Protectionism, since NAFTA passed in 1993 has been unpopular with many in the media and mostly with politicians. The good news is that it is now being talked about more; albeit more so in the Democratic debates, but also in the Republican debates now too. Even though I don't support John Edwards due to his Liberal social views, I have to tip my hat at his decision to only buy American toys this Christmas. I wasn't even able to do that myself, although I wanted to.
His wife mentioned how hard it actually is to just buy American toys. The reason is because almost ALL the toys are manufactured in China now. It is a sad sad state of affairs.
Here is the problem with Free Trade/Globalism.
The United States has no God-given comparative advantage in innovation and new technology. We were leaders in these fields because we were leaders in manufacturing.
Once socialism collapsed in Asia, U.S. corporations began outsourcing abroad the manufacture of products for U.S. markets. Success with offshore manufacturing has led to offshore outsourcing of research and development, and now innovation itself.
As a recent report from the National Research Council recognizes, "Product development and technical support follow manufacturing." One consequence for America is the loss of many manufacturing capabilities and "the increasing availability abroad of unique technologies not found in the United States."
This development is taking a huge toll on America's human resources in manufacturing skills, engineering and science. The first American victims were blue-collar workers. Millions of them lost their jobs and experienced sharp declines in the quality of their lives. But as research, engineering, design and innovation followed manufacturing abroad, now it is white-collar workers in information technology and university graduates in engineering and physics who are being displaced.
American university enrollments in science and engineering are declining because there are no jobs for graduates. It is pointless to invest money, sweat and toil in an education that has no payoff. Markets do work. Markets are working to shrink the demand for, and supply of, American engineers and scientists.
The next impact is going to be on project manager jobs, practically the sole remaining source of career-related employment for many engineers and technical people. Project management jobs require people experienced with the technology of the job. The loss of technical and engineering jobs empties the pipeline of people who have the experience to assume management positions. Far from being able to innovate, the United States will even lack the human resources to manage technical and scientific projects.
Many uninformed people believe the problem is that America doesn't produce enough scientists and engineers. Manufacturing & Technology News reports that "a group of 15 U.S. business organizations has launched a national campaign aimed at doubling within 10 years the number of bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics."
What is the point of this when there is a huge supply of unemployed engineers and technical people who have been displaced by offshore outsourcing and by H-1b and L-1 work visas for foreigners? I know an American software engineer in his 30s whose job was outsourced. After searching fruitlessly for a job for four years, he took a job in Thailand writing software programs for $850 per month.
The anecdotal stories are legion. Yesterday, a friend reported to me that the service technician who repaired his garage door opener said his company was flooded with resumes from college graduates and engineers who cannot find work and are willing to take jobs installing garage doors.
U.S. executives, with an eye to quarterly earnings and their bonuses, continue to spend considerable resources lobbying for increases in work visas that enable them to replace their American engineers, scientists and technical people with lower-cost foreigners. These executives lie through their teeth when they assert the lack of qualified Americans for the jobs. The fact of the matter is, the executives force their American employees to train their foreign replacements and then fire their American workers.
In a word, American capitalism is destroying itself by dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that have made large income inequalities acceptable. By rewarding themselves for destroying American jobs and manufacturing, engineering and scientific capabilities, U.S. executives are sowing a whirlwind. American political stability will not survive the turning of an American university degree into a worthless sheet of paper. Libertarians and free market ideologues who rejoice in freedom should open their eyes to freedom's destruction.
by Paul Craig Roberts
I just saw today that United is going to Outsource its Plane Repairs to China. http://www.teamster.org/07news/nr_071220_1.asp I looked at the TV and said "WHAA"?? So now we get to have $1.00/hr workers "FIX" our Planes. That's comforting right??
It is time that we had a Strong Leader stand up to this Outsourcing of our Labor and say NO MORE!
Jimbo
2 comments:
I too can be considered a conservative and populist. I am a 36 year old white male, a Christian by faith, a mechanical engineer by education and profession, work in nuclear power by choice and am the sole bread winner in my household (again by choice) – all things that our society seems to despise these days. I have been watching an America of my youth – full of opportunity and espousing ideals that the middle class could depend on, believe in and flourish - turn into something that all Americans should be ashamed and truly afraid of – a nightmare unfolding before our eyes. We are like proverbial frogs being cooked in a pot where the heat is being turned up ever so slowly and we don’t really know that we will soon be eaten. The very freedoms that are at the core of true Americana – what has made America unique throughout history – is at stake. The big outcome of this so called “Free Trade” movement is servanthood for the majority of the world’s population (the slaves - cheap/free labor and taxpayers) at the hands of the world’s elite (the ruling class – ultra big business leaders and government) – plain and simple. It will be an irony if and when our children wake up in a world culture and system that will be painfully similar to the serfdom culture that dominated Europe for hundreds of years – where powerful Lords had the ability to rule over peasants – tax them, tell them who they could marry, draft them in wars, tell them who and how they could worship their God. These “elitists” were the masters and the “peasants” were the slaves. This sort of society is what early settlers to this country were escaping. The creators of the American Republic were trying to set up a nation and its government that would never permit the existence of such a society on our shores. We have forgotten the lessons of history – primarily because we no longer teach these lessons (politically incorrect to various “politics of envy” political groups whose encroachment into control of the educational system is destroying it). Unfortunately, our complacency has allowed the elitists to hijack the workings of our Republic to such a degree that most Americans today do not have a clue how to go about regaining control – that is if they even recognize that the country that they live in is turning against them. In world affairs it seems that history has almost gone full circle because we have failed to learn the lessons of history – something that I am afraid my children will learn firsthand. All Americans that have fought for and shed blood for this Republic and all that it used to stand for – settlers of our Republic and the Founding Fathers who risked it all to be free, soldiers on American soil and abroad who opposed tyranny when it raised its ugly head, organizers that fought and sometimes died to better working condition in early American factories so that they and their family would be a little more economically secure, protesters that dared to say and fight for the idea that a man of color was equal to a white man and should not be treated no better than mules – these people would find the America today unrecognizable and they would also recognize the path to world serfdom that she is on. They would be fighting mad that their blood, sweat and toil has been forgotten and was it is beginning to seem all in vain. It is time to reclaim our country – it is not yet too late!
Registered Republican here, free-traders must leave the Republican Party. Uh oh McCain won, see you all in 2012.
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