Why did we lose so many factories to China when we didn't have a trade deal with them?

[RiverLover]

Allowing TPTB to now say we (supposedly) need the TPP to compete with China?

A look back at how that happened....

Bill Clinton's True Legacy: Outsourcer-in-Chief
Sept 2012

...Progressives who justifiably condemn the repeal of the Glass-Steagall law that resulted in deregulating banks have Clinton to blame. According to the findings of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Committee, "The decision in 2000 to shield the exotic financial instruments known as over-the-counter derivatives from regulation, made during the last year of President Bill Clinton's term, is called 'a key turning point' in the march towards the financial crisis."

But the only thing worse than being a taxpayer forced to bail out reckless banks is losing your job because it's been outsourced or offshored. As Richard McCormack pointed out in the American Prospect, in the beginning of this century American companies stopped making the products Americans continued to buy, from clothing to computers.

Manufacturers never emerged from the 2001 recession, which coincided with China's entry into the World Trade Organization. Between 2001 and 2009 the U.S. lost 42,400 factories and manufacturing employment dropped to 11.7 million, a loss of 32 percent of all manufacturing jobs.

The last time fewer than 12 million people worked in the manufacturing sector was in 1941.

Clinton had the gall to accuse those who opposed China's entry into the WTO of "aligning themselves with the Chinese army and hard-liners in Beijing who do not want accession for China." Clinton claimed that the agreement that he championed "creates a win-win result for both countries," arguing that exports to China "now support hundreds of thousands of American jobs" and "these figures can grow substantially." (Clinton's press person at the Clinton Global Initiative did not respond to my requests for feedback.)

The facts contradict these assertions.

Imports of computers and electronic parts accounted for almost half of the $178 billion increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2007 and the loss of 2.3 million jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-white/bill-clintons-true-legacy_b_1852887.html

ETA for those who might not remember~

China's Entry Into The WTO 10 Years Later Is Not What President Clinton Promised
June 15, 2010

It has been 10 years since the U.S. Congress and President Bill Clinton paved the way for China to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO). Most all of the predictions from those pushing the deal at the time have proven to be wrong, according to an analysis done by Robert Lighthizer, former deputy United States Trade Representative during the Reagan administration and head of the international trade department of the Washington firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & From LLP.

Bill Clinton, the country's most ardent booster of opening trade with China, looks especially imprudent 10 years later. During a press conference on March 29, 2000, Clinton said that granting China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), which allowed China to gain entry into the WTO, would be a great deal for America. "We do nothing," Clinton said. "They have to lower tariffs. They open up telecommunications for investment. They allow us to sell cars made in America in China at much lower tariffs. They allow us to put our own distributorships there. They allow us to put our own parts there. We don't have to transfer technology or do joint manufacturing in China any more. This a hundred-to-nothing deal for America when it comes to the economic consequences." ...

http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/10/0615/WTO.html

[mmonk]

1. A term Americans need to familiar themselves with

The status of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) is a legal designation in the United States for free trade with a foreign nation.

[Hoyt]

2. If we have an agreement with Vietnam - that includes worker, environmental, investor protections -

it is more likely companies will move to Vietnam.

[RiverLover]

3. That's what they're banking on. I've learned more about the TPP from reading their news articles

than what the US media reports.

They're extremely excited about it!!

[True Blue Door]

13. Better Vietnam than China.

One is a destabilizing force on the region and the world, the other isn't.

Of course it's a self-inflicted problem that wouldn't exist if we hadn't granted China such trade status in the first place.

Clearly the elites intend to play hopscotch all over the world to dodge wages, taxes, and regulations until the world's industry is concentrated in the very poorest, least humane country on Earth.

On the other hand, it's hard to argue the people of China in general are worse off than they were. They certainly seem to think otherwise, despite all of the problems caused by their country's economic growth.

Then again, how the fuck is it the job of American workers to impoverish themselves for the sake of advancing other countries and the bottom lines of US elites? There should be something in it for the American people, and there clearly hasn't been.

Many different angles to this topic.

[a kennedy]

15. D*mn right....I buy doubles when from Vietnam.....

Any place but China.......

[sulphurdunn]

29. The only interests that will be advanced

are those of the elites of the signatory countries. Those interests are advanced by cheap labor and lax regulations in authoritarian states.

[True Blue Door]

55. Again, most Chinese would disagree their lot has not improved.

Why would that not also be the case with the SE Asian countries?

[sulphurdunn]

60. Let's hope the Chinese

still think that when their $1.60 an hour jobs start moving to $0.60 an hour Vietnam. However, foreign manufactures are irked that the Vietnamese government keeps raising the minimum wage an average of 15% annually so they'll likely be searching for greener labor pastures to exploit soon. Any predictions?

[bettyellen]

66. Africa- and the Chinese are investing there already.

[RiverLover]

68. Oh that's great. We got rid of slavery to have virtual slavery in Mexico & Asia & now

Africa too with these "slave wages"?

What is wrong with people?!

[bettyellen]

69. China doesn't want the low paying garment factory jobs- they want to oversee the outsourcing of them

They are already doing it in Vietnam and other nations in the area, but are planning huge expansions in Africa. It was a concern for many Tanzanians I met that their government would sell out and allow large scale pollution that would decimate their wild life. Their tourism industry has been organizing a voting block that would protect the environment, and they are trying to prevent it.

[sulphurdunn]

76. Yea, there are places in Africa

so poor you can probably hire people for 3 hots and a cot. Maybe just 2 hots and share a cot.

[bettyellen]

84. If they had reliable infrastructure to ship, they'd already be overrun.

[bvar22]

88. Gaddafi had to be "taken out" first.

He was a passionate "Pan African".
Africa belongs to Africans, NOT US Corporations.

Gaddafi used oil money to undercut the usurious deals the IMF and Global Banks were attempting to make to put the natural Resources of North Africa in hock
SEE: South America

” For all his dictatorial megalomania, Gaddafi is a committed pan-African - a fierce defender of African unity. Libya was not in debt to international bankers. It did not borrow cash from the International Monetary Fund for any "structural adjustment". It used oil money for social services - including the Great Man Made River project, and investment/aid to sub-Saharan countries. Its independent central bank was not manipulated by the Western financial system. All in all a very bad example for the developing world.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD27Ak01.html

The Disaster Capitalists used the legitimate Arab Spring to piggy-back their way into the ongoing Civil War in Libya and begin delivering their Freedom Bombs.

Libya, formerly the country with the highest standard of living in North Africa,
has been reduced to another failed Islamic Fundamentalist nightmare,
and North Africa is now open for "investment" from the IMF and Global Banks.


FOLLOW. The. MONEY.

[sulphurdunn]

95. I'm pretty sure

a way could be found for us to help pay for whatever is needed to turn those folks into the next pool of happy sweat shop laborers.

[sulphurdunn]

26. There will be investor protections

that are vigorously enforced. There will be labor and environmental protections that are studiously ignored. That is why companies will move to Vietnam.

[blm]

4. LOL - So you never wondered what Prescott and Poppy Bush were doing in China in the 70s?

How about making sweetheart deals with Chinese industrialists to move the bulk of US manufacturing to China to enjoy their low-wage factories?

Poppy and his longtime crony Jackson Stephens made those covert deals, and Stephens put Walmart on the table. Nice guys, eh?

Really - I am constantly amazed that people's tracking skills seem to end with Clinton. LOL - where were some of you in the 70s and 80s?

[RiverLover]

5. Hello?

China's Entry Into The WTO 10 Years Later Is Not What President Clinton Promised
June 15, 2010

It has been 10 years since the U.S. Congress and President Bill Clinton paved the way for China to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO). Most all of the predictions from those pushing the deal at the time have proven to be wrong, according to an analysis done by Robert Lighthizer, former deputy United States Trade Representative during the Reagan administration and head of the international trade department of the Washington firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & From LLP.

Bill Clinton, the country's most ardent booster of opening trade with China, looks especially imprudent 10 years later. During a press conference on March 29, 2000, Clinton said that granting China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), which allowed China to gain entry into the WTO, would be a great deal for America. "We do nothing," Clinton said. "They have to lower tariffs. They open up telecommunications for investment. They allow us to sell cars made in America in China at much lower tariffs. They allow us to put our own distributorships there. They allow us to put our own parts there. We don't have to transfer technology or do joint manufacturing in China any more. This a hundred-to-nothing deal for America when it comes to the economic consequences." ...

http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/10/0615/WTO.html

This should probably be added to the OP.

[blm]

7. LOL - In other words you haven't figured out that Bush family deals made with Chinese industrialists

in the 70s and 80s - deals that actually saw US manufacturing base begin to move in earnest in the 80s (Bain business consultants began urging their clients to move their factories to low wage countries in the 80s). That PREDATES Clinton's presidency. The early Bush deals predated Clinton's governorship.

But, because few bothered to notice those cozy dealings back then, some people NOW are going to run with the ignorant view that it ONLY STARTED in the 90s?

LOL

Bushes are nowhere to be found, eh?

Do you even KNOW who Prescott Bush is?

And...I'll go back to my original question: What do you think Prescott and Poppy Bush were doing in China in the 70s?

[RiverLover]

8. Yes I know who Prescott Nazi-lovin Bush was. Do you know the EPI?

Economic Policy Institute?

Dec 2014

Since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, the massive growth of trade between China and the United States has had a dramatic and negative effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy. Specifically, a growing U.S. goods trade deficit with China has the United States piling up foreign debt, losing export capacity, and losing jobs, especially in the vital but under-siege manufacturing sector. Growth in the U.S. goods trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2013 eliminated or displaced 3.2 million U.S. jobs, 2.4 million (three-fourths) of which were in manufacturing. These lost manufacturing jobs account for about two-thirds of all U.S. manufacturing jobs lost or displaced between December, 2001 and December 2013.

Among specific industries, the trade deficit in the computer and electronic parts industry grew the most, and 1,249,100 jobs were lost or displaced, 39.6 percent of the 2001–2013 total. As a result, many of the hardest-hit congressional districts were in California, Texas, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Minnesota, where jobs in that industry are concentrated. Some districts in New York, Georgia, and Illinois were also especially hard-hit by trade-related job displacement in a variety of manufacturing industries, including computer and electronic parts, textiles and apparel, and furniture.

The growing trade deficit with China has cost jobs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Using a new model and new congressional district data to estimate the job impacts of trade for the 113th Congress, this study also finds that job losses occurred in every congressional district but one.1

This summary of the jobs impact of trade with China arise from the following specific findings of this study:

...read more~
http://www.epi.org/publication/china-trade-outsourcing-and-jobs/

[blm]

45. UNCLE Prescott, not grandpa. EPI has never studied covert deals made in the 70s

between Poppy, Prescott and Jackson Stephens, now, have they?

YOU ASKED how so much of our manufacturing ended up in China. You don't like the REAL answer because it predates Clinton's presidency. Apparently you want to only wrap your mind around the 90s with these PUBLIC, 'official' trade agreements, and, I am….LOLOLOLOL.

It's as if you never heard of the Bush family dealings in China….or Jackson Stephens. I suppose Bain's consulting arm was advising manufacturing clients to move to China in the 80s because Gov. Bill Clinton had a plan? LOL….

Sorry….but it is annoying to me when people focus on Clinton's role in the 'official' China trade deals while pretending that it occurred in a complete vacuum, when it was actually the result of the once secret deals of the 70s becoming mainstreamed by corporate America in the 80s.

So, I'll ask again: What do YOU think Poppy, his brother Prescott, and their crony Jackson Stephens were doing in China in the 70s?

[TM99]

47. Of course it started with the BFEE.

However, it was made palpable to the public by Clinton.

You do know how cozy the Clinton and Bush clans are these days, right?

I hold both equally responsible.

[Duppers]

54. some folks are naive

Clinton was just doing a follow-up.

[blm]

64. I love how the question is posed and the REAL answer ignored.

By someone pretending to be interested in the REAL answer.

[Duppers]

85. I trust

that RiverLover's heart is in the right place, only that RL's knowledge on this one thing needs a bit of tweaking. He/she has some great posts regarding environmental issues, hence, my respect.

[blm]

87. I hope so.

Sometimes the owls aren't always what they seem.

As per David Lynch. ; )

[jwirr]

10. I do not doubt that you are correct about Prescott and Poppy but I think the deal was made with

Chinese officials not industrialists. The industrialization of China was a international corporation project. Our industrialist did in China what they have done in many third world countries - created their own industry with the permission of the leaders of those countries.

[GeorgeGist]

46. Triangulation backfired ...

Clinton deserves the scorn.

[blm]

63. Yes - he had a role in 1993, but, it's naive to think it didn't start 2 decades earlier.

I don't understand why so many of you don't get that.

The stage was already built, the costume was already made, and they awaited an actor to voice the words already crafted….many years earlier.

[Wellstone ruled]

89. You snooze you loose.

And,again we have so many with short memories or it won't effect me attitude,and now we see the lasting results. Facts are facts and anyone who challenges them,good luck with that idea.

[blm]

90. Not acknowledging it leads to the inevitable - the NEXT Bush in the WH.

.

[Wellstone ruled]

93. Could happen,

our Nation is so Polarized on the wrong issues that are foisted upon the non thinking populace via the M$M. You know the damn goal is to reinforce the 1%er grasp of wealth. Never understood why someone buys into the shit you can become a Millionaire if you bust your ass. So few ever achieve that status via the work a day world. It's all about luck or a idea that can be patented. Yes,people became Millionaires filliping houses,that number is very small and it isn't going happen any time soon for the average Jane and Joe.

[blm]

96. Fvckin' Media.

.

[Wellstone ruled]

98. It's our fault,we did not hold their feet to the fire.

[blm]

100. I began support/volunteer efforts for FAIR in the 90s when it became apparent the corpmedia

was taken over by the fascists. There is no way an honest media would have let Poppy Bush escape scrutiny while helping crazy fvcks impeach a president for the high crime of an extramarital affair.

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting.

[truedelphi]

6. Back in the day, the more conservative members of the

Republican Party were annoyed by the "Reagan Revolution" as the policies of that revolution totally ignored the need for tariffs.

They predicted vast and non-reversible economic harm to the nation, and that is exactly what is happening.

Of course, the terrible economic harm that is being done is not usually discussed, as our Mainstream Media is only concerned with the lives of those at the top.

Until the Kardashians feel the pinch of moving all our jobs overseas, I doubt it will get much press.

[RiverLover]

9. ha, that is so sad & so true.

Until the Kardashians feel the pinch of moving all our jobs overseas, I doubt it will get much press.

[yallerdawg]

11. Now it's MFN and WTO and PNTR...

Globalization and corporate capitalism are all Clinton's fault.

Yep, the economic and financial disaster of the Clinton presidency. Got to get that out there, too.

[RiverLover]

12. These are facts. This isn't a smear. Just a sad fact.

It's impossible to correct course without facing facts.

Why do you think the progressives in the party are trying to counter the "centrists"?

[yallerdawg]

14. Yes, facts.

But not all the facts, just another spin to suit an agenda.

Not all the facts!

From the beginning, Sam Walton and Wal-Mart focused on buying goods as cheaply as possible, which often meant buying imports. Here is an examination of the history of Wal-Mart's procurement practices in Asia and China -- even through its own "Buy American" promotional campaign in the 1980s and 1990s -- and the prognosis for the future.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/secrets/wmchina.html

[RiverLover]

17. Exactly, and I'm sure Walton played a hand in Clinton's push to allow China into the WTO.

Like it says in the article you linked, Wal-Mart was trying to hide doing business with China...

...Following the brutal suppression of Chinese students in Tiananmen Square in 1989 by the Chinese Communist leadership, Walton feared a consumer backlash if Wal-Mart were seen as operating in China. He was also disturbed by charges of human rights abuses in his Asian suppliers' factories.

To continue growing in Asia, Wal-Mart needed a buffer -- a middleman or a buying agency that would purchase Asian products without showing Wal-Mart's hand. According to the retired Hong Kong senior executive, Walton told Bill Fields, Wal-Mart's head buyer, that he wanted to "get out" of direct involvement in Asia. "The decision was to go to an exclusive buying agency," the buyer said. "The main reason for going into [the deal] was not to be exposed as going into Communist China."...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/secrets/wmchina.html

After Clinton made it legitimate to not only trade with China but to move US manufacturing there, Sam must have had one helluva celebration.

[yallerdawg]

22. Walton engineered the election of Clinton in 1992...

all part of his master plan? Again, it was Clinton, not the nature of capitalism?

"From the beginning, Walton had bought goods wherever he could get them cheapest, with any other considerations secondary," writes Bob Ortega, author of the Wal-Mart history, In Sam We Trust. By the early 1980s, Ortega reports, Walton "increasingly looked to imports, which were usually cheaper because factory workers were paid so much less in China and the other Asian countries."

According to Ortega, Walton himself estimated that imports accounted for nearly 6 percent of Wal-Mart's total sales in 1984. But another observer of that period, Frank Yuan, a former Taiwan-based apparel middleman, who dealt with Wal-Mart in the 1980s, puts the number, including indirect imports, at around 40 percent from "day one." Either way, Walton's vision was a harbinger of far vaster global sourcing today.

[RiverLover]

23. I never said Walton engineered Clinton's campaign.

But I don't know who his contributors were either. Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

[RiverLover]

25. Now remember, YOU were the one to bring up Wal-Mart...

...Adding to the sense that Mr. Bush was venturing into the heart of Clinton country was the knowledge that Mr. Walton and his family are major contributors to the Clinton campaign, even though Mr. Walton also gave Mr. Bush the $1,000 maximum contribution as well, and that Hillary Clinton, the candidate's wife, is on the Wal-Mart board of directors....

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/18/us/the-1992-campaign-white-house-president-visits-clinton-country.html

I guess this was common knowledge back then. My mind is blown right now. Not in a good way. But its better to know. Thanks for your unintentional education here on Clinton's campaign, Wal-Mart, and the coincidental ushering of China into the WTO by Sam's good friend Bill...

wow.

[yallerdawg]

30. Of course it's common knowledge!

Where do you think Walmart headquarters is - Bentonvile, Arkansas. What state did Clinton govern?

Now we go back to Clinton campaign donations in '90s?

THAT would be a whole nother thread

[RiverLover]

35. LOL No kidding.

No need to go there. I know you will laugh, but this is kind of heartbreaking to me. Just more from that era...truly heartbreaking.

[Jesus Malverde]

48. It's not just wages

American factory owners can ignore OSHA and EPA regulations at their overseas factories.

[yallerdawg]

27. If Walmart was this invested in operating in China by 1989...

and wanted to hide it by getting Clinton to make it legitimate and needing a buffer, after 1992- you implying Clinton with your comments on the excerpt - I thought that was where you were going with this.

THAT would be a whole nother thread!

[a kennedy]

16. Can I just say here.....I HATE THE MADE IN CHINA label on everything I look at....

[RiverLover]

19. Grrr Me too!!

I read the TPP disallows any country of origin labeling, including "Made in the USA". Must be a response to so many of us hating seeing those labels.

[sulphurdunn]

24. Which is most of what you look at.

[City Lights]

97. Me too!

[AwakeAtLast]

18. They impeached him

Not too far a stretch to say he could have been 'coerced'.

IMO this reeks of Republican malfeasance. Clinton has his own faults, but I'm thinking there is more to the story.

[JaneyVee]

20. It coincided with the tech boom. Tech vaporized lots of jobs.

[Phlem]

42. yep.

There was some guy wondering about how I lost my tech job when NAFTA came out.

There you go.

[Thespian2]

21. Yep.

Noticed that some HRC supporters are angry that you high-lighted the bullshit economics of Bill "Bubba" Clinton...trying to place the blame on George H W doesn't really cut it...Clinton was all preachy about how to "save" the economy...follow the guidelines laid out by the corporations...they will make sure you and your family will be very rich...

[RiverLover]

28. Still waiting for that trickle down...

that's still trickling up to the top 10%.

We need to wake up & SEE what's been going on.

[Thespian2]

32. Right On!

sorry...expression from my younger days...

[RiverLover]

43. LOL

Groovy!!

[Exilednight]

94. The only trickle you will feel is corporate America pissing on you. n/t

[blm]

61. Try: LONGTIME Clinton critic unwilling to LIE about WHEN manufacturing moved to China

and how it was set up in the decades before Clinton took office.

And AS a longtime Clinton critic here, I also have a keen sense of when posts are too eager to tar Clinton with actions that pre-dated his presidency. It's as if they never even heard of how Bush family operated in China since the 70s. I think those posters are either corporate media audiences who only know what they have been fed or what they have read on websites formed over the past 15 or 20 years from bloggers who couldn't answer the main question here: What were Prescott and Poppy Bush (and Jackson Stephens) doing in China in the 70s? Is it just 'coincidence' to all of you that US manufacturing began moving to China in the 80s?

That so many don't really wrap their brains around the actual timeline works out GREAT for the Bush family and their fascist allies.

Clinton's guilt lies in pushing through the China deals that were crafted and ironed out long before the 92 election, an election where Poppy knew he could not survive the release of the BCCI report (Dec1992). He would have been CERTAINLY IMPEACHED and many of his machinations would have received much fuller exposure to the public. Jackson Stephens had Clinton groomed and ready to jump in to save their asses. It was a GREAT dodge for Poppy. Clinton came through for them.

Criticize Clintons till the cows come home - just do it honestly, WITHOUT letting Bushes off the hook, as some of you do. When posters do that, I will correct them.

It has NOTHING to do with being a Clinton 'supporter'. It has everything to do with a constant task of exposing BFEE and opposing GOP as their fastest vehicle to implement BFEE's fascist agenda. That and Dem GOTV efforts - which, at election time, require accepting the entire left spectrum, even when that person is standing much further to the right than where you stand.

[RiverLover]

67. I know you feel strongly about this blm, but I believe "Manufacturing News" &

Economic Policy Institute & a gazillion others over your unlinked posts.

The 90s is when the transfer of jobs to China exploded because of the PNTR status bestowed by Bill & China thus being able to enter into WTO.

We know there was some backdoor dealings going on, but it didn't take off until it was made legal & legit by Clinton.

Period.

You don't like to let things go, so I'm sure you will go on & on here. But I just wanted to slip that in between your many posts on it.

[blm]

70. Baloney - Businesses were already moving factories to China in the 80s. The explosion started then

and you are completely skipping over the FACT that consulting businesses like Bain were ADVISING clients to do so AT THE TIME.

Been at this a LONG time, and I don't play pretend to suit the narrative I want accepted.

You claimed you KNEW 'there was some backdoor dealings going on'. I submit that you didn't know, and, in fact, one of your posts above reWalmart, proves you are still 'learning' about the 92 election. The problem for some of us old-timers is that you don't seem to have the capacity to put everything in context. NONE of it occurred in a vacuum. WE know that, but, you need to pretend we don't.

You asked a simple question and you did not LIKE the REAL answer.

BTW - of course the 90s saw a huge transfer of US manufacturing to China and other low-wage countries - it was set up IN THE 80s. No Democratic president in 1993, no matter who you could name, would have had the power base to STOP what was already happening since the late 70s. That was because of Bush, whether you want to accept it or not.

You sure do get benign when referencing Bush, RL. Saving it, eh?

[RiverLover]

71. Links?

I want to believe you over Manufacturing News & EPI, I really do.

From the OP articles~

Between 2001 and 2009 the U.S. lost 42,400 factories and manufacturing employment dropped to 11.7 million, a loss of 32 percent of all manufacturing jobs.

The last time fewer than 12 million people worked in the manufacturing sector was in 1941.

Clinton had the gall to accuse those who opposed China's entry into the WTO of "aligning themselves with the Chinese army and hard-liners in Beijing who do not want accession for China."

It exploded after Clinton enabled Communist China. I'd like to see a legitimate source for that explosion happening prior to that.

Clinton's U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky chimed in. She said that if the United States "turned down a set of one-way concessions made by China, we will make a very dark statement about our ability to develop a stable and mutually beneficial relationship with the world's largest country....China's accession to the WTO is a clear win. China's trade concessions are one-way and enforceable."

Other Clinton administration officials were involved in the sales campaign. Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger said that China's accession to the WTO would assure that it would "play by the rules of the international system."

Kenneth Lieberthal, now at the Brookings Institute and formerly a staff member of Clinton's National Security Council, told the PBS Newshour in 2000 that the U.S. trade deficit with China "will not grow as much as it would have grown without this agreement and, over time, clearly it will shrink with this agreement."

USCC Commissioner Pat Mulloy noted at the June 9 hearing that one person had correctly analyzed the deal: Joseph Quinlan, an economist with Morgan Stanley. Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Quinlan said: "While the debate in Washington focused mainly on the probable lift for U.S. exports to China, many U.S. multinationals have something different in mind. The deal is about investment, not exports."

While the American people may have been oversold by Clinton and his appointees, the Chinese knew what was going on. The day that China entered the WTO on December 11, 2001, an article in the People's Daily said the deal would "actively spur foreign capital to flow into high and new technological industries and encourage transnational corporations to come to China to set up R&D centers and regional headquarters."

[blm]

72. You can clip/link till the cows come home that doesn't change the TRUTH about Bushes/China

back in the 70s and 80s when 99.9999% of the country, including its journalists, weren't even paying attention to what was going on in boardrooms.

So much easier to trace it back to the 90s, eh, so biggerthanlife Clinton can block out all the REAL players involved for decades?

Here's a primer I've been posting here at DU for years. You are, apparently, just getting your feet wet on the China issues. Or, you hope to appear interested in Bush's role in China, at DU, anyway.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FE21Ad01.html

[RiverLover]

75. Thanks for the link. Geez, no need to be nasty. It doesn't change the fact that US firms moved to

China only after Clinton's PNTR move. But it was interesting. They are all in bed together. Bushes, Clintons. What a racket.

[blm]

77. Clintons didn't start the fire…In fact, by then there was no choice, as some want to think.

There wasn't anything that could be done (even by most liberal candidates) to change a course set in stone by the time those trade deals were made.

[RiverLover]

78. No choice? I vigorously disagree with that opinion. /nt

[blm]

79. No reversing what had become mainstream business practice since the 70s.

All you could do was tinker with some of the details in the FORMAL portion of the trade deal.

Sorry, but, reality sucks. Only with hindsight can any of it even be addressed with the hope to correct some of the excesses. Greater knowledge of the BIG PICTURE needs to be spread - that won't happen focusing on Clinton's role, imo.

Bottom line for me - STOP LETTING BUSHES OFF THE HOOK! You think full-on fascists like Jeb Bush or Rand Paul are the answer? They are Fascism's EXPRESS TRAIN. Even the furthest right Democrat is still a much slower train - a local - gives the rest of us a chance to slow it down even more. That can only happen when more voters are made aware of what has been going on the last FIVE DECADES, at the least. In CONTEXT. Focusing on one piece of it to keep Clinton under attack is not the answer, in my book, it's a diversion that only benefits the BFEE.

There is a reason why Octafish and a few others here (including me) stay focused on keeping these issues and events in CONTEXT of what has been going on for many decades now. We don't leave out the vast role of BFEE just because corpmedia leaves them out.

[notadmblnd]

102. here ae some

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/6/manufacturing%20job%20loss/06_manufacturing_job_loss.pdf

http://www2.itif.org/2012-american-manufacturing-decline.pdf

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/07/09/11898/5-facts-about-overseas-outsourcing/

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/07/art2full.pdf

[JonLP24]

31. NAFTA gets all the attention

but PNTR was the knockout blow

[RiverLover]

37. I'm beginning to see that now. /nt

[pampango]

33. Keeping the largest country in the world out of the world trade organization would not have helped.

The rest of the world did not want to keep China out of the WTO. Our trade with the few countries that are not in the WTO is even more unbalanced than with the rest. For example, our trade with Russia deteriorated faster than that with China even though Russia did not join the WTO until 2012.

As the largest country in the world, China is going to play a large role in the world economy unless it can be walled off somehow. Mao did a great job of isolating China from the world economy but I don't know how we could isolate a country that wants to be part of the world.

[sadoldgirl]

34. Sorry, I still don't know why we

are refusing to go back to reasonable tariffs,which worked
until Reagan came along. Why fix something that worked?

And if the transnational corporation claim to be part of the
US, the items coming from countries with lousy labor and

environmental laws, should still have tariffs attached to them.

Yes, I can hear it now o you want a trade war with China?

[RiverLover]

38. Really great points. I agree!

Is anyone in congress suggesting this?

[sadoldgirl]

40. I asked this of my reasonably

liberal representative, and she laughed out loud and told
me that they could not even get rid of the subsidies those
corporations get for moving there.

[RiverLover]

41. geesh.

We're sure facing an uphill battle, up-mountain more like it.

[pampango]

57. Tariffs didn't work. That is why FDR lowered the high tariffs he inherited from republicans.

And the worst income inequality the US has ever had - even worse than today - came at the end of the 1920's era of republican rule with high tariffs and restrictive immigration. FDR knew that tariffs did not work. He had seen the evidence. He not only lowered them in his first and second terms, but tried to structure the post-war world in such a way that it would be difficult for high tariffs to return.

...reasonable tariffs, which worked until Reagan came along."

Actually before Reagan came along, the republican party was the party of higher tariffs and the Democratic party that of lower tariffs.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA) into law in 1934. RTAA gave the president power to negotiate bilateral, reciprocal trade agreements with other countries. This law enabled Roosevelt to liberalize American trade policy around the globe. It is widely credited with ushering in the era of liberal trade policy that persists to this day.

After the Civil War, Democrats were generally the party of trade liberalization, while Republicans were generally for higher tariffs. The RTAA marked a sharp departure from the era of protectionism in the United States.

The administration decided to take advantage of having a Democratic-controlled Congress and Presidency to push through the RTAA. ... In 1936 and 1940, the Republican Party ran on a platform of repealing the tariff reductions secured under the RTAA: FDR has "secretly has made tariff agreements with our foreign competitors, flooding our markets with foreign commodities."

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

[moondust]

36. 90s tech boom.

As I vaguely remember it, there was sort of an unspoken assumption that if everybody "moves up" to high tech jobs then the lower tech jobs didn't matter so much in the new tech economy. With lots of jobs going unfilled at the time and all the focus on high tech, a lot of lower tech jobs were moved offshore without much resistance. About all Bill Clinton had to do was stay out of the way and take credit for a good economy. Of course once that scheme got rolling the offshoring didn't stop with lower tech jobs but continued to eat into high tech jobs in the 2000s and beyond.

[RiverLover]

39. Thank you. That explains so much!

Tonight's my night for learning. I hope many more see this as well, moondust.

[appalachiablue]

58. In the 2003 video of Rep. Sanders grilling Alan Greenspan the Fed, Bernie brings up

the millions of mfg. job losses by that point, and the forecast for white collar jobs offshoring. The video was posted here on DU a week or two ago. And a copy can be found on YouTube, although it's grainy and poor quality. Reality is bad, but hindsight is a nightmare, all the pieces fall into place.

[moondust]

73. Thanks!

This looks like it here. The video quality may be bad but the content is superb! It's interesting that Bernie cites all kinds of alarming facts and figures from the real world and Greenspan glosses over it all with smug talking points.

[appalachiablue]

82. That's the one, the "2003 Grilling". Here's the slightly better version I used in my OP

of May 1. At the title end I wrote 'Part. 1 The Warning', thinking of federal regulator BROOKSLEY BORN and her concerns over the risk of new financial products like CDOs and derivatives in 1998-99, that PBS Frontline made into a program, 'The Warning' (2009) After the Crash. She was dismissed back then by Treasury and WS officials like Robt. Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Greenspan, Arthur Levitt.

Several years ago I watched the video of the Congressional Hearing on derivatives c. 1998-99 with B. BORN and the others online, but I can't find it on YouTube now. The PBS 'The Warning' program page has a transcript of what was said in Congress but no visual.
*PBS Frontline 'The Warning' (2009)*
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/
~~~~~~~~~~~
Please guard the "Greenspan Grilling" *VIDEO version with your life! Again, Bernie lays out the mfg. losses, job losses, outsourcing to China, India, etc. AND has research reports on the in progress major offshoring of white collar IT jobs. When Greenspan claims the US has a very high standard of living!, Bernie goes off! on the merits of Scandinavia. It's a classic. Should be posted here PERMANENTLY I think!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those years- 'THE OUGHTS' (2000-2010) as Chris Hayes called them, were some God awful times- 9/11; two costly, questionable wars; the ongoing, sly housing bubble and subprime mortgage lending corruption; quiet increased sending of 60,000 US factories and millions of blue and white collar jobs to China, overseas; then The Crash of 2008. What Republicans and complicit Dems. can do in power is staggering. *Next up, the TPP-Lord help us!

And as Bernie stresses in the video, the outsourcing to Asia and cheaper countries of middle class IT, customer service jobs has really come to pass. In the last couple years I've also heard of outsourcing *'back office department' jobs (industry speak) in banking and corporations, that can be done overseas via computer or phone banks, in much less expensive India and the Philippines where English is fairly widely spoken. Occasionally when I call my Health Insurer lately, the Rep. is in Manila.

(For what it's worth, notice a younger Rep.*Rahm Emmanuel, seated in the opening scene of the video. He was an IL Congressman c. 2003-2009)

*Video, 2003 House Financial Service Committee, Rep. Bernie Sanders questioning Fed Chair Alan Greenspan

[appalachiablue]

83. +10. Saw this late last night. Right on, exactly what happened, how it was pushed at the time

-the "TECKLE UP" period I call it. If I'd invested in a degree and guaranteed career in computers, then lost it all (except the college debt) I would have been incensed and more-

[Octafish]

44. Know your BFEE: Chinese and American Ruling Elites In Bed Together for Fun and Profit

Ever wonder what happened to our standard of living? You, know, the Middle Class?

Well, it's been off-shored -- both in terms of money to Switzerland and manufacturing jobs to China.

Of course, I mean, don't worry! -- at a profit.



Guess who made a killing? If you said, "The ruling elite" you'd be correct.

What may be surprising to some is how the "ruling elite" crosses political, ideological, and philosophical lines when it comes to money. Case in point: China.

OP ws great DU responses: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021644663

Currently, the people of China are largely unaware at how their ruling Communist elite got rich while the people slaved their asses off.

Here in the good old U.S. of A., the people are largely unaware that their ruling Capitalist elite got rich setting the policies that offshored their money and jobs.

Oh, well. Live and learn.

[RiverLover]

49. Live & learn indeed, Octafish. Thanks for all the info.

The DU discussion you linked was really interesting, lots in there too.

I'm amazed at the brazen audacity. Paulson takes the cake. He contributes to the 2008 financial crisis with massive derivative speculation, then coordinates the failure of some financial houses to build up Citi & Goldman Sachs & has his hand in the bailout...probably got even richer off of sinking the country. Icing on the cake...

Wish we could sue all major news organizations for failure to inform.

[Octafish]

52. We don't get the story because they also own the media.

Before he was on the Supreme Court, Lewis Powell outlined the process:

The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)

The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971

Introduction

In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. [font color="red"]Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”[/font color]

Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.

Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)

So did Powell’s political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. [font color="red"]Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment “right” for corporations to influence ballot questions.[/font color] On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.

CONTINUED...

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

Old news to you, RiverLover. News to 99% of US citizens, as it's not mentioned in mass media or most colleges.

Thanks for grokking. Using DU as a Truth Machine is most Democratic.

[blm]

74. And WHO groomed Nixon politically since 1946? Prescott Bush.

Who supposedly opened the doors to China? Nixon. Who REALLY laid the groundwork and set up covert dealings in China? Bushes.

[Octafish]

80. 'In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.'-FDR

Like Power, as long as it's Power for the "Right" people...



Tricky Dick and Grandpa Prescott Bush get straight before a show. Obviously, these two were unafraid to take unpopular positions.

And Profit. As long as it's Profit for the "Right" people...



Knew the finest people, like Baron Rothschild, f'r instance. Odd, considering who he hung out with before the war.

And the kids, particularly the boys, so important for keeping the nasty in dynasty. Kid and grandkid are special, too.



Knowwhaddimean?

Goes back further, that Power and Profit for the "Right" people...



Samuel Prescott Bush was no slouch either.

Preach, Sister blm! Preach!

[blm]

81. NEVER let any Bush off the hook!

Never!

[hifiguy]

92. The BFEE is America's Borgias.

Pure evil generation after generation.

[Recursion]

50. Because free trade deals aren't required for outsourcing

I don't know where people got this A=B idea about free trade deals and outsourcing. A company can move its operations to any country it wants to, any time, with no free trade deal (though if they sell the stuff they make over there back here it may be tariffed). For that matter a free trade deal makes offshoring less attractive from a business's perspective, because US organizations like Sierra or AFL can sue the foreign government for letting environmental or labor regulations fall below what's required by the treaty (AFL has sued both Mexico and Canada under NAFTA for this, successfully).

Witness China and India getting so many jobs that were once in the US; we don't have a free trade agreement with either country (and even China's PNTR are more restrictive than all the other PNTR countries' deals; China is still annoyed by that).

[RiverLover]

51. This OP is about it NOT being a trade deal. It's about Clinton giving China PNTR status which

allowed them to enter into the WTO. And allowed all those factories to move to China, if they didn't go to Mexico with NAFTA,

[blm]

65. So factories WEREN'T moving to China throughout the 80s?

Really?

Who told you that factories only started moving to China because of Clinton?

'No difference' propagandists?

Should some of us wipe out the 70s and 80s from our memory banks because they don't comport with what the 'no difference' crowd wants believed?

[glinda]

53. Our Gov. just okayed shipping our chickens to China for processing.

Not enough global warming due to planes and ships? No problem!

[beachbum bob]

56. above all else, it was american consumers.....ignoring that fact is pretty irresponsible

it was american consumers who sought the cheapest price and had no problem supporting businesses that relocated jobs and factories overseas...

put the responsibility where it belongs....its on OUR backs, no one elses

[appalachiablue]

59. Not this US consumer. I never knew what a Kohl's, Target or real big box store was

besides KMart until a relative moved to exurbia in 1999 and that's all there was. I don't want to get gouged when I shop but anyone knows there's 'a price' somewhere when goods are made and sold that cheaply.

[odd_duck]

62. Because the capitalists...

had an epiphany and figures out that they could procure, manufacture, and produce in Shanghai, rather than the US.
It is the natural way of Capitalism, to go where the cheap labor is. Import tariffs used to take care of that problem (See Alexander Hamilton on his Report on Manufacturers).

So, the US has inevitably turned into a service-sector (Restaurants, big-box China Marts) economy.

Normally, it would be up to 'We the people' to fix it at the ballot-box, but the creatures in Congress only answer to big-business these days.
I see a 'revolt of the Plebs' moment coming,.....you know, with flaming torches and pitchforks coming over the hill...........

[Duppers]

86. K&R for the whole thread.

Bookmarking for the jewels of info above!

Thanks for the thread, RiverLover.

[hifiguy]

91. The Clintons have certainly been lavishly compensated for all of the services

they rendered to the plutocratic class. And they sold us down the river.

[L0oniX]

99. There ya go ...trying to make friends on DU are ya?

[Adrahil]

101. Because NAFTA!!!

Honestly, I've heard people blame NAFTA for outsourcing to Asia. I shit you not.