Please explain something to my economically ignorant ass

Just how in all of god's green earth will allowing goods (and services) to flow into the country from Korea, Columbia, and Panama unhindered by import duty increase the number of Americans with jobs?

I heard on the radio (NPR) around noon today that President Obama said that now we would be able to import cheaper Kias and Hundai's and then added, I hope they will buy some Fords and Chevys in return.

What? Fuck that!

How about for every Ford and Chevy they buy from us we'll allow them to import 1 car of their choosing? How about we get some sort of guarantee that American products will be traded in these fucking deals? And how about a sunset on these fucking deals so that they can be allowed to die (Yeah, just like the Bush Tax Cuts) if the agreements do not work out?

I don't think that "hope" shit is selling anymore.

But there are globalists who have sold us out. :(

part-time, of course.

was dead on with that "Giant Sucking Sound". Everything he said has come to pass.

in the long run, those countries will profit and eventually they will spend that profit, perhaps directly on american goods and services, perhaps it goes to some other country, and indirectly works its way back to american goods and services.

eventually, we specialize in what we're good at and they specialize in what they're good at. if they have a competitive advantage in providing cheap manufacturing labor, then they become home to manufacturing jobs and america's manufacturing jobs market suffers. however, because all that profit is flowing back to us, we have a boom in whatever the hell it is that we're good at.

near as i can figure, that's (a) owning things and (b) as george carlin said, bombing brown people. so down the road there will be a greater demand for owners (good luck getting into that club) or in the military.


of course, this neglects the fact that in the SHORT run, which actually matters quite a lot for actual human beings, the jobs go away really fast and the demand from overseas for american specialities takes a while, possibly a good long while, to materialize. witness how long china and india have been taking our jobs and yet their burgeoning middle class is hardly clammoring for american-made anything.



generally speaking, i think open trade relations are a good thing, but the short run cannot be neglected. tariffs should be phased out gradually, not abolished quickly; laborers should be retrained and compensated, not simply let go; and of course, the agreement should be fair in BOTH directions. they should not be able to dump goods to destroy our markets nor manipulate their currency or otherwise subsidize with industry in a way that we don't.

less and less to sell in this country and more and more that we buy from other nations. Beside that did not seem to be the case with NAFTA. How long do we have to wait. "Friedman's free market economy and the globalization of the world does not seem to be working anywhere except in China and India.

if they let exchange rates float, then suddenly chinese goods would be more expensive, so we would import less and buy more domestically; meanwhile, american exports TO china would become cheaper and the chinese would find their purchasing power much greater. both effects would benefit the american economy.

but the real problem is that it may take a generation or so before places like china and india have a strong middle class that has a sizeable demand for imports from places like america.


all well and good in the long run, but actual humans die waiting.

but of the corporate oligarchs taking advantage of wage arbitrage. When wages in China and other currently low wage nations gets too high, you'll see the flow of jobs from them to the next countries to open up sweatshops and the like.

IMO, letting financial capital flow freely across boarders shouldn't be allowed without allowing the flow of human capital. If we want free trade with a country, then we should allow the free flow of labor and citizens between the two countries as well, we should be able to live and work in their country and they in ours.

...and it follows exactly the same outrageous, vomit-inducing pattern of all the other corporate legislation he has shoved down our throats. People cheer and support all this crap initially because it comes from Democrats, and they don't look at the consequences until it's passed and in place, and people start to suffer from it.

It was that way with the health insurance crap, and now premiums are skyrocketing and we are forced to buy the product. It is that way with the Super Theft Committee, which will now make draconian cuts to social programs and use Medicare and Social Security as hostages. It is that way with these disgusting trade deals that will siphon jobs from our economy. And now they are gearing up for some bloody high-grade insanity with this "act of war" crap regarding Iran.

We are smack in the middle of Bush's third term. Yeah, there's a different name on the door, but the agenda is proceeding apace.

if we get all these job killing regulations off the backs of Big Corporations,
business will BOOM,
and the RICH will create a lot of jobs for us.
Its just like in the Gilded Age when there weren't restrictions on Corporations,
and they could do whatever they wanted.
That was a GREAT time for the Working Class in America.


The Gilded Age WAS a wonderful time
....for the Top 1%.
They are buying a NEW Gilded Age 2.0,
and the Centrist New Democrat Party is more than happy to oblige.

It is NOT possible to push MORE "Free Trade",
and support the American Working Class at the same time.
The two positions are Mutually Exclusive.

Pick ONE.
Obama has already picked his.



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity99!
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'“The revised agreement,” said UAW President Bob King, “creates significantly greater market access for American auto exports and contains strong, auto-specific safeguards to protect our domestic markets from potentially harmful surges of Korean automotive imports.”

Under the provisions of the renegotiated agreement, the 2.5 percent U.S. tariff on automobiles will stay in place until the fifth year after implementation of the agreement, and the 25 percent tariff on light trucks remains until the eighth year, when it starts to be phased down. Moreover, Korea will immediately reduce its electric car tariffs from 8 percent to 4 per cent, and will phase out the tariff by the fifth year of the agreement.'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x796243

The national labor leaders make 7 figure incomes and have more in common with the crowd at the country club and Wall Street than their members.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/business/economy/us-exports-rise-to-record-as-trade-deficit-shrinks.html

"WASHINGTON — American manufacturers sold more cars, airplanes and industrial machinery in foreign markets in July, sending exports to a record high and pushing the trade deficit down to its lowest level in three months, the Commerce Department reported Thursday."




Regardless of what some doomsayers insist, the US is the third largest exporter on Earth, looking at almost 1 1/2 trillion dollars in exports this year. We DO still make stuff, although not as much relative to the rest of the world as we used to. And maybe half of those exports are food, not a lot of the cheap plastic shit we import, but we still export a lot of cars, electronics, machine tools, airplanes, and tractors.

Free trade agreements mean it's easier for us to SELL stuff to countries we're already buying a lot of stuff from.

A company that's perceived to be "American" (by virtue of holding onto a name that has always been associated with being AMERICAN), closes/downsizes facilities IN the USA, and outsources much of the manufacturing process...then "sells" those products "abroad".. Possibly no American hands ever touched those products.

Bear in mind also, that some of these American companies offshore their HQ in the Caymans (or in other tax havens) and avoid paying taxes

plants here to serve the local market and some exports. We win some and we lose some. It's all part of the same plan, and it's just out of balance at the moment, not the end of the world.

It is expected that China, having over three times our population, will have around three times our GDP at some point. It's pretty much a given that industrial nations end up with similar per capita GDP and similar standards of living. The largest problem we face is simply that the planet can't support the living standards of the US, Europe, and Japan for its entire population-- China is already showing that as their standards rise, ours must fall at least a little, and when India, South America, and Africa catch up, we're in really deep shit.

But, exports are exports, and we don't count GE dishwashers made in India and sold to Bahrain as exports. If you are going to make the point about profits, jobs, and whatevers being exported, be precise about just what is being lost here and don't just throw out buzzwords and catchphrases.

(Throwing out buzzwords and catch-phrases is what the other side does.)

if Mississippi agrees to import the same amount of stuff from Connecticut.

Right?

It's not so easy to relocate from the US to S. Korea.

is if the "other nations" abolish their protectionist tariffs.

If the Koreans ship five $30,000 cars to the US while purchasing one $150,000 machine tool or they send us a cargo ship full of Hyundai semitrailers while buying a cargo ship full of wheat, and there's no duty either way, we're okay.