Globalists Increase U.S. Trade Deficit

[holston]

This move is sure to help "spread the wealth around" on a Global Scale;

U.S. trade with Mexico after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has cost the United States nearly 700,000 jobs through 2010. U.S. trade with China has certainly failed to deliver on the promised benefits of growing exports. Since that country entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the U.S. has lost 2.7 million jobs through 2011 due to growing trade deficits with China. And the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) has also resulted in growing trade deficits with that country and the loss of more than 40,000 U.S. jobs. Most of the trade-related job losses are concentrated in manufacturing, and growing trade deficits are responsible for a large share of the decline in U.S. manufacturing employment over the past fifteen years.

Using estimates of changes in two-way trade between the U.S. and the EU under the agreement reveals that TTIP is projected to result in a growing U.S. trade deficit with the EU and the loss of at least 71,000 additional U.S. jobs. Senator Baucus, citing advice from Benjamin Franklin, advises the U.S. to “jump quickly at opportunities.”

- See more at: Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement: Job Claims Are Pure Baloney | Economic Policy Institute

Max Baucus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A member of the Democratic Party, Baucus was appointed to serve as Ambassador to China by President Barack Obama, succeeding Gary Lock

On August 9, 2011, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appointed Baucus to the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

Israel

Baucus was one of the Senate's largest career recipients of pro-Israel Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions, receiving $550,589 since 1989.[34]

After finishing law school, Baucus spent three years as a lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C.

Baucus was born Max Sieben Enke in Helena, Montana, the son of Jean Baucus (née Sheriff), from a wealthy ranching family, and Stephen Enke, Ph.D., a demographer and economist.

What should we do with Stephen Enke? | History of Economics Playground

Enke is recorded as one of the most prolific writers in top journal in economics around the 1940s, specializing in innocuous topics such as monopolistic competition (Chamberlin was in his PhD committee at Harvard) and international trade.

But around late 1940s, he started writing on subjects with a more charged and dubious moral dimension. One of the first economists hired by the RAND Coporation, he founded the Logistics Department there in 1953. In his researches at Rand, he had no scruple pondering questions of life and death for millions of people in terms of financial cost and benefits. He was far from being alone, would you immediately reply. I know, but Enke has pushed the cost-benefit logic several steps beyond.

 

[holston]

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement Would Harm Our Environment | Michele Nash-Hoff

What surprises me is that all of the above organizations supported President Obama in his bid for reelection last year despite the fact that he had gone back on his pledge "to oppose Bush-style free trade agreements that lead to thousands of lost American jobs" and his word to "not support NAFTA-type trade agreements" in his 2008 campaign.

A few conservative news outlets such as WorldNet Daily began to recognize the dangers of the TPP early this year, beginning with the article, "Obama skirting Congress in globalist plan?" in which Jerome Corsi warn that "the administration apparently plans to restrict congressional prerogatives to an up-or-down vote" utilizing the "fast-track authority," a provision under the Trade Promotion Authority that requires Congress to review a FTA under limited debate, in an accelerated time frame subject to a yes-or-no vote. Under fast-track authority, there is no provision for Congress to modify the agreement by submitting amendments to ensure foreign partners that the FTA, once signed, will not be changed during the legislative process.

In a more recent article, "Obama's 2-ocean globalist plan," Jerome Corsi writes, "Quietly, the Obama administration is systematically putting into place a two-ocean globalist plan that will dwarf all prior trade agreements, including NAFTA, with the goal of establishing the global sovereignty envisioned by New World Order enthusiasts. The two agreements are the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TIPP. WND has learned the Obama administration plans to jam the TPP through Congress no later than Dec. 31."

 

[holston]

Globalists and US Trade Agreements | Bud Meyers

Monday, June 10, 2013
Globalists and US Trade Agreements
Treason is defined, in part, as someone who "adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." Whereas a globalist is defined, in part, as someone who advocates "a policy of placing the interests of the entire world above those of individual nations". But where does one line cross the other?

The US has many wealthy global philanthropists, such as Bill Gates and Bill Clinton --- and they both have set up foundations to "feed the world's poor and to lift them out of poverty".

On the surface, it appears to be a very noble cause. While many corporate CEOs send jobs overseas for cheaper labor, many politicians accommodate them by passing free trade agreements (such as Bill Clinton for Bill Gates).

I'm really trying to understand, not criticize. Can people be patriotic to more than one nation --- sort of like dual-citizenship? Are multi-national corporations patriotic to all the nations they do business with, or are they loyal to no nation at all? I'm trying to better understand this whole "globalization" thing, and how it's supposed to be good for Americans. (I'm sure that a real smart economist or political scientist could better explain this to me, and in terms that I even I could understand.)

But why are both Bills helping poor people in places like China or India --- don't those countries have their own billionaires? How many Chinese or Indian billionaires set up foundations to help poor people in America? I'm really trying to understand all of this. Am I that stupid?

The poor in America are told to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and that no one owes them a thing. Millionaire Herman Cain told us, "Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!" Millionaire Glenn Beck told unemployed protesters, "Some of these people, I bet you'd be ashamed to call them Americans. Go out and get a job!" Millionaire Ben Stein writes, "The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities". Why don't those rich Americans start foundations to help the poor in America (or in China), instead of berating them? Do those American millionaires say the same thing about poor people in other countries?

I would tell them all, "Stop outsourcing our jobs and pay us a fair and living wage, and maybe then we wouldn't have to come to you for a damn handout."

But both Bills have done their fair share to help in their moral endeavors: Bill Gates with Microsoft and his foundation, and Bill Clinton with his foundation and all those "free trade agreements".

OK, so far I understand that Bill Gates and Bill Clinton wants to help people all over the world. Kudos to both Bills for being good and decent human beings --- and for wanting to help others around the world. They are both very wealthy men, and so it's a good thing that they can afford to help others around the world, especially without having to personally make any sacrifices to their own livelihoods or standard-of-living while engaged in their global work.

And if their righteous and noble efforts means having to sacrifice one American middle-class job to help lift three other people out of poverty in China or India --- then that's a good human trade-off, am I right?

I couldn't possibly imagine the concept of being a jet-setting globalist and wealthy philanthropist, especially after being unemployed since 2008 and losing my car. My little corner of the world has become much smaller.

The more cynical side of my reasoning tells me that these corporate and political leaders do this mostly for tax benefits --- and probably for public relations reasons. It's very difficult for me to fathom that so many wealthy people have such kind and generous hearts, and that they feel so much empathy for the poor and down-trodden around the world. A "saintly CEO" sounds more like an oxymoron to me, especially when I think of how they also outsource jobs for cheaper labor to factories with poor working conditions and very little safety regulations.

And then I begin to think of the much more sinister reasons behind globalization.

Currently, the United States has free trade agreements in force with 20 countries and negotiating with several more. Most of them were signed during Bill Clinton's and George W. Bush's terms in office, with the exception of the Israel–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1985 (which also includes the Palestinian Authority).

In 1994 we had NAFTA, the trade agreements with Canada and Mexico. In 1994 Bill Clinton also arranged an agreement in Indonesia with Pacific Rim nations to gradually remove trade barriers and open their markets as well.

In 1999 Bill Clinton signed a "landmark" trade agreement with the People's Republic of China. During a press conference on March 29, 2000, Clinton said that granting China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) would open up telecommunications for investment. He also said, "We don't have to transfer technology or do joint manufacturing in China any more." But China's entry into the WTO was not what President Clinton had promised.

It's worth noting who actually write these trade bills. They are usually lawyers for conservative lobbying groups --- a group of CEOs of major U.S. corporations formed to promote pro-business public policy ---

American consumers and their advocates have little-to-nothing to say on the matter of trade agreements (unless they sign an online petition), but that rarely has any effect; and most people must just trust their representatives in Congress (and the their President) to do the right thing -- *cough-cough-choke-choke* -- but so far, that has not -- *cough-cough-choke-choke* -- worked out very well for the middle-class in America; but the free trade agreements have helped many other people across the world...and that's what should matter most, right?

 

[holston]

http://http://americanfreepress.net/?p=15154

In a clear sign that populist nationalism is a growing force in the western world, United Kingdom (UK) Chancellor George Osborne gave an important address in mid-January in which he called for major European Union (EU) reforms to safeguard member nations’ sovereignty and revive their lackluster economies. In what was widely described as a “threat,” Osborne stated that maintaining the status quo likely would necessitate the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. This is but one of many recent signs that the globalists’ dream of a New World Order (NWO) is tottering and may soon collapse.

Poorer EU nations have been demanding increasing subsidies from wealthier countries, straining the Euro currency. Many white Europeans are increasingly alarmed at the massive influx of primarily Muslim, many times violent, Asians and Africans, along with EU “welfare tourists” like the Gypsies, and are demanding immigration restraints.

Sound familiar?

Nigel Farage, member of the European Parliament and leader of the increasingly popular UK Independence Party (UKIP), was more direct, calling Osborne’s hopes of structural reform “utter bunkum.” And in a stinging address to the Greek prime minister, who is the current EU president, Farage ridiculed Greece’s self-enslavement to Goldman Sachs. He stated that Europe is “now run by big business, big banks and…big bureaucrats.”

With a platform of getting the UK out of the EU, stopping unrestrained immigration and other populist causes, UKIP is one of a number of fast-growing, nationalist political parties in Europe.

New Details on ‘One World’ Trade Deal

By Mark Anderson

If concerned Americans don’t pay close attention, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could soar into force on the wings of enhanced authority for President Barack Obama, even while there are indications that some food imports under the TPP may evade United States health standards. To top it all off, these developments come in the aftermath of yet another WikiLeaks release of a secretive draft text. This time the “leak” concerns “the entire [Trans-Pacific Partnership] environment chapter and the corresponding chairs report,” as WikiLeaks.org noted.

“The TPP transnational legal regime would cover 12 countries initially and encompass 40% of global GDP and one-third of world trade,” WikiLeaks stated on its website.

-

Representative Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and retiring Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have introduced legislation that, if passed, would grant Obama fast-track authority on the treaty, meaning that the president would have the power to negotiate the trade deal while Congress could only vote it up or down and not amend or debate it in violation of the Constitution.

This is clearly designed to accelerate the remaining negotiations for the farthest-reaching trade scheme in history—a pact that most members of Congress have not read, and which includes nations from Asia to South America.

Fast-track trade authority enabled Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to pass the World Trade Organization deal, North American Free Trade Agreement, the Central American Free Trade Agreement and other disastrous trade deals in order to reconfigure the economy into a global matrix that overrides the vastly superior idea of local and national economic activity. Only large banking houses and other transnational outfits could possibly benefit in a sustained, meaningful way from this scheme.

The TPP’s details are slowly being leaked and should be assessed, but Americans should remain focused on the broader effects of the TPP and other trade pacts that have damaged the U.S. This buys precious time and helps ensure that Congress, the American people and the people of all affected nations are not blindsided by the mother of all trade deals—even as a rarely discussed U.S.-European Union trade pact has been advancing in parallel with the TPP, under as much or more secrecy than the TPP.

- See more at: http://americanfreepress.net/?p=15154#sthash.EImWRHqm.dpuf

 

[holston]

Trans-Pacific Partnership ?free-trade madness?

Right off the bat, it’s important to know that the TPP would make any “Buy American” or “Buy Local” laws or preferences illegal.

With TPP, we would also be disposing of other regulations that have worked to provide us with a safer consumer environment and raise U.S. living standards

The TPP also would seek to aggressively reduce tariffs that protect our domestic factories from cut-throat global competition from predatory foreign trading “partners” of which there is never a shortage.

We’ve passed enough free-trade agreements already (three in the past year alone) and the results have not been favorable to the United States if you go by the basic definition of a “good” or “beneficial” trade agreement.

The first words of our Constitution say that, “All legislative power shall be vested in a Congress.” If Congress can’t amend legislation and only vote yes or no, they clearly do not have all legislative power, since allowing amendments would be an increase in the legislative power of Congress.

As a nation, we need to return to our roots and secure the American market for the American producer. Free trade works against doing that, and that is why the Trans-Pacific Partnership needs to be stopped. I hope that you’ll contact your legislative representatives and tell them we don’t need fast track and we don’t need more free trade!

Read more at Trans-Pacific Partnership ?free-trade madness?

 

[American Horse]

We operate in a global economy and people need to get used to it.

It has absolutely nothing to do with a NWO other than, yes, we are going to have to realize that people want their goodies and they want to pay as little as possible for them.

One way to lower the cost of goodies for the people is to have trade agreements that eliminated subsidies by the exporters and tariffs for the products they import from us, and only trade agreements can produce that result.

We now have a huge opportunity to lower our trade deficit with the export of petroleum products. We apparently don't want to institute a policy to increase our exports compared to our imports, and that translates directly to higher trade deficits.

The great proportion of our trade deficits is not related to our trade treaties but to US policy. Consider this, enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) has made China the new world leader in Initial Public Offerings of new products and processes to be manufactured. The reason for that is SOX add so much to the cost of a newly invented product, in particular upstarts of entrepreneurs with little capital to pay the high start up costs forced on they by SOX that they have taken them to China.

All those jobs, production facilities, construction of same, feeder processes, administration, and end product profits and revenues have gone to China at America's expense. Those losses constitute trade deficits.

 

[American Horse]

And Fast Track authority only makes sense if we want any trade agreements at all. 536 congress people (nor a senate and house committee) cannot negotiate a trade treaty. Only an executive can do that. They will get a chance to vote it up or down and they will get to read it before they vote.

They will have expert staff available in the appropriate house (but not senate) committee to examine the agreements and advise. In the Senate you can expect Dirty Harry Reid to not even allow it to be taken up in committee because he will be relying on a political ploy rather than a good policy outcome.

That's why you are only hearing about Dave Camp's committee hearings. But the committee is only taking it up for advisory purposes because a full house vote will be required and the committee will only vote a recommendation; they cannot kill it in committee.

The unfortunate aspect to the whole thing IMO is the political aspect that will be used by the President to sneak something through that is not in our best interest and then he will accuse the dissenters of not being for "free trade." That accusation particularly stings Republicans because they are the party of free enterprise and business and they can be made to look like they are hypocrites when they vote nay. They have to take it up as the next order of business once it goes to the congress and it has to go to both houses simultaneously. If it's not done simultaneously it is open for a challenge of having been illegally passed....if it actually is passed.

 

[holston]

We operate in a global economy and people need to get used to it.

It has absolutely nothing to do with a NWO other than, yes, we are going to have to realize that people want their goodies and they want to pay as little as possible for them.

One way to lower the cost of goodies for the people is to have trade agreements that eliminated subsidies by the exporters and tariffs for the products they import from us, and only trade agreements can produce that result.

We now have a huge opportunity to lower our trade deficit with the export of petroleum products. We apparently don't want to institute a policy to increase our exports compared to our imports, and that translates directly to higher trade deficits.

The great proportion of our trade deficits is not related to our trade treaties but to US policy. Consider this, enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) has made China the new world leader in Initial Public Offerings of new products and processes to be manufactured. The reason for that is SOX add so much to the cost of a newly invented product, in particular upstarts of entrepreneurs with little capital to pay the high start up costs forced on they by SOX that they have taken them to China.

All those jobs, production facilities, construction of same, feeder processes, administration, and end product profits and revenues have gone to China at America's expense. Those losses constitute trade deficits.

Thank you so much for your response. It's very refreshing to get a civil reply which is measured and contains substance.

I agree that it is necessary to deal in a Global community.
And I see nothing else you have mentioned which I would take issue with.

I would like to expound a little on them a bit though if you please.

What you said about people not wanting to pay more than they have to is true.

But it is also true that the tariffs you mentioned are higher for U.S. goods going to China while they are no where near as stiff for Chinese goods entering the U.S.

Don't you think this imbalance is UNFAIR and leads to those deficits you mentioned?

I believe this is the reason that some people were opposed to NAFTA. We see how their objections were ignored by our POLICY MAKERS.

How is providing consumers with cheap products going to prove beneficial for the U.S. if the end result of it means a weaker nation and greater unemployment?

Tariffs designed to protect American interests are nothing new. And it is suicidal for the U.S. to not protect it's own interests. This means preserving our manufacturing capabilities.

Those people who are unemployed or underemployed cannot buy ANY products, cheap or otherwise if they don't have the money to buy them. How can they have that money if they are unemployed? More and more, Americans are being forced to accept low skill, low paying service sector jobs if they are to work at all.

This situation does not apply to those foreign nationals who are flooding the country from places like China and India who are rapidly replacing natural born citizens ( and especially WHITE MEN ) in the skilled labor force any more than it applies to the GLOBALIST ELITISTS who are making the trade policies WITHOUT the CONSENT of "the little people".



While it is true and necessary that this nation must deal on a Global scale, it is NOT necessary that the decisions and policies which are implemented in order to do so should be DICTATED only by those at the top of the food chain and those who have so much wealth that they have no desire left to fulfill except acquiring the power to dictate life and death over the masses whom they consider "useless eaters".


Do you see the difference?

By analogy, it is necessary that any ordered society maintain a military and a police force. However a police force or a military exist in both TOTALITARIAN systems and those which are relatively free, ie those in which the citizens comprising it are permitted as much freedom as the pervasive moral sense allows them to be.

The more corrupt, immoral, decadent, and unethical a society is, the more restraint is required to be ENFORCED upon them. In other words, a society which behaves like baboons and cutthroats necessarily requires a system of stringent controls to be FORCED upon them to maintain order.
Conversely, the more a society is characterized by good moral conduct and sensibility, the fewer the constraints are that must be IMPOSED upon them.

If this makes sense to you so far, then you should easily be able to extrapolate that principle to the "rulers", the "leaders", and those who have the wealth, or wield the power to make the rules and enforce them.

A simpler way of saying all this is to say that corruption can be either endemic within a community at large or pervasive among those who are charged with or empowered to direct the societies activities or both.



While I am very discouraged by the signs of decay which U.S. society is showing more and more, I am equally alarmed if not more so by the liberties which our "elected Representatives" are taking with the decisions they are making in behalf of the Elitists who are institutionalizing Marxism on a Global scale in order to bring the reigns of power into their own hands at the expense of the populations they are manipulating.

It is naive to assume that many of those "upper class" people really have the best interests of the masses at heart, much less place them above their own.


So while I see the need for law and order and organization, and the necessity of there being fewer Chiefs than Indians, I also see the potential for tyrannical rule to become established in their name. Indeed, every indication I see shows a parallel rise between the degradation of society and the increase in totalitarian tendencies among the powers that be. My desire is that both the Chiefs AND the Indians of the US adopt and practice standards routinely which would tend to guarantee our mutual welfare and the continued existence of our country as a free nation, one which is worthy of admiration, and one which does not have to demand it at the point of a gun.


A globalist Marxist regime would call for a reduction of wealth and power in the US with a corresponding increase among third world nations. You cannot deny that there are many who would like to see just that, with no sympathy for any suffering or damages the US would have to sustain in order to bring it about. Are we as a nation going to continue to give them justification for the niggardly attitude they take because of our arrogance, perversions, and aggressive posturing ?

While I see nothing wrong with increasing standards of living world wide, I DO see something wrong with the systematic destruction of the U.S. and it's sovereignty in order to accomplish that goal.
Those who would have the entire world brought under a singular global rule would recognize that the foremost obstacle to bringing this venture about would be U.S. sovereignty and the power it has to retain it.

Therefore, I see much more at stake than even the loss of U.S. jobs or cheap goods from Japan.

If the corporate powers cannot bring themselves to place the interests of their U.S. employees or even the U.S. market above that of it's own profits, then there is no compelling reason left to the people themselves than to look out for their own interests as well by demanding of their "representatives" that they establish policies which will protect the interests of US workers and consumers as much as they benefit the corporate powers which originate in the US. And these "representatives" CERTAINLY ought to place the interests of their constituents here in the US ahead of those belonging to foreign countries like China, Mexico, and Israel!

Wouldn't you agree?