Is this the Swooshing Sound?

[davidj]

Back in the 90's there was a politician named Ross Perot that campaigned against NAFTA.

He said that when all these companies moved their factories to Mexico America would hear a giant swooshing sound of the jobs leaving the country.

Now, factories are closed, our people make very little of what we use in our daily lives.

Here in Knoxville I can list at least 6 major factories that are closed...Levi's, Standard, Palm Beach, Fulton's etc. etc.

Those few factories were several thousand jobs just in downtown within 2 miles of one another.

Auto parts made in Mexico but assembled here make me want to puke!

Why do our politician's never address this? Our folks are on welfare instead of working.

A lot of things get blamed on Lobbyist's. I believe that if you are honest you don't have to take any money from any Lobbyist. Our politician's are lying to us when they blame these people. We pay our politician's a good wage so they don't need this money. Quit blaming this lame excuse and do what's right.

Why does UT have to have Lobbyist's?

Why does any company need lobbyist unless they are wanting to buy a deal?

No one forces our politician's to take this money. If you are cheating this money influences you!

I don't see where any of our Tn Politicians even care if our factories are closed.

I personally thinks both parties are more worried about reelection than screaming and yelling when another factory closes down!

I think all our politician's are lying to us and too busy making deals.

No offense to restaurants but a man can't feed his family working in a restaurant.

Where am I wrong?

[davidj]

This happened to the American Indian. We put them on a monthly welfare check, and instead of being warriors and leaders they lost their self esteem and their rights because they were delegated to reservations. In fact, you never hear about them anymore.

Folks, this is happening to us. The few and the powerful are now paying our people welfare and thru the back door system with the American Companies they are getting wealthy as they make us more controllable and dependent on them.

If they can get all the guns they then have us by the balls!

We are seeing the demise of America as we knew it!

[oldogy]

Ross Perot was a successful business man who ran for president, fed up with the direction the country was heading and unafraid to speak the truth. NAFTA was a fiasco from conception. The only good thing we got from NAFTA was Canadian oil. I can remember getting into an argument in a management class over NAFTA. The instructor could not counter my point that how our work force, making $20. per hour, could sell to a work force making twenty cents an hour. This is the universal potential problem with trade treaties.

OP, you make valid points.

And yes, on principal I voted for Perot.

oldogy

[JPR1959]

I voted for Perot in 1992 because he was right then, and it's still right today. Unfortunately, I don't think the average American citizen can do anything about our current problems. There has to be a massive overhaul in our government. There are too many differing opinions in our country for this to happen. It's not a Democrat/Republican thing either.

[jtmaze]

By the way Briggs and Stratton in Newbern, TN closing on that note. For particulars just google it. 690 more people added to the welfare lines.

JTM🔫

Sent from my iPhone

[jtmaze]

I voted for Perot in 1992 because he was right then, and it's still right today. Unfortunately, I don't think the average American citizen can do anything about our current problems. There has to be a massive overhaul in our government. There are too many differing opinions in our country for this to happen. It's not a Democrat/Republican thing either.

You are right. It is a let the gubment take care of me way of thinking thing. When I was growing up, "you don't work you don't eat." now you don't work you ask someone to feed you and they do and you never work.

JTM🔫

Sent from my iPhone

[strickj]

The American consumer demands low prices. The American worker demands premium wages plus benefits for unskilled labor.

One of these things can not exist.

I don't see how the government is at fault except for allowing American business to follow supply and demand.

[jtmaze]

When 51% of the voting population is on welfare/earned income credit(get more back than you put in tax program) it is all over. There will be no way to vote out "big gubment." We are closer than you think.

JTM🔫

Sent from my iPhone

[Links2k]

I voted for Perot in 1992 because he was right then, and it's still right today. Unfortunately, I don't think the average American citizen can do anything about our current problems. There has to be a massive overhaul in our government. There are too many differing opinions in our country for this to happen. It's not a Democrat/Republican thing either.

Why can't more people see this? It's the people vs the corrupt government (republicans and democrats).

[JPR1959]

I'm going to remove my tin foil hat for a moment and state I believe the uber-elite that control the banks and corporations, are the ones that are controlling the world's governments. They are inserting their influence through fiscal policies, media outlets and lobbyists. These people are above the conservative/liberal debate because they have so much power and influence they are immune to it all. Eventually, the goal is a one world government. It might take several decades for this to occur, but it will happen. I am a crazy loon for writing this, so I am now putting my hat back on.

[kieefer]

I voted for Perot in 1992 because he was right then, and it's still right today. Unfortunately, I don't think the average American citizen can do anything about our current problems. There has to be a massive overhaul in our government. There are too many differing opinions in our country for this to happen. It's not a Democrat/Republican thing either.

Me too.

I can't help but think that if we voted for more people like Ross Perot in office (Local and State) since 92 IF it would be different now?

I think it would have made a difference back then, maybe not but now the monster has grown too large to control. I can't remember if Perot was like Paul today but I agreed with his fiscal policy then and wasn't paying much attention to what was happening in the Middle East or elsewhere.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I haven't looked lately, but a year or two ago Perot opened a web page with numerous blogs discussing our trends and situations, featuring his famous charts. Read em for awhile and they were interesting.

I voted Perot also.

Perot was kinda a "radical centrist". He was neither right winger, libertarian, or commie. Maybe that was a problem for his political success because lots of people like their political dogma "pure", not some mish-mash.

But Perot could have won if he hadn't been such a flake. People were sick to death of both parties back then too. In that regard, Perot was similar to Ron Paul though Paul is a libertarian rather than radical centrist. I like Ron Paul and do not consider him a flake, but too many people consider Paul a flake and it would probably be impossible to convince enough people otherwise unless the media echo-chamber would settle in for months of Ron Paul cheerleading, and we know that ain't gonna happen.

We need somebody like Paul or Perot who is so solid that the combined power-hungry organizations in the nation can't make em look like a flake. Might as well hope Superman comes and saves the day.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Guest Overtaker]

Free trade is a good thing. The problem is that the negatives are highly visible, while the positives are not.

If Levi's moves their production to Indonesia, a couple of things happen:

1. 80 or some number of Levi's factory workers will no longer be employed in the manufacturing of Levi's jeans.
   
2. Levi's products are now cheaper to the other 300,000,000 Americans.
   

The lost jobs at the factory are highly visible. The local news runs stories about them losing their jobs. You can count the number of jobs lost. What you don't see is that because Levi's products are now cheaper to the other 300 million Americans, everyone else now has more money to save or spend on other things. The rest of America either becomes richer through more investments, or instead of having one pair of jeans they now have a pair of jeans and a steak. Now the rancher has to hire more hands to take care of his cattle and he has to buy more feed. He has to hire more truckers to get his cattle to the slaughter house. The restaurant owner sells more steaks. You may be saying, "Hey, that's not a lot," but add each of those transactions up across the entire economy and you will see the difference.

There is a reason that pretty much every economist agrees that free trade is a good thing.

[DaveTN]

Where am I wrong?

You aren’t wrong. But the government can’t fix this; our economy rests squarely on the shoulders of the American people. If they have jobs; they just don’t care. By the time their jobs are gone, it’s too late.

We can turn our economy around anytime we choose. But as you will see here, as long as it’s cheap many people don’t care where it comes from or whose pockets their money is going in.

Most products can’t compete on price. EPA, OSHA, Health care, unemployment insurance, etc. Our foreign competitors don’t have those costs.

Some products are competing on price. Look at Smith & Wesson taking back the LEO market from the foreigners with the M&P. Better product, made here, same money. Each and every one of us should be supporting these kinds of companies.

It’s about money. And too many Americans will turn their back on their country for a dollar and they give a speech about why they did it.

[DaveTN]

Free trade is a good thing. The problem is that the negatives are highly visible, while the positives are not.

If Levi's moves their production to Indonesia, a couple of things happen:

1. 80 or some number of Levi's factory workers will no longer be employed in the manufacturing of Levi's jeans.
   
2. Levi's products are now cheaper to the other 300,000,000 Americans.
   

The lost jobs at the factory are highly visible. The local news runs stories about them losing their jobs. You can count the number of jobs lost. What you don't see is that because Levi's products are now cheaper to the other 300 million Americans, everyone else now has more money to save or spend on other things. The rest of America either becomes richer through more investments, or instead of having one pair of jeans they now have a pair of jeans and a steak. Now the rancher has to hire more hands to take care of his cattle and he has to buy more feed. He has to hire more truckers to get his cattle to the slaughter house. The restaurant owner sells more steaks. You may be saying, "Hey, that's not a lot," but add each of those transactions up across the entire economy and you will see the difference.

There is a reason that pretty much every economist agrees that free trade is a good thing.

And every reputable economist says the American economy can’t recover until our manufacturing base recovers.

Remove all manufacturing and what do you have left? Healthcare workers, government workers, cops, and lawyers; all of which are overhead for those paying the bills. Who is going to pay the bills that manufacturing was paying…… private property owners in the form of increased property taxes. That is until they go broke.

This ain’t rocket science.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi Overtaker

There are good and bad features to free trade as you note. I don't know the solution. Protectionism seems counter-productive, but free trade ain't doing us any favors either.

In theory the less expensive Levi's would improve the efficiency of the system, benefit consumers, and free up cash to feed new domestic businesses. But in practice it just seems to free up cash that gets spent on an ever-increasing quantity of import goods, rather than freeing up cash for domestic startups.

Lately, most domestic startups don't even consider the option of domestic manufacture. They design the product and offshore it first generation, because they know somebody will eat their lunch and kill em in their own new market niche if they don't offshore from the get-go. And it is so much easier to only design and market, and not have to work hard and dirty on the nasty boring stuff like hiring and training hundreds of workers, building plants, industrial engineering and such.

It would be great if every USA worker could find an even-more-gooder job after he gets laid off from the factory. But the sad fact is that many people are good hard working people who will never be rocket surgeons, famous artists, or stockbrokers. So if you dry up all the work those folks are qualified to do, then they are hosed.

For hundreds of years trade has historically caused international tension when industries of one nation get peed at some other nation skunking them in a market niche. However, in theory the free trade should have been almost all beneficial among nothing but first-world nations. Or among nothing but third-world nations for that matter.

Back in the 1920's when the USA, Canada, Europe, Brazil and Argentina all had "roughly similar" cost structure and standard of living, and even Mexico wasn't drastically behind-- Folks may have got peeved if their pet national industry got skunked from foreign competition, but they were all running near the same economic level. There was a limit on how bad any one nation might get skunked, because a competing nation would go bankrupt trying to sell too low. Free Trade at least potentially could have resulted in all the nations having near-neutral balance of trade, even when each nation is getting skunked in selected niches.

Maybe it is not drastically different than a big thermodynamic system made of multiple partially isolated local systems, in approximate balance? With similar levels of energy being simultaneously sourced and sinked at various local parts of the system. Energy would tend to flow from the hottest sources to the coldest sinks, but each local system would stay relatively stable over time.

China and other emerging nations may be like hooking up a near-infinite sink for money and near-infinite source of goods to the system. You get a veritable hurricane of money rushing toward the near-infinite money sink, and a hurricane of goods flowing from the near-infinite goods source.

Money appears to have a longer shelf life than goods. At some point the "money pressure" will equalize with most of the money in the large near-infinite money sink and very little money in the lower-capacity small money source. But goods are too ephemeral to reach pressure equilibrium. As the goods wear out, the smaller non-infinite local system degenerates to a state of depletion in both money and goods.

The emerging nations are such huge money sinks and goods sources, that if you open the valves all the way with free trade, it will certainly eventually reach equilibrium, but the equilibrium point is with the USA becoming a third-world poverty-stricken nation just like all the others. Maybe if a person were noble enough, then that would sound like a great idea. The USA exactly equal with every other place. However, I'm selfish enough to dislike that equilibrium state.

But dunno what to do about it.

[JPR1959]

I don't believe your argument about imported goods being sold at a lower price is valid. We were sold the idea of sending our manufacturing overseas would leave to lower priced goods and raise the standard of living in poorer economies. The costs of clothing has skyrocketed in the past 15 years, yet the quality is way down. Levi's used to be made with 14 ounce denim, now it's 11. Levi's used to cost $20-25, now $45-50. Look at women's fashion, a standard blouse from China is $80 or higher and the quality of the garment is lousy. I can promise you the only person getting rich off of this is the retailer. The costs have not dropped since exporting our jobs to overseas contractors.

I used to work on computerized machines to cut fabric. There was a factory in Cullman, Alabama, that made kids pajamas that were sold to Wal-Mart. The retail price was $10. This factory was turning a profit when they delivered the finished good to Wal-mart for 7 cents!!! Wal-Mart wanted them to make it for 6.5 cents. The factory owners told them they couldn't for that price and make a profit. Wal-Mart did not renew the contract and the factory was closed 60 days later.

[Guest Overtaker]

In theory the less expensive Levi's would improve the efficiency of the system, benefit consumers, and free up cash to feed new domestic businesses. But in practice it just seems to free up cash that gets spent on an ever-increasing quantity of import goods, rather than freeing up cash for domestic startups.

We pay for imported goods with dollars. They send us a shipment of products, and we give them dollars. How great would it be if that was the end of it? We get all this useful stuff and all they get is useless pieces of paper in return. We could just print more dollars and receive infinite goods. But that's not how it works.

You can't do a whole lot with dollars if you live in Asia. Something happens to those dollars...they don't get buried over there. Those dollars are used to buy American goods (increasing our exports) or they are used to purchase investments in America (growing our economy). They all eventually make their way back to our economy.

[Guest ThePunisher]

I'm going to remove my tin foil hat for a moment and state I believe the uber-elite that control the banks and corporations, are the ones that are controlling the world's governments. They are inserting their influence through fiscal policies, media outlets and lobbyists. These people are above the conservative/liberal debate because they have so much power and influence they are immune to it all. Eventually, the goal is a one world government. It might take several decades for this to occur, but it will happen. I am a crazy loon for writing this, so I am now putting my hat back on.

Everything has been in motion and planning for the eventual One World Order for the last thirty years or more. American presidents from Carter, Bush 1 & 2, Clinton and now Marxist Little O have talked about that coming time of a One World Order. The Bible also makes revelation of this occurring in the end times of the world as we know it. The free trade agreements with other countries is just part of the plan to implement the one world order. The next part and probably most important of the plan is to disarm America, and then for America to surrender its sovereignty to the one world order.

Sounds really scary, but watching what has been going on in our country and this world has not made sense in a long time. Most people agree that America has seen its best days behind her. The American people are dumbfounded by the policies of the politicians who seem to lack any common sense. I don' believe it will take several decades for this One World Order to occur, and I don't believe you are a crazy loon for your post, but now there may be others that think both of us are loonie toons.

[davidj]

Maybe I'm stupid but how can this be free trade? It darn sure isn't equal trade. Darn near everything we purchase is made in China.

1 + 1 still equals 2 and I didn't buy the trade agreements then and don't now.

We need to show that we mean business.

My wife and I are trying to buy "made in America" but it's impossible.

I am 64 yrs. old and this is my age group that has created and allowed this fiasco to go on.

Your right, this is bigger than Reublican/Democrat!

[Oh Shoot]

... Eventually, the goal is a one world government....

I'd say the world is likely going the other direction. If anything, there are likely to be MORE countries than fewer, as existing borders break down due to overpopulation, financial ruin, ethnic and religious wars, and perhaps even simple things like water. Think former Soviet SSRs, Czechoslovakia and the rest of the Balkan region as recent examples. I expect to see some of the countries in the mid East divide into separate states over time, too.

Hell, the US may not survive as the same single entity in the long run. And the long run may not be so long.

With half the world not having a decent pot to piss in and most of the other half in obvious and steady decline, I don't think "one world" anything is very likely.

- OS

Edited January 29, 2012 by OhShoot

[Trekbike]

Hell, the US may not survive as the same single entity in the long run. And the long run may not be so long.

I've been thinking this for some time. We now have to too differing opinions on how the country should be run to continue to survive this back and forth every election.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

All I'll say about Ross Perot is remember "You people", when addressing a chapter

of the NAACP?

I have no opinion about Ross Perot. I just thought that was so funny.

National Association for the Advancement of You People

That ranked up there with Bill Clinton not inhaling.

[JPR1959]

I'd say the world is likely going the other direction.

I'd say you might be right, but the world's economic power can buy really good toys to defeat their enemies. I don't think this happens in our lifetime, but I don't think China has become as powerful as they are economically without a lot of help behind the scenes. China, like the USSR, had most of their population living in some of the worst conditions in the world as few as 15 years ago. Now, they are the manufacturing every nation's "junk". How did China come up with the capital to fund their current economic boom? Russia couldn't, and they had far more military might than the Chinese. The ruble had no value outside of Russia, why did China's currency all of a sudden find a value? How did China build their infrastructure without help from the economic powers of the world? China certainly didn't have the capacity and technology to achieve this boom on their own.

[Oh Shoot]

....How did China build their infrastructure without help from the economic powers of the world? China certainly didn't have the capacity and technology to achieve this boom on their own.

In a word, computers.

The state sent vast numbers of Chinese to be educated as engineers in other countries (probably still do, although they can now train them there) and then basically jump started "state controlled capitalism" in manufacturing.

Once you have engineers, computer technology allows anyone to tool up for anything, if they have the bucks to buy the machines. Since China doesn't truck around with societal entitlements like here, they have the bucks. And can now manufacture the machines they used to have to import.

And btw, the majority of Chinese still live in rotten conditions. A rising tide in China does not lift all boats. The "capitalism" of China is not in any sense shared as in western countries.

- OS

Edited January 29, 2012 by OhShoot