More downward pressure on global wages could backfire...

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Jimzz

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2012
4,399
190
106
Have we gone so far now that you cannot find the products. Entire industries have now been wiped out and will not be able to return because nobody here knows the process well enough to simply bring it back. Free trade wouldn't be an issue if it were truly "Fair Trade" but it's not and it isn't going to be.

To those that say simply suck it up and it's a global economy....just remember that when you complain about the 47% not paying federal taxes or asking for more government services (welfare, healthcare, etc). It all stems from the wage loss of previous decades that continues to drive us ALL down, and if you think you're immune to it, you would be wrong. When the general wage base goes down, it effects you and most of you don't even realize it.

As Zebo says....cheap is more expensive.

They are still out there but people want cheap items and they want them now. If you want quality you need to search for it.
People are lazy and don't think long term so when their wages go down they try to blame others when it started right with them.
 

nehalem256

Lifer
Apr 13, 2012
15,669
8
0
Both Dems and Republicans foster outsourcing, if both parties were not for it then something would have been done about it by now. Both parties also enable illegal aliens to be here by twiddling their thumbs and ignoring the issue...Stopping immigration ? Both parties would laugh at that idea, and the few politicians who would agree its a good idea would be labeled "Racists" in the press the next day and their careers ruined. In short none of that is going to happen.

This.

I would even argue for placing more blame on the Democratic Party. They are suppose to be the party that stands up for the working man. What have they done in the last 40 years to address the points in the OP?

Nothing. In fact they appear to be so out of touch that they blame it on Reaganomics. I think "Voodoo" Economics is an understatement for policies that can apparently affect things 10+ years before they were implemented.
 

peonyu

Platinum Member
Mar 12, 2003
2,038
23
81
I beg to differ....

http://www.woodcountydemocrats.com/...took-office&catid=53:press-releases&Itemid=96

Here’s just a short list of some of the bills that Republicans have blocked, or attempted to block, since Obama became President:

Tax on Companies that ship jobs overseas- A bill that would have eliminated a tax break that companies get when they ship jobs overseas. Republicans blocked this, allowing companies to keep the tax break they receive when they ship jobs to other countries.


Both parties are to blame, who oversaw NAFTA/CAFTA [the top two bills that enabled outsourcing to Latin America] ? It was Bill Clinton, and he is still one of the most respected Democrat around. What did he do to try and keep American jobs here other then sign then away to Mexico or somewhere else. Nothing, he happily signed the documents he helped to create.

China is the main contributer with outsourcing but its just a symptom of the overall problem. If Democrats were truely "for the people" and not for the money then they would never had passed NAFTA or atleast would try and repeal it today to bring some jobs back home.
 

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,234
701
126
Both parties are to blame, who oversaw NAFTA/CAFTA [the top two bills that enabled outsourcing to Latin America] ? It was Bill Clinton, and he is still one of the most respected Democrat around. What did he do to try and keep American jobs here other then sign then away to Mexico or somewhere else. Nothing, he happily signed the documents he helped to create.

China is the main contributer with outsourcing but its just a symptom of the overall problem. If Democrats were truely "for the people" and not for the money then they would never had passed NAFTA or atleast would try and repeal it today to bring some jobs back home.

I agree on both sides. They all promote (so called) free trade as a panacea for American standard of living and it's rise. As for NAFTA, Reagan dreamed it up, George H.W. Bush got it signed by the countries but was kicked out of office before the Congress passed it. Clinton signed it.

Hilary stated recently that she wondered if we thought that through very well or not. Obviously not.
 

Ausm

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
25,215
14
81
Both parties are to blame, who oversaw NAFTA/CAFTA [the top two bills that enabled outsourcing to Latin America] ? It was Bill Clinton, and he is still one of the most respected Democrat around. What did he do to try and keep American jobs here other then sign then away to Mexico or somewhere else. Nothing, he happily signed the documents he helped to create.

China is the main contributer with outsourcing but its just a symptom of the overall problem. If Democrats were truely "for the people" and not for the money then they would never had passed NAFTA or atleast would try and repeal it today to bring some jobs back home.

In this context, I agree with you 100%. I personally believe that NAFTA and Glass-Steigall both Republican originated ideas were the worst things Clinton ever signed into law.
 

BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,563
9
81
The great service economy experiment ....heh.

A 95% service economy (or higher) is the end game. Technology will see to that. Bringing manufacturing back to the US is a bandaid on a long term problem. You had better figure out how to keep people busy when the production of the entire world's physical goods can be produced by a relatively tiny number of people with fully automated factories. It's not as far away as you think.
 

Pr0d1gy

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2005
7,775
0
76
In this context, I agree with you 100%. I personally believe that NAFTA and Glass-Steigall both Republican originated ideas were the worst things Clinton ever signed into law.

While it is your personal belief, it is a well known fact to most people that aren't bought off by one party or the other.
 

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,234
701
126
A 95% service economy (or higher) is the end game. Technology will see to that. Bringing manufacturing back to the US is a bandaid on a long term problem. You had better figure out how to keep people busy when the production of the entire world's physical goods can be produced by a relatively tiny number of people with fully automated factories. It's not as far away as you think.

Long before we get close to that, there will be a war and wipe it all out. The reset button will have been pressed and a reboot will start. We might be near a breaking point already (see Greece, etc).
 

BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,563
9
81
Long before we get close to that, there will be a war and wipe it all out. The reset button will have been pressed and a reboot will start. We might be near a breaking point already (see Greece, etc).

You're saying world war is inevitable. If that's true then why bother trying to fix it? Let's just enoy the ride to oblivion.
 

Albatross

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2001
2,343
5
81
In a couple of decades most of the world will be middle class,if something major doesn`t rock the boat.
Nations on the top now will be most affected but there is little anyone can do about it.
 

Pr0d1gy

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2005
7,775
0
76
Please clarify.

NAFTA and Glass-Steagall were the two worst moves of Clinton's regime, if you aren't drinking the company Kool Aid. Monica was decent looking so I can't honestly say that was nearly as bad of a move.
 

BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,563
9
81
In a couple of decades most of the world will be middle class,if something major doesn`t rock the boat.
Nations on the top now will be most affected but there is little anyone can do about it.

On a global scale, the citizens of western economies are all 1%ers (well maybe 5%ers). Middle class on a global scale means you can afford to eat, rather than the truly poor who starve. We've been spoiled for a long time, and global competition is eating our lunch.
 

Pr0d1gy

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2005
7,775
0
76
On a global scale, the citizens of western economies are all 1%ers (well maybe 5%ers). Middle class on a global scale means you can afford to eat, rather than the truly poor who starve. We've been spoiled for a long time, and global competition is eating our lunch.

*sigh* What's the point of even bothering to correct the blabbering anymore?

We "got our lunches ate" because the idiots running companies in this country started cutting corners to increase profit. It is a problem that still exists and just seems to continually get worse. We all know this, yet you still bury your head in the sand and scream competition, laziness, and so forth; forever spewing the corporate PR nonsensical bullshit.

Jesus man, grow the fuck up.
 

Matt1970

Lifer
Mar 19, 2007
12,320
3
0
We live in a global economy. We have to deal with globalized labor. It is imo out of our hands. Erecting a wall around the country will only be a barrier to being a competitive economy long term. It will raise prices for not only goods but also labor. Eventually that would bite us right in the ass worse than this issue of having our unskilled workers competing with foreign unskilled workers.

We are compassionate people. We want all kinds of regulations and laws passed that keep workers safe, protect the environment, promote equality in the workplace and provide a minimum wage, overtime laws and worker rights. We demand equality and prohibit discrimination. It may cost a little more, but we are compassionate people.

Then we turn around and buy the majority of our crap from people who promote none of that.
 

Paul98

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2010
3,732
199
106
Maybe with countries like China and India getting better wages and growing the way they are we will start to see things in the USA start to turn around.
 

BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,563
9
81
*sigh* What's the point of even bothering to correct the blabbering anymore?

We "got our lunches ate" because the idiots running companies in this country started cutting corners to increase profit. It is a problem that still exists and just seems to continually get worse. We all know this, yet you still bury your head in the sand and scream competition, laziness, and so forth; forever spewing the corporate PR nonsensical bullshit.

Jesus man, grow the fuck up.

Your continued personal attacks are amusing, considering the immature nature of everything you post.

How are you going to export all these trinkets we manufacture if our labor costs continue to go up at a faster rate than the rest of the world in our attempt to prop up the middle class via regulation? Do you really think the Chinese are going to buy Made In The USA items just to keep US citizens fat and happy? Unless you plan to become isolationist through trade barriers (and we all know how much Democrats made fun of people like Ron Paul for being isolationists) then you can't fight labor arbitrage through regulation. The average lifestyle of the world will even out over time, just as it did first at a local level, then at a state level, then at a national level as technology allowed greater and greater trade to occur on a mass scale. Argue with a glass of water against equilibrium all you like, you can't change reality.
 

Pr0d1gy

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2005
7,775
0
76
Your continued personal attacks are amusing, considering the immature nature of everything you post.

It's just so easy with Ron's face staring at me and your continued rinse and repeat of right wing propaganda. The good thing is I didn't bother reading the rest of your asinine post and I will just ignore you and save us both the trouble since thinking for yourself seems to be an issue. Keep blabbing the talking points. hahaha
 

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,234
701
126
Maybe with countries like China and India getting better wages and growing the way they are we will start to see things in the USA start to turn around.

Africa has hundreds of millions of people that beg to differ (the next big thing after the other big things).
 

Pr0d1gy

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2005
7,775
0
76
Africa has hundreds of millions of people that beg to differ (the next big thing after the other big things).

I wonder if all the production will ever move there? Or maybe by then the robots will have taken over and make them the 1% and punish the rest of us for being such doucehbags. heh
 

1prophet

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
5,313
534
126
I beg to differ....

http://www.woodcountydemocrats.com/...took-office&catid=53:press-releases&Itemid=96

Here’s just a short list of some of the bills that Republicans have blocked, or attempted to block, since Obama became President:

Tax on Companies that ship jobs overseas- A bill that would have eliminated a tax break that companies get when they ship jobs overseas. Republicans blocked this, allowing companies to keep the tax break they receive when they ship jobs to other countries.
Stop drinking the Obama Koolaid, it makes you no different than the republican assholes you rail against.
http://workinprogress.firedoglake.c...ea-free-trade-heres-where-they-used-to-stand/

http://firedoglake.com/2010/12/03/u...rade-sells-out-taxpayers-who-bailed-them-out/

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/20...ver-obamas-nafta-style-korea-free-trade-deal/
UAW To Support NAFTA-Style Korea Free Trade, Sells Out Taxpayers Who Bailed Them Out

By: Jane Hamsher Friday December 3, 2010 8:25 pm
Tweet88

UAW's Bob King, who dineth on the White House weenies

FDL has learned that the UAW, which was bailed out by American taxpayers two short years ago, will endorse the trade pact and act as the liberal “postage stamp” for the deal. UAW President Bob King decided to endorse it despite strong opposition from his staff.


Earlier today, the White House invited interested parties to a briefing where they announced that they had reached a deal with Korea on a NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade Agreement. They embargoed the story until 7pm, however, so that they could go out in the dark of night.


According to sources close to the discussions, King was on a plane from Europe all day and when he landed, the first one who got him was Obama. King told UAW staff that he supports the deal because he trusts the President, and is confident that it will be a good deal for auto workers because Ford has endorsed it.


Ford, however, manufactures in China — and Thailand, and the Phillippines – and so what is good for Ford is not automatically good for the UAW. But by choosing to endorse this NAFTA-style free trade agreement, which includes many of the provisions that Obama promised to oppose on the campaign trail, King once again demonstrates that the UAW has become a Chinese-style union: much closer to the interests of management and the government than those of its line workers.


Tonight Sander Levin, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, has been on the phone trying to whip support for the bill. Heavy pressure is being brought to bear on United Steelworker President Leo Gerard, in an attempt to keep the AFL-CIO on the sidelines. Getting a rather cheap “give” from the Koreans to the auto industry to buy off the UAW was actually quite clever — because the Steelworkers are also being told that with all the cars that will be sold to Korea, there will be US steel used to make them.


Of course, that’s a crock. Korea would still face a lower tariff — 2% — in the US than the US will face in Korea — 4%.
The deal will devastate the building trade unions, also part of the AFL-CIO, who have been the hardest hit by NAFTA-style trade agreements. Much of their work has been building factories in the midwest, and as those factories get shipped overseas, their jobs have disappeared. In splitting the member unions, the administration hopes to sideline the powerful resources of the AFL-CIO which would otherwise organize to protect the building trades.


It’s quite a brilliant plan, which makes me suspect it didn’t originate at the White House. Unsurprisingly, the Chamber of Commerce has come out in support of the deal, and are already organizing online to pass it.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has also been on the phone, pressuring labor Presidents into supporting the trade deal. As someone who raised money for her and supported her when she was in congress, she can officially kiss my ass in Macy’s window.


The White House had recently told the building trade unions, that they had no intention of dealing with Korea Free Trade for another year. They used the same tactic with the Social Security groups earlier this year — telling them they would not take it up this year, knowing all the while they would spring the deficit commission on them imminently.


In June of this year, Obama said he wanted to submit the George W. Bush negotiated Korea Free Trade Agreement to a vote in Congress. That bill contains many provisions which are in violation of the pledges Obama made on the campaign trail, and there has been no signal from the White House or anyone else involved that any fixes have been made other than sweetheart deal for autos and beef.


Earlier this month, Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips launched a broadside attack against NAFTA-style free trade agreements. It will be an interesting first test for the freshmen Republican members of Congress — will they stick with the Tea Party activists who carried them into office, and who largely oppose such deals — or will they be captivated by Republican leaders like John Boehner, who (like Freedomworks head Dick Armey) strongly supported NAFTA?


It remains to be seen whether USW Leo Gerard will join with the UAW and help the White House undermine the building trade unions and ship more American jobs overseas. I hope not. The UAW are a bunch of selfish pigs and I have no problem joining hands in a transpartisan alliance against them, but I don’t want to wind up fighting Leo Gerard and the Steelworkers on this.


But we will fight them. Because this is a terrible, terrible deal for America, at a time when unemployment is soaring and the White House has zero plans for creating jobs — unless you’re in the international bank looting business. Everyone involved should be deeply, deeply ashamed of their participation in this, and we will do everything in our power to organize against its passage.
http://workinprogress.firedoglake.c...ea-free-trade-heres-where-they-used-to-stand/

http://firedoglake.com/2010/12/03/u...rade-sells-out-taxpayers-who-bailed-them-out/

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/20...ver-obamas-nafta-style-korea-free-trade-deal/

AFL-CIO Legislative Meeting Explodes Over Obama’s NAFTA-Style Korea Free Trade Deal

By: Jane Hamsher Monday December 6, 2010 10:17 am
Tweet28

Where's Leo?

It’s been over 48 hours and the only union response on Obama’s NAFTA-Style Korea Free Trade agreement has been a thumbs up from Bob King and the UAW.


But the thundering silence from the other unions is not indicative of what’s going on behind the scenes. At the AFL-CIO’s weekly Monday morning legislative meeting, the UAW tried to sell the deal to their fellow unions in the federation.


The unanimous disapproval from all the other unions was summed up in a 10 minute invective by Matt McKinnon, the Political Director of the Machinists, who said:

  • UAW President Bob King threw every other union under the bus, and did not even bother to call his fellow AFL-CIO union presidents who are most affected and involved in the trade debate before announcing to the world their shameful, betraying position (no doubt why Leo Gerard took a jab at King over the weekend).
  • It takes a fat load of nerve for the UAW to be asking others to abandon their long time positions just because the UAW went “yellow belly flip flop”
  • The UAW got nothing it wanted, and the auto provisions they got in exchange for their support are “worth a bucket of warm spit”
  • The deal will be the demise of not only UAW, but the 35% “rule of origin” provisions will be the China duty-free death knell for all US manufacturing – unless the other unions do the work to kill it. Such provisions require that only 35% of products coming into the US duty free be of Korean origin — the rest can come from parts made in China.
  • The deal replicates everything in NAFTA that they have all opposed forever
  • It’s vicious slap in the face by the White House – they do NOTHING to help labor, and then they do THIS?
  • It’s a suicide mission for the 2012 election
There was not one AFL-CIO union at the meeting who did not vigorously oppose the deal. But they have all remained silent so far, giving the White House three free days to whip support for the bill as if the UAW position represents them all.


Everyone is waiting to hear what Leo Gerard of the Steelworkers has to say. In the meantime, those of us who are out here alone trying to define the trade deal for what it is become low hanging fruit for the Chamber — and with the phalanx of paid trolls they’ve had across the internet, it was only a matter of time before this kind of personal slime started rolling out from anti-labor astroturf operations.


Which is to be expected when you cross the Chamber of Commerce, but for the record, my relationship with Andy Stern didn’t end over the public option, one of Andy’s enemies just made that up — a crook who isn’t fit to shine Andy’s shoes. Andy and I are still friends, and I congratulated him last week on voting against the Catfood Commission’s recommendations. His was by far the best plan, and it was the right thing to do.
In the mean time Sherrod Brown, Mike Michaud, Linda Sanchez, US Chamber Watch, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen and the Sierra Club have all been stars, working overtime this weekend to push back against the Chamber-generated propaganda. But we can’t carry this kind of heavy lift alone. Every hour that goes by, the narrative of the deal’s “glorious achievement” gets locked in, and it will be harder and harder to move people once they’ve already committed to support it. All the while, those out in front of the opposition become sitting ducks for the Chamber’s formidable resources.


It’s clear from what happened this morning that that UAW intends to try to block a tough AFL-CIO opposition to the deal, and demand that the federation sit it out.


Everyone is waiting on you, Leo. It’s time to do the right thing and oppose this deal for being the piece of shit you well know it to be — and call for the war against this and all such trade deals that everyone who cares about American jobs is ready and willing to fight.
 
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BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,563
9
81
It's just so easy with Ron's face staring at me and your continued rinse and repeat of right wing propaganda. The good thing is I didn't bother reading the rest of your asinine post and I will just ignore you and save us both the trouble since thinking for yourself seems to be an issue. Keep blabbing the talking points. hahaha

Reality is a talking point? You are truly ridiculous.