Bush's sleight of hand distracts us from vanishing jobs .............

[cthrumatrix]

Bush's sleight of hand distracts us from vanishing jobs
Inaction by Congress on extending unemployment benefits could leave the nation's eight million jobless in danger

by Adam Hersh

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_viewpoints_vanishing_jobs

snip

The crisis in manufacturing isn't exactly a secret. While the economy boomed in the late 1990s, the manufacturing sector plunged into recession, losing more than 2.4 million manufacturing jobs since 1998. This was the first time since before World War II that we lost manufacturing jobs during a period of growth.

As the "Box-gate" incident betrays, the Bush Administration is well aware of the manufacturing crisis. But it is loath to admit such a crisis exists. After all, it would mean acknowledging the failure of the economic policies the president champions that actually encourage big companies not to produce in the United States.

The current tax code gives billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies to companies that export factories, outsource production, and then hide in offshore tax shelters. The president's continued cheerleading for the "strong dollar" is pricing small domestic producers out of international markets while creating windfalls for companies that can move overseas to produce goods for sale in the United States."

snip

The trend is soo obvious and the job loss stories frightening. This export of jobs is POLICY for the Bush administration.

What more do we need to see....?

[cthrumatrix]

1. The DANGER of this policy was pointed out a few YEARS ago......

http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/09/06/china.trade.jobs/

September 7, 2001

""The employment effects of these production shifts go well beyond the individual workers whose jobs were lost. Each time another company shuts downs operations and moves work to China, Mexico or any other country, it has a ripple effect on the wages of every other worker in that industry and that community, through lowering wage demands, restraining union organizing and bargaining power, reducing the tax base and reducing or eliminating hundreds of jobs in the related contracting, transportation, wholesale trade, professional and service-sector employment in companies and businesses."


Stephanie Luce, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the Labor Center: "We thought there'd be job loss to China, but we didn't expect it to be higher than job movement to Mexico in the same period."

- "In conclusion, our research suggests that the U.S. and other countries have moved ahead with trade policies and global economic integration based on faulty arguments and incomplete information. ... The findings point to the critical need for government-mandated corporate reporting on production, trade and investment flows in and out of the U.S, and for further research on the impact of those trade and investment flows on workers, unions, families and communities in the U.S. and around the globe."

[cthrumatrix]

2. Reduce average tariff levels .... from 24 % to 7% ......

http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/ushk/economic/2001/071001.htm

"Market Access

This Subcommittee is familiar with the details of our bilateral
agreement and there is no need to review them today. Suffice to say
that, inter alia, under the 1999 Agreement China will:

Reduce average tariff levels on goods of interest to the United States
from 24% to 7%,
Phase-out all tariffs on Information Technology Products by 2005, *
Broadly open up its service sectors, such as insurance, banking,
securities, telecommunications, express mail, legal, accounting, and
computer-related services,
Permit U.S. companies to operate wholesale, retail, and franchised
distribution networks."

[cthrumatrix]

3. Gore favored the agreement with China as well.............

5/16/00

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/e1791.htm

"''NAFTA is good for Texas, it is good for Mexico, and it is important for our citizens to understand it is good for America,'' Bush says. With Texas accounting for nearly half the U.S. exports to Mexico, he says, ''I have seen firsthand the benefits of trade and free trade.''

As a presidential candidate, he is taking his views further, favoring permanent normal trade relations with China and admitting China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organization. There, too, organized labor contends that granting China permanent normal trade status would pull jobs from the United States. A House vote on China trade is set for this month.

Vice President Al Gore, Bush's Democratic presidential rival, also favors China's entry into the WTO, permanent normal trade relations with China and the ''one-China'' policy currently governing U.S.-Taiwan relations. "

[laura888]

4. thanks, cthrumatrix, for your regular postings about...

...U.S. jobs going overseas.

This is an outrage that few politicians are saying anything about, and not much media coverage.

Keep 'em coming.

[teryang]

5. Not only does manufacturing move offshore

...but the profits from selling goods manufactured offshore are also. The costs of manufacturing in Asia and other foreign countries are inflated by US multinationals in sham transactions between wholly owned subsidiaries in foreign tax havens where no manufacturing takes place to avoid US income taxes for the profit from goods ultimately sold in the United States.

This deprives the treasury of billions of dollars of revenue annually which of course has to be made up by individual taxpayers and borrowing from Social Security.

[bearfan454]

6. Don't forget that

the offshore corporations pay no taxes either. Damn, America is being destroyed by design.