When Americans No Longer Own America

[Clara T]

When Americans No Longer Own America
by Thom Hartmann
 
The Dubai Ports World deal is waking Americans up to a painful reality: So-called "conservatives" and "flat world" globalists have bankrupted our nation for their own bag of silver, and in the process are selling off America.

Through a combination of the "Fast Track" authority pushed for by Reagan and GHW Bush, sweetheart trade deals involving "most favored nation status" for dictatorships like China, and Clinton pushing us into NAFTA and the WTO (via GATT), we've abandoned the principles of tariff-based trade that built American industry and kept us strong for over 200 years.

The old concept was that if there was a dollar's worth of labor in a pair of shoes made in the USA, and somebody wanted to import shoes from China where there may only be ten cents worth of labor in those shoes, we'd level the playing field for labor by putting a 90-cent import tariff on each pair of shoes. Companies could choose to make their products here or overseas, but the ultimate cost of labor would be the same.

Then came the flat-worlders, led by misguided true believers and promoted by multinational corporations. Do away with those tariffs, they said, because they "restrain trade." Let everything in, and tax nothing. The result has been an explosion of cheap goods coming into our nation, and the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs and thousands of manufacturing companies. Entire industry sectors have been wiped out.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0227-20.htm

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. If there had been even moderate tariffs . . .

. . . the factories would not be shuttered in Kansas City. Pick a city, and there's no manufacturing to speak of anymore. Guess it's all about five bucks an hour at Burger King.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. It's a very good article. I'm sick of 'flat worlders'.

[Cassandra]

3. Thom has been talking about this for a few days...

on his show.