General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFree traders, and I mean all of them, worldwide, do you understand what's wrong here?
Offshoring of jobs is meant for one purpose: to reduce wages without reducing prices.
It is why Germany outsources some of its car production to anti-union zones in the United States, and why the United States outsources... well... everywhere.
Globalism exists for no other reason but to use one nation's poor as a spear to pierce the heart of another nation's job security and livable wages. It is the primary weapon of mass destruction against unions - why bother negotiating against unionized factory workers when you can close it down and move it to China? Globalization was designed as a superweapon - a nuclear bomb, a Death Star - against the working class. It is nothing else, it serves no other purpose, it achieves no other effect, but to fatten the corporate bottom line by reducing workers' wages.
For America, globalization does NOTHING but reduce standards of living. NOTHING.
Why? Because nobody ever pursues offshoring to pursue places with better working conditions. Nobody ever pursues offshoring to pursue places with better wages. Nobody ever pursues offshoring to pursue eco-friendliness. In fact, globalism exists to eliminate all three of the above, to do exactly one thing: to make the captains of industry rich.
If you are for free trade you are missing this basic and ever-present reality that lives and breathes at the very expense of America's working class.
Globalization is that which robs Peter to pay Paul. America's working class is Peter. You will never, ever get the allegiance of Peter to such a system. Not ever.
When you tell Peter that he must sacrifice to help Paul you will only make Peter angrier. Especially when the third guy in the equation, Mitt, the guy who's doing the foreign outsourcing, is getting obscenely rich at the cost of Peter.
Write that down. Globalism is making Mitt fabulously rich and is bleeding Peter dry. Peter is America's working class.
When you tell Peter that he is being a xenophobe because he's tired of being bled dry, think about that for a second. You're telling American workers that they should be happy that blue-collar factories and white-collar offices are closing and they're going unemployed with precious little hope of finding an equally good-paying job. You are telling them that they are xenophobes if they have a problem with that.
You might as well ask someone to attach a thousand mosquitoes to their arm and let them suck away at them, and if they say no, then they're xenophobes. That's the logic of your xenophobe argument in a nutshell. In short, you are swimming upstream against basic survival instinct. Nothing ever wins against survival instinct. Anything that does try to win, loses because predators take it out of the game. That predator's name? You guessed it... Mitt, the only guy in the equation who is getting rich off of globalism.
There is no argument you can ever make that will convince America's working class to agree to continue to be the prey of Globalism. Protectionism is a natural survival instinct expressed in political context. You cannot justify opposing protectionism any more than you can justify white blood cells ignoring a disease. A disease injected into our economic bloodstream not by poor people in Mexico, but by people like Mitt. Ever wonder why support for protectionism has grown so explosively? It's because it is a natural immunological response to a deadly pathogen. A pathogen introduced into the environment by the Plutocrats.
When you argue that globalism is not a zero sum game, you are correct on that point: globalization is not a zero-sum game for America's workers, because it is a negative-sum game for America's working class. There is no amount of stretching your imagination, not even in your wildest dreams, that gets you to showing a plus-sum game for America's workers. There is none. Globalism is a negative-sum game for America's workers. They know that. You know that. To deny it is to engage in sheer delusion.
You even bring up the specter of a trade war if America resorts to protectionism. What the rest of America understands, however, is that America has been the target of a relentless GLOBAL trade war for several decades now. A trade war which can easily be seen in the form of our monstrous trade deficit - half of which is NOT oil imports. Without the oil imports it is the largest trade deficit in the history of nations, in absolute if not relative terms. That is a trade war already in progress. Telling America's workers that tariffs amount to a trade war is like telling a kid it's wrong to hit back at a bully. Ever wonder why that doesn't work? Like I said... you're up against survival instinct, and survival instinct only ever loses with an organism that is best suited as prey. America's working class is not best suited as prey.
And the worst joke of it all? While you are trying to sell benefits of globalism that do not exist by any stretch of one's imagination, the globalists you are defending, are brazenly fighting wage increases in the very poor nations you say depend on stealing American jobs. You have nothing to say about that. You can't say anything about it. It's as important a part of globalism as the brain is to the human body. If other nations aren't fighting wage increases, then globalism cannot exist; if wages go up, then jobs can't move overseas. It becomes too expensive to do so. Globalism dies, production becomes more local. Please, free traders, get familiar with the term Ouroboros. Globalism is that. You support a system that either sustains itself by ruining entire nations, or which will devour itself into nonexistence. How is that logical?
Globalism will ruin America. It has destroyed America's working class, it is why we've lost all concept of job stability, it is why a record number of Americans are on welfare, and most of all, it is part of why people like Mitt Romney are getting filthy rich. It is a major contributor to our national debt, a millstone around the value of our currency, and it has done absolutely nothing for America's working class except drive it into ruin.
If you are for Globalism then you really do not care about America's working class. You really don't care if the ranks of America's poor continue to swell. You don't care about the Plutocracy capturing 90% of all economic gains while American workers sleep in forests in 22 degree weather because their wages have been driven into the dirt. You don't care because you defend the very system that enables all of this to happen.
You only have yourself to blame for how hostile America is now to free trade. If you were to scream loudly about how Globalists suppress wage increases in other nations, then perhaps your argument would have some credibility. But free traders worldwide, have scarcely ever done such a thing. If you would come out and protest the environmental pollution and poor working conditions where jobs are outsourced to, then you might have some credibility. If you would speak out against the captains of industry who get ultra rich while Americans go unemployed and Chinese workers commit suicide to escape their jobs, you might give protectionists pause. If you were to protest when Plutocrats complain about workers not wanting to work for $2 a day, and if you were to admit that there simply aren't enough "new industry" jobs to support America's swelling ranks of the unemployed, you might have some common ground. You can't do these things because to do these things is to question the need for globalism to exist. It can't exist without cheap labor, exploitation or environmental ruin.
Finally, one thing is true down to the last person when it comes to people who support free trade: they never, ever express any feelings of regret or sympathy for America's working class as they pay the ultimate price for globalization: joblessness and increasing poverty, and living in the woods in 22 degree temperatures, even as absolutely everyone in the third world and especially the Plutocracy, enjoy growth and increased prosperity. One thing that is common to all free traders is that they don't even TRY to feel sorry for American workers. Globalism has told America's working class to find a spot under an overpass and go fuck themselves or die trying. How can you be surprised, then, that American workers are now saying the same thing to globalism?
Listen to America's working class. They don't want globalism. The harder you push it, the worse things will get.
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dchill
(39,990 posts)You're not allowed to squat under that overpass. It's vagrancy.
undergroundpanther
(11,925 posts)Then you are slave for whatever days you are there for unicor or some other prison labor company,then you have to pay for your own incarceration and slavery..after you get out.
FUCK THE RICH and free trade& captive slavery is evil.Why does america have so many people in jail? it's an invisible cheap labor pool.A CAPTIVE labor pool making some asshole rich.Just like chinese workers locked in the company dorms at night.
fleur-de-lisa
(14,654 posts)Zalatix: This is the best explanation of globalization adn offshoring I have ever read! May I post it on Facebook?
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Revise it if you need to, just get the message out.
mckara
(1,708 posts)Westra, Richard. (ed.) Confronting Global Neoliberalism
Hudson, M. Super Imperialism. The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
Chang, Ha-Joon. Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
Chang, Ha-Joon. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism
Walberg, E. Postmodern Imperialism. Geopolitics and the Great Game
Historical Background:
Lafeber, W., The New Empire. An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898
Williams, W.A. Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)brewens
(15,359 posts)to give all of our citizens a high standard of living. It's worked that way to some extent in the past. Like if we were all down to 30 hour work weeks and still had solid middle class incomes, it would still be wrong but I have to admit I might fall for it.
Of course that's not what what they are doing, they're using it to drive all of our wages down. People that still feel secure or upper middle class workers that think they have it made, will start feeling it before long. Maybe right now they think they'll be able to get their yards mowed cheaper if Romney wins. I don't think it will stand, not in this country. These people at the top don't realize who they're messing with. When the shit hits the fan, it will stay hit. They're risking having the whole thing torn down around them.
BanTheGOP
(1,068 posts)The party is worse than any crime syndicate or historical oppressive society. Yes, worse than the German Nazi party, worse than the Corporatist element of Soviet Communism. It needs to be destroyed. ANY WAY POSSIBLE.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)The GOP - and most importantly the Plutocracy - has realized that you don't cull the undesirables by using cattle cars and gas ovens.
You do it with Capitalism.
The "Ubermensch" will swim and thrive, the "useless eaters" will sink and drown, and if you slowly take away the jobs and reduce the economy down to the captains of industry and the desperately poor, and you take away social safety nets, you can simply watch the desperately poor wither off the vine. They will tear at each other and you won't even need a Panem or a Hunger Games, because you'll have the Hunger Games every day as the proletariat comes out and preys on each other. You keep the Hunger Games going by invoking Calvinism: namely, by claiming that the poor are poor because they are weak.
undergroundpanther
(11,925 posts)Wealth accumulation must be capped so NO ONE can buy our government and public resources again. Corporate entities must forever be separated by an impenetrable wall from the state just like religion used to be but isn't now but still should be.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)The plutocrats are having to push harder and harder to advance this theory in the face of surmounting empirical evidence against it. You can tell because they're getting so shrill about it.
alittlelark
(18,906 posts)For years. I swear they get brainwashed in Business School.
hay rick
(8,121 posts)It forces national companies to become multinationals and it empowers multinationals to go wage and pollution shopping. Workers get slightly cheaper goods (shipping costs and profits go up and offset much of the labor cost-savings) in return for scarce jobs and much lower wages. It is a terrible deal for the majority of Americans. Our Party needs to change course on free trade starting with the abomination currently being negotiated- the Trans Pacific Partnership.
We need to send that memo.
former-republican
(2,163 posts)that the higher prices for goods will only be temporary and they will be offset by wage increases?
I have to tell you that some of the threads you start are out there.
Not this one.
Well done
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)If I had a penny for every time I've tried to explain the wage increase effect that you speak of, I could buy out the Koch Brothers with room for a downpayment on Earth!
And yeah, I accept that some of my shit is way out there, for good and for bad. I makes my posts and takes my chances, lol!
former-republican
(2,163 posts)"If I had a penny for every time I've tried to explain the wage increase effect that you speak of, I could buy out the Koch Brothers with room for a downpayment on Earth! "
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Is a US brand car company's vehicle built outside the US any less expensive than ones they build here when they're assembled in both places? This happens often, but cars assembled in maliquidoras cost no less at a dealership.
Are "brand name" designer clothing/footwear any lass expensive made overseas? Hardly. They're still charging a premium based on brand cache, and thugs are still mugging people for their 150 dollar basketball shoes made in China.
Interesting though you would inquire as to how to "convince" the hoi-polloi that higher prices would be offset by higher wages The real question is that how many so many allowed the genie out of the bottle in the first place: It is because the plutocrats that pushed this never laid it bare to the public "Hey, we're going to lower your wages but it will be offset by lower prices....trust us", they just threw production workers under the bus piecemeal, all while claiming the negatives were illusory or of little consequence. Fast forward: Well now that the US industrial base is sufficiently eroded beyond timely reinstatement and the plutocrat's bottom lines have been fattened, they no longer feel the need to say "trust me/us". Now it's just "go fuck yourself"....It's pretty much the Romney/Ryan message to anybody but the upper middle class and higher. That they've made quite clear.
pa28
(6,145 posts)Just about everything you need to know about the destruction of the old social contract and the death of the American dream is summed up pretty well here.
WhaTHellsgoingonhere
(5,252 posts)
antigop
(12,778 posts)Zalatix
(8,994 posts)But the Democratic Party is the most likely party to be swayed to end this war.
antigop
(12,778 posts)hay rick
(8,121 posts)She's on the slippery slope when she says there are pluses and minuses. That leads straight to the unthinkable possibility that the pluses may not exceed the minuses.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)She went from First Lady to Tata's personal Senator in a single year. That's the biggest problem with this issue, there's no one on "either side of the isle" that is working for the people on this issue.
I'm going to stop now because we still have an election ahead that is vitally important for other reasons.
hay rick
(8,121 posts)Biting my tongue for months now.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Tariffs are not the be all and end all of things. It's just the beginning.
A more effective but exponentially more difficult solution is to reform the World Trade Organization. As in, totally rethink it.
In a just world, entry into the WTO would be predicated upon a government guaranteeing its workers a safe work environment, livable wages, a consistent push toward a modern lifestyle, environmental protections, and a host of other things that we here in the West enjoy.
Certain technological inventions that improve the lives of people should be shared with all countries, and members of the WTO would contribute money to compensate the inventors. Like those Scottish fellows that just said they found a way to make fuel that scrubs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? The WTO should have the power to get that mass-deployed now, and give the inventors some big cash payout that'll be big enough to serve as encouragement for others.
The WTO as it is wouldn't even have any mechanism to contemplate such a move. Hence, why it should be totally reconstructed. The Plutocracy would love to send a drone to kill anyone just for coming up with this idea; but in lieu of that they'll be happy to poison people's minds with propaganda about how it could never work and
OH WAIT THERE'S HONEY BOO BOO GOTTA GO BYE!!!!!!!!!!! <--- and that's how the proletariat gets distracted.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)who would be thrown out of work?
The Number of Export-Supported Jobs Increased By 1.2 Million between 2009 and 2011
On the two-year anniversary of the signing of the Executive Order creating the National Export Initiative (NEI), the U.S. Department of Commerce today released data showing that jobs supported by U.S. exports increased by 1.2 million between 2009 and 2011. Building on strong growth in 2010, exports supported approximately 9.7 million jobs in 2011 and the value of U.S. exports of goods and services exceeded $2.1 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.
“Two years ago this week, President Obama set an ambitious goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. The numbers released today show that our exports support an increasing number of American jobs and we simply cannot afford to let up on our efforts to help U.S. businesses build it here and sell it everywhere,” said Commerce Secretary John Bryson. “We must maintain the track record of the past two years and continue to support U.S. companies in selling their goods to the 95 percent of the world’s consumers who live beyond our borders by helping to create opportunities and a level playing field. We know that when American businesses and workers get a fair shot, they can compete and they can win.”
In 2010, President Obama announced his NEI goal of doubling U.S. exports by the end of 2014 to create more good-paying jobs. Through the NEI, the administration is increasing trade advocacy and export promotion efforts, removing barriers and expanding access to markets, and enforcing trade rules. These efforts strengthen our economy and boost job creation. President Obama recently announced a series of efforts to open up markets for American goods and services and level the playing field for American companies.
Efforts to expand markets for American businesses include the U.S.-Korea Trade Agreement that will enter into force this Thursday, March 15, and is expected to increase U.S. exports by approximately $11 billion. The agreement will support tens of thousands of American jobs, while opening up Korea’s $1 trillion economy for America’s workers and businesses.
http://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2012/03/12/us-commerce-department-releases-data-showing-number-export-supported-
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Or did you just make that number up?
Zorra
(27,670 posts)so don't expect them to care.
They think dead babies, and American workers sleeping out in 22 degree weather, etc., are good things, because they are simply just natural parts of the workings of the unrestricted global free market, which for them takes precedence over the well being of human beings.
Radical anti-globalism Occupy and Battle of Seattle veteran here.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)When there's nothing left to take from the working class, they'll cast them aside.
Such is the nature of a parasite.
moondust
(20,342 posts)Moyers & Company
Matt Taibbi and Chrystia Freeland on the One Percent’s Power and Privileges
October 19, 2012
To discuss how the super-rich have willfully confused their self-interest with America’s interest, Bill is joined by Rolling Stone magazine’s Matt Taibbi, who regularly shines his spotlight on scandals involving big business and government, and journalist Chrystia Freeland, author of the new book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.
upi402
(16,854 posts)And Obama is currently selling "free" trade deals as 'expanding markets'. Nobody evens questions it. The lie is now truth for both parties - without opposition.
aletier_v
(1,773 posts)unlimited, unfettered growth.
We all know that it can't happen.
My epiphany in 2008 is that work is finite. Work is as finite as water and oil and iron. Work is bounded by consumption, consumption is bounded by time, and our time on Earth is finite. Work is finite, which means that income is finite. But the egotistical fuck-ups like Warren Buffet and Mitt Romney still live in a world where work (and water and oil and copper) are infinite.
Too many lies,
Rommey is a vessel of lies.
He knows it, we know it, and even his followers know it.
Too many lies.
ComplimentarySwine
(515 posts)By and large, compared to a lot of places, even a good part of our "poor" people have way more than the poor in other countries. Compared to these other countries, our middle class is living like kings and queens. Now, for whatever reason, a lot of Americans think that they deserve to make these high wages because that's what allows us to have a two story brick house and two new SUVs in the driveway and that fancy flat-screen TV, while people in some of these less developed countries are literally starving to death or being killed by disease.
By shipping some of our jobs over there, we're elevating the standard of living of those workers far beyond the standard of living that they would otherwise have. Compared to us, it seems to me that they live like slaves; sleeping in dorms on the company grounds with other workers, not having comprehensive safety practices in place, disregarding the environment, etc. However, it seems that there is little argument that they believe that they are far better off than they would be if that manufacturing plant were closed down.
The real problem seems to be the seeming unfairness of the fact that while our middle class sinks lower, and the poor in other countries rises up towards the middle class, our rich are getting obscenely wealthy and flaunting it in more ridiculous ways.
Simply getting rid of outsourcings makes me feel as if we might share the blame for those overseas workers who find themselves starving to death after we bring their jobs back to the US, so I have a hard time directly supporting it. How can we go about raising the standard of living for our fellow human beings in these other countries while at the same time narrowing the wealth gap here in our own? I really don't have an answer for that, but I'm pretty sure that bringing all of those jobs back is not the answer.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)You are still trying to convince American workers that they should lose out so others can gain. You are alienating the people you want to convince, with heartless remarks like that.
Does this not even COMPUTE? Does it never occur to you that you're making things worse?
ComplimentarySwine
(515 posts)People like Mitt were getting rich off of the working class well before globalism was mainstream. If we move all of the jobs back here, there are still going to be people like Mitt getting rich while the middle class toils, only now the people overseas may very well starve to death.
To me, that doesn't seem like as good of a solution as finding a way to make things equal. No one getting obscenely rich off of the work of others, no one starving to death, whether they're American or Chinese or whatever. Is there no way to move in this direction?
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)CEO pay was far smaller in relation to worker pay before globalism went mainstream, than it is now. Back in the 1950s it was 50 times the average worker's pay. Now CEOs earn as much as 300 times the average worker's pay.
Seriously, your argument is hopelessly, tragically wrong.
If we move the jobs back here, other nations will grow their own economies, unless you're saying that they're all stupid. You've got no way to support your "only now the people overseas may very well starve to death" except to say they're lesser people. Do you really want to ride that train?
I know you have no answer for any of that, much less this:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2012/1009/World-s-big-wanted-sign-600-million-jobs
So I'll leave it there for anyone who can't voice the errors they're seeing in your argument.
ComplimentarySwine
(515 posts)have a look at this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures#North_American_figures_and_their_wealth
John D. Rockefeller - net worth of 1.53% of the GDP of the United States at the time.
Cornelius Vanderbilt - net worth of 1.15% of the GDP of the United States at the time.
John Jacob Astor - 0.93% of the GDP of the United States at the time.
Andrew Carnegie - 0.60% of the GDP of the United States at the time.
I don't know of any one man worth that much today, so I'm not sure that your CEO comparison is telling the whole story. From what I've seen, 1% of today's GDP is over $150 billion. Adjusted for inflation, these people's worth was measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Forbes lists Bill Gates as the richest man and he "only" has around $66 billion according to what I've read. Mitt Romney is rather poor by comparison with his $250 million dollars. Bill Gates could spend Mitt's entire net worth every month for the next 22 years before ever running out of money, and he isn't nearly as rich as these business men from out past.
Concerning your implication that other countries are stupid because they have trouble growing their economies when other countries refuse to buy goods from them seems about like calling someone stupid because they can't earn money if no one will hire them. I believe that a large reason why the US has been as prosperous as it has been is because of the amount of merchandise that we have historically exported to other markets (In fact, I believe that we're CURRENTLY the 3rd largest exporter in the world). Now that other markets are exporting to us, some seem to want to take the ball and go home.
Please give me a cogent reason why you are against equality regardless of nationality.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Globalism, once again.
And then there's this.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/ceo-pay-worker-pay_n_1471685.html
CEO Pay Grew 127 Times Faster Than Worker Pay Over Last 30 Years: Study
Funny, how that coincides with the rise of modern globalism. Again.
Nice job trying to deflect things, but I've got you mapped out from jump. I said that even without trading with the United States, these third world nations would grow their economies regardless. You are the one claiming that they're dependent upon us, which means you're calling them stupid.
I also notice you completely avoided discussing what the World Bank has said about the third world relying on taking jobs from America. A little note about me: I'm tenacious as hell. I'll stay on you about this until you address it.
Now please give me a cogent reason why you are against American workers having jobs.
ComplimentarySwine
(515 posts)and you seem to be presenting mutually exclusive arguments.
First, you say that some of the richest people in the nation's history got so incredibly rich because of globalization in the early 1900s, then you turn around and argue that increases in CEO pay in the last 30 years are because of modern globalism. I don't see how you can have it both ways.
You're being silly when you say that recognizing that other countries depend on our imports somehow equates to them being lesser people than us, or stupid. I've already pointed out that the US is listed as the 3rd largest exporter in the world. Does that make the US inferior to all of the people we're dependent on in other countries that are buying our exported goods?
I didn't address your World Bank quote because it seemed irrelevant. Since you insist, I sugest that you go back and read the quote over again. They recommended against other countries relying on exports because of a slowdown of richer nations decreasing their imports. In other words, they recommend that developing countries don't export goods to us because of the very policies that you're espousing.
I'm not against American workers having jobs, but I'm also not for Americans having jobs just because they're Americans. If we're unable to compete on our merits, an equitable solution seems to be that we need to either work to bring our competitors' standards of living up, or work on lowering our standard of living.
I'm interested to hear what you expect to happen to American workers when we cut off imports from overseas (thus drying up the supply of the majority of consumer goods and several brands of tools and parts) along with other countries subsequently cutting off the over $1.2 trillion that the US exports in a year. I wonder how many Americans are employed to supply those $1.2+ trillion worth of goods...
I notice that you have an interesting signature line at the bottom of your posts that seems relevant to this discussion. As a country, it seems to me that we've worked hard, done well, walked through that doorway of opportunity, now you're wanting to slam that door shut on all of the other countries working to follow in our footsteps.
nolabels
(13,133 posts)This is what you say? When was it exactly that the sovereignty of the US was YOUR tradable commodity? Like let me just let me sell your right leg because i am quite sure you have no certificate of ownership for such. Just because you are in possession of such and say it is yours doesn't give you ownership and beside i believe i can sell it on the free market. (this is the tact the slaughter house uses when it does its' animals up but really it is just same principles and tact the free traders espouse)
My gut check would say that you and all that kind of swine thinking you came here with need to jump into a lake somewhere and take a bath with all those funky kind of ideas. Really such crap is not sell-able on main street and probably not here either. Personally i have no use for such presumptuousness, we don't have free or fair trade and never will have as long as billionaires own our politicians
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Americans are the most competitive labor force on the planet: 8 times as productive as Chinese workers, to be exact. Anyone who understands economics knows that basic fact.
We're dealing either with ignorance from that poster, or malevolence.
nolabels
(13,133 posts)The thing i was trying to point out to the poster was the people of this country will eventually be the ones who decide how trade is done with the rest of world. Its even kind of happening now in the elections. I don't think we are going to get much change this election but at least we now see these so called 'free traders' going covert because they are unfavored.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Yes I can. Because each time globalism CEO pay skyrocketed, it accompanied a rise in globalism. When globalism waned, CEO wages came back down to parity with workers' wages.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/ceo-pay-worker-pay_n_1471685.html
Yup, right after Reagan gutted us with globalism.
You're being silly when you say this. Because you intentionally try to avoid the fact that our exports are dwarfed by our imports.
Again, silly hour. It is at the very heart of the matter.
[quote] Since you insist, I sugest that you go back and read the quote over again. They recommended against other countries relying on exports because of a slowdown of richer nations decreasing their imports. In other words, they recommend that developing countries don't export goods to us because of the very policies that you're espousing.
No, they did not recommend that developing countries not export goods to us because of the very policies that I'm espousing. This is a lie. They recommended against other countries relying on exports because richer nations cannot afford to keep bleeding jobs to them.
You are attributing to policy what is an act of nature.
Well, I am for Americans having jobs because they're Americans. Savvy?
You need to get that straight. You and I will be forever at odds for that. This is called a Stand Your Ground moment, without the firearm. The line is being drawn by America's working class - today it is "This far and no further". Tomorrow it's "globalists, you will retreat".
You do not understand. America's working class will use political force to get their jobs back. They will take their jobs back. And when it starts, there will be nothing you can do to stop it.
Savvy?
The door has been slammed shut on American workers. The door slams both ways.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Yep, that is what those arguing for Smoot-Hawley 2 don't seem to appreciate. Fortunately, this argument has been essentially won, with Barack Obama signing free trade agreement after free trade agreement.
As Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said, "If there were an Economist's Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations 'I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage' and 'I advocate Free Trade'. "
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Free trade agreements can be revoked, by the way.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)Contempt for "failing" to exercise the hard, hard work that it takes to reach the upper rungs of the ladder, and irritation that they live as pickpockets by relying on entitlements when their job is crated up and sent overseas.
Response to Zalatix (Original post)
bvar22 This message was self-deleted by its author.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)I would argue only with the term "Globalization".
Globalization is not some NEW thing that just came along in the 80s because of the InterNet.
Globalization has been happening since the first Cave Man walked across the valley to the next tribe and traded some Spear Points for a Fish.
It is thoroughly natural and beneficial as long as certain common sense guidelines (regulations) are in place
The problem is NOT "Globalization", but the de-regulation of International and Interstate Trade. To achieve this, the RICH (Corporate Owners) designed and perpetrated a SCAM to access Slave Labor in the 3rd World, Bust Unions, and avoid Accountability for Raping & Poisoning the Environment.
They had absolutely NO data, statistics, or logical support for their BOGUS theory that De-regulating Trade would be GOOD for the American Working Class.
In fact, they KNEW that they would have to override Common Sense,
so they invented a New Magic Religion that demanded absolute Fealty and Submission to an Invisible Deity, and used Smooth Talking Politicians to SELL their New religion to a gullible American Public.
The RICH Scammers KNEW that Americans love NOTHING more than Blind Faith Religions and MAGIC,
and Americans, on the advice of their politicians, thoughtlessly threw away 100 years of regulation, oversight, and Public Accountability that had built the Largest, Wealthiest, and Most Upwardly Mobile Working Class the World had ever seen. Many of those buying into this New Blind Faith religion had had fathers and grandfathers who had given their LIVES to establish the very same regulations that they quickly discarded in their foolish flight to embrace their New Magic God...The Giant Invisible Hand.
[font size=4]The Graven Image on the Altar....
..of the New Church of the Invisible Hand![/font]
This SCAM is BEAUTIFUL and Elegant in its simplicity,
has worked PERFECTLY as designed,
and is STILL being sold to gullible Americans who continue to petition this Magic Invisible Deity for Economic Salvation despite all the evidence to the contrary that exists on every street in America.
It is Embraced and Marketed by BOTH dominant Political Parties (all members of the Rich Ownership Class),
so American voters have NO OPTION but to vote for MORE "Free Trade",
and, under the unquestioned guidance of their Political Leadership, continue to bow down to the New Imaginary Gods and give away their very ability to earn a living.
Now THAT is a Beautiful SCAM.
Sorry Virginia,
but there is NO Giant Invisible Hand,
and there is no such thing as "Free Markets" or "Free Trade".
The RICH Made-That-Shit-Up to get More MONEY.
You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their rhetoric, promises, or excuses.
[font size=5 color=Firebrick]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
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