Selected, not elected
posted by Unixxstar
The following article by PJB (no, that’s not peanut butter & jelly!) clearly & simply explains some of the ways our nation is being torn apart from inside. And here’s my own humble thought on Corporate Amerika: the only way to experience unlimited business growth in America, is to have a continually expanding population. What about world markets, you say? Well, America is also a part of the world market, and not every business can “go international”. There will always be major corporations here, my friend. But they may not be manufacturers… the loss of our auto industry as briefly detailed here is symptomatic of many other sicknesses in our economy.
PJB: An American Auto Graveyard
posted by Linda
by Patrick J. Buchanan – February 16, 2007
On Valentine’s Day, Chrysler sent a bouquet to its North American workers. Eleven thousand manufacturing jobs will be eliminated in the next 24 months – 9,000 in the states and 2,000 in Canada – and 2,000 white-collar workers will be let go, permanently. The SUV assembly plant in Newark, Del., will be closed. The Warren, Mich., truck plant and South St. Louis assembly plant will each lose one of their two shifts. Earlier, Ford posted the largest loss of any company in history, $12.7 billion, breaking GM’s record $10.6 billion loss in 2005. Toyota, having swept by Chrysler and Ford, is challenging GM for first in sales in the U.S. market…
———–
An American Auto Graveyard
by Patrick J. Buchanan – February 16, 2007
On Valentine’s Day, Chrysler sent a bouquet to its North American workers. Eleven thousand manufacturing jobs will be eliminated in the next 24 months – 9,000 in the states and 2,000 in Canada – and 2,000 white-collar workers will be let go, permanently.
The SUV assembly plant in Newark, Del., will be closed. The Warren, Mich., truck plant and South St. Louis assembly plant will each lose one of their two shifts. Earlier, Ford posted the largest loss of any company in history, $12.7 billion, breaking GM’s record $10.6 billion loss in 2005.
Toyota, having swept by Chrysler and Ford, is challenging GM for first in sales in the U.S. market. When we were growing up, U.S. automakers had the entire U.S. market to themselves and dominated the world market.
How is Japan succeeding?
First, the Japanese make fine cars. Second, Japan manipulates its currency to keep it cheap against the dollar, to keep the price of Japanese autos below comparable U.S. models. Third, Tokyo maintains a lock on its home market by imposing a value added tax on auto imports from America, and rebating that tax on autos and parts exported to America. This double-subsidy can give a Japanese car a 15 percent price advantage over a Ford or GM car in both markets.
Fourth, Japanese auto companies setting up plants here are free of “legacy costs” of pensions and health insurance for retired U.S. workers, for Japanese companies have almost no retired American workers. Legacy costs at GM, Ford and Chrysler must be factored into the price of every car.
Finally, there is the venerable practice of “transfer pricing.” Japanese auto parts manufacturers overcharge U.S subsidiaries for parts. This cuts the profits of their U.S subsidiaries and thus reduces their U.S. corporate taxes. Profits are repatriated, virtually untaxed, to Japan.
Thus is Japan capturing America’s auto market and bringing down the great companies that built the machines of war that brought down Japan’s empire. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
To stay competitive in their own home market, U.S. manufacturers are closing down plants, laying off American workers and building their cars outside the United States.
The day before Chrysler’s announcement, the Census Bureau trade figures were released. Charles MacMillion of MBG Information Services had them broken down before they hit the wires.
In 2006, the United States ran a deficit in traded goods of $836 billion, a fifth-straight world record. For manufactured goods, the U.S. trade deficit reached $536 billion, worsening from the 2005 record of $504 billion. Under President Bush, 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared – one in every six.
To understand what is happening to Chrysler, Ford and GM, one need only glance at the trade figures in the auto sector. The United States ran a trade deficit in trucks, autos and auto parts of $144.7 billion.
If America continues on this course, where we have run up $4 trillion in trade deficits in manufactured goods since Bill Clinton took office, the end is predictable.
An eventual collapse of the dollar, making us a poorer nation. The shuttering of every U.S. factory that makes traded goods. A constant hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs, now down to 10 percent of our labor force. An end of America’s pre-eminence as the world’s foremost industrial and technological power. An end to the Second American Century, as the Asian Century begins.
Everything some have been warning about for decades – huge trade deficits, a falling dollar, de-industrialization, a rising dependence on foreigners for the vital necessities of our national life, diminished freedom of action concomitant with that dependency – has come to pass.
The world is witnessing the passing of the United States as the greatest industrial power and the most self-sufficient republic the world had ever seen. Yet, no one acts. Why?
Ideology is one reason. Free-trade fanatics are like those devout Christians who will not undergo surgery, even if their malady is killing them. Second, there are the obtuse who simply cannot see that our “trade partners” have found a way around the rules and are skinning us alive.
Third, to gain and hold high office, candidates of both parties depend on the contributions of a monied elite, whose salaries, bonuses, stock options and golden parachutes depend on a rising share price, which means constantly cutting costs by moving production out of United States and getting rid of high-wage American workers.
There are rewards for economic treason.
Look for the Democrats to find a way to give Bush – despite the astonishing record of trade failures documented above – fast-track authority to negotiate still more such trade deals. Who takes the king’s shilling becomes the king’s man.
++++++++++++++++++
Unixxstar - The collapse of the dollar does not bode well for any American. Those who are well familiar with the politics of illegal immigration understand that it is largely corporations that seek a never-ending supply of cheap labor. This is not the first period of history when corporations help to draft immigration law, but it should be the last. Let us have an end to it, by whatever means necessary. Corporations (not withstanding the “campaign finance reforms” bwaaa ! haaa ha ha ha!) provide the real money that gets their puppets elected. Because the puppets are selected, not elected, our interests as Americans have not been served in a very long time. And that, my friend, is anti-America.
When you complain that “There isn’t anyone running whom I both support & has a chance of winning” – you are exactly right! And the prima facie evidence of this, is that by the time the nominees for the 2 parties are chosen, they have both been vetted with “Corporations that count”. When you see the Chamber of commerce elbow to elbow with La Raza & LULAC, it isn’t because they like each other, it’s simply because they have one major goal that coincides; the further importation of illegal aliens. This does not serve America’s needs well, but it serves their purposes quite well.
Judging on the ferocity of both pro & anti groups, this is the stuff that civil wars are made of should this travesty continue.
When you hear that ICE has made a few arrests & deportations, be clear! It isn’t that the administration has suddenly got an urge to enforce laws; they understand that they have alienated a vast portion of the Republican base and are simply throwing out a bone. Meanwhile Ramos & Compean continue to serve fraudulent prison sentences.
What you can do, the ONLY thing that you can do: join or start a 3rd party. I am involved in the Constitution Party, because I strongly believe that in all times & ages we must strive to follow the Constitution as faithfully as possible. I believe that the Constitution has made this country great, and the farther we stray from it the worse off we are.EVEN IF a 3rd party can never hold real power, it doesn’t matter at this stage. The backs of both parties must be broken, and their bases made to disappear, before America can be restored.
Flooding our country with low wage, low skill foreign workers is NOT the answer!
Leave a Reply