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Patrick J. Buchanan Examines "The Slow Awakening of George W."
Washington Times ^ | 09-17-03 | Buchanan, Patrick J.

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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: bush; china; deficits; manufacturing; minimumwages; ohio; trade; zoellick
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To: Lazamataz
You have never set foot on a college campus. You may have seen commercials about them on TV, though.

So are you going to the game or not? Who do you think will win?

161 posted on 09/17/2003 10:14:46 AM PDT by Texas_Dawg
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To: truthkeeper
Thanks for the nice comments.
162 posted on 09/17/2003 10:14:52 AM PDT by DoughtyOne
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To: Gargantua
Reagan was a staunch advocate of free trade and opposed tariffs. Ronald Reagan’s words are worth recalling: "The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations." (reprinted from The Cato Institute).

Reagan himself was a dreamer, capable of imagining a world without trade barriers. Reagan himself is the politician first credited with proposing NAFTA. In announcing his presidential candidacy in Nov. 1979, he had proposed a “North American accord” in which commerce & people would move freely across the borders of Canada & Mexico.
Anti-free-traders are modern-day Luddites who support the fringe left's protests against the WTO, GATT, etc. Would it surprise you to discover that most of the protestors against free trade are from the far left? After all, Tom Hayden (formerly of the SDS) was in Seattle a few years ago to protest against free trade. Does it give you comfort that avowed Marxists agree with you? See below:

http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/02/wto.protest.perspective/

Free trade across international borders is not just good for business or good for job-creation. It is good -- period.

So said President Bush in a remarkable speech earlier this year, when he made the case for free trade on unabashedly moral grounds. "Open trade is not just an economic opportunity, it is a moral imperative," he told the Council of the Americas in May. "Trade creates jobs for the unemployed. When we negotiate for open markets, we are providing new hope for the world's poor. And when we promote open trade, we are promoting political freedom. Societies that open to commerce across their borders will open to democracy within their borders -- not always immediately, and not always smoothly, but in good time."

Protectionism distorts markets, hurts importers, kills jobs, and sows distrust between nations. But the foremost reason governments should refuse to impede free trade is that it is theft. It steals from the many to enrich the few. It deprives individuals of the right to control their own property -- to choose for themselves where to buy the products they want and to sell the goods they own.
163 posted on 09/17/2003 10:14:54 AM PDT by Recourse
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To: Texas_Dawg
Do you really think that Indians and Americans are equally efficient?

The question is too broad. Sometimes they are sometimes they are not, there is not a definitave answer here.

Americans aren't more competitive on any level that would cause the unemployment rate to decline once a cyclical correction is over?

American's can compete on a skills basis, not a wage basis.

Do you think the stock market and economy should go up endlessly?

The stock market will go up gradually over time up until there is a massive labor shortage from the boomer retirement. Alternatively the credit bubble will pop because of unemployment and interest rates will skyrocket sending the market back down.

Do you realize that 93.9% of the American work force is employed?

Any analyst (finance/business/otherwise) worth his salt knows that relying on a metric like "those seeking work" is foolish. The number is subject to political tampering and will say whatever the current administration wants it to say. Use the SS database and IRS database and you'll have a real number that reflects reality.

164 posted on 09/17/2003 10:16:21 AM PDT by RockyMtnMan
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To: Texas_Dawg
>>I think people who hate people wealthier than them epitomize the definition of "greed".

Are people who despise carpet baggers,"greedy", Tex?

165 posted on 09/17/2003 10:17:39 AM PDT by VxH
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To: Recourse
It's true that Reagan was in principle a free trader and opposed to tariffs, but part of Reagan's genius was that while idealistic, he was also a realist and knew that in the real world a tariff is sometimes beneficial and necessary. That's why he personally intervened to save a great American company, Harley-Davidson, from predatory foreign maneuvering.
166 posted on 09/17/2003 10:18:19 AM PDT by jpl
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To: Willie Green
Willie, what I meant to say is that the Constitution does not address economic issues in Article II (the executive branch). Those are mainly confined to Article I (the legislative branch), as you so listed.

Since John Quincy Adams, people have blamed a "weak" economy on the sitting administration. JQA lost to Jackson, etc., etc.
167 posted on 09/17/2003 10:19:50 AM PDT by Theodore R.
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To: Buck72
Pat's right about this.

And only blind, or those with anti-American agendas refuse to admit this.

Open borders, invasion of *millions* of illegal aliens and the global free traitors are killing America, one job at a time.

168 posted on 09/17/2003 10:19:50 AM PDT by Joe Hadenuf
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To: jpl
Is it possible to have a large national economy run entirely on everyone in the country suing someone else?

--------------------------

That's an approximation of where the spoiled kids in this country think we're going and where they want to lead us. Fifty years ago my mother said communism was a system in which advocates all were going to become artists, poets, and intellectuals. We have a new form of communism. Under the new form of communism for the elite we will have a $10,000,000,000,000 trade deficit so all the substantive work will be done in other countries to support us while we become a nation of artists, poets, intellectuals, lawyers, and paper pushers coasting in easy lives on the work of others.

169 posted on 09/17/2003 10:19:56 AM PDT by RLK
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To: Recourse
Actually Reagan was a proponent of Trickl-down economics. In order for trickle-down to work capital must be invested domestically to create new jobs/businesses/consumers. Your assumption is that "free-trade" encourages domestic investment which, it does the exact opposite of ecouraging investment in new developing markets elswhere in the world.

Capital flows have been flowing in record numbers to third-world nations not to new businesses here at home.
170 posted on 09/17/2003 10:20:03 AM PDT by RockyMtnMan
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To: RockyMtnMan
American's can compete on a skills basis, not a wage basis.

This is why discussing economics with people in your crowd is futile. You simply don't understand what economic efficiency even means.

171 posted on 09/17/2003 10:20:08 AM PDT by Texas_Dawg
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To: Texas_Dawg
So are you going to the game or not? Who do you think will win?

Start a thread about football so I can ignore it, moron.

172 posted on 09/17/2003 10:20:24 AM PDT by Lazamataz (I am the extended middle finger in the fist of life.)
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To: AdmiralRickHunter
The 2,600 workers layed off from RJ Reynolds (just announced today) are going to do what? North Carolina is bleeding manufacturing and textile jobs. It is a race to the bottom.

I think the onus is on the free traders to explain what to do about the unemployable. There will be a large group of unemployable people in the future. Economically, culturally, law enforcement wise, what is their plan to counter-act this by product of "free trade". I went to my home town 2 weeks ago, to an area that was booming in the 80's and 90's. The job losses in the area are huge. Gangs, guns, drugs, graffiti have moved in blighting the area. This was an upwardly mobile community. I felt safe growing up there when the economy was good. I wouldn't go out there alone, or unarmed now though.

Unemployed young men are roaming the streets.

173 posted on 09/17/2003 10:21:10 AM PDT by dogbyte12
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To: VxH
Are people who despise carpet baggers,"greedy", Tex?

Yes.

174 posted on 09/17/2003 10:21:10 AM PDT by Texas_Dawg
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To: dogbyte12
Hi dogbyte12:

the problem you talk about is REAL -- don't get me wrong, I fully acknowledge that. But I think restricting trade as a response to that solution is like preferring a short term "high" rather than a long term cure. In the long term, restricting trade is going to make EVERYBODY worse off, in the long run.

The problem is -- and this is where you are right on the money -- democracy. That is, TODAY's citizens have to be willing to make a sacrifice NOW so that in the long run somebody else -- their children, their younger co-workers, etc. will be better off in the future. How do you convince them to do that? Well, hopefully enough of them have a stake in the improved future that they merely need to act out of extended self-interest, rather than altruism.

But what about those "dead=enders" with NO place in the future? Unfortunately, some of them are going to be REAL dead-enders. they are going to end up in prison, leading criminal lives, living on the dole. That's an ineliminable segment of society -- but hopefully small.

there are others at the margins, not quite the complete underclass or criminal class, but in some sense "outmoded" for the new prosperity. It's because there is bound to be such a class that we really do need some sort of minimal safety net. It's the price we pay for social order.

Plus, we've got to make it the case that race, class, ethnicity etc don't "trap" you in the under-class or the slightly less under-class. that's why we need to make it the case that no matter what your parents economic/social status was, YOU still have a chance to achieve, because you live in a safe neighborhood (even if a poor one) and have access to decent schools and are not locked or trapped in any way.

I agree this kind of approach doesn't really do away with the short term pain felt by some of the less adaptable among us. But here's the point, there aren't any short term ""feel good" solutions that don't have disasterous long term consequences.
175 posted on 09/17/2003 10:21:31 AM PDT by rightbanker
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To: Texas_Dawg
This is why discussing economics with people in your crowd is futile.

You keep saying the same thing. But you keep coming to these threads.

You have NOTHING constructive to offer, so why don't you go away?

176 posted on 09/17/2003 10:21:38 AM PDT by Lazamataz (I am the extended middle finger in the fist of life.)
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To: Lazamataz
Start a thread about football so I can ignore it, moron.

So will you be watching? Come on. Give me your prediction. LSU's got a pretty strong offense. Do you think we can stop that?

177 posted on 09/17/2003 10:22:14 AM PDT by Texas_Dawg
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To: Texas_Dawg
So are you going to the game or not? Who do you think will win?

Maybe you could charter an invisible jet and take some time off of your invisible job and go to the game....ahhh, no that would not work because then you could not sit on FR all day playing the part of ruthless billionare tycoon from your parent's basement.

178 posted on 09/17/2003 10:22:22 AM PDT by riri
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To: Theodore R.
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.

Bwahahahahaha! Ain't that the truth?
By his own admission, he was barely able to maintain a "C" average.
And his undergraduate major was what? History?
Sheeesh, that MBA of his has "rubber stamp" written all over it.
About the only thing he learned how to do was schmoooze with Daddy's cronies.

Yeah, he'd be a nice guy to schmoooze with, alright. I wouldn't mind inviting him to a backyard Barbeque myself. It'd be fun. But it's also no secret as to why he's so frustratingly clueless most of the time, either.

179 posted on 09/17/2003 10:22:44 AM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: RLK; hchutch
"Your argument(post#10) won't sell to anyone except various fanatics."

I'm trusting that you're being ironic, R. ;^)

It's a boar's nest, hutch. Since all policies are the product of interests influencing legislators, and officials preserving their benefices, everything the government touches turns to muck.

Sort of a reverse Midas effect.
180 posted on 09/17/2003 10:23:02 AM PDT by headsonpikes
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