South Korea ‘Free Trade’ Deal: Another Funnel for Exploitation

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/03-5

While President Obama and most Congressional Democrats are allowing the Republicans to define America’s most urgent crisis as the budget deficit, the nation’s job deficit grows more dire day by day with no clear, forceful direction coming from the White House.

The adjusted growth rate for the first quarter of the 2011 “recovery” fell to be a miniscule 1.8 percent, sharply sliding from a more vigorous 3.1 percent in the last quarter of 2010. Private-sector jobs grew by a feeble 38,000 last month. Meanwhile, the most meaningful unemployment statistic is not the commonly cited 9 percent, but the “U-6” rate which includes those who have given up seeking work and those stuck in part-time jobs while wanting to work full tim. The U-6 rate now sits at 15 percent five years into the economic crisis.

Misery is pervasive, economist Richard D. Wolff notes grimly: “One in six members of the US labor force brings home little or no money, burdening family and friends, using up savings, cutting back on spending, etc.”

Unfortunately, Congress—blocked by intransigent Republicans and Democrats incapable of presenting a unified, coherent job-creation plan to the public—is headed in the direction of more domestic job destruction. The timing is unclear, but this summer, Congress may soon be debating a new “free trade agreement” with South Korea (known as “KORUS” to Washington insiders). If adopted, KORUS will only make the job deficit even worse and, ironically, Obama's re-election less likely.

More at the link --

[Brickbat]

1. K&R.

"Free trade" is anything but.