NAFTA

Off Shoring Ruined Incomes and Jobs for Most Americans

By paul craig roberts
walmart1-Optimized.jpg

The free trade theory set out by David Ricardo at the beginning of the 19th century is merely a special case, not a general theory.

These are discouraging times, but once in a blue moon a bit of hope appears. I am pleased to report on the bit of hope delivered in March of 2011 by Michael Spence, a Nobel prize-winning economist, assisted by Sandile Hlatshwayo, a researcher at New York University. The two economists have taken a careful empirical look at jobs off-shoring and concluded that it has ruined the income and employment prospects for most Americans. (Image: fisserman)

To add to the amazement, their research report, "The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge,"was published by the very establishment Council on Foreign Relations.

For a decade I have warned that US corporations, pressed by Wall Street and large retailers such as Wal-Mart, to move offshore their production for US consumer markets, were simultaneously moving offshore US GDP, US tax base, US consumer income, and irreplaceable career opportunities for American citizens.

Obama Brings You More Bad Trade Deals

Obama 2008 Campaign Flier
Whenever there is noise in the media machine, you can be sure some agenda the American people absolutely reject will be enacted. Such is the case with the Obama administration moving forward on three more NAFTA style trade agreements with Columbia, Panama and South Korea. These are trade pacts multinational corporate lobbyists demand.

The South Korean trade pact increases the trade deficit and puts U.S. workers in more unfair labor competition. Even with a new biased USTR study, littered with fantasy tariff schedules and nebulous additional regulation requirements, cannot hide the fact this trade deal increases the deficit. The new report was requested by Republicans since they didn't like the dismal results of the previous study. Regardless of the spaghetti wording, the bottom line is imports, just in autos & parts, will increase $907 million while exports will increase $48–66 million. In other words, the Obama administration and Congress know this trade deal will increase the deficit and cause further job losses. They want it anyway.

(The image is a 2008 Obama campaign flier. All three of these trade agreements are structured like NAFTA.)

Saturday Reads Around The Internets - Banksters & Bad Trade

shocknews
Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.

No Charges....Again for the Banksters

AIG, Goldman Sachs, Countrywide...the list goes on and on. To date there have been no real consequences or criminal charges for the people who committed the biggest fraud in history which brought the globe's economy to it's knees. The latest is Lehman Brothers:

The U.S. government's investigation into the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has hit daunting hurdles that could result in no civil or criminal charges ever being filed against the company's former executives, people familiar with the situation said.

In recent months, Securities and Exchange Commission officials have grown increasingly doubtful they can prove that Lehman violated U.S. laws by using an accounting maneuver to move as much as $50 billion in assets off its balance sheet, which made it appear that the securities firm had reduced its debt levels.

SEC officials also aren't confident they could win any lawsuit accusing former Lehman employees, including former Lehman Chief Executive Richard Fuld Jr., of failing to adequately mark down the value of the large real-estate portfolio acquired in Lehman's takeover of apartment developer Archstone-Smith Trust or to disclose the resulting losses to investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

WTO Rules in China's Favor

EXPLOITATION, INC.: David Rockefeller and Adventures in Global Finance

Preamble

[New comments added as of 20:30 PM, same date]

We seldom hear pertinent, nor factual news, anymore, but when we do the stories are fed to us as discrete events, having no connection or bearing with one another.

Throughout this post I intend to fill in the back story and elaborate the connections between these various news bytes.

Sometimes the information provided may appear circumstantial, but courtroom convictions occur on such evidence, and when there is an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence, the conclusion becomes glaringly obvious.

Hillary and Obama on Trade

Originally posted on the NoSlaves.com blog. Today is the Pennsylvania Primary, so reviewing actual positions is relevant

While the choices for President slim down to next to none, one might evaluate positions instead of joining the various cheer leading camps. Who, overall has the best trade, economic positions to stop this global train wreck?

Firstly any group name calling someone protectionist because they acknowledge the obviously massive ~5.6% GDP trade deficit, is obviously not basing their economics on anything remotely resembling reality. The reason I link to this Pro Obama group is because they want more bad trade agreements. They assessed Obama as more of a corporate free trader than Hillary. Below are some statements from the two for easy comparison contrast.

Manufacturing Trade Before & After NAFTA

Here is a new industry-by-industry analysis of US/Mexico Manufacturing trade before and after NAFTA.

With the Manufacturing sector in crisis as the US enters a new recession, you may find of interest my attached analysis of US/Mexico Manufacturing and other goods trade for the three years before Nafta compared with the most recent three years.

In the three years prior to Nafta, 1991-1993, the US Manufacturing sector enjoyed a combined surplus of $19.2 billion with Mexico. However, over the most recent three years, 2005-2007, US Manufacturing continued to suffer successive record deficits totaling -$188.3 billion for the three years. Note that the US Manufacturing deficit with Mexico now far exceeds even the US deficit with Mexico for Mineral Fuels. Indeed, in 2007 the US deficit with Mexico in Electrical Machinery alone was larger than the US deficit with Mexico in Mineral Fuels.

Unpublished

Rising Above The Gathering Storm

This is a blog I wrote last year.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE
The National Academies was asked by Senator
Lamar Alexander and Senator Jeff Bingaman of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, with
endorsement by Representative Sherwood Boehlert and
Representative Bart Gordon of the House Committee on
Science, to respond to the following questions:
What are the top 10 actions, in priority order, that
federal policymakers could take to enhance the sci-
ence and technology enterprise so that the United
States can successfully compete, prosper, and be
secure in the global community of the 21st centu-
ry? What strategy, with several concrete steps,
could be used to implement each of those actions?

Page 8
BEST AND BRIGHTEST [where have we heard that before? Google it.]
IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING HIGHER EDUCATION

RECOMMENDATION C: Make the United States the

Reasons to feel hopeful

Two news stories caught my eye.

1. An op-ed by Robert Reich in today's NYT titled "Totally Spent". He writes:

The only lasting remedy, other than for Americans to accept a lower standard of living and for businesses to adjust to a smaller economy, is to give middle- and lower-income Americans more buying power — and not just temporarily.

The only way to keep the economy going over the long run is to increase the wages of the bottom two-thirds of Americans. The answer is not to protect jobs through trade protection. That would only drive up the prices of everything purchased from abroad. Most routine jobs are being automated anyway.

Manufacturing Jobs - US Wages Dramatic Decline

Along with the loss of -3.3 million Manufacturing jobs over the last seven years, a report just released by the BLS shows average hourly compensation for US Manufacturing jobs fell from the world’s 4th highest in 2000 to the world’s 14th highest in 2006. Japan’s Manufacturing jobs were the 2nd highest paid in 2000 but plunged to rank only 16th in 2006.

Pages