All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Consequences In Life, Often Unanticipated

 

19. FREE TRADE

"The call for free trade is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child for the moon. It never has existed; it never will exist." - Henry Clay

"I am in favor of free trade." - Karl Marx

The belief in "free trade" was long an icon of absolute truth to me. My libertarian bones love the word "free," but at the same time I must admit to another libertarian saying: "There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch." (TANSTAAFL) There’s that word "free" again. The word "free," is in the basic lexicon of Americans, since we are supposedly a free country, the Revolutionary War was fought over freedom, the slaves were freed, and we did our best to free enslaved communist countries with the long, expensive cold war. "Free" is a wonderful word! I used to parrot the phrase "free trade," as if it were an undeniable doctrine of absolute truth, not to be debated or questioned in any way. Now, at an advanced age, I have second thoughts. "Fair trade" is more appropriate.

Free trade, simply means that there are to be no tariffs or restrictions of any kind on merchandise coming into the United States, and hopefully nations we sell to will reciprocate. Unfortunately, they don't. The hypothesis is that this freeing of foreign goods from tariffs and duties, will benefit the American consumer by giving them the lowest prices and largest variety of goods. Sounds great, except eventually we may not have any money left with which to purchase these goods. When that happens, and it will, unless the laws of economics are false, we will have lowered ourselves to their level, rather than raising or maintaining our own.

A brief review of history: Until the turn of the century, America depended on tariffs to pay federal government expenses. Tariffs are authorized by the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, to pay the cost of government. There was no income tax, virtually no budgets out of balance or national debt, and the government's size and cost was perhaps one percent of what it is now. America was king. In 1924, during high tariffs, the federal budget had a $900 million surplus, in 1924 dollars! We invented, produced, and sold to the rest of the world, and didn't give a hang what they charged on their end. We protected our inventions, manufacturing capability, and work force, with tariffs. The rest of the world wanted American products, and had to pay the tariffs their governments charged them. Buyers, not sellers, pay tariffs. Our tariffs did two things: (1) paid for the tiny federal government, and (2) protected us, by keeping capital at home, wages high, and our free, inventive minds in high gear. No one has ever been forced to buy foreign goods, so that tax, duty, or tariff could, and still can be, avoided...theoretically at least. Just don't buy foreign goods; it is as simple as that, or rather used to be. Recently, I went to buy a telephone, and discovered they were all made abroad, as are watches, cameras, most electronic items, shoes and clothes, plus many other things. Copy machines come into America, finished except for the glass cover, so the label can say "Assembled in America," a virtual lie.

"We believe that on all imports coming into competition with the products of American labor there should be levied duties equal to the difference between wages abroad and at home." - Republican National Platform - 1892

"The American farmer is entitled not only to tariff schedules on his products but to protection from substitutes therefor." - Republican National Platform - 1932

None of the above are unreasonable. They make sense to me.

Pat Buchanan’s book "The Great Betrayal," recites some interesting statistics. From 1789 to 1913, tariffs produced from 50% to 90% of all federal revenue. During the period of high tariffs and protectionism, the GNP grew by 4% to 7% a year, commodity prices fell by 58%, real wages increased 53%, exports grew 5%, and imports fell 8%.

Now, all has changed. One hundred percent of many items we use, are made outside our borders, and we have the most debt of any nation on earth; $14 trillion at last count. The dollar has plummeted, our precious capital is vanishing to the tune of over $400 billion each year, the federal government is out of control, and our taxes are outrageous. Manufacturing has beaten a path to Mexico and other off shore locations, where taxes, wages, and regulations are low. That's just a generalized overview of what is now going on, and if details were examined, it would be far worse. We are rapidly becoming a third world nation, with worthless bums living in cardboard boxes, a tenth of us eating off of food stamps, over $400 billion in trade deficits, and surpluses with few nations and of small amounts. Our capital has left, and is still leaving in huge quantities. All the while the phrase "free trade," is passed around from one 'enlightened' group to another, without ever having a thought given as to its validity or logic.

An AP story dated 9/8/97 is headlined, "PA. STEEL MILL TOWNS SLOWLY RUSTING OVER." The story details the demise of the once booming Pennsylvania steel towns, and is really pitiful. I will quote just four paragraphs, making them into one, which are close to the end of the story, after details of the decline were told. "Even in 1979, on the brink of financial crisis, the town produced enough steel to build 100,000 60-foot bridges. But by 1981, Aliquippa couldn't pay its municipal electricity bill and risked a permanent blackout. In 1987, the city was officially declared a financially distressed community. In 1990, 30 percent of its people were on the dole."

For some strange reason, after WW II, America not only wrote the Japanese Constitution, but also financed their recovery, gave them billions, and thereby insured that our own manufacturing capability would be inferior to their new plants. We finally are catching up, but I can not understand why we didn't just let them fare for themselves, as most victors in a war treat their enemies who killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of their men.

A piece in the Wall Street Journal of August 9, 1998 said, "Three years ago, Huffy Corp. laid off more than 1,000 employees at its huge bicycle factory in Celina, Ohio, a town of 10,000 people. The unemployment rate was then nearly 10%, and many laid-off workers had trouble finding new jobs. Last Friday, Huffy shut down the factory completely. The remaining nearly 1,000 jobs were eliminated, as Huffy switched to importing low-end bikes from China."

Of late, even Silicon Valley, America's computer-electronics center, has laid off over 10,000, moving plants to Mexico. In Mexico, employees make one-tenth the salaries of those in California, doing the same job.

Free trade should exist only with equals. Free trade between unequals is the equivalent of the Denver Broncos playing against a high school team. The high school team will lose 100% of the games, and if money were bet on the outcome of the tournament, those betting on the high school team would lose their capital. America losing its capital, with attempts at free trade, has made us the equivalent of the high school team. When Mexico pays labor a dollar an hour or less, and can ship products to America duty free, it isn't just stupid, but suicidal. Mexico has no plethora of government regulations on pollution, labor protection, minimum wages, or high income taxes on that dollar an hour labor, so there can be no question as to who wins and who loses in so called "free trade." No wonder American manufacturers build plants across the border.

Chinese labor averages a quarter an hour, ($40 a month) and conceivably 50% of it is prison drudgery, being paid nothing. Two thirds of the shoes Americans buy and wear, and an equal amount of the toys our children play with, are made in China under these conditions. Most of the rest of our shoes are made in the Philippines, under similar circumstances. There are a couple of shoe manufacturers that make shoes in America, with American labor, and one is the "New Balance" brand. Nike hasn't moved overseas, because they have never had a plant in America. China has no tight governmental controls or requirements protecting labor or the environment. Chinese Christmas ornaments, power tools, clothing, and thousands of other items, are produced by this virtually free labor, shipped here, and gleefully bought by Americans, who admittedly save some money. How long can Americans 'save money,' when buying these cheap foreign products results in the loss of capital and jobs from America? It is no accident that major American corporations have been bought by foreign interests with the capital they have accumulated from selling us stuff made with their cheap labor, materials, and regulation free factories. Hundreds of ships dock in America each month, bringing foreign goods for us to purchase at low prices, while millions of previously well paid factory workers hold two or three minimum wage jobs, and send mom and the kids off to work, just to hold on to a smattering of their former life style and prosperity.

I bought a mail order electric sander with an American sounding name a few years ago, thinking it to be American made. It was made in China, and is a disaster compared to its American equivalent, looking exactly the same. On a "60 minutes" show of October 5, 1992, a Japanese machine tool company was convicted of changing labels to read "Made in America." I've got that show on videotape. Not only are foreign prison and cheap labor competing with us, but also they are copying the appearance, and even branding their products with American sounding names. Is there any reason why these cheap, look alike Chinese tools of inferior quality, shouldn’t be loaded with high tariffs? American manufacturers go broke, and factory workers are out of jobs because of this nonsense. Wal Mart has said publicly that it tries to stock American made merchandise, but a visit to Wal Mart finds only Chinese pliers, shoes, and a host of other merchandise. "China Mart", or Wal Mart?

Trade unionism has declined precipitously in the last 25 years, other than unions representing the bureaucracy, whose memberships have skyrocketed. Union factory workers had good incomes, most of which no longer exist. Factories are empty, their equipment rusting, and taxes accumulating...if the arsonists don't get there first. Unions quarreling with non-unionists were a common news item 35 years ago. There has been a chain of decline in American manufacturing, and it goes like this: Reduce labor costs by eliminating unions, reduce quality, make employees "part time and no benefits," rather than "full time, with full benefits," and finally, move out of the country to save the company. Who can blame management? If regulations and the IRS were eliminated, and tariffs were levied to protect U.S. manufacturers from unfair foreign competition, factories would re-open; capital and jobs return, and America would be efficient and competitive again.

Some unions have reduced size because of efficiency in their fields, or de-regulation. The railroads are still unionized, but have suffered a 50% decline in membership, because of efficiency in every facet of that industry. Factory production lines and mills, in many cases were unionized, and through collective bargaining, raised worker living standards by many percentage points, creating a healthy middle class. Without excessive taxation and regulations, the products were competitively priced, American workers made excellent wages, and the money stayed at home. Union membership has declined, because the factories and mills have closed, and the supposed widening gap between the rich and poor can be partly laid to that influence. When is the last time you looked at the label in a garment or shoe, and found it was made in America? When moving a factory to a foreign land, as a chance to save a company, not only because of cheap labor, but few regulations and taxes, what chance does an American union have? Ex-union workers often have to hold three low paying jobs to survive, whereas one union job used to be ample.

As of the end of 1994, Japan had exported 240 million cars to America, while they had bought 40,000 from us. Japan has refused to either honor our patents, or issue theirs to us, till long after they have any value, and obviously the word "fair" is involved here. Example: Engineer Jack Kilby, who worked for Texas Instruments, invented the computer chip in 1958. The company applied for a Japanese patent in February 1960, and it was finally granted in October of 1989! In the mean time of course, Toshiba, NEC, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Yamaha, and other huge Japanese conglomerates pilfered Texas Instruments' invention, paid no royalties, and sold their stolen technology in America, in direct competition with the inventor, who had received nothing from them. The Japanese say American workers are "lazy and illiterate." Senator Ernest Hollings once told a group of workers, that the Atom Bomb was, "...made in America by lazy and illiterate Americans and tested in Japan!"

The Japanese are superb copiers of other’s merchandise. Immediately after WW II, a German Leica camera was purchased, carried back to Japan, and it was copied EXACTLY, down to the smallest screw. Presto! The Canon Camera was born.

Statistics show our standard of living to be right about where it was in the nineteen fifties and early sixties, thanks to the loss of well paying jobs, high taxes, and dollar devaluation. I remember what prices, taxes, and wages were in the fifties and sixties, and don’t have to look up the statistics. In 1950, a new car cost 20 times an average week's wages. A $65 a week wage in the fifties was common, and a new Ford cost about 20 times that…about $1300. An above average wage today is ten dollars an hour, or four hundred dollars a week, and 20 times that won’t buy you a new car of any size or quality. A Ford today costs a minimum of 40 to 90 times that $400 a week wage. Couple that with the taxes that are at a minimum, ten times that of the 1950's, and in just that one example, the point is made. Want others? A McDonalds hamburger was thirteen cents in the early 1960's, a nice two bedroom apartment rented for well under a hundred dollars a month, gasoline was a quarter a gallon, and wages were in a proportion that gave us all much more buying power, with a fraction of the taxes. Americans are like lobsters that have been dropped into a pot, and slowly being brought to the boil...clanking impotently against the side of the pan, until lifeless. How long can we clank?

Americans invented the air conditioner, camera, airplane, computer, elevator, thresher, steel plow, electric motor, motion picture, transistor, washing machine, X-ray, zipper, VCR, TV, phonograph, revolving door, and a thousand other things in every sector, be it automotive, electronic, agriculture, or machinery, which we now buy from abroad with low tariffs, while foreign manufacturers ignore patents and copyrights of the American inventors, and refuse to grant patents in their countries when applied for by Americans. Former American companies are now defunct or owned by foreign investors who have used capital from us...to buy us. Be it Columbia Pictures, Firestone Tires, Burger King, or our national debt, we are more and more being bought and owned by foreign nations. This process of decapitalization cannot continue forever, as it violates every law of economics. A siphon can continue only as long as there is something left to transfer. We are coasting on our innate ability to invent, be efficient, and think, but our capital is disappearing. The end will come eventually, and we will no longer have the dollars to buy from Japan, China or Mexico. A standard of living can only go so low, and the debt and debt service so high, before it is all over, and we are owned by people other than ourselves.

The proponents of free trade will point out that a trade deficit in favor of a foreign nation will result in surplus of dollars in possession of that nation, and that they will have to spend those dollars here to get rid of them. An example is the Japanese, who sell us billions of dollars worth of autos, TV sets, VCR's, copiers, tractors, and hundreds of other things every year, and America being able to sell them very little. This results in a $100 billion yearly balance of trade deficit with Japan alone. Theoretically, the Japanese, with all these surplus dollars, have to spend them. They spend their dollars in America all right, not buying our products, but our property. It turns out that they made a huge mistake in the 1980's, literally losing their national shirts when American real estate took a tumble after they bought. That was lucky for America, but foreign nations having a surplus amount of dollars from undercutting us right and left, is no equalizing factor, because they can then buy us...right out from under us...like the Japanese did...with profits made from "selling us the rope to hang ourselves," as Karl Marx predicted. Surplus dollars in foreign hands resulting from free trade are of no benefit to us, only the holders of those dollars, which can be spent anywhere, anytime. The Arabs, with their OPEC cartel, have bought billions of dollars worth of American goods, but they have run the price of a barrel of crude oil (42 gallons) from $1.80 to $40, and now about $30, no benefit to America. Since the dollar is the world trade currency, those surplus dollars earned by the huge trade deficit, can be spent anywhere, not necessarily in America, for American products; and they are.

An AP story appearing in the February 20, 1997 Denver Post remarked that, "America’s foreign trade deficit climbed in 1996...a flood of toy and shoe imports helped push the deficit with China to an all time high. Economists said they saw no quick relief for the nation’s biggest economic headache. Many private economists (as opposed to government economists who always paint rosy pictures) forecast further deterioration in America’s trade performance in 1997. Critics of administration policies have blamed the rising deficits for the loss of millions of American Jobs." In 2000, our deficit has skyrocketed. Well over $400 billion of American capital leaves our shores in just one year. The November 1999 trade deficit was $26.5 billion, and December's was even higher. How much actual debt free capital can there be left? Does our remaining capital consist of printing press money, government, mortgage, and credit card debt? Is there any real worth left in America, now that we are the largest debtor in the world?

The above is not hysteria, but factual. Imagine we did something other than recite and practice the syllogism of "free trade," and returned to the time when we had no income tax, and prosperity was so immense, we cannot but dimly imagine it now. Millions of $2500 homes were being built and bought, with no government "programs" or financing, and America was at its absolute peak. (The first savings and loan association for private financing of homes, was formed in the Frankford section of Philadelphia in 1831.) Our tariffs were protecting us. It cost a bundle for a foreigner to get his goods into America, and we didn’t care. America worked, America invented, and had the capital to manufacture, improve, and sell.

Japan has never practiced fair trade, but has legislated us out of their markets since they regained an unearned foothold on civilization after WW II, thanks to us. America recently celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the "Marshall Plan," which took American taxpayer money by the boatload, and rebuilt our former enemies, which was probably the first nail in our collective coffin. We can’t sell them autos, rice, or much of anything, while at the same time we buy hundreds of billions worth of foreign merchandise each year, most of which we invented in the beginning, which most of the time they refuse to pay royalties on to the American inventors. American manufacturers, desperately trying to open foreign markets, have been arrested...literally...and in one hundred percent of the time have run into a stone wall of foreign governmental gobbledygook. This scribe is proud to state that he owns no item made in Japan, or with a Japanese name on it.

Just suppose, for argument's sake, we placed a twenty-five or even fifty- percent duty on every import from an unfriendly, unfair, or unequal nation. What would happen? First of all, these goods would cost Americans more, but as American ability and efficiency got into high gear again, the price differential would decrease, and consumers would again buy American. Americans would commence manufacturing these things again, and factories would re-open. Americans would get jobs, making these products, and the capital would remain here. The nations on which we placed these heavy duties would scream, and threaten that they would do the same to us...naturally. So what? Since we are decapitalizing ourselves by hundreds of billions a year anyway, who cares? Our over $400 billion yearly decapitalization would cease instantly, and prosperity eventually resume to former levels. Foreign debt holders might demand instant repayment of our debt they bought, but with regained internal prosperity, I repeat...so what? Let 'em wait in line. India, Pakistan, and Iran use child slave labor to make the expensive carpets so desired by everyone. China uses prison labor, and lies about it. Mexican labor lives in hovels, is rife with poverty and disease, and we gleefully buy what they produce. Japan and China's violations of fairness are legend. Suppose all these goods were heavily tariffed, including the clothing and shoes manufactured by virtual slaves around the world? Suppose we said "absolutely no," when a foreign conglomerate attempted to wrest control of an American company? Why not treat our friends like friends, and our economic enemies like what they are? We buy thousands of things from the Japanese, while they buy virtually nothing from us, and make it impossible to profit from our inventions.

Americans consume more goods than any other nation on earth, why shouldn’t we manufacture what we consume? Consuming more than we make is no excuse for a trade imbalance, but rather symptomatic that we need more factories to make more goods. Why shouldn't tariffs protect American manufacturers and workers from their foreign enemies? Isn't it the Constitutional job of government to protect us from our enemies? Shouldn't this include economic ones?

"Turn about is fair play," goes the old expression. The phrase "fair trade" should be substituted for "free trade" in America today. I would not only place extremely high tariffs on our economic enemies, but prohibit trade at all, if international patents were violated or refused. What is wrong with caring for ourselves? What was wrong with discouraging imports a hundred years ago? If you have it, why give it away? If you are wealthy, successful and powerful, why dissipate it? There is no reason. America of a hundred years ago, compared to America today, is a disgrace. We still consume more than any nation on earth, and still have a standard of living comparable to most. We have an abundance of mineral wealth, excellent climate, are protected by two oceans, and our inventive genius is still potent and active. We have absurdly given away our wealth and pride in the name of "free trade." Fair trade? Yes! Fair trade uses tariffs to balance inequalities, while free trade balances nothing. Free trade subsidizes poverty and inefficiency. I am sick of inventors and artists starving because some nation reproduces their genius with impunity, and sells it around the world cheaply. Buying cheap merchandise made with slave and prison labor is immoral, besides self-defeating. A pox on anyone knowingly buying Chinese or Japanese products.

I must mention other facts about the Japanese, which, even if they did trade fairly and honestly, would keep me from buying anything with their name on it. I have dozens of stories, clippings, articles, and books about the Japanese treatment of their prisoners during WW II. The Japanese treatment of POW's was far worse and more brutal than was the German treatment, other than to the Jews. The Japanese totally ignored the Geneva Convention regarding prisoner treatment, shot and decapitated Chinese in heinous medical experiments, forced 200,000 Korean school girls and adult women to have sex with Jap soldiers in so called "comfort stations", and even ate the flesh of Indian, Australian, and New Guinea prisoners. Japanese Army Unit #731 killed at least 3,000 Chinese, Russian, Korean, and Mongolian prisoners in top secret experiments that involved injections of various germs such as anthrax, typhus, and dysentery. The list goes on and on, and even though these atrocities occurred over 55 years ago, they have never apologized for them, and even still teach their school children that WW II was our fault. The Germans never had anything close to the "Bataan Death March."

The politicos who passed NAFTA and WTO were economic traitors to their own land. The "increased trade with Mexico," the D.C. drones love to talk about, are not all consumables, but huge amounts of machinery and equipment used for construction of factories that will enable the Mexicans to produce their own consumables. Drive through Mexico, and note all the factories being built with our exports to them, while we import consumable things from them, with no tariffs, thanks to NAFTA, making the prices of their exports so cheap, that it further discourages us from making our own goods. Soon they will need no imports from us. We aren't building factories, but exporting things for Mexicans to build their own factories...which they are doing in great abundance, eliminating any future need they will have for our exports, while our need for their tariff free exports will continue. It's all so insane I cannot believe it is happening to us, a supposedly intelligent people. We are selling them earth moving equipment, robotics, and every conceivable type of machinery, which will eventually eliminate any further need they will have for us. Their low wages, total lack of environmental concerns and other expensive governmental controls, will enable them to eventually export to us the very things we are now exporting to them, and thanks to NAFTA, with no tariffs! We are selling rope-making machinery to Mexico, and will buy the rope to eventually hang ourselves...tariff free, of course.

NAFTA is killing our farmers. Most foreign governments subsidize agriculture, and America is correctly trying to wean our farmers from subsidies. Wheat currently sells for about $3 per bushel, and costs about $5 to produce. The cost to produce wheat is the same in Canada, but the Canadian government subsidizes it, and millions of tons of $3 per bushel foreign wheat crosses our borders, tariff free, each year. The thousands of trailer loads of subsidized, tariff free, Canadian wheat has reduced the number of farmers in the wheat producing state of North Dakota to a mere 30,000. Every week, more farmers literally abandon their land or watch it foreclosed, because of NAFTA, and tariff free, Canadian subsidized wheat. This was detailed on the CBS "Sunday Morning" show of July 19, 1998. The same thing happens with Mexican tomatoes and produce, South American beef, and imports from other foreign lands. If tariffs were levied to make agricultural trade "fair," rather than "free," ending American agriculture subsidies would make sense, farmers would produce and show a profit, and our bread may cost a couple of cents more per loaf. The D.C. dummies rightly attempt to erase farm subsidies, but wrongly don’t carry the process to its logical end, by charging tariffs on imports to equal foreign agricultural subsidies and advantages. Why not have "country of origin" labels on all foods?

"Protectionism" used to be a nasty word to this libertarian type of guy, but no longer. The word simply means, "to protect," and I can see nothing wrong with that. We protect our families and property. We protect our values, our businesses, autos, possessions, and wealth. We protect ourselves on every single front in life, and when someone suggests that we protect our employment, creative, and manufacturing wealth, everyone screams "protectionism," as if this were some sort of evil in the marketplace. It isn't. I want to protect American jobs, factories, industry, and inventions. I want to raise tariffs on our economic enemies, and to the sky. We have been sucked dry by "free trade," long enough. I long for the old days of protectionism and prosperity, when we were the proud envy of the entire world. We are the laughing stock now, owe everyone, and buy foreign goods that are "cheap," with every purchase exporting more of our life sustaining capital. A transfusion from us to them, to the tune of over $400 billion a year, in the name of low prices, is no bargain, but rather bankrupting.

And as if the above were not bad enough, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank are giving away literally hundreds of billions of American dollars to far off places such as Russia, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, and China, plus others. We transfuse our blood to them via these organizations, so we can 'help' them recover from unbelievably stupid actions they have committed over past decades. I want our assets to stay here, and not be shipped overseas. I don’t care if Japan, China, and Russia go as broke as Humpty Dumpty was after he fell off that wall. Stop giving our money away! Let them sleep in the bed they made. As this is being finished, large American bank stocks have fallen "out of bed," because their CEO's thought it would be smart to loan their depositor’s money to fawning foreign beggars. Now they and their stockholders are paying the price, resulting from hundreds of millions of dollars in loans they will never collect. That's why I bank with a locally owned bank. Keep the money in town, so it can be loaned locally.

SOLUTIONS

"Within our borders we possess all the means of sustenance, defense, and commerce; at the same time, these advantages are so distributed among the different states of this continent as if nature had in view to proclaim to us - be united among yourselves, and you will want nothing from the rest of the world." - Samuel Adams - July 4, 1776

Trade needs to be fair, not free; there being a great difference. Fair trade means we trade freely with our economic friends, and not freely with our economic enemies. Japan and China are our main economic enemies in Asia. Our trade imbalance is larger with China than with Japan. They refuse to honor our patents, refuse to issue theirs to us, and if denied access to our markets, they ship their merchandise to us indirectly, with false labels. Shipping through Mexico has been common of late. Thanks to our generous free trade policies, which include NAFTA and WTO, America now has the largest foreign debt in the world, $810 billion at the end of 1995, according to Dept. of Commerce figures, whereas in 1980 we had the smallest. Foreign debt, means the nations we owe, can buy America right out from under us. While Japan made some bad buys, they still own Columbia Pictures, disintegrating Firestone Tires, and other big names in retail and entertainment fields. Tariffs must be made to equalize trade differences.

At Christmas time 1996, the "Tickle Me Elmo" doll was in great demand, with single items being auctioned off for many hundreds of dollars. Those were made in China, as are many toys placed beneath American Christmas trees. Shoes, toys, power tools, hand tools, clothing, and ornaments are increasingly made in China, with virtual slave labor...all to give Americans "lower prices," and of course, far fewer jobs. Wouldn't it have been nice if "Tickle Me Elmo" had been made in Ohio or Maine, and when the demand took off, hundreds of American factory workers were paid overtime to make them, and been able to deliver them to stores instantly, rather than being shipped by boat from slimy communist China? As if that weren't bad enough, the 1999 "Pokemon craze" siphoned more billions back to Tokyo.

One interesting thing has happened in several individual states, which have passed so called "Burma Laws." These laws prohibit state agencies from doing business with, renewing contracts with, or in any way having anything to do with Burma, which has been outrageously brutalized by the Chinese communists. "Burma Laws," have been partially disallowed by the Supreme Court, but there are ways around their silly prohibitions. It would be a simple matter for pressure to be placed on state legislatures or even city councils, to pass such legislation prohibiting dealings with any country that indulges in unfair trade. Oakland California has prohibited trade with Nigeria, Massachusetts is thinking about doing the same to Indonesia, etc. This is a way for straight thinking individuals in small towns everywhere to make their opinions felt. While the fed goes on allowing "Most Favored Nation" status (MFN) to everyone, an individual could easily do something with letters in their own home town. Who knows, it may spread.

In Mexico today, especially at border towns, there are hundreds of thousands of Mexicans making parts for, and entire units of, manufactured goods sold in America. These goods are being made in factories built by American companies, the above mentioned rope circumstance. Entire items and parts are being made for such items as TV sets, VCR's, cars, clothing, machinery, tools, and just about every consumer good we use. If these items, parts, and entire assemblies were subject to tariffs that equalized labor, taxes, and government regulations between Mexico and America, "South of the Border" transfers of plants would reverse pretty quickly, as there would be no advantage.

I am not worried that thousands of Mexican jobs would be lost if that happened, but overjoyed that thousands of American jobs would be reborn, called back, and factories re-opened. I love America, not Mexico, Japan, or China. Some will say, 'Look at all the lower prices we get from allowing free trade.' I say we have lost millions of good paying jobs, and hundreds of factories. Those lost workers paid taxes, and those factories paid taxes, giving those job holders money to buy American made things, perpetuating America's supremacy, healthy economy, and being the envy of the world. Is it possible that any of the "free traders" actually believe that laid off factory workers managing to get three part time jobs, and still not making as much as they formerly made, is worth the "lower prices?" Can the free traders actually believe that hundreds of vandalized factory buildings, no longer paying property taxes or giving employment, is wonderful, even if we can buy a TV set for a few bucks less?

Perhaps the most ludicrous of all arguments for "free trade," is the one which expounds that America has 'outgrown' the manufacture of simplistic things such as toys, wallpaper, screwdrivers, clothing, TV sets, telephones, and the like. We, according to these sages, are into "the information age," with its computers, and electronic gee-gaws, which can send information around the world in seconds, and that, our "information" and "service" industries are all we need. That is absolutely the most ignorant argument ever propounded. How about those former factory workers, repairmen, sales people, and stenographers, who not only have no information to send, but haven't the intellect or desire to master the instruments anyway? America is not wholly composed of technical people, and as a matter of fact, looking at our voting records, most of us appear to be pretty stupid. What is wrong with manufacturing mouse traps, trolley cars, toys, shirts, frying pans, or other mundane things in American factories, with American workers? How did we get so damned "sophisticated," that manufacturing is beneath us? Ask some of the hundreds of thousands of laid off factory workers what their opinion is about manufacturing! In the textile and apparel field alone, since 1995, 454,000 workers have lost their jobs! There are only 421,200 jobs in all of Delaware, 389,000 in Montana, 279,800 in Alaska, 235,800 in Wyoming, 295,900 in Vermont, 380,800 in South Dakota, and 325,000 in North Dakota. Millions of well paid workers never minded turning bolts on an assembly line all day. Factory workers usually raised their families decently, bought houses, went to church, drank a little beer, and never hurt anyone doing that type of work their entire working career. In Philadelphia, the former factories that employed thousands of workers are now gone. The route 60 trolley line (Allegheny Ave.) that was once packed with workers going to and from work has been torn up, and guess what? The welfare rolls, unemployment statistics, marriage break-ups, delinquency, graffiti, and helplessness are at all time highs. Thanks a lot politicians, who have voted over and over again to raise taxes, eliminate tariffs, and make the workplace, and manufacturing, difficult, if not impossible. 35% of the steel America uses is now imported.

James Traficant (D-Ohio) said this: "Our government has invented the catch phrase "service economy." This is the idiotic notion that we don't need to actually sell manufactured products; that we can grow and prosper our nation by doing each other's laundry. To conceal the loss of manufacturing jobs, the government legislated into existence thousands upon thousands of useless paper-shuffling jobs, and declared their necessity by fiat. By this device, the government has replaced those jobs that made products to sell with an equal number of jobs that produce nothing whatsoever of any worth, except to keep the unemployment figures down. This over-burdening of the American people with gratuitous regulations and paperwork has accomplished nothing except to obfuscate the loss of manufacturing jobs, and to transform the American character from innovators and inventors creating new products to that of minor clerks, peeking under each other's seat cushions for lost change. With 4% of the world's population and 18% of the economy, we have 50% of all the lawyers, all looking to make a killing by looting those few industries that still call America home." Amen!

America should prohibit foreign or non-citizen ownership of real property, and maybe even stocks. You have to be a citizen to vote, and prove it, why not the same when you want to buy a home, business, or share of stock?

There can only be deficits in anything for so long, and you are actually bankrupt, not just theoretically. When economists say trade deficits are O.K., they ignore the basic laws of economics and physics. If money and capital are continually transferred out of a container, say America, eventually there won’t be any left. Suppose our foreign creditors called in their loans or decided to use the debt to purchase physical U.S. land and businesses, which they can now do. With $810 billion to spend, (doubtless now a lot more) they could buy a big chunk of America.

If 90% of the federal government were eliminated, bureaucrats and legislators prohibited from doing unconstitutional things such as regulating and subsidizing, plus if the IRS and local school property taxes were eliminated, costs to manufacture would plummet, making American products highly competitive in the world marketplace, creating a lot fairer, more competitive trade. Tariffs then could be a lot lower to equalize the situation.

And one last comparison: If foreign low wages and miserable working conditions are so grand, because they give us "low prices," why not duplicate them here? Why not pay American factory workers a dollar an hour or less, and make them live in hovels with no benefits? Why not make our kids weave rugs and turn them into slaves? Why buy from those who do exactly that, when we could create our own domestic low price machine right here? Keep the money at home! We could then save everyone the trouble of buying foreign goods made with slave labor, paying no royalties, and having no regulations. How tempting the glory is of low prices on merchandise made by slaves, prisoners and children...in filth and degradation. How about it all you liberal humanitarians driving foreign cars? We could really have low prices then, except we wouldn't have any money to buy things, because we would be slaves also, which situation will happen to us if we don’t cease sending our capital abroad under the guise of the "free trade" absurdity.

There are some in the "animal rights" groups, who spray paint on stores and fur coats worn by ladies, and other groups who are for "equal rights" of all sorts, but these people seem also to love to buy imports, which are tariff free and have "low prices," forgetting or not knowing about the millions of out of work factory workers, empty plants, ruined neighborhoods, and those working three jobs to make ends meet.

Morality

To this scribe, being moral, means quite simply not hurting anyone. Being immoral, can mean a lot more than not cheating on your wife, or other sexual proclivities. It is grossly immoral to cheat someone in a business deal, or to steal. It is immoral to cause physical or mental harm to anyone, by abuse of various kinds. I consider it immoral to buy anything made from one of our economic enemies, which has cost us millions of jobs. I take pride in not owning anything made Asia. I have American made TV's, VCR's, household goods and automobiles. I wear a Swiss watch and use a German Leica camera, (America no longer makes watches or cameras) in which I shoot American Kodak film. Some will say their Japanese cars and motorcycles were made in America, using American labor, but remember, the profits go straight to Tokyo, and those corporations are owned by Japanese. Some 'American made' Japanese products contain as much as 90% of their components made in Japan, and shipped here. I consider it immoral to buy a Chinese or Philippine made shoe, Christmas ornament, toy, or other product. Why not buy American? Isn't it actually immoral to buy foreign and take American jobs away? Isn’t it immoral to give money to foreign corporations with no scruples or ethics of any kind, and just as immoral to buy the products made by slaves? China has an army of over 15 million, and seems to be using its ill-gotten gains from slave labor and stolen secrets to buy and build rockets, bombs, and artillery. China is attempting to buy a huge seaport at a closed navy base in Long Beach, California, so many of their ships dock here with their slave produced "cheap" goods. It is reliably rumored that they have gained control of the Panama Canal we so foolishly paid to give away. China could easily prohibit American ships from using what we built. All this is being done with American purchases of their stuff, which has cost us millions of jobs, and may cost us our land, if the Taiwan-Mainland affair continues, and we foolishly get involved.  Isn't it immoral to patronize such a regime?

Patriotism, morality, and consideration, to me, means not ruining someone's fur coat, or picketing for "equality," while America goes down the tubes because of "free trade" with nations who haven’t the slightest idea of "equality," "fair," "moral," "honest," or "humane."

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