It may seem simplistic on the surface, but most Americans as well as many millions perhaps billions outside of the US know that free trade is an economic pariah around the world. Yet, despite massive trade deficits, a negative savings rate for most Americans, the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in the US, decaying education systems, infrastructure, healthcare systems, we still don't hear democrats shouting against this machine of economic control and selective destruction.
Does it make sense to send millions of decent paying jobs to foreign countries so that the widgets that are produced are shipped back to the US and then trucked from some UAE managed port to their little widget shelf? What about that startling revelation by gw that we're 'addicted to oil'?
Those monstrous ships run on oil don't they? Are they coming up with a design to replace those guzzling diesels with nice cute hybrids that get a whopping 20 ft to the gallon over the 10 ft a gallon?
Even my dear republican friends are keenly aware of how destructive all this outsourcing has been. One recently declared bankruptcy with $900/month payments for the next 3 years on their slightly above average wages. He recently sent me an email profusely apologizing and ashamed of how they treated us when we were living in their area. Irregardless of their demonized image of democratic politics, we were very much on the same page about free trade and outsourcing.
If the baby boomer retirements are going to leave an overabundance of jobs available that our country does not have the labor force to fill, okay fine. It makes sense to outsource some of that to grow MARKETS in foreign countries.
To grow a market in a foreign country, a corporation must pay wages that enable that society to purchase what they produce including paying enough to skilled labor so that their rupees, dollars, yuan actually flow out to the people that live around them. What happens when oil reaches $100 a barrel? Consumers will experience inflation of those everday low prices when they are least able to afford it.
The WTO should be the acronym for the World Terror Organization or perhaps more accurately, the World Economic Terror Organization WETO.
Yes, there are trade agreements in place now that actually allow the WTO to enforce their corrupt legislation over a government. How beautifully corrupt. We are the United States of America and can and should, if there is any morality left, put the WTO in recievership coordinated with the governments involved and ultimately put out of business like Enron. The other countries will listen and we can work out arrangements to avoid the catastrophe the WTO embodies.
Yes, it would take some balls by democratic leadership to take a stand the people of the world understand. Multinational corporations will scream bloody murder at first but they will come around when they realize that growing a lucrative market in a foreign country actually requires modeling their business practice with regard to labor, wages and country infrastructure (aka taxes) as it has evolved within the United States, without the free trade and no taxes mantra. These monstrous corporations owe their success to the very wage, labor and taxes they are fighting to kill. The opportunities for their financial success and the success of the people in those foreign countries are mind boggling. What a terrible waste of opportunity and a terrible lack of vision they have right now.
The ultimate destination of the current model of globalization and free trade is a collapse of the world's financial system. I have no 'solid evidence' of this but only the struggle I KNOW so many people in the US are experiencing. It will not get better 'staying the course' with globalization.
Several South American countries have figured out the terrible burden of the IMF and WTO imposes on them and have shaken the bloodsuckers off their backs. Hooray for them, they have common sense. Too bad so many US politicians have not waken from their corporate money induced slumber that has placed the future of all of our children and grandchildren into such peril. I will pay happily $5 to $10 a year for publicly funded campaigns as I know millions of concerned US citizens will as well to rid our government of the corrupting influence that corporate money and cronyism brings.
A real leader does not need corporate funding to represent the people or to get a lucrative job as a lobbyist if he or she loses an election. A real leader will succeed wildly by doing the right thing for the people, for all the people. Truth, justice and liberty for all are not shallow words. I don't believe a politician can be loved but a leader will be. The constraints imposed by the party line of either party today ensures the emergence of a truly loved leader will not appear. Take off the constraints and represent what the people of the US and world truly needs and wants. It would be truly refreshing to have a leader that inspires the love of the people and not be afraid to stand up to the globalists.