LET'S TALK ABOUT "YOUR" JOBS

Jobs .. and the economy. Those seem to be the issues that are driving many, if not most, of those who are supporting the Kerry candidacy.

First of all ... I'm going to repeat this simply because it makes the whiners so unbelievably angry. Listen up. They're not your jobs! The jobs belong to the employers .. not to you! You have job skills and, presumably, a willingness to work. Your task in a free economy is to get out there and find some employer with a job who needs your skills ... and strike a deal.

If you do not have the particular set of job skills that an employer needs, of if you have priced your labor out of the marketplace, guess what? It's not the employer's fault. The fault lies with you. Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing. The employer knows what he's looking for you. If you're not it .. it's your problem, not his.

Now ... you say you're going to vote for a Democrat this year because of jobs? You mean to tell me that you're going to vote against George Bush this year because you don't have a set of job skills that are in demand in our free marketplace? Yeah .. that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Tell me. Just what do you want the president to do? You information technology people out there .. just what are you demanding? Do you want companies to stop outsourcing IT jobs to India? OK ... tell me how to do that. These companies aren't shipping parts overseas and completed products back. All they do is ship information overseas by phone lines or the Internet. Then that information is modified and shipped back the same way. What do you want the government .. the president to do? Do you want some federal law that prohibits companies from transmitting information overseas by the Internet, having that information transformed or modified, and then shipped back? And tell me just how do you enforce that law? Does that law then apply to you also if you seek information from a company that is located overseas, thus depriving a domestic company of your business?

Ditto for manufacturing. I've already told you the story about the California company that makes computer mouses. (computer mice?) This company ships the components to China. The mouse is assembled in China and shipped back, then sold for around $40. Why? Because the assembly is cheaper in China than it would be in the US. So, you say you want the president to force this company to have that mouse assembled in the US? Fine .. then the price for the mouse goes up to about $70 a pop and sales drop. As the sales drop the jobs of the people in this country who manufacture the components for that mouse go away. Then the 100 marketing jobs this company supports in California also go away. You see, perhaps you can succeed in forcing this company to assemble these mouses in the US, but there just isn't any way you can force the American consumer to pay 80% more for the "made in America" version.

As Bruce Bartlett says in an article listed in my reading assignments, "No nation has ever gotten rich by forcing its citizens to pay more for domestic goods and services that could have been procured more cheaply abroad."

What we are seeing here is a demonstration of the "government owes me" mentality of far too many Americans. Every time you arrive at a speed bump in your life's journey you start screaming to the government for help. Sure, the speed bump is going to slow you down a bit ... but just keep moving forward and things inevitably pick up speed again. Americans are becoming helpless whiners. The more helpless you are, and the more you whine, the more likely it is you're going to vote for a Democrat. Democrats specialize in stroking the malcontent.

Congratulations, whiners. At a time when America if fighting World War IV, the war against Islamic terrorism ... you're going to vote for a candidate who wants to treat terrorism as a freaking law enforcement problem because you've made some pitiful jobs choices. Pitiful.

When it comes to trade, should we take the direction of Adam Smith and David Ricardo or should we opt for Jean Baptiste Colbert? Let's see what Colbert was up to in France and how that country has really yet to recover from its economic policies from over 300 years ago. Colbert's ideas have a strange ring of familiarity up in these forums

From web source:

Powerful contrôleur général (roughly, minister of finance) under King Louis XIV of France. Colbert managed, against the incredible odds of the Sun King's extravagance, to keep some degree of solvency in French state finances.

Colbert believed in the Mercantilist doctrine that the expansion of commerce (and the maintenance of a favorable balance of trade) was the key to State wealth. His policies -- what became known as Colbertisme -- were all geared in this direction. Colbert doted on his charter companies, set up chambers of commerce, redirected capital to export and import-substitution industries, set up a protective system of tariffs and duties, blocked foreigners from trading in French colonies, etc.

By and large, Colbert was not interested in internal commerce which, in his view, did nothing for State wealth. French farmers and small manufacturers were left locked in the stifling embrace of Medieval town crafts and merchant guilds. Restrictions and internal tariffs on the movement of goods and labor between regions remained in place. The incredibly regressive tax system was reinforced; with the privileged landowning gentry and clergy exempt from taxation and the big import-export capitalists coddled with bounties, the burden of taxes fell even heavier upon the luckless French farmers and small town craftsmen. The encouragement of some export industries, notably wine, transformed land-use patterns, leaving some areas of France dangerously close to food-insufficiency.

Like the Duke of Sully before him, Colbert recognized the need for a good internal transportation network, but only because it was necessary to connect the ports to French import-export industries. Colbert revived the hated corvée, the unpaid labor-time owed by peasants to their feudal lords (and now the State) and forced local farmers and their draught-animals to work on road maintenance.

The Colbertiste system created a paradox. It generated a "progressive" external economy while allowing the internal economy to stagnate. Indeed, by the very set-up of the system, the promotion of the former often meant greater burdens for the latter. Eventually, commentators like the Maréchal de Vauban, Claude Jacques Herbert, Pierre le Pesant de Boisguilbert and Vincent de Gournay raised their voices and called for the reform of the system.

It was only during the late Enlightenment period, as bankruptcy loomed and discontent stalked the land, that the question of reform was seriously addressed. Neo-Colbertistes such as Forbonnais and Graslin believed Colbert's policies were, on the whole, correct. All that was required, they argued, was to bring the internal economy into shape by getting rid of some of the crippling Medieval restrictions, rationalizing administration and making the fiscal burden more equitable. Others, notably Quesnay and the Physiocratic clique, believed that Colbert's ideas was entirely wrong-headed and called unequivocally for their complete abandonment. Much of the Colbertiste system was (temporarily) dismantled during Jacques Turgot's brief tenure as controller-general in the 1770s. At the end of the day, the reforms were too little and too late. The tensions created by the Colbertiste paradox -- and the inability (and unwillingness) of Colbert's successors to fix it -- were probably the main cause of the French Revolution of 1789.

Making use of laogai-produced raw materials and components does help U.S.-based transnational corporations "drive cost curves down," as do the miniscule wage costs offered by the slave-labor conditions that prevail outside the Chinese gulag. Collaboration with Beijing’s communist elite offers opportunities for exploitation never dreamed of in Karl Marx’s rhetoric. But U.S.-based corporations bent on exploiting the Chinese people also exploit U.S. taxpayers by forcing them to subsidize their ventures. Through the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank, corporate investments in China are subsidized, and any losses incurred are socialized — while the profits remain private and legitimate market competition is undermined.

The Ex-Im Bank was created during the New Deal essentially as a means to underwrite corporate investment in the Soviet Union. Since that time it has expanded to offer loan guarantees for corporate projects throughout the world. Under the Trade Act of 1974, "nonmarket economy countries" such as Communist China are denied access to "programs of credits, credit guarantees, [and] investment guarantees" if most favored nation (MFN) status is revoked. This is why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and nearly the entire Fortune 500 have been perennial supporters of MFN renewal for China, and why the same constellation of corporate interests favors extending to Beijing membership in the World Trade Organization, which would in essence grant it permanent MFN status.

An Ex-Im fact sheet explains that the bank "exists to support U.S. exporters in making sales to foreign buyers. It does this by filling the gap where private sector export financing is inadequate or unavailable" — that is, it forces taxpayers to underwrite loans the private sector wouldn’t touch. Ex-Im also admits that Red China is its "largest market in Asia" — much to the delight of Beijing’s commissars and their corporate fellow travelers.

Typical of Ex-Im’s American corporate beneficiaries is former congressman and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who is now CEO of the Texas-based Halliburton energy conglomerate (which has several significant projects underway in China). In a May 8, 1997 speech to an Ex-Im conference in Washington, DC, Cheney declared that Ex-Im helps "U.S. businesses blend private sector resources with the full faith and credit of the U.S. government." It is doubtful that Mussolini could have provided a clearer description of the corporate state. Of course, not a single penny appropriated for Ex-Im is authorized by the Constitution — a point Cheney, the self-styled "fiscal conservative," declined to address.

Disdainfully denouncing those who criticize Ex-Im for practicing "so-called corporate welfare," Cheney sniffed, "They obviously don’t know that for every dollar appropriated to the Bank in the last five years, Ex-Im has returned approximately 20 dollars worth of exports." Admittedly, this arrangement is profitable for the corporations who receive the taxpayer subsidies; how this justifies extorting money from taxpayers, Cheney did not explain.

In 1996, Ex-Im extended at least $900 million in direct loans and $1.2 billion in loan guarantees to underwrite corporate deals in China. Addressing those who contend that "Ex-Im Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Business," Cheney insisted that "more than 80 percent of Ex-Im Bank’s transactions financed small business exports" in 1996. While this might be technically correct, it still doesn’t change the fact that the Constitution does not authorize export subsidies for businesses of any size. Furthermore, Cheney’s characterization of Ex-Im as an ally of small business investment is difficult to sustain in light of the fact that its prominent clients in 1996 included such "mom and pop" outfits as General Electric, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas (since consolidated with Boeing), Westinghouse, Bechtel, and Texaco.

Furthermore, Ex-Im lavished taxpayer-subsidized loans most generously on projects that helped build China’s energy infrastructure. Westinghouse received a direct loan of $36,347,390 to produce steam turbines for the Qinshan II nuclear power plant. General Electric benefited from a $260,116,302 direct loan to provide turbine generators for the Nantong II power plant. Siemens was awarded a $47,456,071 direct loan to help construct the Fuzhou 2X35 OMU power plant. The Qinshan III nuclear power plant was built with the help of a $20 million loan guarantee for Houston’s Stone & Webster International Projects Corporation and a direct loan of $383,133,959 to Overseas Bechtel. And the New Jersey-based Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation was treated to a taxpayer-guaranteed direct loan of $408,822, 539 to provide coal-fired boilers for the Yangcheng Power Plant.

Significantly, the three largest direct loans — those granted to Foster Wheeler, Overseas Bechtel, and General Electric — were approved by Ex-Im following a "Presidential National Interest Determination." Bill Clinton granted those determinations at a time when his re-election effort was awash in illegal Chinese campaign contributions.

Not surprisingly, the list of Ex-Im clients for China ventures overlays quite nicely with the roster of Beijing’s corporate lobbyists. Boeing, which received $332.7 million in Ex-Im subsidies in 1996, was a corporate member of the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) and the Business Coalition for U.S.-China Trade, in addition to being the corporate co-founder of the U.S.-China Educational Foundation (USCEF). General Electric ($260.1 million in Ex-Im subsidies) also helped create the USCEF and is a member of the USCBC; Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation ($408.8 million from Ex-Im) is also a USCBC member, as are Texaco and Westinghouse. Bechtel is a member of USA-ENGAGE, which describes MFN for China as "a means of encouraging positive change in China and ensuring freedom for Hong Kong."

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1998/vo14no16/vo14no16_corporate.htm

MNSHO, What has happened with the collapse of the schools (and parental authority) is that we have allowed your generation to be shamelessly manipulated into a commercial culture in which you are not given the finest traditions of Western Christian Civilization to carry forward as a duty, but a base,ugly, and fundamentally silly set of characters to use as role models.

I absolutely agree. And, unless you're in your sixties, we are probably in the same generation.

Look at the majority of the posts on this thread. Almost all of the free-traders and super-capitalists argue the above point, but, from the other side. They say that the commercialization of our culture is good and, in fact, should progress to other countries. You have stated my case rather succinctly. We have become a nation of consumers whose sole purpose in life is to buy.

I always bring up the fact that today, children in high school must begin planning for their retirement. While that in itself is not a bad thing the idea that, if they don't do it now they will not secure their future, can be a frightening and depressing task. When I was in high school all I had to think about was grades and girls. Now they are forced to contemplate Roth IRA's, 401K's, education accounts, etc. What kind of life is that for a 15 y.o.?

As a nation we are quickly becoming, instead of E Pluribus Unum, Unum E Pluribus (if I have that wrong, I never studied Latin). It is quickly becoming each man for himself in a way that is going to be deadly.

I grew up in the Midwest and when I moved here, the first thing I noticed was the closed way New Englanders are. The people around here mostly couldn't care less what happens to their neighboors. Where I came from we did care and actually looked out for our neighboors.

So whether the president should not micromanage trade, he does in a big way.Congress gave him that authority.

They can take it away, as they reauthorize it often.(It was yearly, I do not know what the current law is on the time frame.)

Fastrack has not been abused by this president to my knowledge. If it has, then I have not seen much in that regard.

All of the complaints seem to be connected to the decisions of private companies and what they do to improve their bottom lines. (outsourcing, multinational offices, and moving plant floors to other countries)

These things are not connected directly to fast track or government negotiated trade agreements, but the agreements may make some of these things easier to do in the form of taxing rules and legalisms.

A better question to pose would be to ask if it is a good idea for government to stand in the way of what a private business would like to do, or to allow them the freedom to make those choices.

When posed that way, I fall on the side of little or no interference in business decisions of that nature.

It would be better to encourage and make possible a business climate that make decisions like these rare. Not to forbid or make illegal these types of actions.

Kerry wants to spend a great deal of taxpayer money to pay companies not to send work to foreign countries.

Talk about business perks! And from a EF'n democrat to boot.

Blatant election poop, if you ask me.

Our imports from China in 1996 totaled over $51 billion. It is impossible to determine how much of that figure came from prison labor facilities.

In 1990, the Chinese Justice Ministry officials gave us conflicting figures ranging from as low as $300 million to as high as $1 billion for the value of goods produced by prison farms and factories

Further clouding the situation are factories that the Chinese tell us are associated with prisons, but do not employ prison labor. These so-called "worker enterprises" employ relatives of prison employees and ex-convicts who remain near the prison after release. We are told that there are about 400,000 workers in such units separate from the prisons. These enterprises are specifically exempted from the government rules banning export of goods from the prison system

Another practice complicating our enforcement efforts is that Chinese manufacturers use a network of middlemen, including trading companies in China and Hong Kong, leaving the source very difficult to trace. Importation documents usually list the names of these trading companies whose representatives heretofore have not been forthcoming in providing information about the manufacturers they represent.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE J. WEISE
COMMISSIONER
UNITED STATES CUSTOMS SERVICE
***

Your question cannot be answered because of the utter treachery that goes along with using slave labor to build products. Because American corporate officers are not held accountable by their shareholders, or the citizens of this country which charter their corporations, the answer will probably never be known.

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