democrats cannot admit to having betrayed this old vision. They say they really want trade agreements to grant foreign workers the same labor and...

Outgoing Kohler president sees China as threat to industry By RICK BARRETTrbarrett@journalsentinel.com Posted: April 7, 2004 Having already survived an onslaught of foreign competition, Wisconsin's small-engine industry faces its next threat in China, Richard Shoemaker says. Wednesday, Shoemaker, 59, said he's leaving his job as president of Kohler Engines Co. to pursue other opportunities. He has been with the company for 17 years and president since 2000. Small engines are big business in Wisconsin, which has three of the industry's biggest companies: Kohler Engines, Briggs & Stratton Corp. and Tecumseh Products Co. Together, the threesome produce millions of engines used...

By JOHN TORINUSSpecial to the Journal Sentinel Posted: March 14, 2004 Jerry Skoff and his fellow "patriots" at Save American Manufacturing (SAM) are having a grand old time. A couple dozen of them picketed a conference at the Italian Community Center Thursday by the World Trade Center Wisconsin on global outsourcing, winning coverage for SAM's position against trade agreements from three Milwaukee TV stations. Later that night, Skoff, president of Badger Metal Technologies, made his case to sympathetic ears at the Milwaukee Chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers. "We are not economic isolationists," he said. "We believe we are...

<p>NEW YORK (CNN) - You may have noticed recently that I'm being attacked for my views on the exporting of American jobs and my calls for a balanced U.S. trade policy.</p> <p>Gerard Baker of the Financial Times called me the "high priest of demotic sensationalism."</p>

<p>ITHACA -- Two representatives from the Northern Chiapas Coffee Network spoke to Ithaca High School students Wednesday about the conflict in their country and their desire to set up local fair-trade coffee markets.</p> <p>Miguel Gonzalez Hernandez, 50, an elementary school teacher in Chiapas, Mexico, and Angel Alvarez, 30, an agrarian engineer, told students in four different classes about how their organic coffee network operates and their involvement in the conflict in Chiapas.</p>

What ifyou could protect the environment and reduce poverty simply by drinking coffee? Fair Trade Certified coffee means qualityfor drinkers, farmers, and the environment Learn more about Fair Trade coffee and how YOU can get it @Texas A&M UniversityFebruary 18MSC/Rudder Fountain10am-2pm Courtesy of Texas Environmental Action Coalitionteac.tamu.edu“Trade Not Aid”

The anti-free trader's true enemy Posted: February 4, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc. There's the "Free Trade but Fair Trade" crowd, and the "Level Playing Field" crowd, and the "America First" crowd, all calling for tariffs and other international trade restrictions. Their supposed adversary is corporate America, seeking to boost profits by either importing goods made by cheaper foreign labor or relocating plants in foreign lands to directly take advantage of cheaper labor. They claim that this accounts for the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and other economic woes. Their argument has considerable emotional appeal, but they've misidentified the...

China engineers its next great leap By JOHN SCHMIDjschmid@journalsentinel.com Posted: Dec. 30, 2003 Last of a four-part series: Made in China Beijing - While the United States focuses on China's export prowess and cheap labor, Beijing is investing in a new generation of sophisticated "knowledge workers" to carry the nation to the next stage of its industrial revolution. Made in China Photo/Gary Porter Office towers glow in the night in a view from atop the Di Wang Center, the tallest building in downtown Shenzhen, China. Many of the offices are occupied by China's new generation of "knowledge workers." The country...

Huddled in their 16th-floor office uptown two years ago, Frances Queen and her management team voiced the unthinkable: Was the Charlotte computer-services firm doomed? In one week after the 9-11 attacks, Queen Associates had lost five long-term contracts worth $600,000 in sales. But a bigger threat loomed, one an economic rebound couldn't fix. Customers increasingly sought lower-paid software programmers overseas instead of hiring the company. Queen lay awake nights. "Then I decided, we're not going to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves. We're going to start an offshore division." She lined up a team of programmers in Russia and...

In recent years, it has become apparent that the new system of globalization and free trade has too often degenerated into one of crude exploitation of people and the environment in the developing world. Workers typically make scandalously low wages and work long hours under unhealthy, demeaning conditions, all in a political climate that makes it impossible, even dangerous, for them to organize to improve their lot. Poor countries are locked in a vicious Catch-22 situation, what has been dubbed the "global race to the bottom" because they must use low wages, cheap natural resources and lax environmental standards to...

American businessmen and farmers are finally waking up to how they were sold a bill of goods by those who promised that China would be a profitable billion-mouth market if we just gave that developing country Most Favored Nation trade privileges and assisted its admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Like Claude Rains in "Casablanca," the Bush Administration is "shocked, shocked" to discover that Communists don't play by the rules or keep their promises. Chinese behavior is so blatant that U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans just went to Beijing for a week's visit to complain about China's trade...

<p>The Bush administration has been slipping into a familiar trap, making ominous comments about the perfectly normal rise of imports that invariably accompanies every economic expansion.</p> <p>Imports always grow most rapidly when U.S. manufacturing is expanding, and shrink only when U.S. industrial production declines. One reason is that U.S. industries are this nation's biggest importers. Industrial supplies accounted for 24½ percent of all imported goods in the year 2000, and capital goods for another 28½ percent. From January to December 2001, imports of industrial supplies fell from $27.1 billion to $18.3 billion, or 33 percent. Imports of capital goods fell from $28.8 billion to $22.5 billion, or 22 percent. Far from reduced imports being a boon to U.S. manufacturers, falling imports mirrored falling world demand for manufactured goods.</p>

Small manufacturers fight U.S. trade policy, endorse Feingold By CRAIG GILBERT cgilbert@journalsentinel.com Last Updated: Oct. 11, 2003 Washington - With its first campaign endorsement last week, a fledgling group of Wisconsin manufacturers made a statement about the politics of job loss in the industrial Midwest. Known as Save American Manufacturing Now, the small-business coalition endorsed Senate Democrat Russ Feingold, whose voting score last year from the nation's best-known business lobby - the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - was a paltry 20%. Why Feingold? Simple. The two-term Middleton senator has repeatedly opposed the big trade pacts of the last decade, from...

Hands Off, China Tells G7 on Eve of Talks Sept. 19 — By Alan Wheatley, Asian Economics Correspondent DUBAI (Reuters) - China bluntly told the United States on Friday not to make it a scapegoat for its economic woes by pressing for a revaluation of the yuan at this weekend's meeting of the world's leading industrial powers. The need for China and other Asian nations to let their currencies rise to help iron out major imbalances threatening the global economy will be a major talking point when Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers gather on Saturday in Dubai. With the...

Local manufacturers new voice of small firms on trade issues Rich Rovito Jerald Skoff recites a quote from Chinese war strategist Sun Tzu, written 2,000 years ago, when describing the condition of manufacturing in the United States. "Undermine, subvert, deceive and corrupt the enemy and sow discord among his leaders, and you will destroy the enemy without fighting him." Skoff, the chief executive officer of Badger Metal Tech Inc., Menomonee Falls, considers the quote an accurate reflection of the havoc Chinese manufacturers have wrought on U.S. companies. Suffering the most are small businesses like Badger Metal Tech, a 15-employee shop...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The three architects of the North American Free Trade Agreement said Monday a free trade pact for the Western Hemisphere is the logical next step.Former President Bush, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gotari, who were in office when NAFTA was negotiated, reunited to open a conference marking the 10th anniversary of its signing.The three said NAFTA, signed in 1992 and effective in 1994, had set a standard for the opening of markets for the region and was a worthwhile objective despite heavy opposition at the time."Our countries are stronger,...