The average American, the rank and file, told USA Today/Gallup that 63% of them believed that free trade mostly hurts US workers. Some on the Hill are calling for wage insurance, which provides income as displaced workers transition toward new careers. Why should our government, the American taxpayer, subsidize work transition from a job making $31.50 an hour to $10-$12 an hour, while international elitists walk away with all the profits and benefits. Rescinding China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations status is a good idea from a currency manipulation standpoint, but let’s not go and do half the job, let’s cut status for all the unfair traders. Let’s cut to the chase, let’s have tariffs legislation on all foreign exporters.
Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who is running for president and Tim Ryan (D-OH), have presented the Fair Currency Act of 2007, classifies China as a currency manipulator in violation of US trade law, and they are right, but let’s go after all the violators and that is just about everyone else.
All this is going on and George and the neocons are trying to build support for so-called “fast track” authority to negotiate new agreements to expand trade. This in spite of the fact that free trade is destroying our country.
Alan Tonelson of the US Business Industry Council says, “We need to declare a moratorium on new trade agreements until we figure out how to do this right.” It seems they are losing too many members. Some economists have the gall to tell us the deficit is not a sign of economic decline. If it isn’t what is it? An adjustment to economic and financial oblivion. The deficit is unsustainable. What happens if other central banks stopped funding our profligacy? We saw investors fleeing the scene last month. If that persists for three months then it will all be up to the foreign central banks to carry the whole load. If the US changes trade policy we can expect a much lower dollar. The deficit is just one of the symptoms of an unfair free trade policy that allows transnational companies economic incentives and political clout to find ever cheaper ways of producing goods overseas. It is pretty simple - the scheme allows inexpensive imports to flow into our country replacing US-made products and workers. The result has been the decent of the American worker and the American family, and the destruction of our culture. The transnational conglomerates have allowed our people to become semi-slave labor. If it weren’t for credit cards, home equity loans, and mortgage cash outs consumer purchases would be dead in the water. Free trade is and was meant to destabilize our economy.
That beauty called NAFTA has cost us one million jobs and has put 20 to 30 million illegal aliens into our country, because it drove uneducated formers off the land and offered work for the Mexicans thrown out of jobs in Mexico into the US making more money than they ever dreamed of. Who could blame them for wanting work and higher wages? The trade deficit from 1993 to 2004 soared by $107.3 billion, a nearly 7-fold increase. NAFTA is bad for America, Mexico and Canada and the WTO is worse – much worse. They want to overrule our Constitution, courts and remove our sovereignty. International corporations have been allowed to run rampant. This is why a first step would be to repeal the president’s fast track authority. This allows the president to negotiate trade agreements without congressional commentary. The president submits the proposed deal for an up-or-down congressional vote, barring lawmakers from amending the agreement.
The trade deficit will be paid by our children and grandchildren and a continuation of free trade and globalization will destroy us.
Now we have health insurance companies using a bold data-running trick. You’ll receive a phone call from someone who will claim to be working with or for your health insurance company. They will have 20 minutes of questions for you to answer, which will pry deeply into your personal life. If you get such a call refuse to answer and do not allow them to intimidate you. This is part of the new world order attempt to find out everything they can about you. You can expect the first question to what is your height & weight. If you are overweight you are more likely to have physical problems.
Two large private-equity takeover schemes speculating on the price of housing, one in New York and the other in Dresden, Germany, are threatening to blow up, one on the direction of junk bonds, and the other in an IPO on the NYSE and Frankfurt stock markets. Their failure could start a default chain in the huge global bubble of takeover debt. The IPO Fortress is raising $650 million. The offering is based on the hedge fund’s large-scale holdings of apartments in German cities, which it bought up from municipalities and real estate firms. Some 600,000 apartments have been privatized, while still 3.3 million that are the residences of 10 million Germans remain owned by governments. Fortress is run by ex-bankers from Goldman Sachs and Lehman Bros., and claims to have $30 billion in assets. A good part of this inventory is in the impoverished city of Dresden, which sold all its 48,000 apartments for $1.2 billion. 45,000 tenants protested the sale. Real estate conditions in Dresden are bleak. The city has 15% unemployment and 40,000 vacant housing units. Many residents are paying no rent, because they have no significant income. Fortress cannot turn the apartments into condos under the buyout contract.