|
| China's Free Trade! Nov. 24, 2006 The greatest beneficiary of our so-called “Free Trade” agreements is China! The biggest loser in the free trade fiascos is the people of the United States of America. When George H. W. Bush was elected President in 1988, the lame-duck Reagan administration was in the process of adopting the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. It was the beginning of the end for hundreds of thousands of good jobs in the U.S. President number 41 had shepherded that process while he served as Ronald Reagan’s vice president. That Free Trade Agreement had virtually NO resistance in the U.S. By the time George H.W. Bush (41) was ready to leave office, the “Free Trade” concept had expanded and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was on the boards - but now there was some resistance. In 1992, Presidential hopefuls came out against NAFTA, but to no avail. More ‘Free Trade” agreements have been adopted with numerous countries and jobs are outsourced to every one of them. While U.S. jobs are outsourced, both high tech and manufacturing, the American consumer continues to assist in the decline of jobs by buying the cheap imports - often without even looking at the labels or packaging that indicates the country in which the item was made. These cheap imports and purchases have resulted in a balance of payment deficit into the Trillions of dollars over the past several years. Those nations that have shipped all those goods to us are wallowing in huge credits, payable primarily in the United States. Most cannot just take the money and run - they have to spend it here. But they aren’t buying our products - they are buying our businesses and real estate! To actually be “fair trade” those trading partners, like China, should be limited to using the bulk of their “trade dollars” to purchase actual products manufactured in the U.S. When our Constitution was adopted, government was created “by the people” - and, although corporations existed at the time, they are conspicuously absent from that document. We must accept the fact that all corporations are extensions of the government - a corporation can only exist as an entity if the government says it exists. This is also true of limited liability partnerships - they only exist because government says they exist. While considering that corporations are merely an extension of the government bureaucracy, keep in mind that all major media is owned and controlled by these government extensions - including China! When a journalist digs up a story that the government doesn’t like, the story is killed. If the journalist doesn’t like it, they are dismissed on some pretext, usually for some “unethical” mistake they made several years earlier. To protect our national resources, and that includes jobs, foreign credits must be severally restricted by Congress and the President, in the following manner: 1) Foreign credits can still be used to buy U.S. made products to be exported “to” their country - in fact, ninety percent of trade credits should be good only for that purpose. They should only be allowed to invest 10 percent of their credits in the U.S. 2) Limit all investments in the U.S. by foreigners to the purchase of public stocks with a maximum of less than ten percent ownership in major companies; 3) Limit foreign stock ownership to 40 percent in smaller firms - encouraging start-up investments that will actually create jobs in the U.S.; 4) Prohibit investments in any company with more than 10 percent of its business involved in defense contracts or national security (a similar limit already exists as related to some countries - but not all). Recently, a Venezuelan company (under a free trade agreement) used its credits to buy out an American firm that was making the computerized voting machines. Now that Venezuelan firm can send in hackers to change the outcome of our elections. 5) Help American businesses compete by putting a handicap on those imports that are extremely cheap (non-competitive) because of virtual slave labor in the foreign country. This could be accomplished by levying a corporate tax on American businesses that derive more than 25 percent of their revenues from the sale of foreign made goods. If that sounds too simplistic, keep in mind that the more complicated the process is, the more likely someone will have a sweetheart deal and the American workers and taxpayers end up the loser. Keeping it simple keeps it honest! The old KISS rule should apply - “Keep It Simple, Stupid!” |