What Trump Gets Right on Trade

[chuckiechan]

https://newrepublic.com/article/151140/trump-right-free-trade-globalization

In April 2016, Presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to “surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism” no longer. “I am skeptical,” he said in a speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, “of international unions that tie us up and bring America down.” Two months later, campaigning against Hillary Clinton, Trump reiterated: “Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache.”

[SNIP]

Rodrik argued that globalization would empower mobile businesses at the expense of their workers and threaten the welfare state.

At the time, his claims were highly controversial. Throughout the 1990s, Bill Clinton had made the case for globalization. As he won approval for NAFTA and for America’s entry into the WTO, he urged Americans to “make change our friend” and to “embrace the inexorable logic of globalization.” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, another champion of globalization, argued that it was making the world “flat.” Many believed that by enriching Mexicans, NAFTA would stem the flow of unauthorized immigrants to the United States, and that China’s entrance into the WTO would propel the country toward free-market democracy. Meanwhile, the free movement of capital and currencies would guard against instability and boost prosperity.

None of these contentions proved correct. Rather than creating a global free market that was stable and consistent, financial globalization instead contributed to a succession of major crises. Between 1945 and 1973, while the Bretton Woods agreement still regulated currency values, no crises occurred, but since the 1980s, there have been at least 13, climaxing in the Great Recession of 2008.

Globalism was an experiment signed on to by Bill Clinton with the best of intentions, but reality bit us in the ass. The idea was "We buy and you sell and it all equals out and we all win". Well, it didn't equal out.

The reality was that in US and other foreign countries, businesses moved production out of their home countries to cut labor costs. Their motive was to cut taxes. Countries then had to cut their own taxes to try to them from moving and so the downward cycle began. What this created was the destruction of the tax base at the same time jobs were disappearing. But the CEO's and senior management were making a bundle. Those with assets saw those assets grow with inflation, and those with equities saw them grow along with the economy. But many workers had no real estate, or equity beyond their 401K as company defined pension plans became a dead end investment due to high paying union jobs shipped away do to the nation's new and wonderful globalism.

So in short, globalism is unraveling the promise of social democracy in Europe and the USA which in its various forms was to provide economic and social security and upward mobility.

To add insult and injury to the ungrateful democrats, Trump has embarked on a return to the premise of the New Deal of the 1930's, without using the name or referring to it's historical roots. The former democrat party of the '30's through the late 90's that existed by promoting what Trump is promoting has turned it's back on economic justice in favor of an unwinnable trek toward social justice and economic equality - two totally unwinnable positions.

History is repeating itself for the betterment of American citizens, and it is transforming America the way the democrats would like to have done themselves but were too tied down by party politics and America's cherished political tradition of "Kicking the can down the road" so on one gets mad at me and I get to build my liberry.

No one wants to return to poverty clothed as socialism on the kitten feet of social justice, economic justice, border compassion, or what ever euphemism you care to use for national suicide.

I have seen nothing from the democrats that even hints on anything that will continue economic prosperity and economic sovereignty in the USA, and I don't see any democrat coming up showing the Chutzpah to challenge the Globalist world order.

 

[PeteEU]

Globalism started long before Clinton....

Sendt fra min SM-N9005 med Tapatalk

 

[jnug]

The only thing we got wrong in globalization was that we did NOTHING and I do mean nothing to convert our skilled labor force to a 21st century skilled labor force. Other than that, there was no way to hold companies from globalizing. We should be prospering from globalization, not suffering from it.

We have attempted to keep high value jobs here. But we have not trained up enough of a skilled work force to take them. We are never again going to pay people high value pay for relatively low value work like operate an air wrench. Forget it...not going to happen.

As it is, current studies claim that half the manufacturing jobs in this country even today will be eliminated by automation. We need robotics technicians and other skilled labor capable of being productive in the 21st century. Anything less than that is nonsense.

 

[Grand Mal]

https://newrepublic.com/article/151140/trump-right-free-trade-globalization



Globalism was an experiment signed on to by Bill Clinton with the best of intentions, but reality bit us in the ass. The idea was "We buy and you sell and it all equals out and we all win". Well, it didn't equal out.

The reality was that in US and other foreign countries, businesses moved production out of their home countries to cut labor costs. Their motive was to cut taxes. Countries then had to cut their own taxes to try to them from moving and so the downward cycle began. What this created was the destruction of the tax base at the same time jobs were disappearing. But the CEO's and senior management were making a bundle. Those with assets saw those assets grow with inflation, and those with equities saw them grow along with the economy. But many workers had no real estate, or equity beyond their 401K as company defined pension plans became a dead end investment due to high paying union jobs shipped away do to the nation's new and wonderful globalism.

So in short, globalism is unraveling the promise of social democracy in Europe and the USA which in its various forms was to provide economic and social security and upward mobility.

To add insult and injury to the ungrateful democrats, Trump has embarked on a return to the premise of the New Deal of the 1930's, without using the name or referring to it's historical roots. The former democrat party of the '30's through the late 90's that existed by promoting what Trump is promoting has turned it's back on economic justice in favor of an unwinnable trek toward social justice and economic equality - two totally unwinnable positions.

History is repeating itself for the betterment of American citizens, and it is transforming America the way the democrats would like to have done themselves but were too tied down by party politics and America's cherished political tradition of "Kicking the can down the road" so on one gets mad at me and I get to build my liberry.

No one wants to return to poverty clothed as socialism on the kitten feet of social justice, economic justice, border compassion, or what ever euphemism you care to use for national suicide.

I have seen nothing from the democrats that even hints on anything that will continue economic prosperity and economic sovereignty in the USA, and I don't see any democrat coming up showing the Chutzpah to challenge the Globalist world order.

Rolling back globalization now would be like trying to restrict handguns in the US. Good luck trying to get the toothpaste back into the tube. If you somehow got government control of every aspect of the economy and every corporate boardroom you still wouldn't be able to do it.
My advice? Just try to make the best of it