I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the state of our Economy here in the USA. Just recently, George Ou wrote an article entitled A new era for China and a new era for the Internet.Not particularly taken by the article's sentiment, I responded with how I feel about China in general:
While I enjoyed Sunday morning watching on-line U.S. v China Basketball, and do enjoy the benefits of shopping at WalMart, I feel strongly that China is a failure in humanitarian terms with their historical treatment of the oppressed Tibet.Some interesting talkback from George Ou and John Carroll of ZDNet ensued and I was truly surprised at how what seems to me to be painfully obvious common sense has taken on such a perjorative connotation. So much of what is happening is central to our country's governing economic Foreign trade policy that the effects 'Free Trade' must be reexamined as to whether it is producing a net benefit to Americans. I say it isn't and so must change.
We continue to see evidence of their oppressive ways. Our trade deficit widens as we lose jobs and manufacture fewer goods for export. The so called 'global economy' is at work, but I see what has developed here in the U.S. as a by-product of rewarding Corporate America for off-shore labor practices and NAFTA and CAFTA all of which leaves Americans with fewer and fewer good paying jobs to come by.
To turn that around would take broad protectionism, exacting tariffs on trade imports to bring prices back in line where the same finished goods could be made here in the U.S.A. at a competitive price and return jobs back to America where they belong. We Americans are slowly losing our ability to sustain and be an self-sufficient nation who take care of their own first. We should be concerned about the effects China has on our way of life.
Watch Out America.
I've spent a few days, reviewing some of what was exhanged in the threads at George Ou's "Technology For Mortals" and came upon a recent article entitled
You Are a God Damn, *%$$%&*()!!* PROTECTIONIST!,
hence the title of the blog entry, which clarifies much of the issues of Protectionism vs. Free Trade.
It is interesting to note that George Ou's stance on Protectionism is almost 180 degrees from his employer's point of view.
Warren Buffett wrote a piece on Squanderville, which, although dated 2003, still provides clarity to the seriousness of our Trade Deficit.
We've had eight years of neglect and it's time for real 'change' in America. We need to make taking care of our own back yard priority one again.
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--Dietrich
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I whole-heartedly agree Dietrich.
I will first say that I am generally a political conservative from a constitutional perspective.
The global 'free' traders have an agenda and continually offer arguments which do not withstand scrutiny.
Multi-national corporations are content to sell-out our future for short-term profit. These companies have no allegiance to any nation. They see national sovereignty as detrimental to global trade. THEY CONTRIBUTE HEAVILY TO THE CAMPAIGNS OF ELECTED OFFICIALS IN BOTH PARTIES. Therein lies the problem.
We have been misled to believe that free trade is exactly that. It's not even close. We are forced to directly compete with nations which have far lower standards of living, no real environmental protections, and whose governments often subsidize the means of production. Many of these nations also erect artificial barriers to imports. What is sold to us as "free trade" is not free, fair, or equitable.
We've been told for 20 years that "engagement" with China will improve human rights conditions there. We have had ample time now to realize that this is absolutely false.
I am of the opinion that tariffs would have worked had the idea short-term patents and copyrights been enforced. We now have copyrights in perpetuity and patents on every obvious idea under the sun. This serves to greatly stifle innovation. Indeed because of the corruption of copyright and patent laws we are at risk of losing our lead in innovation. If we haven't already.
The multi-nationals have turned our economy into a service sector, IP house of cards. When times get tough the last thing people will be interested in is IP. They will seek hard goods necessary for survival. Less and less of which are made here.
One can argue that our national debt is to blame for the falling dollar. In part I would agree. However we must analyze the facts that the multi-nationals don't want known. Through our very lopsided trade with Asia and our importation of oil we have seen an unprecedented transfer of wealth flow from the U.S.
There is much more to this but my time is limited. In short, the multi-nationals do not care about you or me or our nation. They do not care about human rights or environmental protections. They only care about these things to the extent by they are obligated by law.
Contrary to the multi-national's best attempts to define it so, 'PROTECTIONISM' is not a dirty word.
Dietrich, I think you're mistaken in your characterization that I'm at 180 degrees from my employer.
http://www.dtschmitz.com/dts/2008/08/i-am-a-god-damn-protectionist.html
I think you're mistaken because I'm for free trade on ALL sides of the ocean. Rob is advocating MORE free trade and not LESS free trade which isn't protectionism. What Rob is saying is that countries like China and India are violating WTO free trade agreements and that we need to do something about it and I completely agree with him. That's NOT advocating that the USA switch to being equally protectionist; that's saying that China and India or any other country within the WTO need to honor their end of the bargain.
For me, if that means implementing the temporary nuclear option of imposing tariffs on our end which hurts them more a LOT more than it hurts us, then I'm all for it. I really doubt we'll even need to implement the nuclear option of temporary protectionism because the other nations will flinch long before we pull the trigger. So the ultimate goal here is NOT to implement protectionism; the ultimate goal is to have universal free trade going both directions.
That does NOT mean that we must have equal trade with equal results, just that we need a level playing field for American exports as other countries have a level playing ground in the USA (for the most part). So long as China and India are living on much lower wages (which is rapidly improving) and they're willing to give us their services and goods for less money, there will be a trade imbalance and that's ok. What is NOT ok is China and India violating their end of the WTO bargain with protectionism on their end. Once we enforce free trade on both ends, then it's certain that we'll see the trade deficit narrow.
So we may be talking past each other a bit considering the fact that you seem to be supportive Rob's position http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=7026.
All due respect Mr. Ou, you are ignoring a large part of the picture here.
All other things being equal (no import restrictions, tariffs, or government subsidies) "free" trade with China will continue to hurt us.
Under such conditions you still must address the fact that American workers will be forced to directly compete with their Chinese counterparts who work for a small fraction of what American workers earn. This will inevitably drive wages in America down as we approach parity.
When I speak of government subsidies I'm not just talking about
Chinese government investment in Chinese companies, I'm also talking about the lack of environmental protections (cost) and the lack of labor regulations (cost). The lack of these protections in China will ensure that we will always be at a disadvantage in a "free" market.
Those of us who know history understand that unregulated capitalism is a disaster. Simply because it is subject to the full spectrum of human nature. Good and Bad.
Around the turn of the 19/20th century we had huge conglomerates known as trusts. These huge trusts (monopolies) controlled everything from raw materials to production to distribution. Any new competition was immediately squashed. These trusts held all of the power in our nation and were in a position to dictate wages, hours, and working conditions, all of which were appalling. Most people had few alternatives if they wanted to eat. Thankfully Teddy Roosevelt rightly understood the injustice and the danger to our nation. He and his trust-busters went to work for the people of our nation. This was unprecedented at the time. TR was called every name in the book by these businessmen including "un-American". We all benefit from TR's efforts today.
The people who support "free trade" today are not much different from those who opposed TR and his trust-busters. Given the chance these people would return us to similar working conditions to enrich themselves. Bold statement to be sure but isn't that exactly what they are doing right now in China?