What I would like explained to me

[jpgray]

Retailers demand low prices to expand and compete.

Producers want high profits on low prices, so they manufacture overseas.

Lost manufacturing jobs are not being replaced in quantity or quality by the service sector.

Consumers can only sustain current standards of consumption through debt.

As job quality drops for the majority, credit cannot be extended at the levels which currently sustain consumer spending.

Surely developing consumer markets' retailers and producers will not manufacture in the US, as even our relatively rich market will not sustain the practice.

So where are we headed in thirty years? Is there any grand globalization fairy tale to explain this as anything but a short-term grab for wealth? Could even a single major beneficiary of this grab reasonably expect the current balance to be sustained for long after his departure? Surely the developing world, even ten or twenty years richer, will prefer to manufacture cheaply and sell low just as we do - if it costs us too many pains to sustain good jobs here through our consumption, how do we expect poorer consumer markets to sustain them for us now or in the future?

[upi402]

1. Some of us called BS when Clinton pushed NAFTA

It really is bullshit. No matter how you define is

[russspeakeasy]

2. +1

[Bandit]

19. Clinton signed NAFTA into Law but he certainly did not push it..

Democrats were very much opposed to NAFTA just as they are now opposed to the Bush* Tax Cuts which I suppose using the same standard one could say Obama pushed for..

[Populist_Prole]

27. Oh yes he did! He pushed it majorly.

Lots of arm twisting of other Democrats even though they had public pressure from their constituencies that were against it. He was very condescending toward those who were against it and "free trade" in general. I followed this VERY closely in '93. Clinton's a scumbag. The archetype, if not prototype of the consummate 3-rd way corporate democrat

[NNN0LHI]

20. Then you were about ten years too late calling BS then

Because my job was moved out of the country in the early 1980's. About ten years before NAFTA.

Thanks.

Don

[lonestarnot]

33. +25K

[2ndAmForComputers]

3. Everything is made by slaves who are even more enslaved than 19th century slaves.

Only one thing vaguely resembling a "job" will still exist: being in the security forces that protect the 0.0001% from the 99.9%. That'll be the only place where technological progress will be happening, too.

The aforementioned forces may, of course, eventually fail to do their jobs.

[freshwest]

30. Agree with first paragraph, not the second. They will be motivated, believing it's a good thing.

[2ndAmForComputers]

31. I mean "fail" as "really trying and failing."

Not switching sides.

[freshwest]

32. Still having trouble understanding your meanings, but the MIC is in place is what I mean.

There will be no 'switching of sides,' on a political basis because it's beyond any party affliation, it's employment, cultural, etc.

Those who have been trained, are being paid now and expect a profitable future in that kind of society will continue on the 'side' of what they have now. It's a larger segment of the country than most people will admit, using euphemisms.

We are being taught that the things we have done abroad are appropriate here at home and it's changing everything. True, it's not the entire picture of our daily lives at this point, but it's on the periphery of our consciousness. Most people are learning instinctively to not cross the line in this new paradigm. Things will never go back to the way they were. n/t

[doc03]

4. Everyone made fun of him and said he was crazy but

Ross Perot predicted all those things years ago. I suspect we will continue the race to the bottom.

[upi402]

7. The media whacked Perot out. And Gore finished him off on Larry King.

CNN did the same to Dean.

The Democrats did the same to Kucinich.

Evem "I" am beginning to see a pattern.

[Populist_Prole]

28. Corporatists were terrified of Perot's view on trade.

[xchrom]

5. The continent of Africa has yet to be exploited

For low wage jobs.

The Indian sub-continent hasn't been exploited to the extent it can be.

There's plenty of room left for exploitation & extraction - the wrinkle is that there is & will be more competition.

[DCKit]

8. Yes, but there's already far less U.S. money to buy those goods...

and it's getting worse.

What markets can you sell to when there are no more wealthy countries?

[xchrom]

13. Indeed. Nt

[freshwest]

6. I think you know the answer. Look at the two-tier societies in Latin America.

Their middle class was being wiped out just before NAFTA by the same forces demanding it and all the others be signed. They were seeing what we've been seeing, that upward mobility from education was no longer working. Many with college degrees had to leave behind their careers to come here and do menial labor to support their families. It was a myth that those immigrants were stupid peasants, just as is being claimed about the Chinese and Americans now.

When Reagan signed for amnesty for those who'd fled north to the USA from Mexico, it was beginning of a flood. Because things did not get any better. When I was teenager, Mexico was a fairly decent place to live with a middle class. And those of us in America were living in a highly regulated economy which gave us the freedom to speak out minds and demand better.

When Reagan removed those regulations, and the manufacturing base was sold off, that great theft began under the blinders of rightwing religion and appealing to bigotry of all kinds. Not that those getting rich in those days cared, it was put out for the stupid voters always willing to stab their breathren in the back. Americans were programmed to destroy the country.

Business and wealth has never seen a national boundary, resource or person it respected more than its abililty to make a quick buck. So you can see where we're headed if Americans don't vote the repigs out of office and replace them with progressives.

But no one seems to have any interest in doing that because they think that bitching is going to change things.

[snagglepuss]

11. Well said.

[jpgray]

18. I've both bitched and supported Democrats in every election

I think you're off there, as I can't imagine how anyone could look at our situation and not feel that at least some bitching is in order. The rest of your post I think is exactly right. Think of a post-graduate in the humanities with $100K of debt from only an average school - where is the remunerative job to match that investment?

[freshwest]

23. I didn't say bitching wasn't in order. Solutions are what are needed, not despair.

I don't apply that to you, but I get tired of others who only point out what is wrong. They have no interest in progressive candidates running in the Democratic party, such as shown in the progressive group here on DU. On that's online, but no one seems to want to know about it. The number of threads on solutions here is very low. It's my opinion that liberal despair reinforces GOP belief, already so heavily pushed in all the media they own, that the Democrats are dead in the water. Only we can make that happen, not them.

I wasn't intending to slam your OP when I posted, so I hope it doesn't sound that way. Now that people have responded to my post, if I edit that part out it would be odd. If you want me to take that out, I will. It's your thread. And continue to look for new answers and solutions to this, we'll get it done. But it will have to be something new for a new generation, as even Dean has said.

[Warpy]

9. Debt kept this economy on life support for over 20 years

and now it's largely dried up as customers realize that if they miss payments or don't actively pay it down, their interest rates will be jacked up to the stratosphere in a final attempt to bleed them dry.

So any money the currently employed do have is largely being spent on subsistence or going to pay debt down. Very little is going to support that glittering early 2000s consumer economy. The results, visible in every town across the country, are boarded up store fronts, an increase in people with food stamp cards, and more foreclosure signs.

The debt driven economy was unsustainable. That is rapidly happening to government, too. The economy will have to be jump started by government spending to put people back to work. Government spending will have to be jump started by increasing revenues and the only people left to tax are the rich and the corporate.

The longer Congress hides from all of this, the worse it is likely to get.

It's up to us to vote against conservative Democrats in primaries and against Republicans in the general election. Conservatives will never face up to what needs to be done. They all prefer to live in a pleasant past that never was.

[snagglepuss]

10. I watched a video earlier about the unseen China. Reading your post, I am reminded of a comment made

a 50 something woman who had been an accountant but who is now going blind because she is without healthcare or a job, living in a hovel and prays for death. When asked if she ever thought this sort of thing would happen she said she never imagined this would be her future. I look at what is happening in North America, the UK and Europe and I wonder if in the near future living standards will plummet and we will all be as shocked as her.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002226109

[freshwest]

12. Very good addition here. I suggest David Korten's videos and stories from the online magazine YES...

To see the alternative to what is being foisted on the peoples of the world. They and OWS give me some hope that a more sustainable and humane future is in our grasp.

We must be the ones thatt change, the oligarchs would rather die than lose their parasitical wealth system. They are already dead as they don't care; it's up to the living to change this.

[BrendaBrick]

21. +1 Yes to YES Magazine!

I always feel better (and hopeful) after reading YES! magazine. Helps to balance things out.

[freshwest]

22. I can post some Korten videos for you if you want, he's got solutions.

[BrendaBrick]

25. Sure!

I read it via email and have watched a few videos, but I can't recall anything by Korten specifically. Would like to learn more!

[freshwest]

29. I'll figure out how to make a thread of them and send you a link.

[eShirl]

14. a kinder, gentler feudalism

[pampango]

15. Here we go again. All of our problems are due to trade with those evil poor foreigners.

Let's do the "progressive" thing and build walls around the country to keep out immigrants and products made by these unsavory poor folks.

To do so would be stealing from the republican playbook of 1921 to 1930 when they passed two restrictive immigration laws (1921 and 1924) and two tariffs laws (1922 and 1930).

"Woodrow Wilson made a drastic lowering of tariff rates a major priority for his presidency. The 1913 Underwood Tariff cut rates..."

"When the Republicans regained power after the war they restored the usual high rates, with the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922. When the Great Depression hit, international trade shrank drastically. The crisis baffled the GOP, and it unwisely tried its magic one last time in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930."

" Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Dealers made promises about lowering tariffs on a reciprocal country-by-country basis (which they did)..."

"After the war the U.S. promoted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in 1947, to minimize tariffs and other restrictions, and to liberalize trade..."

"The GOP under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush abandoned the protectionist ideology..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history

Until 1980 the republicans were the party of high tariffs (and restrictive immigration laws) and the Democratic Party promoted low tariffs (and liberal immigration laws such as the 1965 act). Since the republicans dropped their high-tariff policy in 1980's (and converted to FDR's commitment to promoting international trade), progressives are supposed to start pushing it in their place?

Bill Moyers had a great show a couple of weeks ago on how the progressive "socialist" countries of Europe have promoted a strong middle class. They have encouraged global poverty reduction while at the same time promoting employment and income equality at home. To summarize the show: Our economic problems are not caused by "others" but by actions that "we" have done to ourselves - repeatedly cutting taxes for the rich, weakening our unions, slashing our safety net, deregulating to the point of absurdity, etc.

Countries that have not cut taxes for the rich, weakened unions, slashed safety nets and recklessly deregulated have weathered the Great Recession relatively much better than Americans have with stronger economies, more equality and a stronger middle class, even though they trade with "poor" countries at a much higher level than we do.

In Europe they explicitly trade more with the Third World as a part of their global development strategy designed to help the poorest. Over the last 20 years it has been successful, as the UN's statistics show, while domestic economies in these progressive countries have continued to provide good jobs and better pay despite the global recession (which was caused by the US' financial industry, not by poor Third World workers).

http://billmoyers.com/episode/on-winner-take-all-politics/

America’s vast inequality is no accident, but in fact has been politically engineered.

How, in a nation as wealthy as America, can the economy simply stop working for people at large, while super-serving those at the very top? Through exhaustive research and analysis, the political scientists Hacker and Pierson — whom Bill regards as the “Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson” of economics — detail important truths behind a 30-year economic assault against the middle class.

Who’s the culprit? “American politics did it– far more than we would have believed when we started this research,” Hacker explains. “What government has done and not done, and the politics that produced it, is really at the heart of the rise of an economy that has showered huge riches on the very, very, very well off.”

Bill considers their book the best he’s seen detailing “how politicians rewrote the rules to create a winner-take-all economy that favors the 1% over everyone else, putting our once and future middle class in peril.”

[jpgray]

16. How do you see this as blaming labor, poorer nations or immigrants?

None of these is responsible for this untenable situation. A truly free global economy would not have the strictest laws for the migration of labor, while having at the same time the most lax laws imaginable for the migration of capital.

There is nothing noble or uplifting to the human spirit about low retail prices and the resultant pursuit of high profits through a modern form of slavery, and the alternative isn't mass deportations or strict protectionism. It could certainly include some basic labor and environmental standards for free trade, however.

[eShirl]

17. Did you reply to the wrong thread?

[Ron Green]

24. I believe two disconnections must be made:

1) Mindless consumption from economic growth; and
2) Economic growth from human happiness.

[Zalatix]

26. Where did the DU free trader squad go?

I used to see them arguing vociferously for outsourcing jobs, just a few weeks ago no less.

Now they're nowhere to be found.