Posted on 02/15/2006 10:42:45 AM PST by SirLinksalot
Our hollow prosperity
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Posted: February 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
PATRICK BUCHANAN
© 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc.
Now that the U.S. trade deficit for 2005 has come in at $726 billion, the fourth straight all-time record, a question arises.
What constitutes failure for a free-trade policy? Or is there no such thing? Is free trade simply right no matter the results?
Last year, the United States ran a $202 billion trade deficit with China, the largest ever between two nations. We ran all-time record trade deficits with OPEC, the European Union, Japan, Canada and Latin America. The $50 billion deficit with Mexico was the largest since NAFTA passed and also the largest in history.
When NAFTA was up for a vote in 1993, the Clintonites and their GOP fellow-travelers said it would grow our trade surplus, raise Mexico's standard of living and reduce illegal immigration.
None of this happened. Indeed, the opposite occurred. Mexico's standard of living is lower than it was in 1993, the U.S. trade surplus has vanished, and America is being invaded. Mexico is now the primary source of narcotics entering the United States.
Again, when can we say a free-trade policy has failed?
The Bushites point proudly to 4.6 million jobs created since May 2003, a 4.7 percent unemployment rate and low inflation.
Unfortunately, conservative columnist Paul Craig Roberts and analysts Charles McMillion and Ed Rubenstein have taken a close look at the figures and discovered that the foundation of the Bush prosperity rests on rotten timber.
The entire job increase since 2001 has been in the service sector – credit intermediation, health care, social assistance, waiters, waitresses, bartenders, etc. – and state and local government.
But, from January 2001 to January 2006, the United States lost 2.9 million manufacturing jobs, 17 percent of all we had. Over the past five years, we have suffered a net loss in goods-producing jobs.
"The decline in some manufacturing sectors has more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing than with a super-economy that is 'the envy of the world,'" writes Roberts.
Communications equipment lost 43 percent of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37 percent ... The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30 percent. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25 percent of its workforce.
How did this happen? Imports. The U.S. trade deficit in advanced technology jobs in 2005 hit an all-time high.
As for the "knowledge industry" jobs that were going to replace blue-collar jobs, it's not happening. The information sector lost 17 percent of all its jobs over the last five years.
In the same half-decade, the U.S. economy created only 70,000 net new jobs in architecture and engineering, while hundreds of thousands of American engineers remain unemployed.
If we go back to when Clinton left office, one finds that, in five years, the United States has created a net of only 1,054,000 private-sector jobs, while government added 1.1 million. But as many new private sector jobs are not full-time, McMillion reports, "the country ended 2005 with fewer private sector hours worked than it had in January 2001."
This is an economic triumph?
Had the United States not created the 1.4 million new jobs it did in health care since January 2001, we would have nearly half a million fewer private-sector jobs than when Bush first took the oath.
Ed Rubenstein of ESR Research Economic Consultants looks at the wage and employment figures and discovers why, though the Bushites were touting historic progress, 55 percent of the American people in a January poll rated the Bush economy only "fair" or "poor."
Not only was 2005's growth of 2 million jobs a gain of only 1.5 percent, anemic compared to the average 3.5 percent at this stage of other recoveries, the big jobs gains are going to immigrants.
Non-Hispanic whites, over 70 percent of the labor force, saw only a 1 percent employment increase in 2005. Hispanics, half of whom are foreign born, saw a 4.7 percent increase. As Hispanics will work for less in hospitals and hospices, and as waiters and waitresses, they are getting the new jobs.
But are not wages rising? Nope. When inflation is factored in, the Economic Policy Institute reports, "real wages fell by 0.5 percent over the last 12 months after falling 0.7 percent the previous 12 months."
If one looks at labor force participation – what share of the 227 million potential workers in America have jobs – it has fallen since 2002 for whites, blacks and Hispanics alike. Non-Hispanic whites are down to 63.4 percent, but black Americans have fallen to 57.7 percent.
What is going on? Hispanic immigrants are crowding out black Americans in the unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled job market. And millions of our better jobs are being lost to imports and outsourcing.
The affluent free-traders, whose wealth resides in stocks in global companies, are enriching themselves at the expense of their fellow citizens and sacrificing the American worker on the altar of the Global Economy.
None dare call it economic treason.
LOL! Yes, I can see how you wish to ignore his shilling for Hamas, the Muslim rioters killing people over cartoons and terrorists in Pakistan and defense of Iran.
Allow me. Pat says the trade deficit is bad. Do you agree? Please explain why it's bad.
List some of the real world items you would protect:
Agriculture
Weapons technology & hardware
Natural resources such as timber and ores
Steel manufacturing
Communications
When Americans must rely on the 'world markets' for food and protection, we will be in deep trouble.
My sympathies to those unemployed or underemployed.
Too late.
We've become a net agricultural importer.
Weapons and technology outsourced years ago.
Are you claiming the US needs to protect it's arms manufacturing? Which? From who?
Natural resources? Buchanan peeve is about manufacturing jobs.
Steel would fit. Protect steel. What do you want to pay for an air conditioner? A car? Being a patriot I guess you'll buy a Ford or GM. Remember the quality of Ford and GM cars before they had to compete with the foreigners.
Communication equipment? New innovations? Would work just as soon as you discover a way to prevent foreigner from coming out with better and better stuff. Communication is particularly appropriate when discussing Buchanan because some of the most innovative stuff comes from Israel.
If you believe the US relies on others for either food or protection, you haven't yet got the pre-requisite of basic knowledge to now be discussing economics.
Pat's brand of isolationism went out in the 1930's. We cannot be both economically competitive and econimcally isolationist. The truth is that we can still out-produce and out-spend China's economic paper tiger. And yes Patty is an anti-Semite who seriously believes that Iran is not a threat. I know, it's lonely on that Reform Party bandwagon.
It was burger flipper back in the 1980's, so Walmart greeter is a promotion :D
Isolationism is misplaced here. There is a difference between 'isolationist' and 'empire'. Paleos, like Pat, are for fighting for the interests of the USA such as taking out bin Laden, al-Qaeda and anyone else that attacks our land. They are not for being the world's policeman to advance the interests of England, Formosa, Ireland, Israel, Kosovo, Kuwait, Korea, et al who are engaged in ancient conflicts. As Paleo Washington put it - no entangling alliances. Pat is right for America.
pat is right for Hamas.
There you go again. Pat agrees with Bush.
Bush SOTU "I will ask Congress for $350 million to support Palestinian political, economic, and security reforms. The goal of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace, is within reach -- and America will help them achieve that goal. (Applause.)"
LOL! pat agrees with Hamas. pat insists a nuclear Iran doesn't threaten anyone. pat defends Iran. pat bemoans the death of innocent women and children while conveniently forgetting the target was the bad guys.
Not sure this will get to anyone burried this deep in the thread, but I have a question for an economist likely;
Why is it that "manufacturing jobs" appear to be the hallmark of a healthy economy?
I mean if service jobs, and now I'm sure many services offered to other nations or companies in other nations, at least some (perhaps some insight there too please), are plentiful, then why is that bad per se in the context of this topic?
I.e., if Americans can make more in service jobs than in "turn, tap, zap" type of manufacturing jobs, why is that bad for the economy overall?
Any other light on the subject would be appreciated. I've got a decent education in economy and business, but have never gotten a good breakdown on this topic area.
Think of it this way, China is our surrogate wasteland...they trash their ecosystem and environment (not unlike the US back in the 50's and 60's BTW) while we get cheap consumer goods...they had better be investing heavily in their cleanup superfund(NOT!)...I suspect that around 2040 their economy will be in a shambles with closed factories, huge unemployment
BTTT
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