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.
Dawg has great sense of humor. And he convinced me how to vote. :)
Thank you for being frank.
Not angry at all, Tokhtamish, or rather WillieKarlGreen2. I'm very happy. Why wouldn't I be? The GOP is on a roll, this country is as free and wealthy and strong as it's ever been... no worries here.
So why don't you challenge me and show me up if I lose and don't pay? (I won't be losing though, to your dismay, I can promise you that.) You still haven't admitted you vote Democratic though. Isn't it funny you tell me to go back to DU when you vote for real D's for President? How ironic.
Please. 80k an annum is hardly limousine class. And calling me a liberal is merely being exhibitionist about your own complete lack of knowledge about politics.
No, what I am laughing at is that you sat there with your teeth in your mouth and your face hanging out, and said I was some stupid Systems Analyst guy -- yet here I am doubling your salary when times are tough!
Feeling people's pain... talking about how much you "care" about the "little man"...
Normally, yes, I do have compassion. A lot of it. That does not define me as a liberal -- hells bells, the man who's very jumpsuit you salivate over defines himself as a Compassionate Conservative....
how you come from the streets
Exsqueeze me? Where did I say *that*???
... all that crap. You're just a typical Yankee leftist blue-stater. Same old, same old. GU? Now there's a good one, Yankee.
Dogbyte12 might have correctly identified you. You might be a DU troll. You seem to want to turn every conversation into an insult fest or a discussion of you.
I'm not upper class. And limosines? I suppose I could afford one once a year, maybe.
LOL!
You misspelled (as your little joke goes), "self-righteous pride". Bush definitely doesn't think himself better than other people or claim that he cares more about people than others as you do.
The money he has, I am sure it wouldn't be worth the price of postage to collect the winnings.
Then bet me.
Poliaki eto dielayut biez probliema.
Deal? Oh, and Chancy can't be the guy. No lawyers as the bag guy for the money. I frankly don't trust you to honor a bet, which makes your betting compulsion quite bizarre. Considering that you consider yourself a big player at $40k a year, I really wonder if you have an inflated ego of self.
If you are willing to have a third party hold the money until the day of the election, I am sure alot of people here you have challenged would love to bet ya. Just think, you could make 100% profit on the deal.
Are you saying that you are a Jew and as such you should not be criticized?
Seems that way to me too. But more likely Texas_Dawg is just an unprincipled idiot.
I'm not Jewish.
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