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.
Do you agree with Lenin's and Stalin's analysis on things? More importantly, were they correct?
Just who recovers (in this country) in a 'jobless' recovery?
Bush has the most inept cabinet since Carter but Bush picked them. His presidency needs a complete overhaul with a new team.
"Free" trade bump.
Sounds right.
$35,000? It is still too much, the good salary in India or China is less than $10,000. Rasing the CEOs pay is another matter - it is an investment in the most productive individuals, it is never too high.
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It's your half-assed theories that are incompetent.
That's a hell of a choice. Lose your left leg, or only your left foot.
And life's not fair. And the poor little old lady living only off social security because she chose not to plan for retirement has to choose between medicine and food. *sob*. $35,000 a year is enough to live off. I promise.
Hmmmmm.........I suppose if one of our Carrier Units is destroyed by the peace-loving Chi-coms using technology either bought or stolen from the West, resulting in the loss of American lives in a confrontation over Taiwan, I would have to.
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And it's Bush doing the selling in his Christian Marxism love-in.
It is hard to stop the decline of the dollar without triggering the serious crisis. It is a natural free market correction and dollar has to loose much more of its value before tariff free imports from China stop to be lucrative.
Hardly. The Bush cabinet is woefully lacking in the 'vision thing' from the economy to Iraq. No one seems to have the faintest capability of anticipation. Congressional candidates from the Democrat Party are no better. They have done everything but wear thongs and deliver pizza to the White House.
Ask CEOs, they got a few nice raises.
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They were not correct in all things. However, they knew what would be required to make imposition of their insanity work.
If that happens, I'll agree with you. Your crowd has been predicting this for years. Meanwhile Pat Buchanan doesn't even support fighting Al Qaeda. Go figure.
When America had to respond to the heinous Japanese attack in WWII, we converted our peacetime factories (very quickly) into wartime materiel production facilities.
Everything from boots and coats and helmets for our Boys to bullets, guns, planes, jeeps, ships, tanks, missiles and bombs were built right here by American manufacturers...
...because we had American manufacturers back then, and we had them in the numbers needed to push back the Luftwaffen SS, the Panzers, the Wermacht, and the Japanese Imperial Fleet.
This has nothing to do with "Buchanan's Propaganda" and everything to do with your own venom for the man causing you to be unable to see the potentially fatal ignorance of your own narrow view.
This isn't about Bush-vs-Buchanan or Democrat-vs-Republican. This is about doing what is best for our National Security and Sovereignty because it is what's best for our National Security and Sovereignty.
Arguing the 'economics' of a matter where, properly framed, our National Security is the issue... is a dodge worthy only of a deceitful Liberal lying scum. And we know you aren't one of them, right?
America needs a STRONG manufacturing sector to ensure our safety and freedom, now and in the future.
Get your head out of there... it smells better out here, and you can actually see stuff.
:-/
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