October 17, 2010
Wheeling Town Hall -- BIG Turnout -- Focus: Tax Breaks For Offshoring
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Driving across Ohio toward Wheeling you pass one small manufacturing company after another - but not too many with lots of cars in the employee parking lot. I stopped in a coffee shop in a small township. They offered me a cookie, and when I declined, the owner said, “We’re giving them away, it’s our last day.” After 14 years the shop and the restaurant next door are closing because the landlord is giving up, auctioning off the building, and they don’t see how they can reopen somewhere else and make it. Too many manufacturers in the area have had to close.
Every manufacturing job supports four or five other jobs in the economy. This is seven or eight more gone. The Cut Nail plant dominates a section of Wheeling. It closed last week, after 152 years in business. That's a lot more gone.
The Town Hall
Friday night I attended the Wheeling, WV "Keep It Made In America" Town Hall meeting. This was a BIG event – 600 attendees big
Many elected officials, starting with Governor Joe Manchi (now running for Senate) attended and spoke. Quite a few candidates for Congress attended and spoke as well. And there was a panel. The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register has a great writeup of the event.
The meeting began with a flag entrance presented by an honor guard of Young Marines:
This was a big event with a lot of speakers, so I'll only put up snippets of what was said. But the entire town hall was webcast live: see the recording of it here.
Alliance for American Manufacturing Executive Direct Scott Paul gave "manufacturing facts" between each speaker.
"Why should people care about manufacturing if they don’t work in a factory?
* Manufacturing provides 70 of all r&d;, 90% of all patents, so if you care about innovation, next best thing…
* Manufacturing largest purchasers of technology, so if you care about…
* Manufacturing still employs 12 million, sizable portion.
* Also manufacturing has a multiplier effect, each job supports 4 or 5 others in your community. More than any other.
* Finally manufacturing jobs pay 22% better."
Vice President of the United Steelworkers Tom Conway spoke first,
"Thanks for coming, having a discussion, about what we think is a crucial issue, and one that America has been struggling with for a while. We’ve lost 50-60,000 factories over the last few years and millions of jobs. Labor and management do not have the luxury of not being together on this. We need to be together on this. Doing it jointly, telling a common story.Trade is good but trade needs to be balanced, but now for 30 years we have had an imbalance that has gone on and one, and you can’t do that and expect to have a thriving economy, and think the country is going to exist off the growth in the financial services sector. Now 40% of our GDP comes from the financial services sector and you've all seen what’s happened.
You’ve got to have an economy that is based on something. You can’t keep having your best and brightest go to wall street.
It used to be there were two tickets into the middle class, get a union card or get a college degree.
Governor, Senate candidate Joe Mansion:
First question is will you support buy America policies? Made in America, even better.There is not one thing in free trade that talks about fair trade. We can compete with any workforce in the world as long as it is on a level playing field.
Currency manipulation 40%, no rules or regulations on environment, and then we give tat incentives to companies to move jobs offshore.
Charlie Wilson OH-6, which borders on Wheeling:
We all have common interest, returing to economic security, returning our neighbors back to work and returning our communities to prosperity is a priority for all of us.We shouldn’t be looking to advance new trade deals if the ones we have aren’t working. I’m proud to be a co-sponsor of Repeal NAFTA. Trade is important but it has to be fair trade and we have not had fair trade.
We have been outsourcing jobs, crippling thing in our economy, voted 2 times in last few weeks to close tax loopholes that encourage companies to outsource. How can we possibly justify rewarding people with tax breaks who send our jobs to other countries. Come here I’ll show you what has happened to our economy from jobs lost to trade deals.
The Conservative Tax Pledge
One speaker said something I want to hilight: Mike Oliverio, Congressional Candidate, WV-1, said something about the "Norquist No New Taxes Pledge" that I think was significant. Oliverio called it a pledge to keep those tax incentives for closing factories and outsourcing jobs.
I support legislation that prevent outsourcing of jobs, these tax giveaways have to stop, my opponent signed a tax pledge to continue these giveaways to corporations. I just can’t imagine how you can sign that kind of pledge in today’s world.
His opponent David McKinley:
The stimulus failed, only added debt to the government. We’re driving business away by overtaxing and overregulating. National Association of Manufacturers, Chamber of Congress, Tea Party backs me, Right to Life back me.I want to freeze tax rates where they are now to remove uncertainty. Create confidence what our tax structure is going to look like they will start hiring again. Eliminate overregulation of business.
Nancy Pelosi is toxic to our political environment.
About 3-400 other candidates spoke. The Libertarian Party, the Mountain Party, the Constitution Party, others.
The Panel
After approx 28,245 more candidates spoke there was an excellent panel discussion, moderated by Scott Paul, with
* Tom Conway, VP USW
* Kenny Perdue, AFL-CIO West VA
* Beri Fox, CEO of the Marble King Company
Note: About Marble King. Wheeling and WV have been hit hard by imported glass. Glass used to be a very big industry in West Virginia. There were 240 glass manufacturing companies in WV 30 years ago. Marble King is one of only 6 remaining companies.
Berri – Marble King is a 75-year-old company. We want to help keep the American dream alive,. Glass business in WV second only to coal, 240 companies 30 years ago, today 6. The obstacles are substantial. Something has to be done.
We did kids’ toys, supplied game companies. All moved to China, NONE manufactured in US now. This created huge stresses on what was our market share, so we bagan to diversify our product into other areas, creative innovative. Now, you buy spray paint, aerosol, shake it, that sound is our marbles.
Question from audience: Tax Breaks for offshoring?
Conway - companies getting tax breaks are also the companies that have taken control of our government, big multinational companies, they leave American workers and communities behind and we can’t tolerate it any longer.
I think that is the best line to close with. If you need a reason to vote, there it is.
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Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:15 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
October 15, 2010
Lorain, OH Keep It Made In America Town Hall Meeting
Thursday evening I attended the "Keep It Made In America" Town Hall in the John Spitzer Conference Center at Lorain County Community College, an impressive, large campus. Lorain, Ohio is another town with closed factories, boarded-up houses, high unemployment, and ringed by the national big-box vulture chains whose business model is to suck the remaining funds away to Wall Street.
Driving into Lorain
As you drive from town to town in Michigan and Ohio you see one after another a ring of the "big box" stores and national chain stores around each city. You also see the "brownfields" of rusted-out, closed factories, empty, falling-down buildings. Then you go to the downtown and you see boarded up houses, empty storefronts, deteriorating and deteriorated communities, idle people standing on corners. As you drive into these towns you can just see what is happening in a nutshell.
You used to hear about how Wal-Mart was predatory, how it would show up in an area and after a while the downtowns would dry up, local business-owners would go broke, local business employees would be laid off, and the local people would have to work for low wages at Wal-Mart, while the region's spending money would go off to the wealthy few who run these things.
Well a juicy story of devastation like that one gets around, and there are those who hear it and say, "Hey, that's a great idea, I wanna get me some of that." So the Wal-Mart business model has taken off and now there are any number of these vultures, ringing the cities and towns around the country, so often private-equity owned. They are draining away the lifeblood of the downtowns, fighting off the unions to keep wages down, even demanding tax breaks to move in and "create jobs." You see all the same stores circling every town now, running all of the local and regional businesses unto the ground.
Here are some pictures from the inner Lorain area but you see it all around: (click for large)
The Lorain Town Hall Meeting
As I said, the meeting was at Lorain County Community College. The turnout was good, a number of candidates, local officials, and people from the community.
The opening speaker was Congresswoman Betty Sutton. “Manufacturing is the backbone of our economy. It’s the backbone of our nation. We’re aware here in Northeast Ohio that it created and promises to support the idea of a middle class.”
Sutton talked about the bill passed recently by the house that confronts Chinese currency manipulation. She hopes the Senate will also pass this, but we all know how difficult it is to get anything through the Senate. She also said that unlike Wall Street shuffling paper money around, what creates real value is the manufacturing of goods, which supports four surrounding jobs in the economy for every manufacturing job.
Following the opening remarks Scott Paul of the Alliance for Ameican Manufacturing presented a number of facts about manufacturing in Ohio and the country. 624,700 people work in manufacturing in Ohio, down from 1,021,000 in 2000. 39% of Ohio's manufacturing jobs were lost in the last decade. For the country the last decade was the worst ever, worse than great depression. We lost 1/3 of all manufacturing jobs with 50,000 manufacturing facilities closed.
“When I grow up will there be jobs in America?”
Next came a panel, moderated by Scott Paul, with
- Larry Taylor, Plant Manager, US Steel Corp’s works in Lorain
- Dave MaCall, Director of District 1 for the United Steelworkers, USW in Ohio
- Kelly Zelesnik, Dean of engineering technologies at LCCC Elyria
A video of a question from a young person in Lorain: “When I grow up will there be jobs in America?” was asked of the panel.
MaCall: there will be jobs, because we have to take action, have to level the playing field. Things we need to do. Not be protectionists, have fair and balanced trade. But we need net exports. That’s how we grow. Every other country has a value-added tax so when someone makes a product that country writes a value-added check, so it is a subsidy on them and a tariff for us. America’s Visa card has run out.
We have 100 million tons of demand for steel in the US, has been for decades, last year demand was 60 million tons. Huge numbers of people laid off, from lack of demand, lack of consumption, and illegal trade.
Kelly, LCCC is partnering with manufacturing. LCCC invested in needs of community, 2 of 4 cornerstones of the college are education and economic development. LCCC is helping grow local economy with a new sensor center to develop and commercialize sensor technology. Industry and educational partners and entrepreneurs to access the center to develop and test prototypes and shorten the time to send products to the market as well as train employees. The center is an attractant to new businesses.
MaCall: We need national policies like every other country has. Businesses need to know there is a policy in America that will make sure there is access to capital, etc. For green startups, it is hard for companies to make investment when other countries helping their industry and we are not. Wall Street gets refinanced, now they’re holding it back, won’t let small businesses have access at reasonable rates.
Paul Q: What is the role in trade laws to keep steel competitive and on level playing field?
Taylor – We need strong trade policies that are strictly enforced. If they are not enforced they do no good, if we have this there will be jobs in future, level playing field. We stopped China on the steel tubes, but now other countries are producing subsidized product, we don’t get government subsidies, they do, we must have strong policies that we enforce.
Concluding
Over and over I am hearing these themes emerge: trade is good but stop illegal trade practices, level the playing field to enable us to compete, put together a national policy, improve trade education and training, invest in our future.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
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Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:24 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
Tonite's Wheeling WV Town Hall Will Be Webcast 5:15 EST
I have just learned that tonite's "Keep It Made In America" Town Hall in Wheeling, West Virginia will be webcast live starting at 5:15PM EST.
Visit the Wheeling Town Hall - Live page for the webcast.
From their page:
With the election less than three weeks away, West Virginia Senate candidates will address the issue of creating jobs and reinvigorating manufacturing at a “Keep it Made in America” Town Hall Meeting in Wheeling, WV. More than 700 voters are expected at the Town Hall Meeting, which is part of a 10-state tour sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM). The voters will have a chance to directly question candidates and elected officials - from West Virginia and Ohio - on such key issues as rebuilding U.S. manufacturing for the global economy and balancing trade with China.You can watch the town hall here live starting at 5:15pm ET today (Friday, Oct. 15th).
On Twitter? Follow us @KeepItMadeinUSA and use the Town Hall hashtag: #aamtht10
Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:05 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
October 7, 2010
I'll Be On The “Keep It Made In America” Town Hall Tour Next Week
I will be joining and writing about the "Keep It Made In America" Town Hall tour. (Click through for more info and a map.) The tour is from October 12-29 and I will be joining from October 12-19.
The official tour announcement:
Creating Jobs Takes Center Stage at "Keep it Made in America" Fall Tour Town Hall Meetings in 10 States Ask Political Candidates, "How Will You Create Manufacturing Jobs?" October 12th-29th WASHINGTON, DC. Oct. 4, 2010 - With the midterm election less than five weeks away and all polls showing the economy and jobs topping the list of voter concerns, the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) has announced its 2010 "Keep it Made in America" Tour. The non-partisan group will hold Town Hall meetings in 10 states to help voters directly question their candidates and elected officials on such key issues as unbalanced trade with China and rebuilding U.S. manufacturing for the global economy."A majority of likely voters say the U.S. no longer has the world's strongest economy and that Washington isn't doing enough to rebuild manufacturing," said AAM Executive Director Scott Paul. "People are greatly concerned about our lost standing. They know China is overtaking us, and they want the United States to be number one again.
"We are providing voters with a chance to ask their candidates directly, 'What are you going to do about restoring manufacturing and the millions of jobs we've lost to China,'" Paul said. "We've invited the candidates. Let's see if they'll face the voters."
The Town Hall meetings, which will include a panel of local business, labor, and civic leaders, as well as remarks by various federal and statewide elected officials and candidates, will focus on:
· The need to create good jobs for the 21st Century;
· The importance of fighting for manufacturing as the key to any economic recovery; and
· Leveling the playing field for American workers and businesses in the global marketplace."The voters get it," said Paul. "Will the candidates?"
Here is a Business News Daily story about the tour, Advocates of U.S. Manufacturing Prepare Pre-Election Tour,
Preparing for the elections, the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonpartisan, nonprofit trade group, is launching its “Keep it Made in America” tour, a series of town hall meetings in 10 states where local business, labor and civic leaders will help voters question candidates on issues, particularly the state of manufacturing jobs in the United States.... In each of the 12 cities, the group has scheduled a panel of local leaders and invited federal and statewide elected officials and candidates to discuss job creation, manufacturing’s importance in economic recovery and “leveling the playing field for American workers and businesses in the global marketplace.”
Here is the tour schedule. I will be joining from Jackson, Michigan on October 13, through Canton, Ohio on October 19.
- Oct. 12: Hartford, Conn., 6 p.m.
- Oct. 13: Jackson, Mich., 5:30 p.m.
- Oct. 14: Lorain, Ohio, 5 p.m.
- Oct. 15: Wheeling, W.Va., 5 p.m.
- Oct. 18: Erie, Pa., 5:30 p.m.
- Oct. 19: Canton, Ohio, 5 p.m.
- Oct. 20: Wayne, Pa., 6 p.m.
- Oct. 20: Merrillville, Ind., 5 p.m.
- Oct. 21: Asheville, N.C., 5 p.m.
- Oct. 27: St. Louis, 5 p.m.
- Oct. 28: Concord, N.H., 6 p.m.
- Oct. 29: Wausau, Wis., 5 p.m.
If you are going to be in one of those towns please come to the Town Hall. Please RSVP here.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:12 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
September 23, 2010
China Currency Bill Moves -- Why Some Corporate Interests Oppose
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
As President Obama meets with Chinese Premier Wen, the House Ways and Means Committee announces it will vote tomorrow on a bill to take action if China does not bring its currency to market rates. This sends a loud and clear signal to China that action is coming, one way or another, and they are going to have to make adjustments. This has every appearance of a smart, coordinated strategy between the administration and the leadership of the Congress.
WaPo: Bill combating China currency to advance,
House leaders are moving forward with legislation to combat China's currency policies, adding to pressure from the Obama administration and giving lawmakers an election-year chance to vote on a sensitive trade matter.The House Ways and Means Committee plans to vote Friday on a bill that would expand the Commerce Department's power to impose duties on Chinese imports in response to that country's currency being undervalued on world markets.
But there is opposition from inside our own country.
Some business groups oppose the bill, arguing that it could backfire if it raises trade tensions with China and prompts the Chinese government to use the many tools at its disposal to interfere with American companies. China is a major destination for U.S. exports - about $70 billion a year - although the United States runs a trade deficit of about $200 billion a year with that country. Duties on Chinese imports might also raise prices for U.S. consumers.
There are competing interests at work. Robert Reich wrote about this a week ago in The Two Categories of American Corporation — And Their Politics and Harold Meyerson picks up the theme today in The real un-Americans.
Reich points out that some giant companies sell to Americans, and therefore want us strong and prosperous, and want policies that stimulate our economy, provide jobs with good pay and generally boost the middle class. Others, not so much.
The first group includes national telecoms like Verizon and AT&T; that need a prosperous America because most of their sales are here. Same with finance companies like Bank of America and Travelers Insurance whose business strategy has been built around U.S. consumers. Ditto certain giant chains like Home Depot. Naturally, all these companies were especially hard hit by the Great Depression and its devastating impact on American consumers.The second group includes companies like Coca Cola, Exxon-Mobil, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and McDonalds, that get substantial revenues from their overseas operations. Increasingly this means China, India, and Brazil. Ford and GM are still largely dependent on US sales but becoming less so. ...
What does this mean for Main Street? Reich says,
Large American corporations are going global as fast as they can. That’s good for their shareholders. But in a Washington ever more susceptible to their money and influence, that’s not necessarily good for most Americans.
Meyerson picks up on this today,
Consider the debate in Congress about whether to impose tariffs on Chinese imports if China continues to depress the value of its currency. ... Unions and some domestic manufacturers support the bill. But a large number of American businesses, in a campaign coordinated by the U.S.-China Business Council, oppose it.... The question here is whether the 220 corporations that belong to the council ... are already so deeply invested in China as manufacturers, marketers or retailers that buy goods there to sell them here that their interests are more closely aligned with China's than with America's. [emphasis added]
It is important to understand that some of the country's most powerful entrenched, wealthy interests no longer depend on the success of America's economy and the prosperity of our people. They have a lot of power and money, and use it to influence our country's politics to increase their own wealth and power. But their interests are not our interests. They want low taxes and don't care whether we have good jobs, good schools, modern infrastructure and an economy that works for We, the People. They just don't care about that. And they are willing to say and spend what it takes to set us against each other, poison our politics, and anything else they need to do to get us to act in their interests not ours. "Globalization" and "free trade' policies work for them, because they enable them to evade the protections that our democracy gives us. But allowing them to just move factories and jobs out of the country and then bring the goods back here with no penalty does not work for the rest of us.
Keep this in mind when you hear the different arguments over taxes, infrastructure, education and government in general.
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Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
September 3, 2010
Labor Day: Labor Got It Right -- Who Could Have Known?
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
"Who could have known?" That's the cry from the big-corporate and DC elite as the economy and the environment and so many imporant things crash around us. (Around us, not them, they're doing just fine and taking good care of each other.)
Who could have known that 25%-per-year house price increases was a bubble?
Who could have known that a housing bubble could burst?
Who could have known that deregulating the financial industry could lead to a financial meltdown?
Who could have known that concentration of wealth could cause consumer demand to dry up?
Who could have known that huge tax cuts for the rich combined with huge military spending increases could cause massive budget deficits?
Who could have known that the Social Security trust fund needed a "lockbox" so it wouldn't be given away as tax cuts?
Who could have known a deregulated deep-water well could cause a massive, destructive, uncontrolled underwater gusher?
Who could have known that continuing to put carbon into the air would cause problems for the climate?
Who could have known that moving our factories out of the country would lead to high unemployment and structural trade deficits?
Who could have known that invading Iraq was wrong and a deadly, disastrous, costly, long-term mistake?
Who could have known that a too-small stimulus that focused on tax cuts wouldn't turn the economy completely around and then conservatives would claim that the stimulus "killed the recovery?"
(List continues into infinity...)
Add organized labor to the list of those who got it right, time after time.
Organized labor was right about the 40-hour workweek.
They were right about the middle class.
They were right about the weekend.
They were right about paid vacations.
They were right about paid holidays.
They were right about paid sick leave.
They were right about providing good, secure retirement plans for everyone.
They were right about providing unemployment benefits to tide people over.
They were right about providing maternity leave, child care and family leave for families.
They were right that trade agreements like NAFTA and letting China into the WTO would lead to massive trade deficits and job losses.
They were right about workplace and consumer safety.
They were right about keeping manufacturing in America.
They were right about fighting discrimination in the workplace.
They were right about raising the minimum wage and the effect that low-wage policies would have on the economy.
They were right about the effect of excessive CEO pay on the economy.
They were right about the devastating effect of the Bush tax cuts.
They were right about the need to maintain and modernize our country's infrastructure.
They were right about going green.
They were right ab out the dangers of Wall Street's financialization of the economy.
They were right about providing good health care to everyone.
They were right about strengthening, not cutting Social Security.
They were right about democratizing corporate governance.
They were right about fighting privatization.
They were right about fighting deregulation.
They were right about providing good education opportunities to everyone.
They were and are right that we need a national jobs agenda
Labor was right about people joining together instead of being on our own.
(List continues into infinity...) They were right and they continue to be right.
And unions have been fighting for these things for all of us, not just for their members.
Please add to these lists in the comments! What other things could nobody have known, and what other things did labor get right?
Enjoy Labor Day. In fact, for those of you that still have jobs after the decades of conservative policies, enjoy having weekends off, the 40-hour week, paid vacations, sick pay, health care, etc. And if you have a job but don't have those things ... JOIN A UNION!
P.S. Here's an example of being right:
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Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:12 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
April 2, 2010
"Re-shoring," "On-shoring" and "Insourcing" - The Coming New Era Of American Manufacturing
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
What will it mean to American businesses if - I should say when - Chinese imports cost as much as they should cost?
A currency and trade rebalancing is going to happen sooner or later because it has to. We can't run a trade deficit forever. If something is unsustainable it can't be sustained. Eventually we have to earn the money to pay off what we are borrowing and the only way to do that is with exports. The first step to that is to stop importing so much and at least make things to sell to ourselves.
This rebalancing could happen because China lets its currency approach market levels. Or, if China refuses to stop unfairly subsidizing their exports (their currency manipulation is just one piece of that) our government will have to impose tariffs on imports from China. There are other things that could change the current trade imbalance. The only thing that is for sure is that the current situation can't just continue. We can't just keep sending factories, supply chains, jobs, and dollars away. It's a bubble that has to pop. And it will. American business should be planning for this approaching new era of American manufacturing.
Once the Chinese import bubble pops new phrases will enter the lexicon, so start getting used to them. "Re-shoring," "on-shoring" and "insourcing" will replace "offshoring" and "outsourcing."
A week ago I wrote about a CNBC segment on this,
For many years we've been hearing about outsourcing and offshoring. President Obama has started taking steps to rebalance world trade and the pendulum is about to start swinging the other way. More and more often you'll be hearing new words: "insourcing," "on-shoring" and "re-shoring."Watch this CNBC segment from Friday, Made in America Making a Comeback.
American businesses -- are you ready? It's coming.
P.S. Here's a stock tip: machine tools.
Update and P.S. --
Re-Shore at the NTMA/PMA Contract Manufacturing Purchasing Fair
Help bring manufacturing back to the U.S.!Click through!
At last somebody is doing something: the May 12, 2010 NTMA/PMA Purchasing Fair focuses on re-shoring. The $ is down vs. many currencies. JIT and R&D; are best supported, and carbon footprint minimized, by local sourcing. The time is right for this effort to succeed.
Customers bring your off-shored work! Vendors bring your best technical ideas and sharp pencils! Learn More
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Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:42 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
March 10, 2010
It Is Time To Put Our Foot Down: Ten Steps We Can Take To Stop Closing Factories And Eliminating Jobs
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
The economy is still getting worse more slowly. We lost "only" 36,000 jobs last month. We need to create 11 million new jobs just to get back to where we were before "free-market" conservatives took over our government and dismanted the protections and regulations that had protected us from this.
Jobs lost, communities devastated, lives destroyed. Over and over again. Yet with all of this going on companies like Whirlpool and Toyota are still closing factories, laying of American workers, and moving manufacturing out of the country! Toyota is closing the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California, which could lose up to 50,000 jobs across California. Whirlpool -- recipient of stimulus dollars from the government -- is closing a factory in Evansville, Indiana and moving the jobs to Mexico where people will be paid $70 a week and certainly won't be buying anything made in America.
It's the system. While the executives collect bonuses and tax breaks for their destructive actions We, the People have to pick up the tab. We pay the unemployment, the stimulus, etc. Our communities pay the cost of losing the jobs and the tax base, our economy pays the cost of losing the manufacturing capability. And the executives and private equity firms and Wall Street get rich. So of course they do more of it.
How crazy is this? In the middle of this terrible jobs crisis companies are still closing factories here and shipping the jobs out of the country. Why do we allow this?
Whirlpool and Toyota (and Wall Street's $140 billion bonus pool this year) ought to be the last straw. It is time for We, the People to put our foot down and say not one more factory closed, not one more job sent out of the country! In fact, it is time to start bringing jobs BACK.
It is time to stop letting goods into the country that are made by exploited workers in areas with no environmental protections without a tariff to take away the price advantage gained from going around the protections that We, the People have fought so hard for.
There is only one way the country can earn the money to pay back what we borrowed from China, Japan and others. That is to make and sell things to others!!! THAT is what "trade" means. "Trade" does not mean allowing greedy executives to sidestep the laws and regulations and protections that We, the People fought so hard to get.
Look around us. Jobs lost, communities devastated, homes foreclosed, lives destroyed, governments going broke. All because of a runaway system that encourages the destruction of our economy. Our system actually encourages executives to close factories and lay people off! Executives make profits and get bonuses (that benefit from tax cuts) if they can figure out how to eliminate YOUR job or close a factory or cheapen a product or keep you from talking to customer support or make you pay an extra fee, etc.
Wall Street and executives benefit from this -- and get tax cuts, tax breaks and subsidies for doing it. But the economy-at-large is destroyed by these same actions when they are widespread. On top of that, we know that when we lose the factories we have to borrow money to buy the things we used to make. But we give tax breaks instead of penalties to companies that do this.
Here are just some steps that We, the People can take to start turning this around:
- A border tariff on imports to remove the price advantage of goods produced by exploited, underpaid workers.
- A border tariff to remove the price advantage of goods produced in ways that harm the environment.
- A border tariff on goods from countries that are not democracies, to remove any pricing advantage gained from not allowing people to vote and set rules that benefit themselves.
- A border tariff on goods from countries that restrict workers from organizing to improve their wages and working conditions, to remove any pricing advantage gained from not allowing workers to bargain. (America currently doesn't meet this standard.)
- Remove tax benefits and instead impose tax penalties and fines on companies that close factories here. Don't let it be profitable to do this!
- Increase taxes on the big monopolistic companies to remove the advantages that help them destroy America's smaller, regional and local businesses -- the very job creators we need.
- Increase income taxes on high incomes to reduce the incentive to pursue short-term windfalls instead of long-term interests. Make it take a long time to accumulate a fortune. Making a fortune is great but it should be a reward for helping our economy and society, not destroying them.
- Break up the "too big to fail" Wall Street firms that wrecked the economy. And get the money back -- all of it.
- Explore the use of Eminent Domain to keep factories in communities and workers in the factories.
- Formulate and follow a national economic/industrial strategy to build a new green manufacturing economy
Please add some ideas in the comments. I will have more to say on all of this.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:20 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos
March 1, 2010
Green Jobs Are NOT A Myth!
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Last week the Washington Post ran an op-ed with the curious headline, “The Green Jobs Myth.”
Oil and coal lobbyists everywhere, well-aware that most people only read headlines and a few paragraphs at most, were giving each other high-fives. You see, a headline like this “propels the propaganda” that anything remotely environmentally-conscious “costs jobs.” And being in the Washington Post, it signals that the “powers-that-be” are officially poo-pooing the concept.
The op-ed begins by setting up a straw man to knock down. It claims that the Obama administration has the “assumption that a "clean-energy" economy will generate enough jobs to mitigate today's high level of unemployment … and to meet the needs of future generations”, But seriously, has anyone, anywhere, ever said that new green jobs alone will solve the jobs crisis? Just asking.
The basis for the headline’s premise that green jobs are a myth was that installing smart electric meters means there will be fewer meter-readers employed. Well duh! But this op-ed -- with its curious headline -- uses some curious math to reach its conclusion that automating meters means fewer meter-readers will be employed. It claims that only 400 installation jobs would be created to install 20 million meters, 1600 if the rate of installation is increased. Huh? Then it gets better. To calculate how many meter-reader jobs will be lost it claims that meter-readers only read 30 meters an hour, causing 28,000 meter-reading jobs to be lost.
Now, I was already sold on the idea that automating meters means fewer meter-readers would be employed, but come on! Clearly the Post is betting that most people don't read past the first few paragraphs if they're thinking this kind of "let's play tricks with math" will just slip by.
Curiously, the op-ed doesn’t mention that people will be employed to manufacture these 20 million smart-meters! How many jobs will be created to manufacture 20 million smart meters? The op-ed doesn't say. perhaps saying how many would negate the curious title.
How Many Green Jobs Are There?
But never mind smart meters. If we’re going to talk about green jobs we need to talk about the jobs that would be created by:
- retrofitting every building and home in America to be energy efficient, and the management, supply chain, transportation, tools, etc.
- manufacturing, installing and maintaining wind turbines
- manufacturing, installing and maintaining rooftop solar installations
- manufacturing, installing and maintaining solar power generation facilities
- everything associated with biofuels, geothermal power generation, nuclear power, advanced batteries, hydro power, carbon sequestration, carbon credit trading and transportation alternatives including building an advanced high-speed rail system connecting every major city in the country.
Think about the huge number of jobs all of this involves – and the huge payoff to our economy. And remember, these will all be in addition to the existing energy infrastructure, for now.
I suspect that the reason we see curiously misleading op-eds like this one in outlets like the Washington Post is that all of these coming technologies mean lower profits for the big, monopolistic oil and coal giants.
They can try to stop the green manufacturing revolution but it is coming. The question is, do we let op-eds like this one stop it from being Made in America?
Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:34 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
February 19, 2010
Whirlpool Bites Hands Of American Taxpayers That Feed It
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Whirlpool, recipient of federal stimulus "smart grid" dollars, is closing an Evansville, Indiana freezer-topped refrigerator and icemaker production plant and moving the 1,100 jobs to Mexico.
Whirlpool knows that taxpayers will shoulder the unemployment and other costs. Closing a plant like this also means all the supplier, transportation and other third-party jobs go away. For example, 100+ Disabled Workers Could Lose Jobs
Whirlpool employees aren't the only ones losing their jobs when the plant closes. More than 100 blind or disabled individuals could also be left jobless. The Evansville Association for the Blind has issued a public plea, asking businesses to consider using their employees.
There will be more home foreclosures, and local businesses are stressed or have to go out of business. Whirlpool is profiting from making all this someone else's problem.
Whirlpool is even playing nearby Iowa against Indiana, shaking the state down for millions to move just 60 of the 1,100 jobs there.
So, of course, Wall Street celebrates the move, the setting states against each other, the cost-shifting and the resulting "increase in margins."
The workers are still trying to do something about this. Inside Indiana Business writes about a rally on February 26,
Organizers have invited guests including AFL/CIO President Richard Trumka and Jim Clark, president of the IUE-CWA union with which Local 808 is affiliated.Employees with the least seniority are expected to lose their jobs first, March 26. The remaining workers will be let go until production ceases in early summer.
Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President, writes:
The Whirlpool Corp. is closing a refrigerator manufacturing plant in Evansville, Ind., putting more than 1,100 people out of work. Even worse, Whirlpool will continue to produce these refrigerators, but not in Evansville and not anywhere else in America. They are planning to manufacture them in Mexico, where weaker labor and environmental laws make them “cheaper” for Whirlpool to produce.This is outrageous and unacceptable, especially in light of Whirlpool’s profitability and the $19 million dollars in economic recovery money Whirlpool recently received from the federal government as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Those are OUR economic recovery funds, not Mexico’s.
You can sign their Whirlpool: Keep It Made in America petition here.
Will Congress listen?
Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:32 AM | Comments (3) | Link Cosmos
February 18, 2010
Yes, Nuclear
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
I believe that global warming is the most serious threat humanity faces. So we need to use every possible technology we can to replace energy sources that put greenhouse gases into the air. This includes nuclear energy.
One big problem with nuclear is figuring out what to do with the dangerous radioactive waste. But here's the thing, when we burn coal and oil we're just putting the dangerous waste product into the air and it is destroying the planet. So we can't make the perfect the enemy of the good -- nuclear waste is not destroying the planet and fossil-fuel waste is. We simply have to replace coal and oil as our energy source.
Climate change is an emergency. We need to do everything we can. This means we need to put up every windmill we can, every solar panel we can, every solar power plant, biofuel and geothermal facility that we can. We need to retrofit every building to be energy efficient, switch to electric cars, stop eating meat that is not grass-fed. We need to do research into finding ways to sequester carbon from coal. And we need to build nuclear power plants. What part of "everything we can" did I miss?
Please, let's make this a discussion. Please join the discussion and leave a comment with your thoughts on this.
BUT
As we proceed with this, we need to learn some lessons from the past. As we build a new generation of reactors there are some things that need to be clear from the outset.
Make them safe. This means a highly regulated effort, not a free-for-all for profits. Tax dollars are involved, and even if they were not public safety must be the primary focus. Newer reactor designs eliminate Chernobyl-style "meltdown" fears but we need close supervision by government. We need the government "meddling" and "interfering" and "snooping" every step of the way. We, the People need to be sure that every best practice is followed and no corners are cut to make a buck.
Buy American. If we are building nuclear power plants we should regulate that they create American jobs, not offshore in China or anywhere else. There are federal funds guaranteeing loans for these projects and they should specify that we Buy American. Use American –made components, right down to the steel. China's and other country's governments are helping their own economies, let's us help our own economy this time.
There are also safety concerns for Buy American. We need very close inspection of every component and material that is used in these plants. How would we monitor the manufacturing of the components and the quality of the steel if it is done outside the US? Do you remember the faulty welds in the Chinese components that shut down San Francisco's Bay Bridge last year?
Protect the environment. There is also the environmental impact of making steel in China and then shipping it versus making it here -- in our highly productive steel industry. China creates three times the greenhouse emissions when they make steel that our own steel plants create. This is one reason their steel costs less. What is the point of building nuclear to lower greenhouse gas emissions and using greenhouse gas-creating processes?
So I say Yes, Nuclear, and make sure that we use Big Government oversight to keep it safe, create American jobs and mostly to protect the environment.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:06 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos
February 15, 2010
News Flash: Nations Compete
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
I have a regular spot on the radio show, The Fairness Doctrine, currently in Massachusetts but going national. The show has a liberal and a conservative host and they present and discuss differing viewpoints -- without shouting.
On the show today we talked about my post from last week, With Washington Stalled, China and Others Race Past Us. In that post I wrote,
One party in Washington is following a strategy of obstructing everything, believing that the public will blame the other party for nothing getting done. The other party refuses to use the powers it has to act on the nation's agenda, fearing that the public will thing they're being mean or something. So we're stuck, standing still, getting nothing done. And the rest of the world moves forward with the green manufacturing revolution, taking the jobs, taking the industries, taking the momentum, taking the future.
Here is my point: We're standing still, and other nations are moving ahead. Literally. High-speed rail is an example of this difference. Compare China's investment in public infrastructure like high-speed rail with our own.
At Open Left Saturday, Paul Rosenberg wrote a post about China's wonderful new high-speed rail system, Whose near future is our far future: Europe, China or California?, saying,
"It's really amazing how much rail they're going to have built within the next two years, 42 lines including connections between China's most important cities. ... The US, in contrast, will have one line built in four years, connecting Tampa and Orlando. Tampa and Orlando? That's not so much a high-speed rail line, more an overgrown Disney ride."
China has a national strategy of massive investment in public infrastructure to create jobs and stimulate manufacturing. This investment then leaves behind a modernized manufacturing infrastructure as well as a much more efficient transportation system. This is part of a larger strategy to develop an economy that is much more energy efficient than their competitors, which means they will be better able as a nation to compete economically.
President Obama has been trying to get our own country to invest strategic projects like this. If we can invest in a more efficient economy then WE will be more competitive in the future than we are today. This means more jobs and a higher standard of living in the future, as these investments pay off. But his efforts meet resistance every step of the way. Just one example of this is how the entrenched oil and coal interests take advantage of the corruption of Washington, especially the Senate, to block these efforts. They also invest heavily in poisoning the information that reaches the public, like funding "climate skeptics" and think tanks that pump out "ideology" that isn't really ideas but is propaganda that serves their own financial interests. They and others are doing everything they can to block us from investing in the green manufacturing revolution while the rest of the world is moving ahead.
America is stuck in this weird ideology that says government is bad, and it is wrong for government to help the people by planning and investing in our future. There is a "market fundamentalism" that says that markets must decide things, not democracy. They say our people through our government will make bad decisions, that companies are much more efficient at making decisions, so we should instead let the people who run the largest companies decide how to use our country's resources, labor force, and capital. They say this is much more "efficient" than letting democracy make decisions.
Here is a fact: nations compete. You might believe this is an outmoded concept. It might not fit with the business model of multinational corporations. But we still have countries that see themselves as unified nations with a shared identity, and these nations compete. They compete with US. China is competing with US and the rest of the world, to bring manufacturing to itself, and using national strategies. We are not responding as a nation.
When someone is in a fight with you, you have a much better chance of winning if you at least understand that you are in a fight and get yourself organized to do something about it! How hard is that to understand? China and other countries are in a fight with us for economic dominance. Manufacturing is the key to economic power, and they are fighting to win manufacturing business away from us.
I don't say this to particularly criticize China. The Chinese don't owe me a job. China is just taking care of its own. It should. That is what nations are supposed to do. So to the extent that we still see ourselves as a NATION, we need to take care of OUR own. We need a national economic/industrial strategy, where we say THIS is how WE are going to compete.
If America is still a nation with a democracy we're going to have to step up to the plate and compete as a country and as a people.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:58 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
February 1, 2010
SOTU - A List Not a Vision
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
In last week’s State of the Union speech President Obama talked about jobs. It was a great speech. It was SO satisfying to see him scold the Supreme Court for enabling monopoly corporatocracy to replace democracy, scold the Republicans for obstructing every single bill, and scold Democrats for being chickens**ts and running for the hills. But in the end he presented a laundry list – a good list, but a list – instead of a vision for a new economic structure.
First, he summarized the effects of the “stimulus,”
“Because of the steps we took, there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. Two hundred thousand work in construction and clean energy; 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, first responders.”
Then the jobs list:
- “I'm proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat.”
- “I'm also proposing a new small business tax credit-– one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages.”
- “let's also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment, and provide a tax incentive for all large businesses and all small businesses to invest in new plants and equipment.”
- “put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow . ... There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.”
- “put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities…”
- “and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy-efficient, which supports clean energy jobs.”
- “it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America.”
On Exports - Also A List
- “we need to export more of our goods”
- “a new goal: We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support two million jobs in America.”
- “launching a National Export Initiative that will help farmers and small businesses increase their exports”
- “seek new markets aggressively, just as our competitors are”
- “enforcing those agreements so our trading partners play by the rules”
What’s missing?
The most important jobs item missing from the President's speech was aid to states. The problem is that the states are cutting their budgets, which means layoffs and cutbacks from maintaining their infrastructure and investing in new infrastructure. With this happening in many of the 50 states, the scale threatens to undo the positive effect of the stimulus.
But President Obama faces two problems when considering aid to the states. First, helping the states would mean even more borrowing, on top of the borrowing forced on us by the years of conservative policies. Second, many of the troubled states are in their predicament because of their own conservative anti-tax policies. California, for example, is cutting jobs because the conservative minority is able to block any revenue-raising measures, and last year was even able to force even more corporate tax cuts in exchange for letting the state pass any budget at all.
But maybe Oregon is showing other states the way out of this trap. Last week voters raised taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Oregon voters pass tax increasing measures by big margin,
Oregon voters bucked decades of anti-tax and anti-[government] sentiment Tuesday, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to prevent further erosion of public schools and other state services.
If the people in the states rise up and start demanding that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, they can dig themselves out of this mess.
Buy American
Another path out of the jobs mess is to include Buy American procurement clauses in stimulus, infrastructure and jobs bills. A report by Alliance for American Manufacturing, titled, Buy America Works: Longstanding United States Policy Enhances the Job Creating Effect of Government Spending argues for a strong “Buy American” clause in the new jobs bill.
“Including domestic sourcing requirements in job creating legislation would be the most effective way to ensure taxpayer dollars are used to create and maintain jobs and manufacturing capacity to the maximum extent possible, thereby vastly improving the stimulative effect of government spending.[. . .] Given the dire problems the economy has experienced and continues to experience, the inclusion of domestic sourcing requirements in an upcoming job creation bill is the smart thing to do.”
Reinforcing this, a recent Gallup poll finds that Americans think the “best way to address the problem of growing unemployment in the United States [is] … to keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S.”
Keep Jobs Here
Bloggers have pointed out that the job-creation tax credit doesn’t prohibit offshore outsourcing of the jobs that receive the tax credit! Come on people, this is pretty basic.
Finally, Tell The Senate: JOBS NOW!
Campaign for America's Future is reaching out the 27 million Americans who have lost their jobs and are scrambling to get by – and the rest of us who know them and stand with them – to contact their Senators and say: Tell the Senate: We need action on jobs NOW! Click here to take action.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
January 29, 2010
America's Competitors Will Use Supreme Court Ruling To Block Our Green Jobs Effort And Close Our Factories
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
It's not personal, it's business.
The Supreme Court recently ruled 5-4 that George Bush will be President corporations can spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose candidates. Corporations! Since there are no restrictions on the citizenship of the owners of corporations foreign companies and governments now have a direct way to manipulate our laws and regulations.
Outside interests have been influencing American opinion for decades, but have not before this been able to directly support or oppose candidates. The Washington Times, Fox News, and other corporations with significant foreign ownership already work full-time to turn American public opinion against our own government. "Free trade" advocacy groups with funding from outside our borders work to get us to open our markets to imports that close our factories, outsource our jobs, lower our standard of living and drive us into ever-increasing debt. We have seen this with "grassroots" lobbying on important issues like climate change, trying to make people think that the science is a "hoax": see Grassroots’ Opposition to Clean Energy Reform Bankrolled by Foreign Oil, Petro-Governments.
But this new ability to directly support or oppose candidates offers a vastly more effective and immediate way for America's competitors to achieve their goals. What will they go after first? Of course a top goal of our competitors is to take down our manufacturing capacity -- the foundation of a country's economic power.
And, of course, this is exactly what is happening. Oil countries are already planning strategies to use this ruling to block our alternative energy and green jobs efforts. According to Think Progress:
For instance, Saudi Arabia has already signaled that the progressive effort to build a clean energy American economy is its “biggest threat”:Saudi Arabia’s economy depends on oil exports so stands to be one of the biggest losers in any pact that curbs oil demand by penalizing carbon emissions. “It’s one of the biggest threats that we are facing,” said Muhammed al-Sabban, head of the Saudi delegation to U.N. talks on climate change and a senior economic adviser to the Saudi oil ministry. [...] Climate talks posed a bigger threat, Sabban said, and subsidies for the development of renewable energy were distorting market economics in the sector, he said."Presumably because of the Citizens United ruling, Saudi Arabian-owned subsidiaries operating in the United States can now spend unlimited amounts advocating the defeat of candidates who support clean energy legislation. According to a ThinkProgress investigation, foreign-oil backed lobbyists in America are already instigating efforts to kill clean energy legislation.
What are we doing about it? What is our plan? Every other country has economic/industrial policies, but for one reason or another the American public has been persuaded that America should not have an economic/industrial policy of our own. We're bombarded with propaganda that says having a plan would be government - that We, the People thing - "interfering" with "the market." This ideology is like an anchor on our country, holding us back from progress.
We must rally and take back control of our democracy and our future. This Supreme Court decision must be countered with immediate legislation or it means the loss of so many things that we value. And we must develop an economic/manufacturing policy for our country's future. This time it's personal.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:28 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
January 12, 2010
Right Wing Catches On That Conservative Trade Policies Hurt Us
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Be afraid. Over at The Drudge Report, under a photo of a Chinese soldier (but no siren), are three headlines:
CHINA ENDS AMERICA'S REIGN AS LARGEST AUTO MARKET...
Becomes biggest exporter, edging out Germany...
China banks eclipse American rivals...
So OK, conservatives seem to be FINALLY starting to notice that their so-called "free trade" policies caused a problem!
When Ronald Reagan took office we had a trade surplus with China - we exported to China more than we imported from China. But the conservative "free market" ideologues said that "the market" must determine everything instead of the people in our democracy, that government is bad, that "free trade" lifts all boats, etc. -- even though there is no such thing as "free" trade or "free" markets... They negotiated trade agreements guaranteed to give away our strong trade position, stopped enforcing old or new trade laws, and got rid of any idea of having a national industrial policy.
By the time Bill Clinton took office instead of a trade surplus we had a trade deficit with China of almost $23 billion - importing from China much, much more than we exported to them. Under President Clinton, influenced by conservative "free trade" arguments, this trade deficit grew to $83 billion.
Then, under George W. Bush this trade deficit grew to $268 billion in a single year! Time after time Bush refused to enforce trade agreements and the imbalance just got worse and worse.
(WSJ)By last year the trade imbalance with China was 69% of our entire trade deficit.
(EPI)So NOW the conservatives are looking at what they have done, and they are very afraid. They borrowed from China year after year, and now they are afraid that China will use all that borrowed money to collapse the dollar. If you are on any right-wing mail lists half of the emails you receive are saying that dollar could collapse any minute.
So a big headline at Drudge! I guess even they are ready to admit that their policies were bad for the country.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:29 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
January 7, 2010
Why Is Moving A Factory Called "Trade"?
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
I have a simple question: Why is moving a factory across a border called "trade"?
The process of building up a country is long and difficult. People over time unite and engage in a long, hard struggle to form a democratic government for themselves and build strong public structures -- a system of laws, environmental protections, wage and hour rules, worker protections, product safety standards, etc. -- all of which work to raise the standard of living for everyone. These strong public structures enable economic growth and empower the people and companies to prosper while protecting the investment that built it all. So people return a portion of the resulting prosperity as taxes to invest in building and maintaining this infrastructure.
That is how good, solid self-government should work. The people build the public structures that enable each other to prosper and that protect the investment. And it worked for us.
But then, along come the quick-buck artists, looking to grab what they can for themselves, as fast as they can, without doing their part or sharing their gains or leaving anything but a mess behind. And they found a way to accomplish this. They found places outside of our borders where the people had not yet built up the solid, democratic governmental institutions that protect people and the environment as ours do. They fired the workers who had built up the companies and communities, packed up the machines that made the products, closed the factories, and opened factories on the other side of those borders.
Moving factories across borders is just a way of evading our laws and our protections, that we have fought so hard to get in place. So why do we let them bring the same products that we used to make here, back across those borders to sell in the prosperous market that our hard-won public structures enabled?
People fought and died so we could maintain our own strong government that protected us and enabled our prosperity. We built up our prosperity over time and with many hard fights, and that is what has made our county the market that everyone wants access to. We should use that market power to set the terms of what can be brought in to this country. We should help the people in countries that have not yet build up the kind of strong, democratic governments that can protect them from the quick-buck artists and exploiters instead of letting those manipulative consters wipe out our jobs and tear down our own government and rules. We should say that before products get access into our market the workers that make them should be paid well, and the environment they are made in is protected. Maybe we shouldn't allow goods from undemocratic countries in at all. What do you think?
We worked hard to build what we have, and we are letting that be taken away from us. It is time to stop allowing our factories to be closed and moved across borders as a way to get around the rules and standards we fought so hard to put in place.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:11 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos
November 25, 2009
Jobs In America
Manufacturing infrastructure:
Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
November 16, 2009
Washington Times Against Protectionism Before They Were For It
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
President Obama is visiting Asia, and is blasted over and over about America's supposedly "protectionist" policies.
"China on Monday accused the United States of increasing protectionism..."Think about it, the country with the massive trade surplus accuses the country with the massive trade deficit of being "protectionist." Call it The Audacity Of Projection.
Our trade opponents have learned that all they have to do is shout the word “protectionist” and their American enablers will quickly run from doing anything that might help American companies and workers. But what happens later, when the consequences start hitting home? Do the "free trade" shouting, foreign-competition enablers take the blame and accept responsibility when Amercan dollars are spent overseas and American workers lose jobs and American factories close? Who could have known that they would point the finger at the President instead of themselves?
Here is what I am talking about:
On February 8, 2009, during the debate over the stimulus package, the conservative Washington Times joined the "free trade" chorus, denouncing the package's proposed "Buy American" requirements as the same kind of "protectionism" that conservative mythology says caused the Great Depression: EDITORIAL: How to cause a depression,
...Tucked within the economic stimulus bill the House passed last week was a clause requiring state and local public works agencies to buy American iron and steel for their reconstruction projects, and the Senate expanded it to all manufactured goods.Conservative free-traders got what they demanded. In response to these and other cries of “protectionism!” the Senate backed away from the Buy American clause, changing it to vague language requiring that the money be spent in ways consistent with existing treaties.[. . .] The stimulus bill has a way to go before it reaches Mr. Obama's desk, but if strong "buy American" mandates are present at that time, he will have no choice but to veto the bill. Otherwise, he will be forever known as Barack H. (Hoover or Hawley) Obama.
Since this wording gives the President some discretion in how the money is spent conservatives started demanding the President spend it ... outside of the country. For example, a Washington Times editorial on March 24, EDITORIAL: The Mexican-American War of 2009, ended by blasting President Obama for wanting American stimulus dollars to stimulate America's economy:
"Wasn't Mr. Obama going to be the "international" president who was going to get the rest of the world to love us? The path to improving relations does not involve destroying jobs in other countries as well as in our own."So now it turns out that many stimulus dollars are being spent according to the wishes of the "free trade" conservatives, with money to purchase wind turbines creating jobs in Europe and China, and who could have known, the very same free-trade conservatives are JUST OUTRAGED that President Obama is sending American stimulus dollars out of the country! For example, a Washington Times editorial on November 13, EDITORIAL: Stimulus creates jobs in China, begins,
Of the $1 billion in clean-energy stimulus money spent since the beginning of September, $850 million has gone to foreign wind companies. It doesn't take a bunch of experts at a hastily planned "jobs summit" to discover this isn't the way to bolster employment in America.Yes, how DARE they not require that American stimulus dollars be spent in America! This from the very same Washington Times editors who earlier in the year demanded exactly that.Indeed, the 11 U.S. wind farms that received stimulus money from the Treasury have imported 695 of the 982 wind turbines to be installed, creating 4,500 jobs overseas. That's far more overseas work than the stimulus money has created in the United States.
Who could have known that conservatives would attack President Obama for the consequences of giving in to conservative demands??!! The Washington Times was against protectionism before they were for it. Call it The Audacity Of Hypocrisy.
The lesson to be learned here is to stop listening to these conservative, "free trade" clowns. They are only interested in making the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us and will say whatever advances that goal. We should start just doing what is right for the country, our workers, our factories, our companies and our jobs.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:30 PM | Comments (3) | Link Cosmos
October 29, 2009
Building The New Economy
I am in DC at the Building The New Economy conference. There is a Listen Live button at that site, so you can attend as well. My computer clock says 5:40am as I type this so California readers are discovering this half way through the conference. :-0
Yesterday I attended a blogger roundtable with Rich Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO. I'll write about this later.
Speakers:
Gov. Ed Rendell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.
Rich Trumka, President, AFL-CIO
Leo Gerard, President, United Steelworkers
Prof. Suzanne Berger, director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives
Jeff Madrick, author, "The Case For Big Government"
Robert Kuttner, author, "The Squandering Of America"
Kate Gordon, Apollo Alliance
Conference agenda (times are EST):
LESSONS OF THE FALL
9:30 a.m. There Is No Way Back: A New Strategy is Essential
BUILDING THE NEW ECONOMY
10:10 a.m. A New Foundation: Strategic Public Investment
11 a.m. Making It In America: Manufacturing in a Global Economy
12:05 p.m. Luncheon Keynote: Towards a New Economic Strategy
1:30 p.m. Global Challenge: A Sustainable Balance for Growth
2:30 p.m. Getting There: The Next Steps
Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:37 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
October 25, 2009
Building The New Economy
Bill Scher interviews me on Building The New Economy:
Building The New Economy: The Interview | OurFuture.org
Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:52 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos
October 23, 2009
Palin vs Krugman On The Dollar -- Who Is Right?
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
The other day I wrote about how the dollar is falling - but not against the Chinese Yuan. A falling, or "weak" dollar is great for American manufacturers, and therefore American jobs, because it makes American goods cost less everywhere else. This means our exports should rise, reducing our trade deficit and helping us pay off the huge amounts decades of conservative budget policies forced us to borrow from other countries.
Conservatives, though, are trying to use the complexities of the relative value of the dollar in currency markets as an anti-Obama political issue. They must have polling that shows people reacting to way the words "strong" and "weak" are used. This misunderstanding of "strong" and "weak" reminds me of how I used to be confused by "debit" and "credit" when I learned double-entry accounting. (Sorry, I probably shouldn't mix corporate finance humor with blog posts.)
For example, earlier this month Sarah Palin (or someone) wrote on her Facebook page that a falling dollar makes us "vulnerable." This is a brilliant play on the "weak" theme, and is used to further scare people. (Republicans like to scare people - remember how Iraq was going to spread smallpox?) She earns her Exxon check, writing that we need to "Drill, baby, drill" for energy independence to solve this. She writes nothing about conservation, alternative energy sources like wind or solar, or about smart grids, or developing a 21st century economy -- Exxon wouldn't like that.
Palin's ghostwriter confuses several issues at the same time. This is brilliant agitprop but terrible, terrible policy.
Paul Krugman, America's other master economist, writes in the NY Times today that the problem is China, not Obama. China "pegs" their currency to the dollar so when the dollar drops the Yuan drops along with it. This keeps goods made in China at a nice, low price relative to everyone else, reducing any advantage we might gain from market forces. Krugman writes,
If supply and demand had been allowed to prevail, the value of China’s currency would have risen sharply. But Chinese authorities didn’t let it rise. They kept it down by selling vast quantities of the currency, acquiring in return an enormous hoard of foreign assets, mostly in dollars, currently worth about $2.1 trillion.Many economists, myself included, believe that China’s asset-buying spree helped inflate the housing bubble, setting the stage for the global financial crisis. But China’s insistence on keeping the yuan/dollar rate fixed, even when the dollar declines, may be doing even more harm now.
Krugman says it is no time to be timid. We have to confront China on this manipulation.
The thing is, right now this caution makes little sense. Suppose the Chinese were to do what Wall Street and Washington seem to fear and start selling some of their dollar hoard. Under current conditions, this would actually help the U.S. economy by making our exports more competitive.
A a Bloomberg today story demonstrates why we need to bring the dollar down relative to the Yuan,
“The stable yuan helped us increase sales by about 20 percent this year,” Cody Hu, a sales manager at the Yongkang- based company, said at the China Sourcing Fair in Hong Kong.I'm with Paul, not Palin. A lower dollar means JOBS.. . . “Competitors in China are doing good,” said Suresh Sranavasan, a distribution manager at the company. “They have pricing advantages from the government’s stable yuan policy.”
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Take a look at the agenda for the Building the New Economy conference, Thursday, October 29, 2009 -- 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C.
This conference sounds the call for the new economy we must build out of the ruins of the old. It focuses on the need for a new agenda to revive manufacturing in America. It's free. But you have to RSVP.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:09 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
October 21, 2009
Dollar Weak? Not Against Yuan!
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Conservatives are blasting President Obama, saying he is causing a "weak" dollar. The Drudge Report has a headline or a story pretty much every day blasting this message out. Republican e-mails warn that the dollar is "collapsing" under Obama. Blogs and talk show hosts declare that civilization will cease, urging listeners to buy as much gold as they can.
But conservatives should know that the dollar is steady where it counts - against the Chinese Yuan. Yesterday, October 20, the exchange rate was 6.82653. On May 6 it reached a low of 6.82157 and on June 17 a high of 6.83743.
Conservatives react intensely to words like "strong" and "weak" without understanding the meaning. Here is what it means: Things made in America cost less when the dollar is lower, or "weak." A lower dollar creates an incentive for others to purchase things made in America, which means factories are busy, new factories can open, and jobs are created.
But while the dollar drops against every other currency the Chinese Yuan remains the same, and Chinese goods don't get more expensive - at least here. So our factories are not busier, the import/export imbalance stays the same and American jobs are not created.
One might ask, "How is this possible in a free market?" Indeed.
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Take a look at the agenda for the Building the New Economy conference, Thursday, October 29, 2009 — 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C.
This conference sounds the call for the new economy we must build out of the ruins of the old. It focuses on the need for a new agenda to revive manufacturing in America.
-- Oh, it's free. But you have to RSVP.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
October 11, 2009
Manufacturing And Outsourcing -- What Were We Thinking?
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
I'm reading a a review of"Capitalism: A Love Story" at naked capitalism, and came across this,
"I grew up in small towns dominated by manufacturing plants, and I remember that they were prosperous, optimistic, and stable. People who had good jobs at the local mill were not the top of the social order; that was reserved for businessmen and successful professionals, like doctors and lawyers. But they could afford decent homes, creature comforts, vacations, and send their kids to college (not the fanciest, often a state school unless they got a scholarship, but their children could nevertheless hope to do better than their parents). But that had started fading by the 1970s as America’s economic dominance started to slip. Moore clearly is pained at the loss of the America that was (while pointing out it depended on the special circumstances of our post World War II political and manufacturing dominance) and our naivete in trusting in an economic model that has been been turned against the common man."
Remind me, why did we think it was a good idea to stop manufacturing things in America? Why did we outsource the jobs? Why doesn't our government have an industrial policy -- a plan to keep us economically strong?
Looking back at the past few decades I'm not really clear on this. I feel like we are waking up from that scene in Moore's movie where the hypnotists are mesmerizing their victims, looking around at the economic devastation that is the aftermath of decades of conservative economic rule and wondering, What were we thinking?
Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:19 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
October 9, 2009
Here We Go Again - American Glass Industry Losing Jobs And Factories To Chinese Subsidies
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Short-term gains for a few. Long-term harm to the rest of us.
Again and again we have seen American industries exported, the plants closed, the jobs lost, and government officials just letting it happen. The workers in the other countries are almost always paid less than workers here, sometimes dramatically less, which means they can't afford to buy things made in America. They often suffer from dangerous working conditions and the factories they work in often spread pollution that that harms people there and even affects us here.
Our country let this happen because a wealthy few benefited in the short term from policies that harmed the rest of us over the long term. The wealthy few used some of the $$ gained to buy off lobby and contribute to campaigns of politicians who let them get away with it. Often the very politicians and their staffs were soon bribed hired by these wealthy few, for very high amounts. (Look at the sources of money raised by the Bush presidential campaigns, and the places where administration trade officials are employed since Bush left office for examples of what I am talking about.)
The result of these trade policies has been a huge and ever-increasing balance-of-trade deficit, year after year, which means America has to borrow more and more money to buy things we used to make here, or to buy things that we could have traded for if we still made things here. Yes, a wealthy few benefited greatly, many becoming billionaires many times over. Vast amounts of wealth have concentrated at the top in recent years. Short-term gains for a few. Many of the rest of us suffered dramatic pay cuts or lost jobs, lost houses, lost our health insurance, lost our pensions, etc. Long-term harms for the rest of us.
The short-term benefits-to-a-few that were exchanged for long-term harm to the rest of us are now harming the rest of us here in the long term. We owe the rest of the world huge amounts of money. The economy has fallen apart because so many of us can't afford anything - like paying back the debts we had to take on to get by. Now the government can't do anything important because We, the People don't have the funds.
So here is just the latest outrage. The Economic Policy Institute released a report yesterday, Through China’s looking glass—Subsidies to the Chinese glass industry from 2004-08,
Data and calculations in this report reveal that China’s glass industry received total subsidies approximating at least $30.3 billion from 2004 to 2008.
The accompanying press release tells us about the effect of this on American jobs,
The rapid growth of the Chinese glass industry, despite ongoing product quality issues, has already been felt keenly in the U.S. industry, which has contracted by about 30 percent (nearly 40,000 jobs) since 2001. States such as Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia have lost at least one out of four – or many more – of their glass industry jobs since 2001.
President Obama made the right decision when he enforced the trade laws in the case of Chinese tires by imposing a tariff on imports. In this case he can let China know that America is determined to keep our factories and jobs and will trade on a fair, even-handed basis from now on.
It is time to get angry about these policies that benefit a few in the short term but harm the rest of us in the long term. We need to reform our trade and manufacturing policies. We need to insist on two-way trade and a strong American manufacturing base.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:00 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
October 5, 2009
We Need A Jobs Program And Leadership That Will DO It This Time
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Friday’s jobs report said 263,000 jobs were lost in September.
BUT that is after 571,000 people gave up actively looking for work. The number of jobs lost last month was 263,000 plus 571,000 = 834,000.
The "stimulus plan" is currently creating (and/or saving) between 200,000 and 250,000 jobs a month. Yes, that means the real job loss would have been at least 1,034,000 without the assistance of the stimulus plan.
On top of that the "birth/death" model -- the government's assumption that a number of small businesses are starting up that they are not tracking -- is overestimating job creation, leaving policymakers without needed warning signals. The job loss numbers for the last year are expected to be revised upward by 824,000 early next year as a result.
This is bad. Really bad. We need a real jobs program, and we need it bad.
There is something else we need: we need progressive leadership that understands how important this is to people.
Here is what I mean. I came across a news story from the fight over the stimulus plan earlier this year, that now in light of Friday’s terrible jobs report says a lot more than it said at the time. House Dems Strip Stimulus of $200 Million Provision to Refurbish National Mall,
“The move was made amidst a torrent of GOP criticism about wasteful or non-stimulative spending in the bill, including those two projects, as the president attempts to woo House GOPers.”Yes, the House gave up this project that would have brought jobs to DC - and fixed up the the National Mall - to try to get Republican votes. How did that work out? How many House GOP votes did they get?
How many people in DC could be employed fixing up the mall and other buildings? The Democrats took out $200 million that was originally in the stimulus without gaining a single vote for the bill for doing it!
Meanwhile, the terrible jobs report showed that state and local governments are shedding jobs,
"Government employment fell by 53,000, with the largest drop—24,000 jobs—in the noneducation component of local governments."With that in mind, let me remind you of this brilliant negotiating tactic: Senate Stimulus Compromise Deals a Blow to Cash-Strapped States,
... "state stabilization funds" ... were cut back by $40 billion this weekend in the deal cut by Senate centrists.That's right. The original stimulus plan provided funds to help keep states from laying people off. These funds were cut -- and now states are laying off.
The compromises in the stimulus plan have consequences, and those consequences are people's jobs. The compromises were an experiment in "bipartisanship" that failed. The stimulus package gave up several important things, but how many Republican votes were won over? And as a result real people are losing real jobs.
Making matters worse, unemployment compensation is starting to run out for many people who were laid off when this mess started. AND the COBRA health insurance subsidies are running out soon as well! On top of that, contractors - employees who are not called employees because companies can get away with not paying benefits, stock options, unemployment insurance, etc. - a huge component of the labor force, don't even get unemployment or COBRA in the first place.
We Need Jobs Programs NOW
So here is an idea from outside of Washington: How about our government help our people by putting together some real jobs programs? Put people to work while we figure out how to fix the economic mess that conservative policies created.
It is time to use the power of government to start doing something that helps people, and that is not blocked by a misplaced need to get "centrists" (read: politicians trolling for payments/future jobs from big corporations) to like you or a fear that Rush Limbaugh is going to say something bad about you if you go ahead and do what we elected you to do. Here is a news flash: The market-fundamentalist corporatists are not going to like you, and Rush Limbaugh IS going to say bad things about you. Get a clue, they are not responding to the carrots so start using sticks.
Friday's jobs report says this mess is not going away any time soon. Friday’s jobs report shows that things are too serious and too many Americans are suffering for the administration and congressional leadership to continue playing nice guy and give-in strategies. This is important to too many people. People need to be able to eat and have shelter – never mind the health care fiasco – and they need this now.
And it would be politically popular. Think about this: giving people jobs would be politically popular.
Here are some job ideas:
Why don’t we pay people to start retrofitting homes and buildings today to be energy efficient, for free?
Why don’t we pay people to do thousands of projects in the national and state parks?
Why don't we add a teaching assistant to every classroom> And why don't we hire enough teachers to cut class sizes in half?
Why don't we fix all the roads and bridges that haven't been repaired for decades?
What about direct aid to manufacturers who still cannot get credit?
Here's a big one: why don't we cut the workweek to 30 hours? How many people will that put to work? Do you think people are going to object to having to work 30 hours instead of 40?
Oh, and why don't we fix up the National Mall in Washington DC? It needs it and people in DC need jobs. There is simply no excuse not to do this.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:34 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos
September 25, 2009
G20 - Getting Down To Business
I am posting from Pittsburgh on the G20 Summit, over at Campaign for America's Future's
Blog for OutFuture| Here is my first post today -- go over there for the rest.
Today the world leaders attending the G20 Summit get down to business. The main issues are economic restructuring to prevent another collapse, addressing trade imbalances, and discussions of climate change solutions. But the overriding issue for all of us boils down to jobs.
The G20 countries see GDP growth as the holy grail. But we have seen that GDP growth alone does not by itself improve living standards - or even create jobs. Instead, as we have seen, in fact it can even be destructive to job growth as well as the environment. As the articles I linked to yesterday discussed, the GDP growth measure is not a measure of people's well-being, or of "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness." This focus on GDP might make a few already-rich people even richer but it does not lead to the kind of restructuring of income and wealth distribution that benefits the rest of us around the world.
It's funny that I find myself writing "as we have seen" again and again, because in defiance of the conventional wisdom what we have actually experienced keeps turning out to be different from what the experts tell us will result from the actions of those making the decisions for the world. Bloggers joke "who could have known" because over and over the bloggers are writing about the things that the experts later declare no one could have known about... Bloggers are really just the voice of democracy -- the voice of regular people across the country and world writing about what they are seeing, bypassing the "expert" media gatekeepers. Some things you can just see in front of your face, and the bloggers see these things, while the experts just keep missing them. One of those things is that the regular people out here in the rest of the world are having a harder and harder time, while a few rich people are getting vastly richer, and that just can't continue.
Outside
The streets of Pittsburgh are quiet ... too quiet. (Just kidding.) Outside the streets are largely deserted - even more so than yesterday. But late yesterday and into the night there were several hundred anarchists outside of town breaking windows and trying to break through police lines to get into the city.
Today large demonstrations are expected, but they are certainly expected to be peaceful. The problem is that there is no chance that they will be seen by the world leaders gathered for the Summit. The nearest place they can reach is the street below the windows at the Media Center where I am working, and this is nowhere in sight of the convention center. Well, that isn't exactly accurate, I can get a glimpse of the roof of the convention center, which is two blocks away (see picture).
So this is the limit of where demonstrators can go. On the one hand, there are obvious security concerns. But it also leads to an environment that isolates the leaders from the concerns of the rest of us.
The main concern of the rest of us is jobs.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:14 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
August 4, 2009
Misuse Of The Words Protectionism And Trade Is Making Us Poorer
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Can one be called “protectionist” just for pointing out when other countries are being smart? Maybe so. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first…
Language has tremendous power. People like George Lakoff and Drew Westin, who study the use of language in political discussion, say that our choice of words has the power to actually affect the “wiring” or neuron circuits that our brains use to think.
The corporate marketers and political persuaders have certainly learned the power of language to influence us. It has even gotten to the point where “neuromarketing” uses MRI and EEG to study how our brains react to certain stimuli so they can be used to market and persuade.
In politics I think that we have even reached a point where we give words more power and importance even than the ideas the words represent. In the Bush years we learned that the persuaders believed they could “create their own reality.”
"That's not the way the world really works anymore," he [Bush administration official] continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
The influencers have become adept at scaring up the public into stampedes that can have sudden and dramatic effects on politicians. So lawmakers have gotten into the habit of basing their decisions on what they think (fear) the public believes (according to what Drudge and Fox are claiming they believe) rather than what is the best policy. And in fact, it is often the case that the public was behind the right policy all along. (Like with a health care public option -- the manipulators had the politicians convinced it was "centrist" to oppose that.) Consequently, words are used as weapons by professionals who wish to distract us from things that are in front of our own faces.
I was conscious of this the other day in the post, How Should We Talk About Industrial And Manufacturing Policy? I wrote,
“The phrase “industrial policy” sounds so Walter Mondale, 1970s, smokestacks and brick factory old-fashioned. I suspect the subject turns people off, eyes glaze over, hands reach under the table for iPhones and Blackberries…”
Making things in America is crucially important to our future economy. But today as we join the discussion of how to restore America’s economy the manipulators have been busy, so it matters as much that we use the right words as that we explore the right ideas and policies.
The Words “Protectionism” and “Trade”
Two words that have significant power today are “protectionism” and “trade.” In current usage anything that can be labeled as “trade” in any way shape or form is in all cases considered by most to be a good thing. And anything that can be labeled as “protectionism” in any way shape or form is in all cased a bad thing. Simple as that. If you want to engage in some practice that people might oppose you try to label it as “trade” to shut down discussion. It you want to block a policy that people might favor you try to label it as “protectionism” to shut down discussion.
I am thinking about this because of the post, American Protectionism Is A Myth, by Leo Gerard and Scott Paul. They wrote about the “shrill warnings against protectionist measures have been issued by editorial pages and foreign officials.”
But what is this “protectionism?” They write,
“This is the untold story of protectionism: the barriers that other governments erect to block American goods and the mercantilist measures they utilize to gain market share in the U.S. These practices range from China's currency misalignment and massive industrial subsidies to non-tariff barriers in Korea and Japan. All these impediments have been well documented by U.S. trade officials, but the mere act of identifying these practices is now viewed as protectionism, even though taking action to eliminate them would expand world trade, reduce global imbalances and preserve the free market.”
Yes, just talking about what other countries are doing to protect and promote their own manufacturing can be labeled as being “protectionist.” This is because once these practices are pointed out the natural next thought is that America should be just as smart about encouraging our own domestic manufacturing.
The op-ed, Falling Behind On Green Tech, by John Doerr and Jeff Immelt in yesterday’s Washington Post, reflects this fear of being branded with the word “protectionism.” They write,
“. . . Do we want to win the race to lead the next great global industry, clean energy? That is the choice before us.We are clearly not in the lead today. That position is held by China, which understands the importance of controlling its energy future. China's commitment to developing clean energy technologies and markets is breathtaking.
[. . .] How can we catch up? Not through protectionism or massive government intervention but through the power of good old home-grown innovation.”
This statement is an example of how people react to the fear of the negative associations that the manipulators have placed on the word “protectionism.” (They also show a bit of fear of being branded with the word “government.”) They try to escape from any such notion by using the “good” words, “home-grown innovation.” But of course you can’t have “home grown” without protecting your home, which involves government. And you aren’t going to have innovation without the protection and enabling that government brings through schools to educate the innovators and courts to protect their intellectual property. But never mind, that's another post.
So it is “protectionist” to say that other countries have smart planning policies that are increasing their wealth because it naturally makes people realize that we ought to do the same.
For example, if I tell you that China requires that 70% of the content of wind turbines used in China be manufactured in China, where does that take your thinking about our own country’s efforts to stimulate green manufacturing jobs? It is inevitable that your thinking turns to, “then why don’t we do that?” And there you inevitably are: protectionism.
Or if I tell you that GE won't buy wind turbines from American companies, even at the same prices, it is inevitable that your thinking turns to, “why don’t we do something about that?” And there you inevitably are: protectionism.
You see, being smart and supporting our own country’s manufacturing is labeled “protectionist,” which is bad. China is smart to do this but we are “protectionist” if we suggest we should, too.
It can even be called “protectionist” just to point out that a country’s wealth comes from making things. Because making things here inevitably brings the thinking back to having the government protect our jobs. If we say we should make things here we are undercutting the profits to be made by using exploited labor there.
“Trade” is another word that the manipulators have managed to take control of. “Free trade” is now hardwired as the ultimate good. :Free trade" is trade involving no interference from government. (“Government” is another word that has “bad” attachments.) So I guess “free trade” means no police protection from thieves at the ports, no courts to enforce the purchase agreements, no protection of the ships that carry the traded goods or rules for the sea lanes they follow, no roads for trucks to carry the goods from the ports… (I can’t figure this anti-government stuff out, really. But that’s another post.)
The reason I bring up if because misuse of the word “trade” is something I keep coming back to. When a company closes a factory here and opens it in a country where workers are exploited with low wages, or the environment is not protected, making the same thing, using the same machines, and the same raw materials, and selling it in the same stores, how is that “trade?” That isn’t trade, that is closing a factory here and moving it there so you can take advantage of exploited workers or dump toxins into the environment.
But by attaching the word “trade” to a scam like this, they get away with it, because “trade” is considered to be good. You can't be against "trade," so you can't be against using exploited workers to make the same stuff you were already making here. And you certainly can't call for protecting our jobs from being undercut by the use of workers who are exploited and have no recourse. That would be "protectionism." And that is bad.
The result of this obstruction-by-words is that debt increases as we make less with which to trade, our jobs are sent elsewhere, workers elsewhere are exploited, our government is weakened and we get poorer and poorer.
So as we try to work out new policies that will get our country past the current economic crisis and move toward a new economic paradigm where we all share the benefits of the country we have built, powerful words are in our way.
When we overcome the power of these words to brand us, and our fear of that, we can begin to be smart ourselves. When we cease being afraid of being branded as "protectionist" or "against trade" then we can be as smart as the countries with which we compete.
Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:34 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos
