Letters to the Editor
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FREE TRADE - THERE IS A SOLUTION
The real problem with free trade is that the US government does not believe in complete free trade. To have real free trade you would have the same health and safety requirements on good produced outside of America as you do inside America. You would not give most favored nation status to countries that work against freedom, democracy and human rights.
America has become a bottom line country, where profits of global corporations trump everything else - including health, safety and democracy. Why not form a kind of alliance where we only give free trade to countries that do not have significant human rights violations, that do not create contaminated products, that do not abuse workers?
Global trade policy could promote democracy and human rights better than bombs. We should use that leverage, while we still have it.
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A very good idea
When discussing free trade in the United States, it often seems useful to recall Gandhi who, when asked what he thought about European civilization, quipped, "I think it would be a very good idea."
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bottom line
unless exports increase, fat cats' bottom-line is going to suffer because corporations are stupidly decimating their own consumer base for short term profit margins.
bottom dropped out of the bucket in early 80's. credit was a finger in the dike. no one short of moses is gonna keep that back
the worker's revolution: the realization that the worker=consumer
hello, people. they don't buy your overpriced shit in china. they knock it off.
so, knock it off.
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It's never an either/or scenario
you can't have trade w/o some free trade and protection where it makes sense. You folks sound like it's a devil's bargain between Benthamism and anarchy, which it is not.
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Depressing
I'm still waiting for a few countries to sign fair trade agreements.
Let's see what we do get: special economic zones, loans and aid with strings (chains) attached, corruption, environmental degradation, slave labour/human trafficking, bans on labour unions, no bid contracts, imposition of crippling intellectual property laws, privatization of public resources, ill-thought farm subsidies, a host of abuses and neglect of workers, and so on.
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It's Orwellian
The only people who really believe in free trade are libertarians, both those in the Libertarian Party and outside, like Ron Paul. As always, those in power use the phrase because it sounds good, and it's hard to argue against, because first we have to say "no, this isn't really free trade in any case, it's just free trade for the poor and welfare for the rich..." et cetera.
Obama is a fraud.
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Free Trade is Economic Suicide ...
What we need are tariffs to protect jobs and bring back jobs from overseas ...
Tariffs are the only way to compete against currency manipulation, product dumping, subsidized production, slave wages and environmental degradation.
Will everything get more expensive? Yep, but with the dollar collapsing everything will get more expensive anyway. So, either we enact tariffs that will protect and add good jobs and pay more or we do what we are doing and lose more and more good jobs and pay more anyway. Local, State and Federal tax revenues will fall jeopardizing all government jobs and programs.
They won't tell you this but tariffs are what made this country great. We protected our industry from unfair overseas competition from the beginning. The tariff policy is what caused the Civil War, the industrialized protected North versus the Cotton Cash Crop free trade South. The North triumphed and industry blossomed.
Since the introduction of our petro dollar economy in the 70s out trade deficit has only gone one way ... UP ... strong dollar, weak dollar .... higher trade deficits. And why ?... lower tariffs, and looking the other way while Japan manipulated its currency, subsidized production and blocked our imports and investment. Then it was Korea, The Asian Tigers and now it is China. Our trade deficit is now over 700 billion.
Without tariffs we bleed to death as jobs and investment flow away. Without tariffs the falling dollar will make everything expensive anyway.
More jobs through tariffs. Either we put people to work or put them in jail, either we save our dollar or we end up a third world country.
For a great read on Trade; Thom Hartmann
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/hartmann/023
Try it Andrew ... write a column ...
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Trade has consequences
There may be net productivity gains from trade, but, usually, there are winners and losers; also, productivity is not the only way to measure an economy or society. The Constitution provided for tariffs as a means of the federal government acquiring funding originally. With the permanent income tax, tariffs are no longer needed for income, and have gone by the wayside. This income tax hits the wealthy disproportionately due to tax loopholes, and hits the middle class hard. At the same time, inflation eats up savings and reduces the value of investments. It also made a large standing army and imperial foreign policy possible. It hid the effects of a private banking system being given the power of the press (federal reserve). Hamilton and Jefferson predicted all of this. It's sad and at the same time amazing; they weren't prophets, just good historians. People wonder why young folks are lazy; well, some of us are realizing how messed up the system is and hoping to find an opportunity in it, without becoming another parasite (lawyer,etc.). Our legal structure is Byzantine, reducing real capital investment and real productivity and increasing parasites. In the end, though, just like the Byzantine empire, we may be a leader in world trade to our very destruction, buying up things we can't produce at market cost.
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Free trade and economic downturns
A lot of people point to free trade as the root of all economic insecurity. In fact, in many ways free trade is a boon to countless sectors of the US economy. When I say free trade is a boon though I'm talking about trade among equals. Sending Europe our movies, our McDonalds and our computers then accepting in return BMWs, French Wine and Hugh Laurie (Dr. House is really British! who knew!) is great for both our economy and theirs. The same is true of trade with Japan, Canada, Australia ect. In these cases trade allows for specialization, quality competition (you better believe airbus getting the tanker contract is going to make Boeing improve their competitive abilities for instance) and increases customer choice.
The trade which is not so beneficial is trade with the third world on unequal terms. Trade with France is trade between two countries where labor laws are varying degrees of strict, wages are similar and companies are free to compete on a level playing field primarily on merits. Trade with China is between the US which has a democracy, pollution standards, labor laws, health insurance and many other costs and China which has none of the above in any meaningful way. Having worked for a company that made Chinese goods in the past I can tell you that, no, a 2 dollar dora the explorer roller skate would not be possible in the US. The workers have incredible amounts of chemicals in their work environments air, have limited food rations, calling their living quarters slums would be generous and they are paid pennies on the dollar relative to their US counterparts plus prevented from pursuing any meaningful labor standards by an autocratic government. Trying to beat China is the same as the North trying to beat the South in 1850 on farm production costs when the South was allowed to use slavery. China is, for many at the bottom, a virtual slave state with several layers of masters.
Whats funny though, is most companies in the US are far worse off because of China, they are all just forced into it by their competitors. If you break it down the savings of Chinese labor is quite tiny, pennies per product. Going back to that 2 dollar skate about 70% of the cost was raw materials (which in some cases now cost more in China then the US) with 30% the labor to put it together. 28% went to the factory owner and around 2% was actual worker labor costs. Since it takes around 3 minutes of labor to assemble a skate (taking into account several operations done by different employees and the inefficiency of usually older Chinese Machines) at a dollar an hour (coastal chinese wages) labor costs about 5 cents. If the same skate was made in the United States the base costs would be the same (material costs, factory profit ect) but labor would be 12 dollars an hour and labor cost would be 60 cents. Wow, some would say, the skate is 2.55 now instead of 2 dollars China wins! Yes China wins but only by a few cents since there's 30-50 cent shipping and customs charges plus a long lead time (Chinese orders take weeks to reach US shores) creating built in inefficiencies even with the best demand modeling. Not to mention the huge pollution both in China and in the long boat trip between Shanghai and Long Beach which of course are environmental costs companies using cheap Chinese labor don't have to pay, at least not directly.
In the end China is a few cents cheaper then making things here, but in the cut-throat world of retail pricing that few cents makes all the difference when putting forth bids since Wal-Mart puts such downward pressure on prices in negotiations. The idea that we'd pay so much more if not for China is a lie, and the average American would have much more to spend from the added jobs and increased wages more jobs create. Just about everyone in fact loses from Chinese trade except for some Chinese at the very top and big box retailers who have low quality products that only people without much income buy. Wal-Mart prefers low wages for most people since it drives their demand and pushes cut throat pricing to ensure thats just what Americans get. 98% of Americans would be better off in very real terms if trade was restricted to equal trading partners, while the 2% that are helped by Chinese exploitation are by and large in league with the exploiters and already very rich.