Right from the very beginning there was only one possible outcome if free trade ever took hold in America. Industrial and economic collapse. Ross Perot knew it and tried to warn everybody. Very few listened. What is going on in America today, the factory closures, the unemployment, the debt, the experiment with globalism could not have come out any other way. Economic ruin was predestined right from day one when America signed on to NAFTA, GATT, the WTO and a raft of other free trade deals that have been signed in the last 20 to 25 years.

A national economy is very much like what the American family farm was at the turn of the 20th century. On the family farm mom, pop and the kids worked all year to produce as much as they possibly could to provide for their own needs for the upcoming year. Pop worked the fields and raised his livestock. Mom canned vegetables, cured meat, spun yarn and made candles. The boys chopped wood and helped pop where they were needed. The girls knitted socks, milked the cows and fed the pigs. Everyone did their part to produce the maximum amount of manufactured goods and agricultural produce they could.

At the end of the year, if all went well, the family found that they had produced enough of everything they needed to keep them alive, warm and healthy for another year. If things went really well, the family had more than enough of everything. When that happened, they loaded their un-needed surplus into their wagon and took it to town and sold it all. The surplus candles were snapped up by the hotel along with the extra firewood. Restaurants bought the meat they didn't need. Surplus spools of yarn went to the dry goods store and so on. Now the family had everything they needed and a bunch of money besides, that they could use to purchase things they could not make themselves. Such as ammo for pop's hunting rifle, shoes for the horses, coffee from South America and real cane sugar from Cuba to put in it. And maybe they had some money left over to stash away in the bank for a rainy day. That's if the year went good.

When luck ran bad, the farm family never produced enough of anything to satisfy their needs. Faced with shortages, and the prospect of death, eventually the family had to go into town and clean out their bank account and take out loans to cover what they were short. That's where we are today in America and countless other once Western nations. When America as a nation began to stop producing enough of what it needed to supply it's citizens needs, there was only one thing that could have happened. America had to go into town, clean out the bank account and start borrowing to make up the difference.

For the first 75 years of the 20th century, family farm America had great years. It produced a surplus of everything year after year after year. Then came the pivotal year of 1975. That was the last year the American economy produced a surplus of goods to trade overseas. It has not done so since. What is remarkable is how fast the bank account emptied and the debt piled up. There is a chart you can download at the link at the bottom of the page that illustrates the rocket sled ride to ruin. The chart covers the period from WWII, when good economic figures began to be compiled, to the present day. The chart traces the US trade surplus/deficit, US household debt, US corporate debt, and the US Federal Debt. For the period from WWII to 1975, during the surplus years, the debt charts were essentially at a flat line. After 1975, the debt in all categories took off like a rocket ship. What that chart is showing is that the moment national production falls beyond subsistence levels, the borrowing to make up the difference begins, and only accelerates from there.

What I hope you'll come to understand, what the charts show, is that there is no way out of this depression we're in right now unless America and the rest of the West starts producing again. That is a demand you must add to your #Occupy America wish list. TARPs will do nothing. Temporary job programs will do nothing. Raising or lowering taxes on who and for how much will not matter. Minting more money will do nothing. Economic protectionism at the border and economic production within is America's only salvation.

I agree with you here.... Wished Canada never entered into any of the agreements including the PAC Rim....
Sanctions,threats and tariffs set out by US lobbyists have slowed our growth.... We've lost corporations and jobs to third world countries.
All countries have different laws of doing business..
Governments were sucked into these agreements when world markets were strong and stable by corporations.....
Corporate (very) friendly governments passed the laws...
The US in no different situation than Canada...
From auto parts in China to Motts Clamato juice in mexico....
We just gave corporations a cheap ticket to fly out and in turn put there products on shelves for us to buy....
Both Canada and US now have an appalling GDP growth yet other countries are thriving.....

yea, i agree with you too... the US forced way to many companies out of the US by stupid taxes and tariffs, and not making it where they can make money over here. and i also blame the unions too, they have a fault in this also...

agreed

RON PAUL 2012!

The article has some good points. However, it overlooks what happened in 1971-Nixon closed the "gold window". The dollar had been steadily losing value since 1913(due to the creation of the Federal Reserve and the FED's policy of inflation), but this severing of the dollar from gold set the stage for economic disaster for generations to come. We are still feeling the effects, as the politicians and FED board can spend and inflate just about eternally, destroying the potential for prosperity of future generations.

THE ONLY RATIONAL PERSON IN THE RACE!

It's not the taxes and tariffs that are causing corporations to move their manufacturing out of this country, it's the cheap labor. It's a global market. For corporations to compete globally, they seek cheap labor to produce their products. That's the bottom line. Cheap labor allows them to compete globally and results in higher profits for the corporation.


In the Wall Street Journal:

Big US Firms Shift Hiring Abroad

U.S. multinational corporations, the big brand-name companies that employ a fifth of all American workers, have been hiring abroad while cutting back at home, sharpening the debate over globalization's effect on the U.S. economy.

The companies cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department show. That's a big switch from the 1990s, when they added jobs everywhere: 4.4 million in the U.S. and 2.7 million abroad.

As an example, Caterpillar increasingly relies on foreign markets for its sales. It has been adding workers world-wide but is hiring much faster abroad. Between 2005 and 2010, its work force grew by 3,400 workers, or 7.8%, in the U.S. and 15,900, or nearly 39%, overseas.

end

I really believe that the mind set of these big American Corporations is that they have no allegiance to the US, they have allegiance to the corporation to maximize profits. This is just the way it is with globalization.

These manufacturing jobs that were in the US were typically high paying, skilled jobs that created and sustained the middle class of America. What I see now is many people blaming the unions for forcing these jobs abroad. Unions or not, I can't see Americans willing to work for the same wages that these corporations pay their labor in China, Mexico, etc.. They just keep playing the "blame game".

As to the tax argument, do some research on what GE paid in taxes. Almost nothing.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting pregnant.

JMO

Its funny isnt it before free trade unions workers made a good liveing and sent their kids to collage, purchased new cars,gas grills. camping gear, fishing gear etc etc. We tried to buy american to support other american workers, realy hard to do that now. Somehow everyone made money from the front office to the janitor. Now that unions are hardly a force in american manufacturing are we any better off? Hell NO. We just work longer hours for less money.


People need to understand Unions are what made the middle class without them we would have had 75 more years of what we have today, a super rich 1% and the bottem 99%. I am sure 99% of us here fall into that catagory.


Only a fool would give up what I have right now.

19 years senority, last to be laid off. First called back.

A high hourly wage.

A pension.

Cadilac medical.

A nice social security check to look forward to based on my best years.

I have a work environment that is friendly and mutualy respectfull.


I think every hard working american deserves all this.