Mapping Economic Inequality's Cruel Politics

Kätzchen · 01-12-2024, 02:55 PM

After reading about certain GOP-Republican Governors electing to not let the USDA agency's SNAP program feed children in America's contiguous states and the heartless agenda curbing the freedoms of women in America to get medical intervention during pregnancy making abortion a lightening rod issue in America, I feel led to make a reader's column in our community which is narrow in focus (right now), but with comments by other members in our community and factual posts about economic pains in our country, we as a group of readers can possibly map out the Economic Inequality in the United States as a direct product of toxic political agenda, mostly brought on by the GOP.

In my own estimations, and personal opinion, as a member of society having grown up in a state (Idaho), which has been consistently ruled by the toxic party known as Republican, but now live in a state which is led by Democratic officials (Oregon) -- which is to say that only tiny sections of our state which is NOT deep RED is all that saves us from Republican control, is the reason I feel led to highlight how toxic the GOP has been -- for over 40 years.

It all begins, in my mind - since I'm nearly 65, with the hostile takeover by Republican agenda when Republicans took over via Reagan. I was in high school when Reagan was elected as POTUS and our country is no better off due to the cruel politics of Republican Agenda since the late 1960s, early 1970s.

I open this forum column thread with a vital post, which headlined on the Huffington Post news forum years ago, via a vital economic think tank called The Economic Policy Institute.

___-------______-------______------______-------_______-------.

NAFTA, Twenty Years After
A Disaster

Posted January 3, 2014 at 10:00 am by Jeff Faux

The post originally appeared on The Huffington Post.

New Year’s Day, 2014, marks the 20th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Agreement created a common market for goods, services and investment capital with Canada and Mexico. And it opened the door through which American workers were shoved, unprepared, into a brutal global competition for jobs that has cut their living standards and is destroying their future.

NAFTA’s birth was bi-partisan—conceived by Ronald Reagan, negotiated by George Bush I, and pushed through the US Congress by Bill Clinton in alliance with Congressional Republicans and corporate lobbyists.

Clinton and his collaborators promised that the deal would bring “good-paying American jobs,” a rising trade surplus with Mexico, and a dramatic reduction in illegal immigration. Instead, NAFTA directly cost the United States. a net loss of 700,000 jobs. The surplus with Mexico turned into a chronic deficit. And the economic dislocation in Mexico increased the the flow of undocumented workers into the United States.

Nevertheless, Clinton and his Republican successor, George Bush II, then used the NAFTA template to design the World Trade Organization, more than a dozen bilateral trade treaties, and the deal that opened the American market to China—which alone has cost the United States another net 2.7 million jobs. The result has been 20 years of relentless outsourcing of jobs and technology.

By any measure, NAFTA and its sequels has been a major contributor to the rising inequality of incomes and wealth that Barack Obama bemoans in his speeches. Yet today—channeling Reagan, the Bushes and Clinton—the president proposes two more such trade deals: the Trans-Pacific Partnership with eleven Pacific Rim countries and a free trade agreement with Europe.

Like his predecessors, he repeats the mantra that more such trade deals will create “millions of American jobs” because we excel at high technology. But today the U.S. surplus in hi-tech industries has turned into a deficit—including a deficit with China. In the global trade system initiated by NAFTA, any job that can be done with a computer can be out-sourced, unless American workers are willing to work at the wages of Mexico, India or China.

That trade system has not delivered the promised benefits because it was designed not to. The agreements traded away the interests of American workers in favor of the interests of American corporations eager to produce for the U.S. market in countries where labor is cheap, environment and public health regulations weak, and governments easily bribable. NAFTA’s fundamental purpose was not to free trade, it was to free multinational corporations from public regulation in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and eventually all over the world.

Among other things, NAFTA granted corporations extraordinary legal protections against national labor and environmental laws that that they could claim threatened future profits. At the same time, workers and unions were denied the legal status needed to defend themselves in these new cross-border jurisdictions.

As a result, the bargaining positions of U.S. workers—union and non-union—were severely undercut. As soon as NAFTA became law, corporate managers began using the threat to move elsewhere in order to force U.S. workers to work longer and harder for less. Threatening employees with outsourcing is now standard practice in American business.

It is not just workers in export and import industries who have suffered. Labor markets are connected. When autoworkers and steelworkers are hired for $14 instead of $20 an hour, lower wages ripple into the paychecks of those who work for suppliers, construction contractors, restaurants, and retail stores.

Nor is it just American workers who have taken the hit. Historically high Canadian wages also have been undercut. In Mexico, although some new jobs are created when production is shifted south of the border, the lack of worker protections in NAFTA insured that corporate investors would reap most of the benefits. The gap between U.S. and Mexican wages remains as wide as it was twenty years ago. In the even poorer countries, unregulated global trade has led to the ruthless exploitation of labor—from teenagers in the sweat shops of Bangladesh to eight year olds working in the gold mines of Tanzania.

Promoters of NAFTA-style globalization paint the opposition as “protectionists.” This is demagoguery. The issue is not trade with other nations. It is trade policies. For 200 years U.S. trade policies balanced imports and exports, and the interests of workers and investors. Job losses in one sector were matched by job gains in others. So if a company replaced workers with machines, the increased profits were re-invested in other parts of the domestic economy.

But after NAFTA, companies were encouraged to re-invest—and create the new jobs—overseas. As a result, the more trade expands, the more jobs are outsourced.

According to the president, the fault lies not in de-regulated trade, but in American workers’ lack of competitive skills. There is little evidence that the problem is lack of American skills. But if the president really believed it, he would hold off on more trade deals until U.S. workers were sufficiently re-trained and re-educated to compete without lowering their wages.

Given this dismal history, why would a smart “liberal” Democratic president who says he cares about the middle class continue to plunge ahead with more NAFTA-type trade de-regulation? One explanation is that providing more access to the U.S. market for other countries is a way of shoring up the fading influence of the U.S. political class in world politics. Another is that Democratic leaders have joined their Republican leaders in Corporate America’s deep pockets.

Whatever the reason, the 20th anniversary of NAFTA stands as a grim reminder of how little our political leaders and TV talking heads—despite their crocodile tears over jobs and inequality—really care about the average American who must work for a living.

LINK 2 Article

____----____----____----______-----_____-------______-------.

January 3rd of 2024 marks 30 years since the Republican Party introduced and implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This trade agreement is largely responsible for how Mid-American states have since been dubbed The RUST BELT, but peculiar by design is how republican voters in the rust belt forget that their own political party signed off on the demise of labor loss and employment losses which keep compounding over time.

Nowadays, Republican agenda not only espouses no freedoms for women but also espouses cruelty toward hungry children and I would say by proxy, all the agricultural farmers on America who are starving as well.

Our community used to have a forum thread about economics in general but I hope this can be a thread where posters will contribute to mapping Economic Inequality in America and hopefully educate those of us who are interested in learning about central issues to current day issues at stake.

Thanks for reading and any post added toward the illumination of this specific topic of interest. -- K.

A. Spectre · 01-13-2024, 06:22 AM

Clinton never convinced me NAFTA would be of benefit for the American workers.

According to our government statistics, the last time our USA trade balance was a positive one was in 1975. That's a long damn time for negative numbers spun to look so positive. In March of '22 we exported over 240 billion of "stuff" but imported 351 billion dollars of mostly junk. The math is not kind is it?

In light of the poo-flinging chaos brought to us by the republican cult, wanted to share an interesting and hopeful news story out of Austria.

Austrian Heiress - She Gets It

An Heiress, set to inherit a fortune, has asked the people for help spending it. She's asking 50 people to help her spend $27m. It's her way of addressing wealth inequality.

She has sent invitations to 10,000 randomly selected people in Austria, asking them to complete a survey. Out of those who complete it, she will narrow the pile down to 50 people of different backgrounds that she feels represent the Austrian population.

They will become Guter Rat – which translates to Good Council – and will help her develop ideas for how to distribute $25 million euros – more than $27 million U.S. dollars.

In her mission statement, Engelhorn says her wealth was accumulated before she was even born. "It was accumulated because other people did the work, but my family was able to inherit the ownership of an enterprise and thus all claims to the fruits of its labour," she writes on the project's website. "

In her mission statement, Engelhorn says her wealth was accumulated before she was even born. "It was accumulated because other people did the work, but my family was able to inherit the ownership of an enterprise and thus all claims to the fruits of its labour," she writes on the project's website.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/n...CNM-00-10abd1h

Dear females,

We can not wait for the Y chromosome to get their shit together and do the right thing when in power. We must take care of ourselves and each other.

Love,

A. Spectre.

01-12-2024, 02:55 PM	#1
Kätzchen Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Preferred Pronoun?: She Relationship Status: Monogamously Attached ❤️ Join Date: May 2010 Location: Where it once rained daily but now it doesn’t. Posts: 15,092 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 36,000 Thanked 32,003 Times in 9,945 Posts Rep Power: 21474865	Mapping Economic Inequality's Cruel Politics After reading about certain GOP-Republican Governors electing to not let the USDA agency's SNAP program feed children in America's contiguous states and the heartless agenda curbing the freedoms of women in America to get medical intervention during pregnancy making abortion a lightening rod issue in America, I feel led to make a reader's column in our community which is narrow in focus (right now), but with comments by other members in our community and factual posts about economic pains in our country, we as a group of readers can possibly map out the Economic Inequality in the United States as a direct product of toxic political agenda, mostly brought on by the GOP. In my own estimations, and personal opinion, as a member of society having grown up in a state (Idaho), which has been consistently ruled by the toxic party known as Republican, but now live in a state which is led by Democratic officials (Oregon) -- which is to say that only tiny sections of our state which is NOT deep RED is all that saves us from Republican control, is the reason I feel led to highlight how toxic the GOP has been -- for over 40 years. It all begins, in my mind - since I'm nearly 65, with the hostile takeover by Republican agenda when Republicans took over via Reagan. I was in high school when Reagan was elected as POTUS and our country is no better off due to the cruel politics of Republican Agenda since the late 1960s, early 1970s. I open this forum column thread with a vital post, which headlined on the Huffington Post news forum years ago, via a vital economic think tank called The Economic Policy Institute. ___-------______-------______------______-------_______-------. NAFTA, Twenty Years After A Disaster Posted January 3, 2014 at 10:00 am by Jeff Faux The post originally appeared on The Huffington Post. New Year’s Day, 2014, marks the 20th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Agreement created a common market for goods, services and investment capital with Canada and Mexico. And it opened the door through which American workers were shoved, unprepared, into a brutal global competition for jobs that has cut their living standards and is destroying their future. NAFTA’s birth was bi-partisan—conceived by Ronald Reagan, negotiated by George Bush I, and pushed through the US Congress by Bill Clinton in alliance with Congressional Republicans and corporate lobbyists. Clinton and his collaborators promised that the deal would bring “good-paying American jobs,” a rising trade surplus with Mexico, and a dramatic reduction in illegal immigration. Instead, NAFTA directly cost the United States. a net loss of 700,000 jobs. The surplus with Mexico turned into a chronic deficit. And the economic dislocation in Mexico increased the the flow of undocumented workers into the United States. Nevertheless, Clinton and his Republican successor, George Bush II, then used the NAFTA template to design the World Trade Organization, more than a dozen bilateral trade treaties, and the deal that opened the American market to China—which alone has cost the United States another net 2.7 million jobs. The result has been 20 years of relentless outsourcing of jobs and technology. By any measure, NAFTA and its sequels has been a major contributor to the rising inequality of incomes and wealth that Barack Obama bemoans in his speeches. Yet today—channeling Reagan, the Bushes and Clinton—the president proposes two more such trade deals: the Trans-Pacific Partnership with eleven Pacific Rim countries and a free trade agreement with Europe. Like his predecessors, he repeats the mantra that more such trade deals will create “millions of American jobs” because we excel at high technology. But today the U.S. surplus in hi-tech industries has turned into a deficit—including a deficit with China. In the global trade system initiated by NAFTA, any job that can be done with a computer can be out-sourced, unless American workers are willing to work at the wages of Mexico, India or China. That trade system has not delivered the promised benefits because it was designed not to. The agreements traded away the interests of American workers in favor of the interests of American corporations eager to produce for the U.S. market in countries where labor is cheap, environment and public health regulations weak, and governments easily bribable. NAFTA’s fundamental purpose was not to free trade, it was to free multinational corporations from public regulation in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and eventually all over the world. Among other things, NAFTA granted corporations extraordinary legal protections against national labor and environmental laws that that they could claim threatened future profits. At the same time, workers and unions were denied the legal status needed to defend themselves in these new cross-border jurisdictions. As a result, the bargaining positions of U.S. workers—union and non-union—were severely undercut. As soon as NAFTA became law, corporate managers began using the threat to move elsewhere in order to force U.S. workers to work longer and harder for less. Threatening employees with outsourcing is now standard practice in American business. It is not just workers in export and import industries who have suffered. Labor markets are connected. When autoworkers and steelworkers are hired for $14 instead of $20 an hour, lower wages ripple into the paychecks of those who work for suppliers, construction contractors, restaurants, and retail stores. Nor is it just American workers who have taken the hit. Historically high Canadian wages also have been undercut. In Mexico, although some new jobs are created when production is shifted south of the border, the lack of worker protections in NAFTA insured that corporate investors would reap most of the benefits. The gap between U.S. and Mexican wages remains as wide as it was twenty years ago. In the even poorer countries, unregulated global trade has led to the ruthless exploitation of labor—from teenagers in the sweat shops of Bangladesh to eight year olds working in the gold mines of Tanzania. Promoters of NAFTA-style globalization paint the opposition as “protectionists.” This is demagoguery. The issue is not trade with other nations. It is trade policies. For 200 years U.S. trade policies balanced imports and exports, and the interests of workers and investors. Job losses in one sector were matched by job gains in others. So if a company replaced workers with machines, the increased profits were re-invested in other parts of the domestic economy. But after NAFTA, companies were encouraged to re-invest—and create the new jobs—overseas. As a result, the more trade expands, the more jobs are outsourced. According to the president, the fault lies not in de-regulated trade, but in American workers’ lack of competitive skills. There is little evidence that the problem is lack of American skills. But if the president really believed it, he would hold off on more trade deals until U.S. workers were sufficiently re-trained and re-educated to compete without lowering their wages. Given this dismal history, why would a smart “liberal” Democratic president who says he cares about the middle class continue to plunge ahead with more NAFTA-type trade de-regulation? One explanation is that providing more access to the U.S. market for other countries is a way of shoring up the fading influence of the U.S. political class in world politics. Another is that Democratic leaders have joined their Republican leaders in Corporate America’s deep pockets. Whatever the reason, the 20th anniversary of NAFTA stands as a grim reminder of how little our political leaders and TV talking heads—despite their crocodile tears over jobs and inequality—really care about the average American who must work for a living. LINK 2 Article ____----____----____----______-----_____-------______-------. January 3rd of 2024 marks 30 years since the Republican Party introduced and implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This trade agreement is largely responsible for how Mid-American states have since been dubbed The RUST BELT, but peculiar by design is how republican voters in the rust belt forget that their own political party signed off on the demise of labor loss and employment losses which keep compounding over time. Nowadays, Republican agenda not only espouses no freedoms for women but also espouses cruelty toward hungry children and I would say by proxy, all the agricultural farmers on America who are starving as well. Our community used to have a forum thread about economics in general but I hope this can be a thread where posters will contribute to mapping Economic Inequality in America and hopefully educate those of us who are interested in learning about central issues to current day issues at stake. Thanks for reading and any post added toward the illumination of this specific topic of interest. -- K. __________________ Kätzchen _____ ______

01-13-2024, 06:22 AM	#2
A. Spectre Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Butch dominant lesbian Preferred Pronoun?: She, Baby Boi Relationship Status: She is my sunrise and sunset. Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: North Shore Chicago Posts: 1,523 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 10,737 Thanked 10,783 Times in 1,440 Posts Rep Power: 21474847	Mindful thread Ms. K Clinton never convinced me NAFTA would be of benefit for the American workers. According to our government statistics, the last time our USA trade balance was a positive one was in 1975. That's a long damn time for negative numbers spun to look so positive. In March of '22 we exported over 240 billion of "stuff" but imported 351 billion dollars of mostly junk. The math is not kind is it? In light of the poo-flinging chaos brought to us by the republican cult, wanted to share an interesting and hopeful news story out of Austria. Austrian Heiress - She Gets It An Heiress, set to inherit a fortune, has asked the people for help spending it. She's asking 50 people to help her spend $27m. It's her way of addressing wealth inequality. She has sent invitations to 10,000 randomly selected people in Austria, asking them to complete a survey. Out of those who complete it, she will narrow the pile down to 50 people of different backgrounds that she feels represent the Austrian population. They will become Guter Rat – which translates to Good Council – and will help her develop ideas for how to distribute $25 million euros – more than $27 million U.S. dollars. In her mission statement, Engelhorn says her wealth was accumulated before she was even born. "It was accumulated because other people did the work, but my family was able to inherit the ownership of an enterprise and thus all claims to the fruits of its labour," she writes on the project's website. " In her mission statement, Engelhorn says her wealth was accumulated before she was even born. "It was accumulated because other people did the work, but my family was able to inherit the ownership of an enterprise and thus all claims to the fruits of its labour," she writes on the project's website. https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/n...CNM-00-10abd1h Dear females, We can not wait for the Y chromosome to get their shit together and do the right thing when in power. We must take care of ourselves and each other. Love, A. Spectre. __________________ * * *Joy and Sorrow are Inseparable