From behind the NY Times firewall the new guy gives us all something to chew on. [Don’t click the link unless you subscribe to NYT select]
Speed Bump at the Border
By THOMAS B. EDSALL
Washington
Democrats preparing to take over Congress appear to have a perfect issue for the party of the left: the rich are getting richer, but sizable productivity gains and rising corporate profits are not paying off for the working and middle classes. All boats are not rising with the tide.
Um, the first thing to mention here is this guy is filling in (if not ‘auditioning’) for the spot vacated by the ultra-conservative (and more than a little vacuous) John <gag> Tierney. The second thing to note is the ‘tone’ of this piece. Mr. Edsall comes across like the adult giving us children a scolding...for ‘playing’ at being adults.
The picture is a paint-by-the-numbers portrait of the greedy picking the pockets of the needy. The villains are C.E.O.s, investment bankers and corporate managers who refuse to pass on profits in the form of higher wages. The victims are workers who struggle to deal with an increasingly unreliable and, for many, unrewarding marketplace — producing more while under the constant threat of job, health care and pension loss.
Here he provides an accurate assessment of the situation...but look at how he presents it!
Villains, victims and paint by the numbers!
He seems to be saying, “Okay kiddies, you want the truth? Here’s the ‘truth’...not that you’ll understand it.”
Why is it that rogues and scoundrels always insist that the situation is ‘too complex’ for the average person to understand?
That said, does anyone else see a bushwhacking in the making here?
Here’s the ‘set-up’:
A solid block of Democrats who won this month — Jon Tester, James Webb, Sherrod Brown and Heath Shuler included — is inclined to put the brakes on all cross-border activity (otherwise known as globalization): trade, outsourcing and the flow of human labor. Nolan McCarty of Princeton, writing with two colleagues, has provided some empirical data supporting the argument that immigration has led “to policies that increase economic inequality.” Significant numbers within the Democratic Party agree with this reasoning.
And here it is:
The protectionist wing will likely hold sway at least in the first few months of the 110th Congress. Over time, however, Faux and his allies are likely to fail. The forces of international competition have proved more powerful than any government, and advocates of aggressive policies to constrain them face a porous, borderless and now highly electronic international economy. Legislation can require American companies to distribute profits to workers, but it will be virtually impossible to enforce as competition razes companies playing by those rules.
To which I would comment that he’s only half-right. Things that can be done over a wire are virtually impossible to police but sealing the borders and protecting markets for tangible goods are a different matter entirely. So Mr. Edsall, contrary to your assertion, globalization is not ‘unstoppable’.
I might also add just how ‘labor intensive’ manufacturing is. Sealing our borders against imported goods will create jobs, lots of jobs, jobs for everyone, let the immigrants come!
Interestingly enough, jobs create taxpayers and taxpayers build infrastructure...which is exactly what made the USA great!
I’m abusing fair use here but this quote is too good to leave out:
Globalization “needs to be controlled and slowed down because of the brutal destruction and vast imbalances of wealth it causes,” Jeff Faux, a stalwart of the protectionist wing on the Democratic left, writes in Dissent magazine. "The nihilistic vision of the world as an accelerating treadmill of constant insecurity, jobs with longer hours and shorter pay ... the triumph of dog-eat-dog competition ... is a vision of hell."
Well said Jeff; it’s my idea of hell too, hell right here on earth.
Which brings us full circle to that juicy bone Mr. Edsall has given us to chew on. Is it possible to legislate our way back to economic solid ground? Would the raising of wages and the sealing of our borders cause major employers to bail...possibly with catastrophic consequences?
Where would Wal-Mart be without China and the influence it wields over its suppliers?
Link that thought to the fact of just who, no matter how sad a statement/indictment of our society it is, is currently the nation’s single largest employer...
I could go on, there are many factors to consider but in the end it comes down to one. Are we, as a people, willing to bite the bullet and do what needs doing or are we doomed to perish underneath the ever-accelerating corporate treadmill?
The choice is, unfortunately, not yours to make. Our legislators will decide.
Should our legislators ball this up attempting to reach some half-baked compromise, the suffering will be...well, the word ‘unimaginable’ comes to mind.
Not only do we face the fight of our lives but, and I can’t stress this strongly enough, we are literally fighting for our lives!
No one should miss the irony of how free trade results in a non-competitive marketplace and it is exactly this non-competitive environment that threatens us with third world status!
Because that’s where the ‘bottom’ is and the ‘race’ (if that’s what we want to call it) is being driven by...Mr. Edsall’s ‘villains’ if you will.
That said, there can be no struggle without sacrifice.
You, good citizen, have but one power, the power to refuse.
Faced with the choices of a never-ending treadmill (literally hell on earth) and the chance that we can restore equality and justice to our nation we must use our weapon wisely, the way our grandparents did when they participated in creating the union movement.
Our legislators WON’T fight the forces of globalization if they aren’t CONVINCED we have their back and that we, the people, are willing to ‘go to the wall’ to turn things around.
There will be some difficult choices ahead, but given the alternatives, I think the choice is clear.
If we fail to take back our nation then the land we once loved will disappear.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner