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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jul 25, 2010 18:54:18 GMT -6
from Economy In Crisis We Are in Real TroubleBy Ernest F. Hollings 07/25/2010 Bio: Former Senator (D-SC) " Now we are in real trouble. We’ve lost the markets for textiles, cameras, radios, TVs, steel, electronics, computers, communications equipment, machine tools, advance technology, robots, steppers, etc. The little that we produce has now been bought up by foreigners. Big Blue, IBM and the Hummer went to China; Westinghouse Nuclear and all of its patents went to Japan; Bell labs and all of its discoveries went to France; Bethlehem Steel to is now Russian; Genentech went to Switzerland. And we can’t prepare for war. Boeing’s fighter planes depend on parts from India and Sikorsky for its helicopter must get its tail motor from Turkey.
We begin a program to stimulate American production and American jobs. But in April President Obama signs a declaration against protectionism at the summit of the big nations. And now The New York Times editorializes “’Buy American’ is a terrible idea.” You would think that having to get a Mexican loan to keep The New York Times going would have sobered them up from their mantra of “free trade” and “protectionism.” Our trouble is most people in the Congress believe The New York Times. Yet Congress is our only hope.
The United States of America began a trade war against the Mother Country’s protectionism. Under the Navigation Act of 1632, England required all production in the colony shipped back to England to be transported in English bottoms. Furthering protectionism, England enacted the Townsend Act with discriminatory tariffs causing the Boston Tea Party, igniting the Revolution. Once we had won our freedom, adopted a Constitution, and adopted a national seal, the first Congress in history, on July 4, 1789, pursuant to Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, assigning the duty of competing in international trade to Congress, enacted a protectionist tariff on numerous articles. We financed and built the industrial giant, U.S.A., with protectionism. Now, the President, the Congress, the press, and the think tanks, all think that protectionism or “Buy American” is a terrible idea.
After World War II we had the only industry in the free world. Fortunately, with the Marshall Plan, American equipment, expertise and dollars, capitalism defeated communism in the Cold War. We didn’t bother to open markets and enforce our trade laws in the Cold War. We were anxious to spread capitalism. Of course, the financial community, big banks, and Wall Street, prospered with the cry of “free trade” as we offshored production to Mexico, China and India. And Corporate America prospered too in the charade of one-way “free trade.” Now we have lost our production, our middle class, and almost our economy, and today we’re back to the beginning days of rebuilding the nation. That’s the whole idea of saving the banks, insurance companies, and stimulating Detroit. Hopefully, we’ve hit the ball with this stimulation. But if Congress doesn’t wake up and follow through, the economy is gone.
What’s the matter with the President and Congress? The trouble with the President and Congress is that there are all imbued with reelection, i.e. the money for reelection....
under the Constitution all trade matters affecting revenue should derive in the House of Representatives. The Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives that handles trade legislation is controlled by New York. Wall Street, the New York banks, the New York brokerage houses, the New York Council of Foreign Relations, the New York Federal Reserve, the New York World Bank, the New York Investment Development Bank, the New York National Retail Federation, the New York or National Chamber of Commerce, my friend New York’s Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, and The New York Times think “’Buy American’ is a terrible idea.”
President Obama and Congress must repeal the subsidy to get rid of jobs – offshoring. President Obama and Congress must enact a value added tax to get us competitive in international trade and pay for health care and the government we provide. President Obama and Congress must impose import quotas on autos and auto parts for the stimulus to work. President Obama and Congress must enforce “Buy American” and our other trade laws if we are to save the economy. We are in desperate circumstance."
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Post by waltc on Jul 25, 2010 22:52:32 GMT -6
Hell yes we're in real trouble. The problem is the people that put us in this situation are the ones running the country.
And it will continue to be like this until people start voting 3rd party and kill off the Democrats and Repub parties which are nothing more organized crime families.
And go after the Free Traitors as well. These bastards have to be put down for the good of the country like a one way ticket to North Korea or some other Free Traitor paradise.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jul 26, 2010 3:32:40 GMT -6
Hell yes we're in real trouble. The problem is the people that put us in this situation are the ones running the country. And it will continue to be like this until people start voting 3rd party and kill off the Democrats and Repub parties which are nothing more organized crime families. And go after the Free Traitors as well. I completely agree. I disagree with Hollings on the following point: President Obama and Congress must enact a value added tax to get us competitive in international trade A value added tax would be better than nothing. But Tariffs would be much better, since they would only raise the price of imports, and would not force Americans to pay higher prices for goods made in the US--the way a value-added tax would.
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Post by proletariat on Jul 26, 2010 6:38:32 GMT -6
But are tariffs legal. Well yes we had a tariff w/ Bush on hangers and with Obama on steel, but these were "punishments" for unfair trade practices. The other night reading the WTO site it reaffirmed that both inspection and tariffs were heavily regulated by GATT, WTO, and related trade agreements. For example, unless as a remedy, inspections must occur on producers sovereign and is limited to such things as price and quantity. You can inspect the amount of tainted catfish but not the quality. For example, you will never see th level of inspection with Vietnam catfish as you do with domestic clams for instance. As for VAT, the only way I'd support it is added to all products imported, and all capital exported. It would no doubt have th same limitations as above. A value added tax would be better than nothing. But Tariffs would be much better, since they would only raise the price of imports, and would not force Americans to pay higher prices for goods made in the US--the way a value-added tax would.
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Post by waltc on Jul 26, 2010 10:21:10 GMT -6
It's becoming quite clear we need to withdraw from the WTO and every other trade agreement we've signed from NAFTA onwards. Many of them have provisions that make them unConstitution if not illegal from our legal and legislative views.
Like telling what we can and cannot do once a toxic or low quality product hits our shores. Such as having a group of foreign trade administrators telling us we have to import and use toxic additives in our gasoline even though the EPA said to stop using it.
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Post by kramer on Jul 27, 2010 18:40:52 GMT -6
from Economy In Crisis We Are in Real TroubleBy Ernest F. Hollings 07/25/2010 Bio: Former Senator (D-SC) " Now we are in real trouble. We’ve lost the markets for textiles, cameras, radios, TVs, steel, electronics, computers, communications equipment, machine tools, advance technology, robots, steppers, etc. The little that we produce has now been bought up by foreigners. Big Blue, IBM and the Hummer went to China; Westinghouse Nuclear and all of its patents went to Japan; Bell labs and all of its discoveries went to France; Bethlehem Steel to is now Russian; Genentech went to Switzerland. And we can’t prepare for war. Boeing’s fighter planes depend on parts from India and Sikorsky for its helicopter must get its tail motor from Turkey.
I'm convinced we are in this position by design. I lay a lot of the blame on FDR and his Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and to a lesser degree, the IMF) for their pushing development in other countries (with our money helping to fund part of it) and the UN for working with these organizations to reduce world poverty by pushing development in other countries.
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Post by waltc on Jul 27, 2010 20:26:36 GMT -6
A lot of the de-industrialization can be laid at the feet of the Cold Warriors like Reagan and their predecessors who gave foreign nations like Japan, Turkey, Jordan and host of others all sorts of trading and manufacturing concessions so we could play Empire.
You think those nations let us station massive garrisons of unruly American troops on their soil for fun? No f**king way. We paid in terms of losing our industrial capacity so a bunch of fucktards in D.C. could play RISK with real people.
We gave Turkey and Jordan a massive chunk of our textile industry in return for basing rights. This was going on right up until Desert Storm.
Japan, we let them rape us industrially for allowing us to turn Okinawa into a U.S. colonial possession among other things.
Korea - repeat of Japan.
China - blame Clinton and Bush.
The IMF is basically a puppet of the Western banking interests who use the organization to loot entire nations of their natural resources and capital. They don't build up shit, they tear down and sell off and they usually wipe out the middle and working class as well. Take a look at their masterpieces like Latvia and Argentina and what they are telling the Greeks to do.
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Post by kramer on Jul 29, 2010 20:31:47 GMT -6
We gave Turkey and Jordan a massive chunk of our textile industry in return for basing rights. This was going on right up until Desert Storm. The textile industry was in competition from foreign textile manufacturing as far back as in the late 70's: linkWhat I'd like to know is, what, if any, world bank infrastructure projects helped established these foreign textile manufacturing plants that our companies had to compete with. My suspicion is that the world bank played a role in helping those foreign manufacturing plants get established. China - blame Clinton and Bush. I don't see how Bush gets the blame when it was Clinton who wanted PNTR (Republicans too but their reasons were so our companies could use chinese labor to stay competitive lest they go out of business) for the Chinese and this was after he and the DNC took illegal contributions from the communist Chinese government. Those contributions turned out to be fantastic investments. The IMF is basically a puppet of the Western banking interests who use the organization to loot entire nations of their natural resources and capital. They don't build up shit, they tear down and sell off and they usually wipe out the middle and working class as well. Take a look at their masterpieces like Latvia and Argentina and what they are telling the Greeks to do. The IMF may not build up shit but they are definitely involved in global poverty reduction through development: www.imf.org/external/NP/prsp/prsp.aspAnd think about this, once a country has an area that has economic infrastructure put in place, what happens next...do people (with means to capital) just pool their money together and start companies from scratch, do established companies start up plants from the ground up, or do jobs get transferred (from developed countries) to those areas? I suspect that the majority of times, jobs are transferred from developed countries to these areas. Kramer
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Post by waltc on Jul 29, 2010 23:14:24 GMT -6
The reason the GOP shares the blame is that they are the biggest promoters of free trade and off-shoring around. Under Bush there was a frenzy of off-shoring and bringing in foreign workers which continues to this day.
He and the GOP never bothered to secure our borders, ports and let business bring in as many foreign workers as they wanted.
But what can you expect when both parties are owned by Wall Street and are in effect proxies for them.
Nor will you ever see a Repub outside of Ducan Hunter ever talk about the damage free-trade and off-shoring have done to us. Listening to you average GOPer talk about the economy is like listening to Limbaugh or Cramer- nothing but hallucinations.
In regards to the IMF, they may build up 3rd world countries to a degree but only to be exploited by Americans and Europeans who then proceed to buy the government and begin the extraction of resources and building of sweatshops. Think Guatemala and DR, It's still exploitation but by another name.
We don't need Marines to massacre the natives like we did a hundred years ago. We send MBA's with suitcases full of money to bribe local officials so we can screw them indirectly without firing a shot.
But if you look at what they do to developed countries - they do the opposite: sell off all the natural resources and public utilities, etc and also kill off the middle-class via "austerity measures". Argentina and Lativa are classic examples and they are trying to do it to Greece and Iceland. And the wealth is transferred back to a select group of U.S. and European investors/bankers.
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Post by kramer on Aug 2, 2010 21:34:47 GMT -6
The reason the GOP shares the blame is that they are the biggest promoters of free trade and off-shoring around. Well I'm going to respectfully reply to you with "bullshit." Offshoring is supported by our government and the reason is to reduce poverty in other parts of the world as these following excerpts from a 1977 NYTimes article shows: Here's some excerpts from a 1977 NYTimes article: Under Bush there was a frenzy of off-shoring and bringing in foreign workers which continues to this day. That's 100% true. Why? Because Clinton gave communist China PNTR after he and the DNC were given illegal contributions from the communist Chinese government. He and the GOP never bothered to secure our borders, ports and let business bring in as many foreign workers as they wanted. That may be true for Bush but in general, Republicans are more inclined to want a protected border than democrats. But what can you expect when both parties are owned by Wall Street and are in effect proxies for them. I agree with this... In regards to the IMF, they may build up 3rd world countries to a degree but only to be exploited by Americans and Europeans who then proceed to buy the government and begin the extraction of resources and building of sweatshops. Think Guatemala and DR, It's still exploitation but by another name. And for every sweat shop job started in another country under the plan to reduce world poverty, a job was eliminated in a developed country. But if you look at what they do to developed countries - they do the opposite: sell off all the natural resources and public utilities, etc and also kill off the middle-class via "austerity measures". Argentina and Lativa are classic examples and they are trying to do it to Greece and Iceland. And the wealth is transferred back to a select group of U.S. and European investors/bankers. I have no problem with cutting back on lavish union pay and benefits, lavish public employee pay and benefits and on getting rid of a lot of the social program spending we do in this country. And I think in Greece the public pay and benefits were more than a little generous. I do agree that it's a problem when wealth is transferred back to the select group you mention. Kramer
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Post by graybeard on Aug 3, 2010 6:32:16 GMT -6
Where is that lavish union pay, Kramer?
My info is a couple of years old, but union meat packers used to be paid $20/hour. Now, the mostly illegal workforce union scale is $12.
Govt job pay is relatively too high, largely because private sector pay has dropped. Even with all that govt largess on their employees, average wage has dropped over the last umpteen years. That means it's even worse in the private sector.
GB
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Post by whoswho on Aug 3, 2010 8:24:17 GMT -6
"Govt job pay is relatively too high, largely because private sector pay has dropped "
I think it's amusing that they want to make federal jobs suck as bad as private sector jobs.
Instead of doing what it would take to rectify the totally screwed up situation with the private sector jobs..... they now want to throw as much mud as possible on federal jobs, to make everything "match" nicely.
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Post by fredorbob on Aug 3, 2010 13:39:38 GMT -6
I think it's amusing that they want to make federal jobs suck as bad as private sector jobs. Republicans accuse Democrats of practicing Class Warfare. Republicans do the same thing; instead of saying some people don't earn enough money as the Democrats say, the Republicans say some people earn 'too much' money. Hypocrites all of them. need a new political party. "Let the 'Free Market' decide what you are worth," then 10 minutes later the hypocrite says, "OMG! I can't believe a janitor earns $30 an hour, that's outrageous. Bring the foreign slaves in, can't have this." FUCK YOU!
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Post by waltc on Aug 4, 2010 11:08:55 GMT -6
Well I'm going to respectfully reply to you with "bullshit."
Offshoring is supported by our government and the reason is to reduce poverty in other parts of the world as these following excerpts from a 1977 NYTimes article shows:
Here's some excerpts from a 1977 NYTimes article:Dude, every free trade treaty has had the total support of the GOP and you never see a single Repuke with the exception of Hunter who will stand up for the American worker and the de-industrialization of our country. That tells me all I need to know about the Repukes - that they are the enemy of the middle and working class. A band of traitors and economic terrorists who only take orders from the rich. And your party's elite think there's nothing wrong with de-industrialization, massive unemployment and being China's bitch. That's 100% true. Why? Because Clinton gave communist China PNTR after he and the DNC were given illegal contributions from the communist Chinese government. Don't forget all the contributions from Wall Street via the DLC and Rubin's friends. China's contributions pale in comparison to what Rubin and Schumer could raise from Wall Street. Oh yeah Clinton couldn't have gotten PNTR passed without the GOP just like they helped get NAFTA passed. It's funny that the GOP never votes no on corporate written trade agreements that are un-Constitutional and give away American authority to foreign nationals. Makes you wonder if the GOP really hates ordinary Americans and the country given their support of free trade, off-shoring, in-sourcing and deregulation. I have no problem with cutting back on lavish union pay and benefits, lavish public employee pay and benefits and on getting rid of a lot of the social program spending we do in this country. And I think in Greece the public pay and benefits were more than a little generous. I do agree that it's a problem when wealth is transferred back to the select group you mention.
It's funny with Repubs, they have no qualms kicking ordinary people into the gutter. Yet stone silence on the criminal mis-deeds of Goldman-Sachs, Moodys, Standard and Poors. Refusal to bring back Glass-Stegall, etc. Simply disgusting. That said, union pay and bennies wasn't the problem in Greece. It was that a bunch of foreign bankers(mostly Krauts and G-S) sold bullshit financial instruments to uber corrupt Greek government(just like ours)that would later blow up in Greece's face. Then they came to collect on their misdeeds. Which is to take Greece's most valuable land and cultural landmarks. Lastly, in my 40+ years I Never seen a GOPer who stood up for workers here or anywhere else. Usually a GOPer is the first one to support off-shoring, union busting, bringing in foreign workers, labor arbitrage. And the first to kiss the asses of rich like some serf from the middle-ages. A party like that only deserves contempt.
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Post by fredorbob on Aug 4, 2010 11:55:58 GMT -6
Well I'm going to respectfully reply to you with "bullshit."
Offshoring is supported by our government and the reason is to reduce poverty in other parts of the world as these following excerpts from a 1977 NYTimes article shows:
Here's some excerpts from a 1977 NYTimes article:Dude, every free trade treaty has had the total support of the GOP and you never see a single Repuke with the exception of Hunter who will stand up for the American worker and the de-industrialization of our country. That tells me all I need to know about the Repukes - that they are the enemy of the middle and working class. A band of traitors and economic terrorists who only take orders from the rich. And your party's elite think there's nothing wrong with de-industrialization, massive unemployment and being China's bitch. That's 100% true. Why? Because Clinton gave communist China PNTR after he and the DNC were given illegal contributions from the communist Chinese government. Don't forget all the contributions from Wall Street via the DLC and Rubin's friends. China's contributions pale in comparison to what Rubin and Schumer could raise from Wall Street. Oh yeah Clinton couldn't have gotten PNTR passed without the GOP just like they helped get NAFTA passed. It's funny that the GOP never votes no on corporate written trade agreements that are un-Constitutional and give away American authority to foreign nationals. Makes you wonder if the GOP really hates ordinary Americans and the country given their support of free trade, off-shoring, in-sourcing and deregulation. I have no problem with cutting back on lavish union pay and benefits, lavish public employee pay and benefits and on getting rid of a lot of the social program spending we do in this country. And I think in Greece the public pay and benefits were more than a little generous. I do agree that it's a problem when wealth is transferred back to the select group you mention.
It's funny with Repubs, they have no qualms kicking ordinary people into the gutter. Yet stone silence on the criminal mis-deeds of Goldman-Sachs, Moodys, Standard and Poors. Refusal to bring back Glass-Stegall, etc. Simply disgusting. That said, union pay and bennies wasn't the problem in Greece. It was that a bunch of foreign bankers(mostly Krauts and G-S) sold bullshit financial instruments to uber corrupt Greek government(just like ours)that would later blow up in Greece's face. Then they came to collect on their misdeeds. Which is to take Greece's most valuable land and cultural landmarks. Lastly, in my 40+ years I Never seen a GOPer who stood up for workers here or anywhere else. Usually a GOPer is the first one to support off-shoring, union busting, bringing in foreign workers, labor arbitrage. And the first to kiss the asses of rich like some serf from the middle-ages. A party like that only deserves contempt. Yes yes, very true. 9 out of 10 Republicans are now Internationalist Corporate Free Trade pukes. But Democrats had a supermajority in both houses of Congress, the presidency and now the Supreme Court and they didn't do a godamn thing about it. Also the Democratic Party in it's first 100 years was the champion of the Southern Aristocracy built on cheap foreign labor, I guess it's hard to break with tradition even with a neeeee-grow president. Soooo, the solution? A new political party.
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Post by graybeard on Aug 4, 2010 19:11:29 GMT -6
A new political party sounds good, but would soon be overrun with corporates and their lobbyists, so it would be only a third way to ignore the will of the people.
I have nothing to offer but despair.
GB
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Post by agito on Aug 4, 2010 21:29:10 GMT -6
QFT
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