Hey Tula!

Today’s NY Times had this article on Foreign Firms Lining Up For Piece of Stimulus.

So much for taking care of US citizens first, right?

Hi, dakine01:

There also is a story that went under the radao on how major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off.
http://www.chron.com/disp/stor…..41946.html

Yeah, I saw that one as well. And it really p*ss’d me off, since I am an unemployed IT worker AND have some back office experience in accounting and finance. The jobs did not come close to the definition of H1b (or at least what it is supposed to be used for) and I can guarantee there are thousands of US workers who could do those jobs.

But by bringing in H1b, the banks can actually pay less than for US workers AND be more abusive to the workers.

Does that mean that the U.S. Chamber of is socializing U.S. jobs for foreign nationals?

Two things: The stimulus is meant to create jobs in this country. It will create jobs in other countries as well. This is not an absolute but a question of emphasis. The second is that longer term we need a re-industrialization policy for this country to replace the tottering paper economy and that too will mostly be about money spent in this country to create jobs here.

This is almost like a continuation of the debate between free and fair trade. Free trade has led to major dislocations and unsustainable balance of payments deficits. Fair trade simply seeks to restore the balance.

Randy Rhodes talked about it on her show yesterday evening as well.

I addressed this measure in my diary last night. What I was noting was who still had his nose stuck in McCain’s butt. You know that guy that always votes with the democrats /s Joe Lieberman

In the words of United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable “want to give American tax dollars to foreign manufacturers to create jobs overseas.”

WTF??? Does their greed know no bounds?

The real question is should the stimulus bill allow US corporations to make maximum profits, by buying cheap raw materials from overseas, or should we use US raw materials to increase the multiplier effect of the stimulus package.

Greed VS The Common Good.

Slightly OT, Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp lost $6.2 billion in the 4th quarter (their fiscal 2nd).

You think Fox News might need a stimulus payment?

They both oppose provisions in the economic recovery package that would ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent on products that are made in America—to the maximum extent possible.

here’s what most people don’t understand, for lack of progressive and democratic punditry understanding and communication;

when we buy products from countries that allow for unsafe working conditions, where kids lose their fingers, eyes, lives

when we allow these products produced at wages so low a person cannot put healthy food on the table

when they have children working in sweatshops

when they pay so little a person cannot fix their kids arm if it breaks, their teeth when they get cavities, or give their wife an operation for breast cancer

when they can’t afford to send their kids to school through college

when they are forced to work more then 40 hours a week

when they are payed so little that must work till the day that they die

THESE ARE THE PRODUCTS OF SLAVE TRADERS, these are the products of child abuse, and as fdr said so eloquently

THIS IS CONTRABAND

those products MUST face a tariff comenserate with the costs the company WOULD have paid if it did not defer those costs to the rest of the world

I want to add a few items to my list;

when a country allows it’s industry to pour their bronchitis in my kids air

when the country allows it’s industry to dump their cancer in my moms water

when the country warms the planet so my grandkids will have to grow friggging gills

THAT PRODCUT IS CONTRABAND

and MUST be tariffed comenserate with those bills they defer to my kids

those products MUST face a tariff comenserate with the costs the company WOULD have paid if it did not defer those costs to the rest of the world

I would prefer that these products just be banned

Ours was the country that represented the vast majority of consumer purchasing power globally. We were the consumers – that was our strength. It used to coincide with and complement our manufacturing prowess.

It was not the idea of US workers for their plants to be closed and their jobs to be sent abroad. In our hearts, we understood that cheaper goods at Walmart were not a fair trade for offshoring our manufacturing jobs and gutting our main street stores.

This was forced upon us, albeit with ample sugar (credit), and the steady drumbeat of political and commercial message compelling Americans to submit to cheap and shiny trinkets – courtesy of globalism and – and to forsake protectionism. It made no sense. When you are a nation in balance, you manufacture what your people need, and they buy it. Those who make a good wage building products become consumers themselves. That’s what we had, and our politicians (on behalf of their globalist bankster overlords) intentionally destroyed.

There are no coincidences. Henry Ford is rolling over in his grave.

the reason we couldn’t just ban them is the fact that we are guilty ourselves

I would not mind if our products faced tariff for the same purpose

and in that fashion society will “progress”

Buying American goods with U.S. taxpayer dollars is a no-brainer. So, if fears of a “trade war” aren’t the real reason for opposing Buy America, what is?

tula – i think this may be the first time i’ve ever disagreed with you. but i do over this issue. big time. imo, the call to “buy america” treats workers in other countries as our enemies. they are not. and imo, that is NOT the point of fair trade.

i am 110% behind legislation that will prevent or add high tariffs to imports made by companies or countries that don’t have and enforce good labor rights (living wages, rights to organize, safety in the workplace, etc), because that is what we need to change. when we focus on the rights of workers everywhere, we in the usa are allies with workers in other countries and the fight is against those people who would deny workers right anywhere. “buy american” turns that battle into one between workers.

please, i beg you, give this one a rethink.

check this out;

we tariff country “c” for allowing children to work at slave wages, country “x” changes that policy

country “s’ tariffs company “w” for not giving two weeks paid vacation and retirement, country “w” has to decide which makes them more money, giving that vacation or paying tariff

social progress protectionism style

i am 110% behind legislation that will prevent or add high tariffs to imports made by companies or countries that don’t have and enforce good labor rights (living wages, rights to organize, safety in the workplace, etc), because that is what we need to change. when we focus on the rights of workers everywhere, we in the usa are allies with workers in other countries and the fight is against those people who would deny workers right anywhere. “buy american” turns that battle into one between workers.

I agree with this paragraph 100 percent

this gives our laborers a “higher purpose” and when we buy we buy accordingly

exactly right – and that is the problem.

remember before reagan, (oh the good ol days) when we used to sing ‘look for, the union labelllll’

man I miss those days

Free trade has led to major dislocations and unsustainable balance of payments deficits. Fair trade simply seeks to restore the balance.

“but american” is neither free trade nor fair trade.

buy not “but”

sorry.

look for the union label

Nobody’s being very creative about how to keep the dollars here. Germany is subsidizing VW’s/made in Germany cars… for Germans as a part of their stimulus package. The way the dollar is headed, our steel will come in as the lowest bid anyway. We could simply pass laws to subsidize products that do not have to travel to us farther than Mexico or Canada as part of our new “energy efficiency” plan. Hey! Solved that one, now I can walk the dog!

In no way are we treating overseas workers as enemies by supporting Buy America. We support trade that includes provision for labor rights for workers overseas, something Bush never wanted.
The governments of France, etc., all take action to protect their workers. The United States under Bush, actually encouraged corporations, through tax carrots, to send US jobs overseas. During his campaign, Obama said he would reverse those policies, and set tax incentives to keep US jobs here.
The unemployment data for January will be out tomorrow a.m., and they will be really ugly. Right now, the unofficial unemployment rate is more than 13 percent (that counts underemployed and those who’ve given up), and we need jobs created here fast because when people don’t have jobs, they don’t have health care, they lose their homes….

hmmm, but trade

interesting concept, I think this is still legal in nevada

Excellent framing re: PUTIN.

Why does the Chamber of Commerce side with America’s Russian foes?

just because I love the song, I want to repost;

look for, the union label, deededeedeeedededed

OT, dear lord, Lindsay on my teevee whining to tweety

Jobless claims are at highest point since 1982. That was President Reagan’s second year.

That was President Reagan’s second year.

the brutal results of HIS tax cuts

not only did he destroy the economy, the middle class he ALSO borrowed against our infrastructure

yet the man is STILL the republican standard, bizarre

Thanks, Tula. Love the inclusion of “manufactured goods”. Go machinists.

There is the caveat in the bill that it shall comply with our treaties.

For all these many years and as a Democrat, I am a staunch “free trader” and obviously, I am odds with the majority of the FirePups and who have given voice to their opinion on this thread.

I agree with the notional that “buy American” is acceptable to the extent that we do not cross the line for abusing our existing Free Trade Agreements. And by prohibiting purchases of foreign “goods and services”, we are violating our Free Trade Agreements. However, to the stringent advocates for “Buy American, Only”, I say to you that you are wrong. Wrong from the standpoint, that you have failed to advance the argument for the USA to rescind its signature on the affective Free Trade Agreements.

Moreover, the full-flowered use of my logic, contends that when Bush and Cheney agreed to set in motion a “detention and interrogation” systemic that morphed into torture, the anti-free traders, were required to loudly voice their opinion to rescinding our national signature on the Geneva Convention Treaty. And yet, and to this day, I did not hear these loud or even quiet voices proclaiming their angst and anger.

Consequently, being shrill without any inherent logic, is fine, but it will not impress me, one iota.

Jaango

Will Bunch was on NPR touting his book The Reagan Myth. The Reagan Legacy Foundation with Grover Norquist has bullshitted the public into believing the tax cuts myth, Soviet Collapse myth and all the rest.

i support massive gov action for jobs here in the usa, i just don’t think this is the way to do it. right wingers will hear “buy american” as scapegoating foreign workers – ie as nativist demagoguery even though it is not meant to be. and i’m pretty sure foreign workers will hear it the same way. if that does happen, it may not matter that the effect of the a stimulus bill will be good for the world economy (if indeed that is the case). when the economy of a country goes into a tail spin, it sets up for the possibility of right-wing demagogues and they may decide to initiate a trade war even though it will be bad for their country in the long run.

politicians have been known to do stupid, dangerous things that are not in the long term interest of their citizens if they think it will further their own political ambitions. we see it all the time.

i think this is incredibly dangerous on all kinds of levels and it has the potential to destroy years of work building alliances with workers in other countries. but, maybe there is something i’m missing here. i will contact a few people i know who’ve been active in that work to get their take on it.

But see, that’s the problem. “Free trade” is a myth promulgated by the business interests to justify taking jobs to cheaper areas.

There is no such thing as free trade. Every other country puts restrictions on how WE do business with them or subsidizes their industries or props up their currency. Every country that provides health care and retirements to their own workers, costs US workers and businesses jobs and makes us that much more uncompetitive.

Apples and oranges.

As in Alice In Wonderland, Free Trade is whatever the queen says it is. Free Trade agreements typically function in a capacity to unfairly extract resources from others as we foist our genetically-modified and poisonous shit on them.

For all these many years and as a Democrat, I am a staunch “free trader”

jaango, the very term is an oxymoron

there is no such thing as “free trade”, money itself is a regulation, some countries don’t force their industry to pay the bills we then have to pay like cleaning the air, things like this

I would be for “free trade” if such a thing existed, where we could buy something from a country that forced industry into paying it’s own bills

that doesn’t exist and until industry pays for all their bills free trade is not possible

Norquist has bullshitted the public into believing the tax cuts myth, Soviet Collapse myth and all the rest.

I believe funding the terrorists in afghanistan and making terrorism their battle really did contribute to the fall of the soviet union

that very group of terrorists are what the bush administration tried to “fight”

and it bankrupted our economy as well

all thanx to reagan we might add

IMHO that only the talking Repug heads will go down that road but with 79% of Republicans for the “Buy American” first then Americans get it.

The purpose of the Stimulus bill is to CREATE JOBS and when you keep the money inside the USA then you stimulate the engine of the economy. Just so you know low income workers spend 100% of their income and with saving rate around 2% then a large amount of middle income people spend nearly ALL their income.

When low & middle income earners spend then they create jobs. It might be grocery clerks, workers at home improvement stores, daycare workers, etc.

Trade and how foreign workers are treated within their own counties to me are a very different subject.

The goal should be to keep as much of the stimulus package money INSIDE the USA to help with the circulation of money which can create jobs. We all should be advocating this.

i was going to jump all over jaango for the “free trade” comment… but i see my fellow commenters have already torn it to shreds. thanks pups.

i’ll just add the the so called “free trade” agreements have almost nothing to do with free trade. well, other than the words “free” and “trade” are usually in the title somewhere. they have traditionally been about corporate protections and a race to the bottom for workers, the environment, human rights and democracy itself.

I want to add something to the “free trade” argument so everyone has it as a tool when in debate;

the boston tea party, the very kindling that started this new nation was NOT about high taxes, it was NOT about “taxation without representation”

it was about the removal of tariff

that’s right, one of the kings contributers, (the east indea import company I believe) wanted an advantage over the colonies when selling their tea and lobbied the king to lower his taxes, to which, just like our george, the king happily abiliged

the colonies went BALISTIC that they LOWERED the tax, that’s right, this country was formed becuase the government LOWERED tax NOT raised tax

interesting but true

i just can’t believe this is what we’re going to fight about – why not doubling the amount to states? why not a hundred other things that don’t have the down sides this one does?

the colonies went BALISTIC that they LOWERED the tax, that’s right, this country was formed becuase the government LOWERED tax NOT raised tax

linkeroo

I’m not fighting about anything… what I was explaining how keeping the money in the USA circulation and movement of money creates jobs. When you send billions overseas what jobs are going to be created? We are a hairs breath from dropping off the cliff to a depression worse than 1932 AND using the flow of money and stimulation/job creations that are done.

Today I heard on Thom Hartman that for every dollar in food stamps there is a return of $1.38, the Return on investment for the WWII GI bill was for every dollar spend it returned to the economy $8.00. THAT is what I am looking at, I could care less about all the other issues.

When you spend a dollar in the USA what is the return? THAT is what we should be looking for.

This is absolutely crazy.

The Buy American provision is outright protectionism, and is being viewed as such all over the world. It’s enactment will lead to demands for retalitory measures and quite possibly a trade war.

Consider the stupidity of the “Europeans are protectionist too!” argument. If the US had objections to European trade policy it could have contested them through the WTO a long time ago. The fact it did not do so suggests the US really didn’t think European trade policy was that objectionable -until it needed an excuse to justify its own protectionism.

Similarly, I can’t believe Dean Baker’s sophism on this issue is being given any credibility. The only conceivable way Buy American can “increase European exports” is if it has consequences that are exactly the reverse of those intended by its proponents. If the stimulus package works then demand for exports will presumeably increase, but that effect has nothing to do with Buy American. In fact the practical effect of Buy American will be to reduce demand for imports below the level they would be without this measure (again, exactly what it is intended to do).

Moreover, regardless of the economic merits of this argument, it is politically naive. In a global recession where everyone is getting hammered demands for retalitory trade measures against an America that is (once again) holding itself to different standard than the rest of the world will be irressistable. Just in case this actually needs to be said, after the last eight years the US has no reserves of goodwill on which to draw in demanding special treatment for itself.

What this episode illustrates above all else is how quickly nativism reasserts itself when people are confronted with a real crisis. What this policy amounts to is a huge finger to the rest of the world that says “screw everyone else, we’re looking out for our own and don’t give a damn who else gets hurt in the process”.

When attitudes like that are readily being adopted even among progressives then there is no hope of meeting this crisis through any meaningful degree of international cooperation and solidarity.

And in the end we will all be a lot poorer for it, even if it does save a few American jobs in the interim.

i didn’t mean we were fighting amongst ourselves! i meant fighting with the senate over the bill.

hope we’re just having a discussion… doesn’t mean we always have to agree, but when we don’t agree i don’t consider that a fight. (((katymine!)))

i agree that the risk of a worldwide depression is very real – i’ve been seriously worried (actually more like freaking out) since at least the end of september about it. and i agree about food stamps – effective stimulus, improving the safety net, restructuring and reregulation are all things i’m completely behind. i just can’t see how “buy american” is going to help more than hurt.

In a global recession where everyone is getting hammered demands for retalitory trade measures against an America that is (once again) holding itself to different standard than the rest of the world will be irressistable. Just in case this actually needs to be said, after the last eight years the US has no reserves of goodwill on which to draw in demanding special treatment for itself.

imo, exactly right. but as i wrote above, i will try to get some info from folks who have been working with our allies in argentina, etc.

anyone catch this outrage from IBM:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/0…../index.htm

Outsource yourself. IBM is offering its own laid-off US workers to go work in one of IBM’s plants abroad, in places like India, presumably on local terms. They’ll help with the visa application.

In response to dakin02 @37, hackworth1 @38, and perris @38

Permit me to respond to all three in order to save time and effort. And thanks in advance for your permission.

I come out of the Sonoran Desert, I’m a Chicano, and have extensive business experience of many years in the Latin America Region. Hence, we live well within an Indigenous Hemispher, whether we acknowledge this fact or not. Moreover, I come out of a migrant family, and I am thoroughly familiar with Cesar Chavez, and thusly, I am on the side of the Angels, and not the Angles, when it comes to “improving lives!”.

As such, my view is that Free Trade is just that, Free Trade. In addition, lest we forget, the “competitive price point” is an agreed upon understanding when it comes to the purchase of the respective “goods and services”between nations, and no one is being taken advantage of, unless one wants to discuss America’s-owned Oligarchy in the Region, and to the speficiity of how financing is “arranged” and “structured” between the corporate entities. Therefore, I advocate for EFCA to be installed within any Free Trade Agreement, for in doing so, Latam governments no longer be the ‘drivers’ that control the economic wealth of a nation and consequently, the winners and losers.

For my part, it is easily understood that when employees band to together to create a union movement that fights for an equal share of that nation’s wealth, only then, will a small by still existing middle class, can and will be expanded. Thus, a tangential benefit, is that a lessening of the existing migration pattern will occur since a economic livelihood can be readily achieved in the Nation of Origin. And from another perspective, we, here in the USA, have failed to address the economic impact that is visited on our Littlest Citizesn, kids born in the USA and who have been repatriated by their Undocumented Immigrant parents to their Nation of Origin. And are our Littlest Citizens eligible for food stamps, TANF, or other relative ‘goods and servies’ delivered by our federal, state, and local agents. As such, we have dispossessed or stripped these kids of their citizenship, due to our abject neglect and outright dismissal.

To keep this post short and far from a rant or a ‘vent’. in this instance, we have a “values deficit” when it comes to Free Trade. And by suggesting that Free Trade is an oxymoron, is more of that ‘values deficit’ surfacing into our public discourse. Of course, I advocate that this indigenous hemisphere is comprised of over 800 million hardworking consumers, then Free Trade is Free trade since Indigenous History for these past 50,000 years, and until recently or the inception of Founding Fathers for the Constitution, it’s easily understandable that our foreign policy, is predicated on a Manifest Destiny Exported. And as Democrats, we should readily recognized what the Republicans have given us for these past eight years.

Jaango

My apologies for the typos in the above post. And need to proof read my posts.

Jaango

hey jaango, that’s a good explanation, I am of course certain you know that your understanding of “free trade” is not the economists understanding, when they say “free trade” they mean “free to rape and pillage”

In response to perris @53

The obvious difference is that an investor has his $$’s on the table and in-play, and thus facing considerable risk. OTOH, the economist has his hard-worked opinion readily available for all to read and hear. And therein, is the difference when it comes to ‘fair trade’.

Jaango

When you spend a dollar in the USA what is the return? THAT is what we should be looking for.

I think there are several major goals:

Create jobs to counteract the awful job losses we’re seeing.

Invest in infrastructure which is in disrepair or in need of improvements.

Put a lot of capital out in the economy to counteract the contracting money supply caused by the recession (which began over a year ago) AND the lessening of bank lending.

Perhaps do something to continue the work on the mortgage problem.

Offer tax breaks to businesses to help them keep employees on or hire new ones.