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.
My bad. You don't hate the Joooos. You just hate merchants. You're a good guy.
You're about 18 months late on that call, genius. He's way ahead of you.
Do you agree with Lenin's and Stalin's analysis on things? More importantly, were they correct?
They were talking about western capitalists willingness to build up the economy of the USSR. We have built up the economy of communist china and they have built modern nuclear bombs etc..
When we see an evil empire we need to treat it like one. Why do free traitors continue to support the nuclear buildup of communist china?
If that happens, I'll agree with you. Your crowd has been predicting this for years.
If that happens? The change in communist china's military ability has been extremely dramatic in a very short period of time. You are oblivious.
You are correct, much of this crowd has been predicitng this for years. However, I don't think anyone was predicting it would happen anytime before now or into the very near future.
The Chinese, themselves, have said they would nuke LA(in a round about way), they recently took one of our planes and they actively work to undermine us. Yet, you fully support them.
The Chinese have been allowed to embrace capitalism in other times and someone has always stepped in and punished the people who have taken advantage of the reforms. What makes you think this time is going to be any different?
Well ---- most Americans didn't grow up in a mansion in Midland Texas with a lot of big oil money around them. It's not that the middle class doesn't understand economics, they understand a different kind of economics. They might not have huge trust funds, they understand the need to get up every morning and go to work, they understand the economics of having a job so they can pay their bills, they understand that money doesn't just fall out of the sky.
447+ posts so far!!
Pullin' for 1000!
Really good CEOs know how to make their employees with the $15-20 an hour worth every dime they might be paid. Most problems in companies does have to do with poor management --- morale problems in a corporation lead to low productivity and poor quality. When a company does poorly---- you have to look at middle and upper management.
The caliber of trolls has improved greatly. They are much more subtle than they used to be. I identified one troll, Those_Crazy_Liberals, who would come here just to name call and cause dissension between various factions. She was quite subtle and it took some time to identify her, but I did.
There's something just not right about DawgPile. Too many insults, too much race baiting, not enough substance. When you call him on the lack of substance, he simply says, "Well you wouldn't understand. I've got an economics degree."
It's very possible he's a troll. I'm leaning more towards child or Chinese national, but... you might be right.
....and you wanted to mock me for being an S/A. LOL!
On average, who would you say are just generally better, more solid, good people: "rich" people or "the middle class"?
My point exactly. You are the perfect definition of a limosine liberal. Feeling people's pain... talking about how much you "care" about the "little man"... how you come from the streets... all that crap. You're just a typical Yankee leftist blue-stater. Same old, same old. GU? Now there's a good one, Yankee.
Why won't you admit you've voted for Democratss for President, Tokhtamish? You're just one more face in that big crowd of 90+%. You're the same old tired story. Demagoguery is all you're about.
How typical is it that I am middle class and Lazamataz is upper class? Just one more limousine leftist. Ted Kennedy agrees with him completely on this issue for good reason.
Are they going to sell their products/services overeas or here?
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