Posted on 03/23/2004 11:25:02 AM PST by MNJohnnie
Every political campaign seems to have some buzzword, and this year's buzzword is "outsourcing." Since the economic recovery has not yet reached the stage when new jobs are being created to the extent expected and hoped, the idea that American jobs are being sent overseas has political mileage, whether or not it has much economic substance.
A recent poll of economists by the Wall Street Journal found that only 16 percent of them saw outsourcing as having a significant impact on the over-all job picture. More important, the political remedies being suggested to stop outsourcing are virtually guaranteed to make things worse.
(Excerpt) Read more at humaneventsonline.com ...
Where, what and who's economics, please give some reference for that claim.
And ... would you buy a car -- new -- that did not lock? Or would you ask your wife -- mother -- to drive around town in an unlocked car. Or better yet -- do you insist your wife reamain faithful? By all the logic and economics of the "Free Traders" a wife is best available to any man who can best service her.
The finances of the country were in a state of the utmost disorder. A profuse and corrupt Senate, whose profuseness and corruption were imitated by almost every functionary, from the highest to the lowest grade, had brought the USA to the verge of ruin.Adapted -- too closely for comfort, btw -- from Charles MacKay's "Mississippi Scheme" chapter of that singular and wonderful work of his.The national debt was huge and many times the national revenue and the ever-grwing national expenditures per annum; left less available to pay the interest upon the debt. The first care of the Executive, Treasury and National Bankers was to discover a remedy for an evil of such magnitude, and a council was early summoned to take the matter into consideration.
The measures ultimately adopted, though they promised fair, only aggravated the evil. The first, and most dishonest measure, was of no advantage to the state. A subtle remonetization was ordered, by which the currency was gradully, surely depreciated to a small franction of what it once had ordained. Private gold was banned and seized for a low value, new paper notes then issued.were backed by a fractional amount of the gold, as its axchange rate was fixed, after a number of years even that poorly valued "exchange" was closed and the paper money was backed by faith or whimsy alone. By this contrivance the treasury gained billions of the citizen's wealth and all the commercial operations of the country were disordered. A trifling diminution of the taxes silenced the clamours of the people, and for the slight present advantage the great prospective evil was forgotten.
A great flux and myriad number of innovative accounting schemes deveoped in the public companies and markets following this switch to completly unbacked money. Eventually these became so outrageous, complex and unweildy and causing great suffering to the pensions and savings of the populace that a great cry for "Jutice!" went forth and the courts, hury rooms and Federal inmate housing units were soon overwhelmed by the ex-titans of industry and market brought low before the outcry. Eventually -- quickly really -- the whetted appetite of the public for such Judicial spectacle proved shallow and fleet ... The severity of the government relaxed, and fines, under the denomination of arcane taxes regulation and fine, were indiscriminately levied upon all corporate offenders. But so corrupt was every department of the administration, that the country benefited but little by the sums which thus flowed into the treasury.
In all, it was that the people, who, after the first burst of their resentment is over, generally express a sympathy for the weak, were indignant that so much severity should be used to so little purpose. They did not see the justice of robbing one set of rogues to fatten another. In a few months all the more guilty had been brought to punishment, and the chamber of justice looked for victims in humbler walks of life. Charges of fraud and extortion were brought against tradesmen of good character, in consequence of the great inducements held out to common informers. They were compelled to lay open their affairs before the Senate and Regulatory panels and IRS auditors in order to establish their innocence. The voice of complaint resounded from every side, and at the expiration of some years the government found it advisable to discontinue further proceedings. The chamber of justice was suppressed, and a general amnesty granted to all against whom no charges had yet been preferred.
It was at this point that the Chinese note-holders appeared in the Districts of Finance, Judicial and Legislation. Laden with decades of all (or most) of the notes of credit the USA had issued under the reign of fiat money, they demanded satisfaction ...
Your rhetoric is amazingly similar to the rhetoric of such notable conservative luminaries as Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Josef Stalin, Kim Il-Sung, and Mao Tse-Tung.
Wow. After I got my eyes back in their sockets from all those numbers, I Googled this:
The gross numbers make the United States look like a manufacturing powerhouse. The latest numbers reporting the first two months of this year show America exported $82.6 billion in manufactured goods and only $9.3 in agricultural goods. However, exports are only half of the story. During the same period, the United States imported $135.7 billion in manufactured goods and $6.2 billion in agricultural goods. The net result is a $53 billion trade deficit in manufactured goods and a $3 billion surplus in agricultural goods. A large trade deficit in manufactured goods and a surplus in agricultural goods is the profile of a Third World colony.
Source: Paul Craig Roberts, April 25 2002 in an article VERY aptly titled Smug in a no-think existence
The U.S. Constitution grants power to Congress to regulate commerce. Watching corporations chase the cheapest world labor pool, to Mexico, oops not cheap enough, to India, to Red China is not close to free trade. Reciprocal, fair trade does not include one side having high-tariffs, devaluing their money 40%, using forced prison labor and stealing all of our technology.
Maybe you think that's a good way to trade, but I don't, and I don't see a very bright future for America if our current trade policies continue.
Maybe you need a refresher, there's nothing here about protecting and empowering Red China or India:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Not all U.S. exports actually are exports. Last year, U.S. firms sent $45.6 billion in goods "in bond" to their Mexican facilities. Such goods are counted as "exports" because they cross national borders. However, such goods are not sold to Mexicans. It is illegal for "in bond" goods to enter the Mexican economy.
U.S. facilities in Mexico used Mexican labor to add $30 billion in value to these goods before they were returned to the United States as $75 billion in imports. In truth, there was no $45.6 billion in exports -- just $30 billion in imports.
Yeah!! and maybe if you'd learn to live on $6000 / yr while watching senior management take another pay raise you'd still have your jobs. How dare you expect to live a middle class existance, only lawyers, CEOs and gvt employees are allowed that luxury. Just remember, the more middle class jobs we ship overseas, the more prosperous our country becomes.
We're not exactly getting off topic because imports of good and imports of services have something in common. They're not inherently good or bad. The important things should be are we working and can we buy things. That's where the focus needs to be. Many countries have a lot of people out of work and a trade surplus, and other countries have the reverse. Anecdotes aside, here we have low unemployment and rising wages. Why can't we just keep doing what works?
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