When economic patriotism died

World Net Daily ^ | 5/02/2013 | Buchanan, Patrick

[Sheapdog]

When economic patriotism died Pat Buchanan agrees with the pope about ' the dark side of globalism'

“This is called slave labor,” said Pope Francis.

The Holy Father was referring to the $40 a month paid to apparel workers at that eight-story garment factory in Bangladesh that collapsed on top of them, killing more than 400.

“Not paying a just wage … focusing exclusively on the balance books, on financial statements, only looking at personal profit. That goes against God!”

The pope is describing the dark side of globalism.

Why is Bangladesh, after China, the second-largest producer of apparel in the world? Why are there 4,000 garment factories in that impoverished country which, a few decades ago, had almost none?

Because the Asian subcontinent is where Western brands – from Disney to Gap to Benetton – can produce cheapest. They can do so because women and children will work for $1.50 a day crammed into factories that are rickety firetraps, where health and safety regulations are nonexistent.

This is what capitalism, devoid of a conscience, will produce.

[NVDave]

As tho the people in Bangladesh haven’t been idle for the last 100 years... riiiight.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Ironic indeed....those textile jobs probably left NC at some point in the first place....now NC has better jobs replacing them. This is why you cannot ever plan an economy. No way to know what is coming down the pike...unless you plan....which means protect status quo....which means nothing better ever comes down the pike.

[griswold3]

I agree with you 100%. But what about ‘marketing’ products made in the US? It’s easy for consumers to part with their money for the right product.
Remember FUBU (For Us By Us)? I thought they had a niche that could work but their products were made outside of the US. They came out with egg on their face, so to speak. Those that talk the talk should walk the walk.
However I’ve not heard any good solutions for the real problems of globalization, technology and demographics. I don’t think there’s much you can do but prepare.

[Phillyred]

Okay, so $0/month. What does that mean? Sounds terrible if they lived in the USA, but what does $40/ a month get you in Bangladesh? That is the question. I don’t know the answer but it’s all relative. If the factories weren’t there, what would their salary be?

[Phillyred]

Okay, so $40/month. What does that mean? Sounds terrible if they lived in the USA, but what does $40/ a month get you in Bangladesh? That is the question. I don’t know the answer but it’s all relative. If the factories weren’t there, what would their salary be?

[C. Edmund Wright]

I dont’ think you interpreted his comment the way he meant it. An economic national socialist is NOT the same thing as a Nazi necessarily anyway. Similar in econ policy, but theres’ a LOT MORE to Nazi’s than pure national socialism. If RB had meant Nazi, he would have used that term IMO.

[Sheapdog]

Don’t know why I bother to post this stuff. Read the complete article and comments - are quite good.

I know it just brings out the “free-traders” who exalt in their ability to understand the complexities of the modern global economy while those who disagree are naive troglodytes who don’t know anything about history or economics.

Let’s just disagree.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Marketing in a certain way is something that business owners, in liberty, are free to do. But your best point was on not being any real solutions for globalization. There aren’t. There is never a “solution” for reality, because it exists whether or not you want to admit it or not. Besides, in every economic change, there is both good and bad, but neither is permanent. The only bad/bad economy is one that is planned. To “solve” globalization would be to try and “plan” an economy. Never works. And as Milton Friedman asks, “so where will we get these angels who will make all these decisions for us. I don’t trust you to do that.”

And by ‘you’ - he means ANYONE.

[VanDeKoik]

Never understood why people think that 40.00 is somehow a pittance.

Those people were once accustomed to making nothing. 40.00 is a lot of money to them. People over here went through the same thing 110 years ago.

There is no skipping this stage.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You are, of course, correct. And then there’s this fact; if someone is offering you the best option you have, how in the world is that exploitation? If it’s the best you can get, its the best you can get. If you are better off taking said option, regardless of how crappy that option is, your problem is not that option. Your problem is much bigger than that.

How the Pope, or Pat, can blame businesses that are giving these people a better shot than anyone else is giving them is just astonishing. With due respect to Pat and The Pope, they are just wrong about this.

[Leto]

Wonder if Pat is still driving his Benz, LOL.

I would guess these wages allow one to live in Bangladesh. The issue Pat is our government making it hard to do business here.

[NVDave]

You’re seriously going to try using that logic? “Give us your economic activity... or else we’ll become terrorists!” Jeez, you “free traders” are really scraping the bottom of the barrel now.

Yea, that makes a boatload of sense. Next thing they could say is “Give us money for doing nothing... or else we’ll become terrorists!”

Oh wait... I’m having a flashback. The excess of my youth is catching up to me... I seem to remember some peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter who did that with the Egyptians and Israelis in the 70’s. Look at how that’s turned out... billions of dollars per year, and it doesn’t seem to be working. Egypt is now the largest population country in the middle east controlled by Islamist forces.

Uh oh, now I’m seeing Jerry on stage in the 80’s, just before his diabetic coma... and I’m flashing on Iran-Contra, where we supplied cash and TOW missiles to the Iranians to get hostages... and they’re still sponsors of terrorism. Oh, and the Iranians kidnapped more Americans to replace those they let go under the “deal.”

Oh, and wait... the LSD continues to wreck my brain and I’m having MORE flashbacks. Kids, don’t drop acid, it causes you to remember really unpleasant stuff. I seem to recall some yahoo named “Bush” who poured money, blood, jobs and economic development by the boatload into Afghanistan, and they continue to pump out terrorists apace. Hell, they won’t stop taking a crap in the middle of the street according to gun buddies who have served there. Even after we US taxpayers have paid for public sanitary facilities to be built (and made jobs for the locals to build them), they keep crapping in the middle of the street by hiking up their man dresses in public.

Right now, we’re pouring money by the trainload into crapholes all over the middle east, and terrorism is gaining, not losing ground. Heck, lots of the money and arms we’re shipping into the middle east are ending up directly in the hands of the terrorists.

OK, here’s the summary of my flashbacks: Giving them jobs, money, economic development, whatever you want to call it... won’t prevent terrorists from arising.

The two low-rent Muslims in Massachusetts that bombed the marathon had been given (as a family) over $100K in welfare over the years by the taxpayers... and still they bombed the marathon. They had a cushier, more comfortable existence than they were ever, EVER going to have in their third world dungheap of a homeland, and still they killed people here.

Call me Nostradamus, because I’m going to make a prediction based on past experience that pumping money into third world cesspools doesn’t prevent terrorism.

Want to prevent people from becoming terrorists? Kill them. It works every time. Dead bodies, despite lurid depictions to the contrary by Hollywood and some idiot marketing twits in the gun industry, don’t move.

[bert]

Some of the better jobs are here in east Tennessee. I visit another company that manufactures very complex machines that in various manners input raw cotton samples and subject it to very rigorous quality analysis. The machines are the standard for cotton grading world wide.

Many years ago, a professor at the University of Tennessee created a machine to grade cotton for the world cotton market then headquarted in Memphis. They have grown and prospered and created fantastic technology that the world comes to buy

[mjp]

Not long ago, the shirts, skirts, suits and dresses Americans wore were “Made in the USA” – in plants in the Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana, where the lower wages, lighter regulations and air conditioning that came after World War II had attracted the factories from New England.

So, its ok to move production to a cheaper state but not to a cheaper country.That doesn't seem rational.

Tariffs prevented exploiters of labor from getting rich here on sweatshops abroad

But it was bad for American consumers because the protectionism caused higher prices for consumers in the long run.

And so it came to pass. U.S. real wages have not risen in 40 years.

When prices keep going higher thanks to protectionism and government inflation of the money supply, real wages will not rise despite a rise in money wage rates.

[dfwgator]

It was dead in 1976 when Paddy Chayefsky wrote the screenplay for the movie, "Network"

"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians! There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels!… You get up on your little twenty-one-inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T, and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today."

[Wolfie]

Even better...why should I care about Americans who lose their jobs to overseas cheap labor? I got mine.

[1rudeboy]

I noted Buchanan's comment about real wages. It's the kind of "fact" he tosses into some of his columns, hoping that his readers (who agree with him) will accept it without question.

Real wages haven't risen since 1973? Really?

The last time he tried to pull such a statistical stunt was when he clarified by claiming "the rate of increase has declined (or fallen)." Just like a Dem.

[Mad Dawgg]

Pat will tell you that over regulation and high taxes have caused our problem with outsourcing. And like a True Big Gub'Ment Republican he wants to fix such by adding even more Government regulation and higher taxes.

Its the "digging yourself out of the hole by using a bigger shovel" theory of Government.

[Uncle Miltie]

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