Posted on 11/15/2003 6:30:03 AM PST by cp124
Please take one minute to read this and save your company, your job, and our country.
If we don’t organize now, manufacturing will simply become extinct in the United States. Since the enactment of China free trade and “Fast Track” legislation, what was a trickle of jobs lost abroad is today a torrent. You think it’s hard now? China is, by a country mile, the world’s largest buyer of the latest technology and production capacity. Then running it with .90 Cents an hour wages, no OSHA, no EPA, no Workman’s Comp. no out of control tort system, no Disabilities ACT or countless other government mandated added costs beyond your control. In addition, since 1994 China has pegged their currency to the dollar giving Chinese goods another huge competitive boost in the USA. China and our other trade partners are not the enemy, it's our trade policy that is at fault. (Please note we have received some emails asking if we are advocating a dismemberment of USA worker benefits, the answer is absolutely not!)
People speak of a “jobless recovery.” Duh! – If I take my product and eliminate the American workers, sell my plant and equipment (or ship the equipment to China) my cost for finished goods drops by what 40%, 50%, and 60%? My company makes a big buck. Wall Street is joyous; the stock shoots up……along with unemployment. Gone are the manufacturing jobs. Gone is the consumer purchasing power. Gone is your business or your job. At the end of the day a few get rich. As for the USA… we spiral downward.
Our manufacturing capacity is vaporizing before our eyes.
Our machine tool industry is all but dead. Don’t believe it? The price of used machinery in the US is in “free fall.” A man whose shop was worth $5 million before China free trade will be lucky to fetch $1M today.
We are rapidly eliminating skilled, high paying manufacturing jobs and converting them to minimum wage dead ends.
America must have a sensible and fair trade policy. If the government is going to saddle us with unending costs then, we need to employ some fair trade methodology to allow Americans to compete at home and abroad.
Democrat or Republican it makes no difference, there is plenty of blame on both sides on how we arrived here. Our interest in not partisan, just American!
We are all talking about it, but few of us have time to seriously address these issues while struggling to keep our own businesses alive.
A Simple Plan:
Each month we will select a government leader to receive our message. We are going to flood this individual with a demand that we will not settle for anything less than FAIR TRADE.
Here’s how:
I know it’s a pain but we MUST SEND LETTERS. The e-mails and fax numbers that we can get access to for these people won’t work for volume required. WE NEED BULK!
If just once a month, we use the power of an ordinary letter multiplied by five (or more) business associates or co-workers, and their five and so on…and if we all have the discipline to do this, we can deliver our message in literally a ton of mail….directly to our politicians door.
Step 1. Printing and sending the letter.
Simply Click on the "September Letter" button to the left and print. If you experience any trouble printing the document, simply copy and paste into your computer's editing software. Or, if you feel like voicing your own opinons and experiences - write your own letter.
Step 2. VERY IMPORTANT
FORWARD THIS WEB ADDRESS TO A MINIMUM OF 5 BUSINESS ASSOCIATES, PARTNERS, CO-WORKERS, AND/OR ANY INDIVIDUALS THE MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN SAVING OUR USA MANUFACTURING BASE. PLEASE STRESS THAT THEY GIVE THIS THEIR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION AND CONTINUE TO FORWARD IT ON. OUR CONTACTS COME FROM METALWORKING, SO IF YOU HAVE CONTACTS IN OTHER FIELDS OF MANUFACTURING PLEASE USE THEM.
Step 3. Make sure you mail your letter as soon as possible.
THIS WON'T WORK AND NITHER WILL YOU UNLESS YOU MAKE YOURSELF HEARD!
Our government leader for November 2003 is:
President George W. Bush The White House U.S. Department of Commerce 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500
Liar.
No wonder you didn't ping me to this response.
If you had hired 10 workers you would have made a bundle for the government via their personal income taxes. The government should reward employers that create taxpayers, not burden employers with taxes, penalties, and legal liabilities. I think a 3 percent cut of the tax revenues generated would be fair, and would go a long way towards stopping the flow of American jobs to China and India. Employment is the only area of business where businesses lose money for making someone else huge amounts. It doesn't make sense.
Machines don't pay any taxes. Why does our government reward business for employing machines and tax them for hiring people?
More proof that you don't actually read the threads to which you post.
So in your opinion the Founding Fathers were socialists?
Regards
J.R.
Wow. Thats some serious intellectual rationale on your part. You gotta be a super genuis. Is that you Jethro?
Thats the exact point.
We have a trade policy that benefits Wal Mart and no one else.
This is the exact problem with the economy.
Something like 70% of the working population work in small business. Its not all just about manufacturing. But when manufacturing declines, it reverberates around the US economy. When one link in the chain gets nailed, it hurts everyone.
The domination of Wal Mart is bad for the economy. To have a trade policy designed around what Wal Mart wants is bad. To have one that is anti-labor as we have now, is monumentally stupid.
Its not all just Wal Mart though. Its manufacturers of all sorts...whether its industrial or whatever.
There is a way to better manage trade, but right now its not being done.
What do we do? We find countries that are our friends and who are willing to open up to the US. The current FTAs are fine. Now, for every other country that doesn't have an FTA, they get 150% tarriffs.
A global free for all leaves everyone in the pot. The 150% tarriff plan will focus investment and trade in those FTA areas like a lazer beam, thus raising the standard of living in those areas. It will then create a larger market for goods and services.
In the case of Mexico, it would help solve tons of problems from drug trafficing to immigration.
In the end Mexicans would be as rich as Canadians and WE would be the ones selling to them.
Thats never going to happen with the current system.
We would then give them ZERO tarriffs.
Japan and Germany would then eat US car manufacturers lunch. They would take them to the cleaners and take so much marketshare from them they would CRY for tarriffs.
We have just applied China trade/steel policy to the auto industry.
If they want it, lets give it to them.
It would be GREAT for the consumer, because I would get a brand new Toyota for 60% of the cost of a GM and the quality is WAY better...
Do current FTAs include the provision that other signatory nations will also levy a 150% tariff against imports from non-participating nations?
If not, all you've done is set up a a system that is easily circumvented by transhipment through one of the participating nations.
The only REAL solution is to exert sovereign authority over our own borders and levy a relatively low (10~15%), flat-rate "revenue tariff" on ALL imported goods, regardless of nation of origin.
"We are infinitely better off without treaties of commerce with any nation."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1815.
The only welfare queen is here is Wal Mart and those companies that manufacture in China.
Wal Mart could not exist in its current form without the handouts and welfare from the Chinese government. Thats exactly what it is.
So Wal Mart depends on welfare for its supplies, and the increasing roles of welfare recipients for its sales.
The whole cartel has to participate, otherwise its useless.
The point behind what I am talking about as opposed to flat tarriffs (which we have them right now) is to expand the market base through development.
Market base is people who CONSUME goods and services, not SUPPLY them.
Cartels (such as OPEC) inherently violate the principals of true free trade. Revenue tariffs do not.
Correction: It's bad for unions and inefficient businesses.
Taking advantage of global corporate welfare doesn't make one more efficient.
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