Bush's Strategy for Job Creation: Economic Warfare?

[BurtWorm]

There's a report that Bushists are beseeching American corporatists with heavy industry in Britain to close up shop there and re-open stateside. Today they've announced that they're imposing quotas on Chinese textiles. Is this how they plan to create jobs in the US? Will it work?

[Maple]

1. Welcome to the world

of trade wars...and the Great Depression Redux.

[cryofan]

13. The neocon establishment may be afraid of european lifestyle and politics

There is a meme going around that the corporate, business and media elite in America is afraid that the internet is providing too much info on how well europeans live, in comparison to Americans. Statistically and generally the americans work 20-33% more hours in a year than western europeans, and everyone in the western euro countries get cheap medical care.

Plus university is MUCH cheaper. Unemployment is easier to get and lasts longer. Welfare is not limited to welfare mothers. THis is all in general. Studies and numbers are available via google. No anecdotes, please. Also include Canada and Oz and NZ as Western Euro to some degree.

The American media has been selling Europe as an overtaxed workers hell, but the internet is helping to show that when all is said and done, they get more for less, when looking at the whole population. If there is such a thing as a workers paradise, most western euro countries are a lot closer to it that the USA.

Here in America, many workers are tied to their jobs by fear of losing medical care; and of course the social safety net for most working class people is almost nonexistent outside of the family.

And so in order to keep the fat wallets of the American elite fat, the propaganda war has begun. This time around, it is more subtle than the cold war propaganda. No scare posters depicting the corrupt and lazy bourgeoise of western europe yet....but the New Cold War anti-European propaganda is here all the same.

In reality, western europe can scarely steal jobs from us on the basis of wages--the wages are about the same. THe real threat is Asia stealing jobs via importation on h1b and L1 visas and exportation via outsourcing. THeir wage base is so much lower than euros. And on the low end, cheap, imported latino labor. This is not rocket science, people!

And of course, the REAL damage has already been done on the Japanese front--they stole our high end manufacturing/machining (NOT assembly!) jobs. THank your theiving "public servants" for that. But the bleeding continues. And of course Bush being in cahoots with the neocon "free traitors" is not about to actually try to staunch the real wounds; instead he is creating a straw man/boogie man in western euro.....

[BurtWorm]

18. Very interesting post.

Europe seems to me to have a higher standard of living than the US, just based on the fact that they tend not to kill themselves at work. They seem to believe life is for living. Sorry for the anecdotal evidence. ;)

[Beetwasher]

2. Nope, won't work

The resulting decrease in exports as a result coupled with the weak dollar and the dramatic drop in foreign investment could very well devastate the US economy. Add in record bankrupties and foreclosures and rising interest rates and, well, you get the picture...

[BurtWorm]

7. Did you hear about the EU plan to counter Bush's steel tariffs with

targeted tariffs of their own, designed specifically to injure Bush in battleground states?

[Beetwasher]

9. Yup, it's brilliant

Good for them!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

3. Thank the Democrats for letting him steal this issue

Bush will pose as an America-firster long enough to get a blip in the economy right before the elections. Democrats will be telling Americans that if we just export enough jobs, and lower our living standards, we can finally be competitive with Chinese slave labor.

The election is ours to lose.

[HFishbine]

5. So you're saying

that the dems should have proposed these ideas first?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. no, the Democrats should be pushing

for US corporations to send MORE jobs overseas, that's a winning strategy. Just tell Americans that one day in the glorious future it will all be for the best.

Why are US corporations firing American workers to hire British workers anyway? Doesn't Britain have their own corporations?

[BurtWorm]

8. Why aren't the Bushists cracking down on corporations that send

jobs to China, Asia and Central America? I think it would actually be dangerous if US companies suddenly stopped doing business in those parts of the world, myself. And I don't think the Bushists have any intention of telling US corporatists to stop using wage slavery in the Third World.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

11. for the same reasons that Democrats aren't

"I think it would actually be dangerous if US companies suddenly stopped doing business in those parts of the world, myself"

Well of course, who said anything about "suddenly stopping"! Bilateral trade agreements, like Kucinich has proposed, would give us more leverage over China than we have now - we've given up all of our legal leverage to corporations so they can sue over labor laws and environmental protections.

"And I don't think the Bushists have any intention of telling US corporatists to stop using wage slavery in the Third World."

Of course they don't, and neither do the Democrats. The problem is that Bush is going to use this against us, when the issue could have been ours.

[BurtWorm]

12. What's stopping Dems from making it theirs?

The EU is going to hit the US with tariffs targeted to injure Bush in battleground states, unless he drops the steel tariffs. China could also easily turn around and hit us with a tactic of its own. Trade warfare is two-way, and the winner is the one who won't blink first.

Some are saying the Chinese quotas are going to backfire in a big way by driving up the cost of textiles in the US. That could have serious ramifications for the economy as a whole, couldn't it? I mean, it's far from guaranteed that the Bush war-making mentality, which clearly failed in Iraq, is going to succeed in the economy.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

14. We can't make it our issue

because it was Gore that was the NAFTA spokesperson, Clinton who popularized "free trade" and our leading candidate Dean is 100% for it. Why? Well it used to be the corporate soft money the party got, but now it looks like it's ideological. If Dean is really as independent of the corps as he says because of fundraising, there's no reason he should still be pimping NAFTA, but he is.

Democrats can't win on this issue now.

[HFishbine]

10. Thanks!

That's helpful.

[rogerashton]

4. Hjalmar Schacht

made that the main economic policy of NAZI Germany.

Schachtian?

[Yupster]

15. His full name BTW

was Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht -- not kidding.

[Yupster]

16. Biggest issue in America today IMO

is the jobs going overseas.

If Bush has a policy to thwart that, he will benefit. I don't even think it matters much whether the policy makes sense or not. He will be seen as doing something.

[BurtWorm]

17. He will only be seen as doing something if real jobs come back.

Real jobs may not come back if the EU and China retaliate.

[Fovea]

19. This Europhobia of the NeoCons

is all about class warfare. The resource-elites took a hit in the nineties and re-grouped. Now they are back, fighting for economic primacy. To do that, they have to crush, and rebuild in their image, the American society and economy.

Hint -- It will not be pleasant, or free.
It will look quite a bit like old South Africa, actually.
It will be a command economy for the next couple of decades at least.
Goodbye Unions, Healthcare for the middle class, social security, and public education--where you are going, only the slain, the imprisoned, and the free press can keep you company.