Reply #36: Ross Perot had it pegged in 1992. And he was ridiculed. [View All]

[seafan]

Giant Sucking Sound - Ross Perot 1992 Presidential Debate (2 minutes, 35 seconds)



18 years pass.




So, here we are in 2010.


What do we see everywhere around us?



Few jobs for Americans in America.
Our manufacturing base has been shipped abroad.
We are deprived of adequate health care because so many of us are unemployed.
We have become a debtor nation, barely held afloat by consumerism.

Only now, most people have little money left, to consume cheap products from abroad.





The very bad news in 2010 is that we are still rushing headlong toward the cliff.



Obama Promises Push on Trade Pacts

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
July 7, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama, who vowed in his State of the Union address to double American exports over the next five years, said on Wednesday that he would renew his efforts to renegotiate long-stalled free trade agreements with Panama and Colombia and persuade Congress to adopt them.

The two trade pacts, and a third one with South Korea, were negotiated by the administration of former President George W. Bush, but all three have languished in Congress because of deep opposition from Democrats. Mr. Obama said in Toronto last month that he intended to make a new push for the South Korean agreement, and on Wednesday he pledged to press ahead with the two Latin American pacts as well.

“For a long time, we were trapped in a false political debate in this country, where business was on one side and labor was on the other,” Mr. Obama said in the East Room of the White House, at an event intended to highlight his administration’s efforts to promote exports. “What we now have an opportunity to do is to refocus our attention where we’re all in it together.”

Trade is a particularly difficult issue for many Democrats, especially in an election year when jobs are already scarce, because of a widespread view that American workers suffer disproportionately when the United States lowers trade barriers.

On the South Korea pact, for instance, Democrats have expressed concerns about that country’s restrictions on automobile and beef imports from the United States — concerns that Mr. Obama has vowed to address before sending the agreement to Congress for passage.

.....

This did not garner the attention it required when it was posted here a month ago. Thanks, inna, for bringing it back to the forefront.


These trade agreements really are the herd of elephants in the room.

“For a long time, we were trapped in a false political debate in this country, where business was on one side and labor was on the other,” Mr. Obama said in the East Room of the White House, at an event intended to highlight his administration’s efforts to promote exports.

A false political debate? No, Mr. President.



It really IS the essence of a much-needed debate. What we have exported are our jobs.


For much too long a time, Big Business has, indeed, been the enemy of the people's labor.