We Need Strategically-Managed TradeFree Trade does not work. It must be replaced by "Strategically Managed Trade", that benefits all U.S. Citizens and efficiently ends World Poverty. U.S. Socio-Economic Democracy is being gravely threatened as a result of making our country non-competitive in World and our own U.S. Markets due to WTO and FTA regulatory restrictions and will put an end to "Made In the U.S.A." ! Citizens for Strategically Managed Trade Policies
THE IMMEDIATE DEVASTATING PROBLEM:
With WTO restrictions and Free Trade Agreements, our country can no longer be competitive on the world and U.S. markets in manufacturing, engineering, science, R&D or any type of work that can be outsourced from the U.S.A. Why can't anybody in our government figure that out? It is not "rocket science", it is perfectly straight forward logic ! How is it logically possible that President Obama and the U.S. Congress are presently planning to pass legislation to set up additional "Free Trade Agreements", like NAFTA, China-MFN, WTO and other existing Free Trade Agreements, that are directly responsible for over 7,000,000 un-employed U.S. workers? The Trade Deficit of $700,000,000,000. per year is also a major cause of the Recession! The "Free Trade" question is now beyond "holding out for an economic ideology", it is now a pragmatic decision of, "if our nation will survive or not"! Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and William McKinley all warned our nation about the horrors of Free Trade Policies ! It is the same "Sucking Sound", that Ross Perot warned us about just before the vote on NAFTA !!!, but now it is on a world wide basis and many magnitudes worse! Our U.S. Government is doing more of the same (Free Trade) to try to solve the problems that Free Trade caused and is expecting a different result!....And they have been doing the same thing continuously for 34 years! Our country has not sold more to the rest of the world than it purchased, since 1975.. And now as a result of so-called Globalization, 3,000,000,000 of extremely low wage workers, many well educated, are now available to take all of U.S. jobs out of the U.S.A.! Due to Free Trade's`WTO rules, steel, wind mill and solar manufacturing to create "President Obama's U.S. Green Jobs" will be "WTO illegal"!
Why is this happening? Why are otherwise very intelligent people in the U.S. Government doing this to us? This document will attempt to explain and question "why"! Who are these "Power Brokers" who perpetuate "Free Trade" and convince U.S. Presidents and the U.S. Senate and House to legislate for more and more Free Trade Agreements to the detriment of the lower and middle class U.S. workers ?
STRUCTURE OF "FREE TRADE POWER BROKERS": These are the basic 3 groups of the "Free Trade Power Brokers" consisting of "Economic Zealots", "Political Elitists" and "Greedy Multi-Nationals". Let us examine these 3 groups that are destroying our National Socio-Economic Structure and how they "manipulate" our present foreign economic trade polices: (Group #1 - DOGMA) "Economic Zealots" - they are economists, think tanks and academia, which dogmatically and illogically believe in (or are pressured to believe in) the theory of Free Trade at any cost and, for the most part, refuse to calculate empirical economic data and all the parameters of world trade. (Group #2 - DECEPTION) "Political Elitists" - usually elected and politically appointed officials in and out of U.S. Government office, who believe that Free Trade is "the only way to save the poor of the world and save us from Military Annihilation", is to promote World Wide Economic "Interdependency" and "Globalization" at any cost to our nation. (And to keep themselves in power and to be financed by Group #3 when not in government jobs, working for think tanks and as lobbyists and in universities) (Group #3 - GREED) "Greedy Multi- Nationals" Foreign Corporations, Foreign Governments and Financial Systems and their Lobbyists. Their "goal" is greed and power at any cost, including the economic demise (and social and military demise) of the U.S. This group extensively helps finance the other two groups, including the think tanks and the think tank "employee experts". HOW "FREE TRADE POWER BROKERS" FUNCTION: Just as an example; how can a present member of Congress (or any government official including President Obama), without great difficulty, be against "Free Trade" or any free trade agreement when; (Group #1 - DOGMA) "Economic Zealots" will back the House and U.S. Senate Members up with their decision to vote for Free Trade with so-called learned academic theories and back up information of why free trade is so beneficial and even critical to our country and the world. (Group #2 - DECEPTION) "Political Elitists", who are for most part the "leaders" of our nation, in and out of Congress and the Executive branch of our government and to a great extent in the State Department, and unfortunately in the Commerce Department and USTR, tell Congress to vote for free trade to "save the world", and in addition with "legal bribery" to help with financing the congress person's next election. (Group #3 - GREED) "Greedy Multi-Nationals" influence the Congresspersons directly or through their high paid lobbyists. If Congressmen and women do vote for "Free Trade" these congress people will receive funds (legalized bribery) for their next election and/or a 6 figure salary when they leave Congress as a direct employee, consultant or lobbyist for these same Multi-National Corporations and Investors. OVER 90% OF U.S. CITIZENS AGAINST FREE TRADE:
The "Free Trade Power Brokers" can not win in open debate with an audience of U.S. citizens, not previously "brain washed" to their ideology and self serving interests! The U.S. people are just too smart and now know what their elected officials are up to on this subject! The Strategy to defeat the Free Traders is simple, just present the empirical facts! At debates just before NAFTA and WTO, about 85% were against Free Trade at the end of a debate. This was before the average U.S. citizens knew very much about trade. Now the people know what are the results of these free trade agreements, which would increase the number to over 90% against Free Trade. This document will now list the disadvantages of Free Trade. These subjects should be adequate, or at least a firm basis, to discuss and debate any Free Trader and if necessary with your Congressman or woman or any government officials!. EFFECTS OF FREE TRADE, WTO & GLOBALIZATION: First and most importantly; Let us establish the indisputable logical fact: As long as the U.S. Government has no tariff and/or balanced trade restrictions, why would any company, presently in the U.S. or world, invest to manufacture, design, engineer, do R&D, or service any products in the U.S.? It is totally impossible for the U.S. to be competitive! If a "patriotic" owner of a company would not move to low wage countries, how could the owner of the company stay in business, if their competition does move. The owner can not compete with the lower prices, so he too, is forced to move out of the U.S. as well. Of course he could pay the same rate low wages as China and other low wage countries, but is that what we want "a race to the bottom"? "Buy Only Made In The U.S.A." - It is logical, If you sell it in the U.S.A. you must make it in the U.S.A. or pay a tariff to have that opportunity and permission and official licence to sell it in the U.S.A.! Think about the logic! It is truly our country's only salvation. [the U.S. government must enforce this requirement just like taxes, i.e.; nobody would buy more expensive U.S.A. made products unless they all had to] . If Free Trade is good for our Nation, the U.S.A. ! - Why does our country have a continuous and ever increasing Trade Deficit since 1975, now at $700. billion per year? Let us be logical; can any family or company survive if it spends/buys more than it earns/sells? Obviously No. But then the "Free Traders" profess that our nation can forever buy more than it sells to rest of the world as long as the GDP goes up and the increase percentage is greater than the increase in trade deficit. This is a bogus argument in itself, but for the last several years the trade deficit is greater than the increase in GDP. With "Globalization" there is a world wide excess of labor in manufacturing and engineering and in the service industry. PAST PRESIDENTS AGAINST FREE TRADE: President Lincoln was a "Protectionist" and a proponent of High Tariffs, even with all the other responsibilities of the Civil War. Lincoln prevented the U.S. Railroad companies from purchasing less expensive railroad cars and engines from England, so the U.S. could develop large scale manufacturing capabilities in steel and other necessary products. Lincoln is quoted: "the abandonment of a protective trade policy must result in increase of both useless labour, and idleness; and so, in proportion, must produce want and ruin among our people." [The ultimate most efficient world wide Free Trade process is the use of Slave Labor as it was prior to the Civil War.] President Teddy Roosevelt said in 1895; "Thank God I am not a Free-Trader, In this country pernicious indulgence in the doctrine of free trade seems inevitably to produce fatty degeneration of the moral fiber. Every class of our people is benefited by the Protective Tariff." President William McKinley besides calling it "national looting" stated it in the finest logical detail: "Free Trade in the United States (among the states) is founded upon a community of equalities and reciprocities. It is like the obligations of a family. But the foreign producer had no right or claim to equality with our own. He is not amenable to our laws. He pays no taxes. He performs no civil duties. He contributes nothing to the support, the progress, and glory of the nation. Free foreign trade results in giving our money, our manufacturers, and our markets to other nations, to the injury of our labor, our trades people, and our farmers". ECONOMISTS WARNING US ABOUT FREE TRADE: While the "Free Traders" use Adam Smith's book especially about the "invisible hand", the Free Traders selectively use the "Wealth of Nations" to profess their specious theories, but they do not want us to know the following - taken directly from Adam Smith's book: "The wages of the laborer, it has been sewn, are never so high as when the demand for lab our are continually rising, or when the quantity of employed is every year increasing considerably. When this real wealth of the society becomes stationary, his wages are soon reduced to what is barely enough to enable him to bring up a family, or to continue the race of the laborers. When the society declines, they (the wages) fall further.....there is no order that suffers so cruelly from its decline." David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus followed Adam Smith. Ricardo predicted dreadful famine when there was an excess of laborers. Malthus, a clergy man as well as an economist, professed; "with an excess of labor, that labor would be forced into bare subsistence wages, which were just enough to stay alive and go back to work every day", (It should be noted that just China and India represent 2.5 billion workers for the "Greedy Multi-Nationals" corporations and investors to draw from, which is virtually infinite for at least the next 20 to 30 plus years ) WTO CAUSES LOSS OF U.S. SOVEREIGNTY: The U.S. Congress was "smart enough" not to enter/pass legislation to enter into the WTO (World trade Organization) for 51 year, until 1995 ! The Congress did not want to jeopardize all of the subjects discussed in this document and specifically not to loose U.S. national sovereignty, which the present WTO does. The WTO court, which is secretive, can over rule the U.S. Supreme Court ! In 1944 the World Bank and the IMF- International Monetary Fund were established at the Bretton Woods, NH meeting. At that time the third organization was proposed. which was the WTO (then named the ITO - International Trade Organization), but was rejected by our government. In 1948 our country did enter into the GATT - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which had no court and no enforcement capabilities, which did not negate the U.S. national sovereignty as the WTO does! NEED FOR BALANCED TRADE & PROTECTIONISM: It will be difficult to put tariffs on products coming from China, from U.S. transplants or not, to balance trade flows. No doubt U.S. interest rates will go up in the U.S., BUT the longer we wait, the worst it will get ---- we have to "bite the bullet" while we still can ! Is it not ironic that our trade deficit and current account deficit with China (and other nations) is the same money China is using to buy our financial debt ! -- Are we "Nuts? Why did not the "Economic Zealots" and/or "Political Elitists" know this was going to happen at least 7 or 8 years ago ? ------ or is it their "Secret Plan" ?.......... Is there any other logical explanation ? -------or is it just "stupidity" and the unwavering "religious type believe" in Free Trade ? If we all agree that we/our nation should not depend on foreign oil from the rest of the world, why don't we logically include steel, TV sets, clothes, shoes and all the rest of the imported products. [In reality the U.S.A. has become the "buyer of last resort", so now we are broke.....What kind of suckers are we ?] POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF MILITARY WAR WITH CHINA While there is a need to have industrial capability in the case of an extensive military war, it also is necessary to have local farming and manufacturing capability in the case of natural disasters (we cannot even cloth ourselves or make TV sets, etc +) Right now we believe no sophisticated military weapons can be produced without imported products. Adam Smith warned all nations about this potential problem. Shipping goods across Oceans is a tremendous threat militarily, waste of fuel and resources, and it is "not too green". Let us not forget about food contamination and toys that poison our children and dangerous bugs and animals that have no natural enemies to control them from one nation to another, that is impossible to control with such gigantic unnecessary trade movements from one nation to another. We worry about computer viruses from China, if God forbid there ever is military war. What about poisoning our food and drugs and viruses purposely imbedded in TV's and their shipping containers from China?
U.S. STATE DEPT. DISREGARD FOR U.S. WORKERS: The US. State Department (which is made up of many of the "Political Elitist" group) uses "Free Trade" as a diplomatic bargaining tool and to help the impoverished people through out the world, without caring and calculating the true Socio-Economic effects on the middle and lower classes of their own country, the U.S.A. ! The state department no doubt is trying to typically stop "insurrections" through out the world, but perhaps they better start being concerned about some type of "insurrections" and mass demonstrations in their own country !......there is a limitation of just how many jobs our government can take away from our lower and middle classes, decreasing living standards! [remember Anti-WTO riots in Seattle 10 years ago?] The problem is that the methodology is wrong and inefficient. The process favors the rich "Greedy Multi-Nationals" of our country first and the poor people of the world last. [There is a better more efficient processes with Bi-Lateral coordination agreements.] Let us realize that Foreign Aide and deficit free trade are virtually the same process; that is the transfer of wealth of our nation to the rest of the world. There is one big difference; Foreign Aide is paid from general tax revenues, while deficit "Free Trade" is paid on the backs of Middle and Lower class workers, as they loss their jobs, while the upper class become richer benefiting from Free Trade. That is not fair, it is regressive, among other significant reasons. "Free Traders" will tell you, buying a less expensive product (like at Walmart) manufactured in a low wage country is like a tax cut and will improve your standard of living......... Not exactly, if an imported product has a tariff, that money goes into the nation's tax revenue, otherwise we have to make up the lost tariff taxes. [Also, the result is unemployment payments and other burdens on the Nation - "pay more now or pay a lot more later"] Our nation ran the government extensively from tariffs until the early 1900's.
PROTECTIONISM MILITARILY AND ECONOMICALY!: Why is (Economic) Protectionism bad for our country ? We Protect our country Militarily and we Protect our nation and citizens from disasters and diseases and from robbers and financial thieves, but God forbid, the Free Traders tell us we can not protect ourselves economically! We are in an economic war to virtually the death of our nation. Our so called "Trading Partners"; they are not. They are our "economic enemies" and we are in war with them to protect our Socio-Economic survival ! All military wars were and are fought for economics reasons, except for religious wars. Are we so naive that we think that we are not in an "Economic War" with China and Russia and Japan and we are loosing big time. The loss of an "Economic War" can eventually be more devastating than a loss of a "Military War". [The victors take over the government, nation and we, the U.S.A., We become an impoverished "colonized slave market"!] Why it is OK For the "Free Traders" to protect intellectual property and protect U.S. corporate foreign investment (with our tax dollars) but not protect U.S. Jobs? (Just listen to old speeches of Dr. "Free Trader"/Larry Summers while he was Secretary of the Treasury. He wants to "protect" everything, but U.S. jobs and the U.S. economy.) Why if we become Protectionists, we are propagandized by the "Free Trade Power Brokers", that it will destroy the U.S. Economic System and World Economic Engine that is "Globalism"?. It is logical we should also protect our nation and its citizens from foreign economic take over! SMOOT-HAWLEY TARIFF IS A MYTH: Why are we told that Smoot-Hawley, a protectionist tariff law, that was enacted in 1930, caused "The Great Depression" of the 1930's??? It is absolute nonsense and has virtually no validity. Professor Paul Krugman of Princeton University can vouch for this, even though he is a free trader. [Another reference is "The Myth of the Hawley-Snoot Tariff", by B. Bruce Briggs"] In 1930 we had a small trade surplus with the rest of the world, not the tremendous trade deficit of today and for the last 34 years. It may be wise to open up world markets (some sort of free trade) when the outcome will be a trade surplus for our country, but it is totality "insane" and "national suicide" to practice free trade when we have these tremendous trade deficits ($700. billion per year). It should be noted that the Free Trade Economists will proclaim that the U.S. manufacturing capabilities were a result of free trade policies ever since the end of World Was II. That is not true! For about a 30 year period from the end of World War II transitioning to about 1975, our nation was in effect "protectionist" by virtue of the fact of not having competition until Japan and Europe re-industrialized after the World War II destruction. [there is no coincidence we have had continuous Trade Deficits since 1975, because of "Free Trade Policies"!] It is questionable if people such as Ex-VP Al Gore ever studied this subject, when the true name of the legislation is titled the Hawley-Snoot tariff Act, but "Free Traders" prefer the more ominous and threatening sounding name. We may recall the pompous Gore giving a picture of the late Congressman Smoot to Ross Perot after their debate about NAFTA, previous to the vote on it in 1993. [There would be no need to read, or for, this document and we would not have these trade deficits, if our Presidents, Congress and citizens read Perot's and Pat Choate's book in 1993 "Save Your Job, Save Our Country": Why NAFTA Must Be Stopped -- Now !] I think we already mentioned our government is passing more and more Free Trade Agreements and is expecting a different result! It should be noted that our government would be a lot better off if it "acted" on Pat Choate's previous book "Agents of Influence" which explained about who were Foreign Lobbyists and how they "worked"! At that time it concentrated on Japanese foreign lobbyists, but a lot could have been applied to the present day "bribing", manipulation and "revolving door policy" of our highest government officials. FEEDING THE WORLD POOR - NOT FREE TRADE: We should not confuse saving and feeding the poor people of the world with Protectionism. Our country can and morally should help these poor people. But we should not destroy our economy with World Wide Free Trade (and WTO manipulation). In fact it is a very inefficient method which helps the poor a "little" as it helps the "Multi-National Corporations." in a "gigantic" way, by outsourcing to low wage countries )! The late Sir James Goldsmith (ex-European Union delegate) stated it correctly, "Free Trade is the process.of transferring the wealth of the middle and lower classes of a "Developed Nation" to that of the Upper class of the "Emerging"/third world Nation" and to Upper Class of their own/same Developed Nation, while a small amount is transferred to the Middle and Lower classes of the "Emerging/ third world Nation" [Empirical data supports this statement.]
To help the poor countries we should develop "bi-lateral" processes, which includes food, medical care, education and develop a country's economy that is best for it self and not that which benefits mainly "Multi-National Corporations and Investors" and satisfy the misguided ideology of the "Political Elitists"! EDUCATE CHILDREN & WORK FORCE, FOR WHAT ?: Why should we educate our children and work force and retrain laid off workers?.....For What ? [refer to above statements] Already engineers, chemists, computer programmers, are out of work because of "Free Trade Policies", NAFTA, the WTO, MFN for China and other free trade agreement that are "killing" our country economically and socially (and militarily) ! It is nice to think we can do R&D, engineer and design products in the U.S.A. and manufacture them in the low wage countries, but that is not the way it is. Engineering, R&D and Design go to/follow to the same location as manufacturing, eventually if not immediately. And what do we do with the 80% to 90% of U.S. citizens that do not have the capability to become engineers, scientists or some other type of well educated worker? In addition, for example, China and India graduate 10 engineers for every 1 in the U.S.A. ("Our-???" G. E./General Electric company already has more R&D people and facilities in India and China than it does in the U.S.A.) It is "nice and self assuring" to believe our "U.S. Workers are best in the World": in manufacturing, engineering, computer technology, science, R&D, farming, servicing, etc. and no other nation can out compete them. But certainly not for the same wages!. So they are out of work unless they want to work for Chinese wages ? It may take a few more years for the quality outside our country to be equal on a few products, which so far are not of equivalent quality. As was told to me by a manufacturing executive in the process of moving his company out of the U.S.; "If the foreign low wage worker is not as good as the U.S. worker, I have 49 other workers to test and inspect the quality and do the rework if necessary for the same amount of wages/invested capital money paid for 1 U.S. Worker". [That is "reality", how can we/our nation survive in a "Free Trade World" of the WTO and Globalization ?....unless we compete at the same wages?... logically and empirically there is absolutely no other way ! ....is that hat we want? CALCULATING JOB LOSSES DUE TO FREE TRADE: Calculating Job Losses due to trade deficits of $700. billion it is about 7. million U.S.A. jobs lost and under employed workers. The numbers roughly come out to about on average 10,000 lost jobs per $1. billion:of a trade deficit. It is higher for cars, car parts and TVs and other manufactured products (about 15.000 U.S. jobs per $1. billion, which accounts for more than half the total trade deficit) and less for prescription drugs and oil. The U.S.A. Nation, with the U.S.A. Government's Approval, buys about $2,330,000,000,000. worth of products and services and sells about $1,630,000,000,000. worth of products and services to the rest of the world per year. [In 1994 the U.S. government calculated there would be gain of 20,000 U.S. jobs for every $1. billion of additional U.S. trade exported!!!], You can do the startling/alarming math going both ways!!! ....... Is there any more devastating evidence that we need to implement Tariffs and Balanced Trade?....And get out of WTO, MFN with China, NAFTA. etc. Virtually all "Free Trade" type U.S. Senators and Representatives believe their state or district exports more to the rest of world than it imports from the rest of the world. Obviously this is ridiculous when the whole nation has $700. billion trade deficit every year, which is calculated by the Commerce Department. Unfortunately there are no real import statistics available by state let alone district, so-called state statistics are many times double and triple counted. Perhaps, Washington State is a typical example of that.
JOB MULTIPLIER EFFECTS ON MADE IN THE U.S.A.: If a product is totally made with U.S. Labor there is a multiplier effect. For example for automobiles and airplanes that number is about 11. That means that not only is the U.S. worker on the final assembly plant have a job, so do 11 other people in our country have jobs also. That includes the parts manufacturers, the truck drivers, the workers in the towns from police the restaurants. If an auto is totally made outside our country, that number goes down to 1 or 2! The multiplier number for clothing and shoes is about 6, for electronics, cell phones, computers, etc averages about 7. So if you buy your merchandise from a place like Walmart, where as much 70% to 80% of its merchandise is made in China, you can see what is happening! About 95% of the foot ware we buy is not made in this country, about 90% of tires, about 85% of all clothing, about 90% of our electronics, and it goes on! Then we wonder where our jobs have gone! It is all about greed, a misguided state department and dogmatic economists!.....which we call the "The Free Trade Brokers". With this "3 pronged" attack it will take a monumental effort to defeat these people! When calculating how many U.S. jobs are being created, with the "$787. billion Economic Stimulus Fund" (which we the tax payers are paying for) you can see plainly, that President Obama is creating about 3 or 4 jobs in China, Mexico and Korea and other foreign countries to every one job that he is creating in our country! Are we totally out of our minds??? THE MORALITY OF FREE TRADE TO U.S. WORKERS: The question really comes down to; Do we keep our nation sovereignty or do we relinquish it to the WTO , which is a "One World Government" when it cones to trade and perhaps more eventually, or call it "A Higher Global Authority" as Strobe Talbot stated it, or perhaps as the first President Bush stated it "The New World Order"! The following are portions of quotations about Free Trade, which are more complete in two other locations of this document: President Lincoln: ".......produce want and ruin among our people." President T. Roosevelt "......degeneration of the moral fiber." President McKinley "......to the injury of our labor, our trades people and our farmers" Economist Adam Smith ".......there is no order (workers) that suffers so cruelly from economic decline." Economist David Recardo. ".......famine will result with an excess of labor." Economist Thomas Malthus ".......with an excess of labor, that labor would be forced into bare subsistence wages, which were just enough to stay alive and go back to work every day" Is it immoral for the rich and upper class to take advantage to become richer on the backs of the lower and middle class workers of their country. They are influencing and more so bribing Congress and the U.S. government to pass "Free Trade Legislation", when the middle and lower classes do not have the capability to do so. Typically a member of the U.S. congress or other positions of government will supposedly vote or work with the interest of the U.S. people and "the next day" after receiving "re-elections funds" (legalized bribery) they work for one of these three groups of the "Free Trade Power Brokers" without really analyze the issues. [How is that not "Economic Treason"? Gore Vidal pointed out that President Franklin Roosevelt called Senator Prescott Bush an (economic) Traitor, during and just before WWII ..Maybe President Obama should be a little more candid and aggressive!] Adam Smith's and David Ricardo's economic theories are based on "Comparative Advantage" and not "Absolute Advantage". The implementation of "Absolute Advantage" will bankrupt the nation (U.S.A.) that is willing to put up with it going further and further into accumulated trade deficits. So is the relationship of the FTA's between the U.S.A. and nations that include China, Japan, Korea, Mexico and other nations. [Theoretically, currency re-evaluations due to trade imbalances should help keep trade imbalances in check, but empirically it just does not happen] Why did and are brave and patriotic soldiers dying and being maimed for, in present wars/conflicts and in WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam and all the other wars ? Was it for a sovereign country with borders and their families and country they love -or- is it for a theoretical economic philosophy, which has no regard for our country or its citizens? [Let us ask the soldiers of these wars.] POSSIBLE ILLEGALLY OF WTO AND FTA'S: The WTO and FTA's are Treaties and not agreements, even though the word agreement is used in the name! They were voted on as Agreements where only a 51% vote was necessary to pass in both the Senate and House, therefore these treaties, including the WTO are Illegal and Void. All treaties Constitutionally require a two thirds vote to pass in the U.S. Senate only (Article II, Section 2) Another possible illegality is that only Congress can regulate commerce and not just vote on yes/up or no/down on the Legislation that the President and U.S. Executive Branch negotiates, through the USTR or not (Article I, Section 8) As I understand it, Laurence Tribe was "considered" to challenge this legislation in the Supreme Court, but for what ever reason it never happen. From the U.S. Constitution; "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes". THE COMPLEXITY OF "POLITICAL ELITISTS" GROUP A little more discussion about Group #2, "Political Elitists". FTA's usually start out as an economic issue, but invariably end up as an international political issue, for such a reason as; "the other country will be taken over by rebels if our government does not pass this Free Trade Agreement.". A typical "Political Elitists" is a Strobe Talbot type person who stated in a Time Magazine article that (paraphrased): "There is no need for the individual democratic sovereign nations, including the United States, but instead these countries should be weakened and subordinated to a Higher Global Authority" The typical Strobe Talbot was a Deputy Secretary of State and is presently CEO of the Bookings Institute think tank. It is doubtful this man and others like him can in any way relate to the manufacturing workers or engineers in Ohio and Michigan or to any of us other than on a worldly philosophical basis. [The prerequisite to a "Higher Global Authority" is a weakened United States and world wide Free Trade/Globalization/Interdependency at any cost.] It should be totally transparent to the citizens of the U.S.A.!!! Where and how the "Think Tanks" (including but not limited to; Brookings, CATO Institute, Council on Foreign Relations, Heritage Foundation, ....) and their working Members, when they are not in government office, are financed and what "marching orders" are given to them by their financiers!!!......And who are these "financiers"and what are their motivations and goals?
The U.S. citizens have a right to know how such "influential" think tank organizations and their members (who are in actuality, sophisticated lobbyists) influence or perhaps dictate U.S. Government trade policies, which effects all of us in our country !!! LACK OF UN-BIASED "MEDIA" NEWS COVERAGE: The "Media" will not devote adequate coverage of Trade Policies. When it does it is extremely biased and every time, it starts off with why Protectionism is so bad for our country and the world. The media has "bought in" to the mantra of the the Free Trade Power Brokers hook, line and sinker. It may be, the now well educated news reporters and journalists want to be identified personally with the "intelligentsia", which professes the Theory of Free Trade and Anti-Protectionism. Do they get their "marching orders" from somewhere else? We can only hope not. The only fact is about 99% of the stories on International Trade Policies are Anti-Protectionist, which is not analyzed, but is automatically stated as an unchallengeable "religious like dogmatic fact". It is our hope that with the independent web sites and independent online news coverage, and the citizen of the U.S. will "wise up" to the "Free Trade Power Brokers"! THE FIX TO SAVE OUR NATION FROM FREE TRADE: To save our country from economic collapse, President Obama must cancel/get out of the WTO, MFN with China, NAFTA and most if not all FTA's. This must happen immediately, more importantly than the "banking and investment bail outs" had to happen immediately !!! Our country will not be able to stop poverty and disease and stop world military annihilation, if we do not take care of ourselves first, by preventing the Economical Collapse of our nation due to irrational Trade Policies!!! We should immediately, with as short a transition as possible, enforce trade restrictions with all nations we trade with, there must be "balanced" trade ! Tariffs should be calculated to what it will take to balance trade with each nation. We still should be humanitarian to the impoverished people of the world by giving them "Foreign Aide" [but not to counties like China and India, that now has their own resources. They should help their poor people and they should now help the poor of other nations as well. It is totally illogical to "bail out" the Auto Industry, without first fixing our trade policies. The U.S. Auto Industry can not compete on the world market. They, including the Japanese transplants, eventually will move out of the U.S. totally. These auto companies already buy and make most their parts outside the U.S.!!! [The airplane manufacturers also buy most parts and sub-systems from outside the U.S.] The "Banking, Investment and U.S. auto bail outs" will never work without fixing the Trade Deficit first !!! Because, including but not limited to, many if not most of the everyday products (and investments), that U.S. citizens purchase come from out side our country, we are not efficiently helping our U.S.un-employed!
FINALLY - WE NEED "THE GREAT TRADE DEBATE": We very much would appreciate your feedback. For more data, contact Citizens for Strategically Managed Trade Policies, 732-922-6210 and
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(contact; Karl Sturz). We are not paid by anybody or lobbyists of any kind (other than being citizen lobbyists). We just want the best for our country. We are looking forward to our nation having "The Great Trade Debate" with the best from each side. ___________________________________________________________ out ----- -{{{CNN just reported 3/20/09: Long Island Power Authority, because of WTO Rules had to put out RFP's for Solar Panels and related equipment to the world, not only to the U.S. As a result the only 4 companies that are being evaluated are for the final contract are all foreign. All U.S. companies, that submitted proposals were disqualified! Final contract will be for upwards of $300. million! To make it more irrational the location is at a U.S. Government facility at Brookhaven National Labs! Well that is it for "Green Jobs", President Obama, any other ideas? Maybe get out of WTO? Oh by the way, they want financing from your $787. billion economic stimulus fund! *** CAN YOU STILL INTERVINE ???***}}}
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