Globalization Apologists to America: Its all YOUR Fault!

An article from the Yale Center for Globalization (Studies?) highlights, again, the supreme arrogance of the globalization intelligensia: there is nothing to fear, if you would only save more, pay higher taxes, stop opposing global trade agreements and do what we say.

American health care, probably the best in the world, is "too expensive" in the eyes of the Globalization Mafia.  Instead -- we should reduce our standards to reflect that of the global marketplace, they say.  The American savings and tax rate is too low, we are told, and that,they say, is causing declining American wages and our standard of living.We should raise taxes and increase our savings -- even though we are earning less than we used to.

Nonsense.  The cause of America's decline is globalization, if only the pointy-headed academics and their fully-bought minions in Congress would wake up.

The globalization Kool-Aide has been drunk for nearly 30 years by members of Congress who have have drunk at the well of those who most benefit from it: Corporate executives and corporations.

When you buy your Levi's, you pay more than you did ten years ago, in real dollars, even though they're no longer made by unionized workers in the United States and Canada.  (They're made by a contract manufacturer with a plant in the Free Trade Zone between Haiti and the Dominican Republic by workers who earn less than $5 per day.  Your Levi's are about as American as Juan Valdez' coffee beans, except for the profits rung up by the corporate headquarters -- the ones who continue to con you with the ironic image of American cowboys in their advertising campaigns.

But the biggest lie of those who suppor it is: globalization hasn't brought prosperity to the poor countries where work has been "outsourced".  When the profits aren't retained in the country, and only the labor is exploited, there is no "net gain", except for the owners of capital.  (Even David Riccardo, the father of free trade writing 200 years ago, knew this; he imagined trade among nations, not trade among vast multinational enterprises seeking only the lowest cost of labor. I suspect he would be amazed at how his logical assertions have been bastardized by the marketplace that exists today.)

So the trade apologists will tell you that you have to accept lower wages, higher taxes, and less benefits because that is the new order that they and their Congressional minions have foisted upon us.  But some of us believe that American jobs come before multinational profits; that the American standard of living is more important than the bastardized writings of a long-dead economist.

For us, there is the hope that Americans can continute to rear children and plenty of them.  For us, there is the promise that the American worker can fulfill the needs of the American marketplace.  For us, there is the demand that we put American interests first in the conduct of trade.  And for ourselves and those generations yet unborn, we will accept nothing less from our elected officials: if you wish to trade with America, you will employ American labor standards in the workplace; you will provide American style benefits to your workers; and, you will retain your profits in your country.  When America signs a bilateral trade agreement with a country like Mexico, German and Japanese companies like Mercedes and Sony won't be free to exploit the American marketplace from a Mexican base.  If you want to sell to Americans, build your plants here or ship in your goods.

Now, lets see how many advocates of "free trade" in those countries and here are willing to meet that challenge. My bet is they'll fold up like a cheap suit.