Posted on 09/17/2003 7:06:29 AM PDT by Theodore R.
The slow awakening of George W.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 17, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Last July, U.S. Trade Representative Bob Zoellick delivered a halftime pep talk to dispirited globalists, thrown on the defensive by the hemorrhaging of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
"What ... a surprise," Zoellick railed at his troops, "to see that the proponents of [free trade] ... have so often abandoned the debate to the economic isolationists and purveyors of fright and retreat."
But by September, Zoellick's own boss seemed to be drifting toward the camp of the "economic isolationists and purveyors of fright."
At a rally in Ohio, which has lost 160,000 manufacturing jobs since mid-2000, President Bush railed: "We've lost thousands of manufacturing jobs because production moved overseas. ... America must send a message overseas – say, look, we expect there to be a fair playing field when it comes to trade."
Yes, friends, at long last, we have their attention.
What's behind this radically revised presidential rhetoric? It is this: U.S. manufacturing jobs are vanishing, and unless he turns it around, Bush's presidency may vanish along with them.
The numbers are breathtaking. Manufacturing jobs have been disappearing for 37 straight months. Not since the Depression have we lost production jobs three years in a row. Since 2000, one in every six manufacturing jobs, 2.7 million, has disappeared. These jobs paid an average wage of $54,000.
Unfortunately for President Bush, while he has a good heart, he was horribly miseducated at Harvard. He simply cannot comprehend that it is free-trade globalism that is destroying U.S. manufacturing jobs, and may yet destroy his presidency.
The serial killer of manufacturing jobs is imports, which are now equal to almost 15 percent of GDP, four times the level they held between 1860 and 1960. What has caused this flood of imports? The trade deals that people like Robert Zoellick negotiate and George W. Bush celebrates.
Consider the numbers.
In July alone, the United States exported $86.1 billion in goods and services. But we imported $126.5 billion, for a trade deficit of $40.4 billion. The total trade deficit for 2003 is estimated at between $480 billion and $500 billion. But the deficit in goods will run closer to $550 billion.
The president's father and Bill Clinton contended that every $1 billion in exports created 20,000 jobs. Thus, a $550 billion trade deficit kills 11 million production and manufacturing jobs.
Say goodbye to blue-collar America.
What is the Bush prescription for curing this metastasizing cancer? In Ohio, he declared, "See, we in America believe we can compete with anybody, just so long as the rules are fair, and we intend to keep the rules fair."
How, Mr. President?
Consider the nation that runs the largest trade surplus with us. In July, we bought $13.4 billion in goods from China and sold China $2.1 billion. U.S. imports from China this year should come in around $160 billion, and U.S. exports to China at $25 billion.
We will thus buy 10 percent of the entire GDP of China, while she buys 0.25 percent of the GDP of the United States. Is this "fair trade"? But how does Bush propose to close this exploding deficit? How can he?
Where a U.S. manufacturing worker may cost $53,000 a year, a factory in China – with $53,000 and using the same machinery and technology as a U.S. factory – can employ 25 reliable, intelligent, hardworking Chinese at $1 an hour.
If you force U.S. businessmen to pay kids who sweep the floor a $5-an-hour minimum wage, while their rivals pay highly skilled Chinese workers $1 an hour, how do you square that with the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws?
Does the president, when he goes on about keeping "the rules fair," mean he will insist that China start paying its skilled workers $25 an hour and subject their factories to the same payroll taxes, wage-and-hour laws, OSHA inspections and environmental rules as ours?
Beijing will tell him to go fly a kite, Made in China.
It is absurd to think we can force foreign nations to accept U.S. rules and regulations on production and American standards on wages and benefits. And why should foreign nations comply, when – with their present policies and laws – they are looting our industrial base and walking away with our inheritance?
The men who have custody today of what was once the most awesome manufacturing base the world had ever seen are ideologues, impervious to argument or evidence. Like the socialists of Eastern Europe, zealots like Zoellick are beyond retraining. They are uneducable. They have to go. The sooner they do, the sooner we can get about rebuilding the self-sufficient and sovereign America they gave away.
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Good point. However, the type of national security may not be the kind you envision. If we keep screwing with the people in this country with the haughty attitude of let them eat cake while we do it, we are going to force the people into a bloody revolution.
OPEN ASSIGNMENT
MISSION TO SAVE AMERICAN JOBS
September 17, 2003
President Bush:
Mr. President your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to recover the 3+ million jobs lost on your watch. You are to find where they went, recover them, and prevent this from happening again.
You have until November 2004 to complete this mission.
If you choose not to accept this mission, or are incapable of performing, don't run in the GOP Primary so another Republican can accept this important mission for America.
American Citizen Voter
PS Ronald Reagan was the last Republican to understand. Ross Perot sent a warning to your Dad but since then all we hear is the mantra, 'Perot gave us Clinton'. Actually your Dad gave us Perot.
I have. Plenty of times. You people just know very little about economic law though sadly. I've said on here before... the day I meet one successful capitalist conservative in real life that supports banning people from lawful trade, I will think about your points. I know lots of rednecks and union workers that agree with you. No serious people though.
No worries, undoubtedly it will be invested in new labor-saving plant & equipment... as soon as the deluge of cheap third world labor currently being encouraged to flow into the US dries up.
A robust economy is a placebo if your freedom and way of life is the price you pay for that 'economy.' Those who would trade their freedom for security (or for a good economy) will receive neither.
More pointedly, a 'good' economy where America's manufacturing base disappears is not a 'good' economy for America. Period.
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Point me to anything you have written that can be considered remotely scholarly, where you procede from premises to a conclusion, or cite the works of preeminant economists.
Thrill me. Show me that one post.
You can say that again.
We are in a bell curve. Manual labor jobs that can be done elsewhere will be done elsewhere in the new economy. What happens to the people who do not have the intellect to retrain?
I am not talking about retarded people. I am referring to those who made it through high school, with a struggle. Studying for 2 hours at night, when a higher intellect could get by with 15 minutes and perform better.
In a purely capitalistic system, with no safety net, we would just say oh well. The safety net is actually going to be growing larger.
Before, a person who had good values, and was willing to work hard, could support themselves, even if they were this person. They could do assembly line work of varying degrees of complexity. If that goes, you have alot of angry young men, who genuinely have no place at the table. It's a fact.
Even if you agree that we should allow these jobs to go over seas because quite honestly, it can be done cheaper by the same type of guy in a city in China. You still have this unemployed/underemployed guy here.
Some here, think telling these people "to put ice on it" will solve the problem, but I think it will actually be a great crisis.
It isn't just trade here. We already have rudimentary robots that cut grass, and vacuum. In a generation, with Moore's law, you can extrapolate what is going to happen with the lawn/maid services industry. It will be more efficient, and less obtrusive to have machinery doing menial labor, yet the people who have menial labor skills will simply not drop off the face of the earth. What is to be done with them? Seriously.
I am not opposed to immigration. I am a first generation american. My father is a blue collar worker, who will probably lose his Boeing subcontracting job this year or next as Boeing has plans to lay off their US work force and do more work in China.
What do you do with people like this? The tricky problem is democracy. We are a republic, but a democratic republic. A democracy is 2 wolves and 1 chicken deciding what to have for dinner.
If we, who have, do not "make work" for those who don't, they will vote for our money instead. IMHO, this talk about free trade just touches the surface of what the future is about to hold, and I find it grim. The digital divide will become the grand canyon. Unless we bribe the have nots with welfare, health care, etc, we have a problem. We will have a problem paying for all those give outs as well.
What politician has the guts to say that if you aren't a college graduate, chances are that your future is going to be extremely bleak in a generation. If you have an IQ of 85, your ability to produce anything will not be cost efficient and any job you get will be basically charity.
Telemarketing companies may be blowing smoke, but they do believe that 2 million workers in that industry will be layed off when the national DNC list comes into effect. Where will these people go, other than into other service industries, further depressing wages? It is a race to the bottom.
End of long disjointed rant.
Bush will win easily in 2004. Do either of you want to bet me on this or are you all talk?
Great - enjoy another laugh for a while.
OPEN ASSIGNMENT
MISSION TO SAVE AMERICAN JOBS
September 16, 2003
President Bush:
Mr. President your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to recover the 3+ million jobs lost on your watch. You are to find where they went, recover them, and prevent this from happening again.
You have until November 2004 to complete this mission.
If you choose not to accept this mission, or are incapable of performing, don't run in the GOP Primary so another Republican can accept this important mission for America.
American Citizen Voter
PS Ronald Reagan was the last Republican to understand. Ross Perot sent a warning to your Dad but since then all we hear is the mantra, 'Perot gave us Clinton'. Actually your Dad gave us Perot.
Haha. This is one of your scholarly posts, no doubt, China_Dawg?
How's the weather in your province today? Here in America, we are facing a hurricane off the East Coast.
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