Globalization is DEAD!

[Joanne98]

China protests latest U.S. trade case at WTO

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Sunday it had consistently respected the rules of the World Trade Organization and would work with the WTO on a suit lodged against it by the United States aimed at halting export subsidy programs.

The United States began legal action at the WTO on Friday to halt Chinese government subsidy programs to boost the sale of Chinese-branded goods around the world.

The subsidies benefit a wide range of Chinese industrial sectors, including household electronic appliances, textiles and apparel, a range of light manufacturing industries, agricultural and food products, metal and chemical products, medicines and health products, the U.S. Trade Representative's Office said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/usPoliticsNews/idUKTRE4BK0UR20081221

Trade Barriers Toughen With Global Slump
Despite Free-Market Pledge, Many Nations Adopt Restrictive Policies

Only a few weeks after world leaders vowed at a Washington summit to reject trade protectionism and adhere to free-market principles as they combat the global financial crisis, a host of nations are already breaking that promise.

Moving to shield battered domestic manufacturers from foreign imports, Indonesia is slapping restrictions on at least 500 products this month, demanding special licenses and new fees on imports. Russia is hiking tariffs on imported cars, poultry and pork. France is launching a state fund to protect French companies from foreign takeovers. Officials in Argentina and Brazil are seeking to raise tariffs on products from imported wine and textiles to leather goods and peaches, according to the World Trade Organization.

The list of countries making access to their markets harder potentially includes the United States, where critics are calling the White House's $17.4 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry an unfair government subsidy that would put foreign competitors at a disadvantage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/21/AR2008122102171.html?hpid=topnews

Trade policies deserve blame for auto industry's downfall

No epithet these days seems too contemptuous in referring to the American auto industry's managerial competence, and no policy proposal too heartless in addressing the industry's high labor costs.

Yes, some of Detroit's injuries are self-inflicted. But no industry is perfect. Not in the United States and not anywhere else. Even the American financial services industry -- so recently held up as a poster child of supposedly world-class management -- is now seen to be less than infallible.

There was once a time -- some of us remember it well -- when Detroit led the world in both labor productivity and research and development.

What went wrong? The most important reason for Detroit's downfall has not been incompetent management -- the executives running the industry now are hewn from much the same timber as their predecessors of the 1960s. As for "greedy unions," labor seemed far more powerful in the 1960s than it does today (after all Detroit's wage rates in those days ran nearly four times those in Japan). The elephant in the room is unfair foreign trade practices.

http://www.freep.com/article/20081222/OPINION02/812220305

Reading the Tea Leaves on Trade
The early signs are not good.


We don’t yet know where President-Elect Barack Obama stands on international trade, but the early signs are troubling. In the election, his rhetoric was as protectionist as that of any serious presidential candidate in recent history. Yet he would also from time to time proclaim himself a free trader and his supporters would argue that internationalism is in his blood.

We could, of course, wait until the spring to see what policies the new Obama administration will pursue, but this is the season for poring over hints and clues. In a classic Sherlock Holmes story, the sleuth found an important clue in something that didn’t happen — a dog that didn’t bark. Perhaps the modern trade equivalent is a lame duck that didn’t quack — Congress’ failure to pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement before it adjourned.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjZmMTQxY2FhNzNjZmQzM2U2OWVlMDJhMzJjNTgwY2Q=

NEXT YEAR when the republicans try to save the most hated thing in the world (free trade agreements) THAT'S WHEN WE'LL MAKE OUR CASE THAT THE COUNTRY CAN'T RECOVER UNTIL ALL THE CONSERVATIVES ARE DEPORTED!

[goclark]

1. Early this morning they said on TV

that American purchased goods with other country was significantly down this month.

Didn't catch the percentage.

That is bad for our economy is what I believe I heard the MSM say.
:shrug:

Help me understand why we can't take care of our own people first by buying goods made in America?

:shrug:

[Citizen Number 9]

2. Because consumers have shown repeatedly

that they want to buy the cheapest shirt in the stack?

[goclark]

3. That should be a clue for our sellers

We need to try to sell as close to the cheapest as possible ~ do we do that ? :shrug:

Even in this economy, I would like to buy American Products if at all possible.

[Citizen Number 9]

4. WalMart sells for less

But no one seems to like them except the consumers who keep buying there.

I think US manufacturers went abroad to decrease their labor costs so their products could become more competitive in the markets.

[blue97keet]

5. I bought a made in USA snow shovel today

[Citizen Number 9]

9. I'm surprised you could even find one.

[blue97keet]

6. Help me understand why the world economy would'nt be

more stable if all nations took care of their own people first. Glad to see many are doing just that.

[anigbrowl]

7. Look up 'comparative advantage'

Good introduction here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. It better had be! Peope have had it up to here with the traitorous parasites.

[Danascot]

10. Everybody wins, except for most of us

I happened on a book recently on the costs of globalization - Everybody wins, except for most of us

"A key contribution of this book is simply to translate the costs of globalization for workers on the losing end into easily understandable terms: dollars per worker (or household). Using the best practices identified in the earlier trade andwages debate, this book finds that the annual losses to a full-time median-wage earner in 2006 total approximately $1,400. For a typical household with two earners, the loss is more than $2,500. These losses are as high or higher than other economic costs commonly presented as much more damaging to American families, such as the cost of health care, spikes in gasoline and fuel oil prices, the cost of a child’s four-year college education, or the funds needed to remedy a possible shortfall in the future of Social Security.

"To deal with a harm as large and widespread as that imposed by globalization, we need to think much more ambitiously about public policy that re-links aggregate and individual prosperity, a policy that uses all the levers available: social insurance, public investment, fairer economic rules, and redistribution when other tools fail to provide egalitarian outcomes. Further, despite much protestation to the contrary, the globalization status quo is at least as stingy to the poor trading partners of the United States as it is to American workers. There is no real danger to progressive goals in calling for its complete upending.

"So far we have been content to allow globalization without compensation to proceed apace. This complacency has already hurt us, and the damage will only grow in the future."

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/books_everybody_wins

http://www.epi.org/newsroom/releases/2008/11/081120_everybody_wins_pr.pdf

[mrreowwr_kittty]

11. Looks like a great read. nt

[unlawflcombatnt]

12. TARIFFS

The only way to solve the problem of outsourcing is through Tariffs.
Tariffs make it less profitable for traitorous American multinationals to move production facilities overseas, because tariffs raise ultimate price Americans have to pay for imports.

[notesdev]

13. Title gives me a chuckle

in that sad-but-oh-so-true sort of way

[angryfirelord]

14. The problem comes down to

the fact that we don't trade a good for a good. Free trade only works if everyone is on the same playing field. The problem is that China enacts tariffs on us and the Japanese government manipulates it currency and other trade deals so that it always has the advantage. Therefore, all these other governments and corporations get a free ride while the workers on both sides get shafted. It hurts with us since all our jobs get deported along with a growing trade deficit and it hurts the poor in other countries since now their old, village-style way of life is eroded away for 12+ hours a day of work.

Tariffs are the only way to put a stop to it. Alexander Hamilton enacted the first tariffs and it certainly saved our industry base. 25% should be the minimum.

[Danascot]

15. Another comment on globalization

Retailers are now ready to court the post-season shoppers. But no matter how low the prices drop, without credit or cash who can buy anything?

Reality may finally be hitting the United States, at least at home. The government is still begging foreign nations to let them borrow more of the funds we shipped out of the country over the past few decades as we sold ourselves out for cheep merchandise and oil. The average American citizen seems to have either run out of credit, started living on tighter budgets, or both.

If the U.S. is to survive economically we must get out of the “free trade” deals holding us back from good paying production and manufacturing jobs. Cheap foreign products are no good to us if we have no income to buy anything. This nation cannot and will not survive on low-level insourcing jobs, or working for chains like Wal-Mart. We need innovative and knowledge intensive production jobs.

We must also hold committees like CFUIS accountable and insure they stop foreign interests from buying us out. Every dollar that leaves this country will come back, either in loans that U.S. citizens will be paying interest on for perhaps centuries to come, or to buy us out on the open stock market.

This year Americans were shopping like we are in a Recession - because we are. It is about time our government started working like we are in a Recession and began protecting this nation’s economy, rather than propping it up with more and more foreign loans.

http://www.economyincrisis.org/articles/show/2251