Free Trade Must be an Important Consideration when Choosing a Candidate

[mod mom]

FREE TRADE IS KILLING OUR MIDDLE CLASS .
FROM THE PAST WEEK:



Overall, some 13,000 Chrysler workers will lose their jobs over the next three years.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17156105/



Kodak's restructuring could slice 7,000 jobs in 2007 - Network World
02/08/07
As part of a four-year turnaround plan, Eastman Kodak expects to cut 5,000 to 7,000 jobs by the end of 2007 in an effort to reduce its administrative overhead and boost profits from digital photography instead of standard film, the company told ...

http://www.networkworld.com/topics/layoffs.html

Hershey to cut 1,500 jobs as part of shakeup
Candy maker projects that 3-year transformation program will save between $170 million and $190 million a year starting in 2010.
February 15 2007: 9:20 AM EST

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Hershey announced Thursday that it would cut 1,500 jobs as part of a three-year transformation program.

The candy maker said it was reducing the number of its manufacturing locations, and that each remaining factory would produce a higher volume. It said that, at the end of the three-year program, 80 percent of the company's production would be in the U.S. and Canada.

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http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/15/news/companies/hershey/index.htm

These figures for lay offs are not just numbers, but families with mortgages, car payments, and living expenses just like all of us. While the investor class of people are all raving about the economy, many in our middle class keep falling further behind.





In international trade, free trade is an idealized market model, often stated as a political objective, in which trade of goods and services between countries flows unhindered by government-imposed tariff and non-tariff barriers. Economic analysis and nearly all economists support the proposition that free trade is a net gain to both trading partners and that the gains from free trade outweigh the losses.<1> It is opposed by anti-globalization and some labour campaigners due to a variety of perceived problems.

The term is given to economic policies, as well as political parties that support increases in such trade.

Free trade is a concept in economics and government, encompassing:

International trade of goods without tariffs (taxes on imports) or other trade barriers (e.g., quotas on imports)
International trade in services without tariffs or other trade barriers
The absence of trade-distorting policies (such as taxes, subsidies, regulations or laws) that give domestic firms, households or factors of production an advantage over foreign ones
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade

Free trade benefits only the wealthy within countries
Some argue the following:

The wealthy own more corporate equity, which increases in value as companies are able to produce at the lowest cost in the world.
As the world's markets merge into a single global market the number of market-leading companies worldwide drops, with international take-overs of local champions by giant corporations. This process concentrates wealth in fewer corporations.
Free trade replaces low-skilled jobs often done by the poor easier than high-skilled jobs. This implication of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem is challenged on the basis that technology makes offshoring high value-added work feasible and more profitable than moving low-skilled jobs.


According to Ravi Batra's book, The Myth of Free Trade, open trade in the US has resulted in replacement of manufacturing jobs for service jobs, which pay less on average. The product trade deficit results in more investment money flowing into the US as a trade-off. This investment money mostly ends up with wealthy investors and owners; and "trickle down" is not sufficient to compensate for the loss of manufacturing jobs and wagers. After all, if a wealthy person receives money from such investments, they may spend some on foreign cars and foreign trips, which is not going to go back into the US economy. According to Batra's research, even though free trade may increase GNP, the increases do not flow to rank-and-file workers.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_debate


The National Security Implications of "Free" Trade
All we hear about are the supposed benefits of this corporate written trade policy, even though those benefits are often highly questionable or just plain fabricated. But we never hear about how "free" trade policy is now being used not only to destroy America's job base, but to help arm what could be one of America's most dangerous military competitors (we barely hear it from the "strategic class" of foreign policy elites in D.C., we don't even hear it from the Bush neoncons, who purport to be serious hawks, but whose silence on this issue shows they are hawks only when it doesn't offend their corporate benefactors). That should concern not only the workers who have been displaced by corporate-written trade policies, but every single American who is interested in the long-term security of this country.

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http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/12/national-security-implications-of-free.html

It is time to carefully evaluate the Democratic candidates on this important issue. Where does your candidate of choice stand?

[Elwood P Dowd]

1. Thanks mod mom

When calculating factory job losses, you never hear about the spin-off jobs that eventually are lost in the community. In some industries, that could be 2-3 times the number of direct factory job losses. You never hear about the lost tax revenues for the local, state, and federal governments. You never hear about the increased social costs for unemployment, medicaid, job training, food stamps, etc. You never hear that 40% of those who lose jobs due to free trade either never find another job, or they're forced to accept lower paying service jobs that often have no benefits. That's one of the reasons we have almost 50 million citizens lacking health care insurance. Free trade and outsourcing are destroying this country.

[autorank]

2. I recommended this earlier and am just getting back to comment.

What's the point of globalization when the globalizers simply move labor costs from her to there based on availability of cheap labor or some other consideration.

What's the point of having a federal government if it fails to protect the citizen workers of it's own nation. A government that fails to do that is not serving the people, it's serving the corporoate interests.

Yet the firmest supporters of global piracy are often those who represent those most often
victimized. We need a labor movement and a left that values all working people.

Excellent post. Bookmarked.