Free Trade and Your Country

(wrote this in twenty minutes....had to get it out...enjoy)

Free Trade….(at the utterance of this phrase pls envision me spitting on the ground)

Free Trade…? 

Welcome to the scourge of the West.

I dunno about your country, but in mine, Free Trade has ravaged America.  It’s probably ravaged your country’s economy, too.  If not…brace yourself.  Trends tend to appear in America first.

One can still watch TV Shows from the “good ole days”…ie the 60’s.

Those were the shows where the dad worked, and the mom stayed home.  Dad was able to buy a house.   Maybe put a kid through college.   And quite frankly, nobody hardly ever got laid off.   I’m not even sure America had performance reviews then.

Today’s America?  Both parents need to work, layoffs happen all the time, and there’s a big gaping hole where the middle class used to be.

Remember Ross Perot?  The guy with big, big ears?  What did he say back in 1992?  Go Youtube! 

Free Trade…..NAFTA.  Pass that bill and you’ll hear a “big sucking sound” as the jobs leave the country.  Boy was he right.

America today is worse off, not better.  Free Trade has made China wealthier.  Other countries have prospered as well.  It’s taken the wealth from the rich and given it to the poor.  But that’s only on a national basis.  It’s taken global wealth, and spread it out more uniformly.   I guess that’s a good thing.  That’s a nice way of saying it’s taken jobs that used to exist in my country and given them to somebody else in China.  Or Vietnam. 

I thought it used to be the priority of one’s own country to create jobs for it’s populace.   Now, because the USA is so damn “enlightened”, the USA and other countries are basically the main economic driver of jobs in Asia.   Don’t believe me?

Look at all the factories American companies build in China?

General Motors. P&G. Caterpillar.

These are companies that used to have factories in America.  Now they have factories overseas.   Giving those workers jobs.  Good for them.  Bad for us.  Pretty easy if you’re the local govt.  you don’t have to rack your brains about job creation when an American company is so willing to hire 2000 of your high school dropouts at 25% of what an American makes at a similar factory back in America.

Remember who the biggest fans of Free Trade were back in the 90’s?

It was the CEO’s of companies of course.

Why?

Didn’t have anything to do with importing or exporting, but everything to do with “selling”.

American CEO’s figured out early on they could build the same things overseas that they used to build in America…..than ship them back to the States’.  Or Australia.  Or Canada.

Now…I’ll say here, it makes no sense for a country to focus too much of it’s energy on making socks.  Let somebody else fight it out for best sock manufacturer.    There are a lot of industries Americans simply don’t need to be involved in anymore.  But when companies make a conscientious decision to fire 300 workers in America with good paying jobs….jobs that a guy can buy a house with, so they can build the same factory in China, and hire 1000 workers who won’t have a Union, than I dare say that company really doesn’t care about the negative consequences of it’s actions.   Because it’s building the same factory overseas and saving enough money for it to than take the same product it used to build in America and sell it back to the States’……at the same price! 

It’s not the goal of the CEO to cut the cost of the product.  Rather his goal is to simply have bigger margins.

Wait a minute you say!?

Didn’t it just lose a potential 300 customers?  Customers who might have been able to buy it’s products.

Well….no.  Not really.   

Why’s that?

Because of the global economy, said company can now sell his products not just to America, but to other markets.  Thus the claim that USA companies are only hurting themselves by not employing USA workers is a false one.  Because they can sell their products to other countries.    Thus they do not necessarily have to rely upon the American consumer to boost their profits.

In this day and age, I guess I have a beef with American companies.   They have never showed themselves to be American Citizens.  Nor do they think it’s their job.  Their job is to please shareholders, they like to say.

Except a lot of them don’t really have their pay tied to the stockprice. 

Don’t believe me?  Go take a look at GE’s CEO.  You think his pay is overwhelmingly tied to the stock price?   It’s tied to the profit of the company.   If his pay was tied to the stockprice he’d be a pauper. 

 It’s still below the pre-crash price of 08…..

And that’s why CEO’s really like this whole concept of “global trade”-it increases the number their salaries and bonuses are most tied too….and that’s profit, not share price.    

So now what?  In the past 20 years that “free trade” has taken off, the American Poor have stayed Poor(no surprise there), and the CEO’s have gotten richer….(see above…no surprise there).

And the Middle Class?  Well…they can go fuck themselves. 

Should have worked harder.

Should have planned better.

Should’ve gotten another degree.

Should’ve learned a foreign language.

Should’ve studied a different major.

Blah, blah, blah.

And what you’ll never here the CEO’s and Sr Mgt of American companies say……

SHOULD’VE FORMED A UNION DUMBASS!

These are the same companies that always want tax breaks.   Tax breaks for what?   Building another factory overseas?  So while I’m at my peak earning years, reading abt how hard it is to get a job once you reach 50, and how 80% of job creation in America are “service jobs”….(read Wal-mart or McDonalds), I’m wondering just what on earth the American Middle Class is gonna do?

Another benefit of Free Trade within America is we get to compete with the best and brightest from everyone’s else’s countries, here at home, on a daily basis.  

How can America survive if it’s Middle Class has a salary that’s actually lower than when Jimmy Carter was President? 

Free Trade will make the world a better place you say?  In what generation will my family feel that effect?   Will I be able to explain to my grandkids 50 years from now that working as a cashier at Wal-Mart isn't something to aspire to?

Well….don’t forget that American companies don’t consider you important.  Because they don’t rely upon the American Middle Class for make or break profits when the Chinese Middle Class is the size of the entire USA population.   

A country where it’s corporations do not consider themselves obligated to support the American Dream, or to be good citizens, is a country on the road to irrelevance. 

I find myself spending more and more time wondering how my kids will make it this world.  I wonder if they will be laid off some day, like I’ve been.  I wonder if they’ll be able to adjust to a world that is only going to get more competitive…and zero sum.

We have truly given ourselves enough rope with which to hang ourselves. 

Going back to our old ways will make America an expensive place to live, you say?

My answer to that is….if it means the Middle Class has a job that doesn’t  involve being a greeter at a 

supermarket…..so what?