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.
No thanks. Discussing economics with some simple-minded systems analyst like you (not that they all are dumb; just you) is really not worth the time. Come back when you work in economics or finance though and I'd be happy to explain to you why capitalism is better than protectionism.
Of course. Tariffs are for "white" people; welfare and housing projects are for "minorities". Such silly people.
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Right. Jobs such as computer programing, engineering, semiconductor manufacturing, machine design and manufacture, are now lower class manual labor.
Not till next Spring. Thanks.
You misspelled "I'm sorry, Laz, I can't because I have had no college education whatsoever."
Hope that helps heaps.
Do you really think that Indians and Americans are equally efficient? Americans aren't more competitive on any level that would cause the unemployment rate to decline once a cyclical correction is over? Do you think the stock market and economy should go up endlessly? (So do I. I live on Earth though, so I realize that doesn't happen.) Do you realize that 93.9% of the American work force is employed?
The project looks very exciting. This is what I am talking about. A US company with patents, doing something both environmentally and economically sound.
The Conagra plant is going to process 200 tons of turkey carcass a day, and instead of dumping it, actually generate money from the "waste"
Very very cool. Al Gore would love it. George Bush's people love it. Absolute win win. If this technology matures, (and works like they say it does), we literally will end our reliance on foreign oil, reduce the price of oil, and basically clean up all our landfills, for a profit! Your garbage will actually be valuable. Companies might start bidding to pay you to take it away. Very very exciting stuff.
Is it possible to have a large national economy run entirely on everyone in the country suing someone else?
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Many of the people who are taking over this forum are little more than the class clowns and disciplinary problems who come here for a laugh, or to provoke a laugh from each other. They couldn't care less about anything else.
I have double Baccalaurette degrees in Computers and Physics. Do you Chinese define that as "dropping out of school"?
You going to the UGA/LSU game this weekend?
Not all Americans like football.
You have never set foot on a college campus. You may have seen commercials about them on TV, though.
What's so special about inclusion of the specific word "economy"???
It is EXTREMELY clear in many Constitutional clauses that our Founders were well aware of Government's interaction with economic affairs. That's why they specificly empowered Congress with methods of economic intervention, with the expectation that those powers would be utilized to BENEFIT the American People, NOT to maliciously PLUNDER our Middle Class.
ARTICLE I, Section 8. The Congress shall have power to...
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
There are many, MANY more examples.
So the Founders didn't use the specific word "economy". So what?
Yes, those jobs are going, but what is happening is that these higher paid workers will start taking service jobs to fill the gaps, squeezing out the semi skilled laborers.
I still would love for a politician to explain what we are going to do with people who no matter what will be semi skilled, when technology, robotics will be able to do that labor cheaper.
These people aren't going anywhere. What will be done about it? Perhaps we should get Texas_Dawg the position to explain to 18 year old men, that the vagarities of the market has made them expendable, and that they should just suck it up. I will notify his family on the first day of work, of his unfortunate passing.
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