Free trade is the kiss of death for our economy.
By Thom Hartmann A...
Free trade is the kiss of death for our economy. Patrick Kellen over at EconomyInCrisis.org says, "If an enemy was seeking to hire someone to destroy America he might have hired the political leaders who created” [free trade agreements].
Mr. Kellen explained that trade organizations like the WTO and agreements like NAFTA, which promised to reduce trade barriers, have proven Ross Perot's “giant sucking sound” to be correct. And, “the pending unholy trinity of trade agreements – the TPP, TTIP and TISA” threatens whats left of our manufacturing base.
These agreements kills jobs here at home, and they take international trade, banking and finance out of our control. If these three massive trade agreements are signed in to law, nearly every aspect of our economy will be controlled by foreigners.
And, our lawmakers may soon vote on these agreements without even knowing what they contain. These trade agreements are considered top secret to us and our representatives, but corporate lobbyists have been given full access.
These job killing “free trade” agreements have crippled US jobs and allowed corporations to move their companies to less regulated production facilities abroad. Call your representatives and tell them to say “no” to these trade agreements once and for all.
Comments
#2
Bingo, ellyn.
#3
I will never forgive President Obama for this. Pushing fascist crap like the TPP is an act of treason as well as a huge betrayal. It is hardly a secret that the TPP will rob us of our national sovereignty. It would render the governments of soveriegn nations impotent against corporate power. Corporate fascism du jour.
By the way, one of my senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon, has been among the TPP’s biggest cheerleaders. He’ll never have my vote again… NEVER!
Comparing this to the amount of effort Obama put into healthcare reform six or seven years ago is like night and day. Had he fought half this hard for single payer, we might not still be at the mercy of those same old extortionists (oh excuse me — health insurance companies), who continue ripping us off with impunity. The ACA forcing us to do business with these extortionists is simply outrageous. Under corporate fascist rule, we can kiss healthcare goodbye for us "ordinary" folks, along with environmental protections and consumer protections and workers' rights and everything else that makes life worth living for us "ordinary" folks.
It horrifies me to hear Thom suggest Obama has been a good president while Obama busies himself pushing for something this awful. It makes our current president a corporate fascist as well as a traitor to our country. And with Hillary Clinton's track record, I see no reason to assume she would be any better, if elected as our next president..
Corporate Democrats flat-out suck. They are not to be trusted. At least the other party lets it all hang out without false pretense, so that we get to see them for the psychopaths and toxic clowns they actually are. Like Thom himself has said, Bernie is the kind of candidate running for president that Obama only pretended to be. Let's not get fooled again, or we're toast.
#4
Free trade is our so called government making it immensely profitable for the Fascists to go abroad to pollute, abuse, cheat, steal, lie, and enslave desperate workers because they can no longer get away with it here. It's bald faced greed!
Free trade is both immoral and Un-American, and the elected officials who support it are a bunch of god damn hypocrites.
It's the modern day version of crossing the picket line to break our unions!.....all so a few can bogart most of the worlds wealth.
#5
If we fail to organize ourselves to govern with love and compassion, then we deserve to lose our "republic", and quite likely our future.
Who here believes WE are the answer AND the revolution?
Can YOU become the change? Thom, can YOU?
#6
So-called "Free Trade" has little to do with trade, trade is already amazingly "free". What it really is about is the abdication of national sovereignty, so that an unelected cabal of the ultra-rich, the top 100 of the obscenely wealthy can continue to expand their program of rape & pillage, without worry of any national government interfering with their unlimited greed.
When all these falsely called "trade agreements" are fully enacted, we can elect all the Bernie Sanders we want but he won't be able to do anything in the vital Banking, Economic, Global Trade, Energy, most environment, the phony Drug war and likely military policy areas due to the restrictions of these international aggreements, arbitrated by unelected & totally corrupted “officials”. The globalist Elites will allow Bernie to pass legislation on LGBT rights, women’s issues, abortion, minor local issues etc, but that will be about it. That is the future. A Globalist cartel of Bankster & Plutocrat elites who effectively control all of our governments.
Like the debt slave Greece which must lick the boots of the unelected European Central Bank and ask them "pretty please can we present our legislation to parliament for approval?" Elections become a charade, essentially just to elect a new mascot.
#7
How can I share this on Facebook and tweat on Twitter? Everyone needs to know about these trade agreements!
#8
NAFTA was the first round in this total takeover of the planet by moneyed interests, as Thom pointed out we were first warned about this abomination in 1992 by Mr. Ross Perot who was attempting to inform Americans concerning the dangers of accepting this international treaty that president Clinton signed into law in 1994. By now, most Americans are aware of the negative effects it has had on our economy, It must be recognized that all of these international treaties contain provisions and rules that supercede member countries existing laws. NAFTA contains some of these that, among other things, give foreign owners legal protection beyond what American owners enjoy. The T.P.P. that Obama is pushing has been called NAFTA on Steroids with the introduction of a 3-person international tribunal whose rulings cannot be challenged, in essence a Star Chamber that can issue harsh financial punishments to any member country who breaks any of the questionable rules that are slanted to favor international bankers, multi-national corporations, wealthy oligarchs, and such. Your not hearing anything about it right now because the privately owned main stream propaganda media in this country has buried it and replaced it with the all important story of the week, closing your bedroom door will protect you in the event of a fire ! Considering that probably 90% of the private homes designed and built in this country locate bedrooms at the end of a hallway with no access to the outside beyond a window, closing the door would be sealing your fate in the event of a fire ! Far better advice has been available for years; Don't stand up, stay below the super heated air above you and make your way to the nearest exit, every second counts ! But then that's become the privately owned media's primary task now, provide distractions from the ongoing theft of our country !
#9
I seriously think, and hope to not get in trouble, that a violent revolution is the only answer if any of these America destroying free trade deals get passed. Life will hardly be worth anything in America if sold out to foriegn dictators. I say we have the right to fight for our country. Any in congress that want the free trade disasters are traitors to our country and deserve to be treated as such. Seems it is us or them. Every thing they do hurts all Americans except the few at the top that pay them. We have the worst of education, credit, health care, and the list goes way on. Get sick? You go bankrupt. In fact that is what most of us are destined to, a piss poor end of life. While the bribed congress just continues to make things worse by the day. Every piece of legislation they push.
#10
Alice, You couldn't be closer to explaining our plight. But I'd venture to say it is even worse than you say. Time for change. Take care.
#11
Great posts, everyone! Love reading all your comments.
Instant-RunOff, you and I didn’t get off to such a great start fighting over nuclear power, to have or not to have. But after reading posts you’ve since written on various other issues, it seems to me that we agree on many more things than we conflict on. And that’s the funny thing about blogging…
W1ders, I certainly don’t begrudge you wondering out loud about the necessity of taking our country & democracy back via violent revolution. I pray with all my heart we don’t go down that road because (1) in the long run, violence solves nothing; (2) It’s a battle we’re bound to lose, as we’d be enormously out-gunned; and (3) we haven’t exhausted all our other options yet.
Non-violent revolutions tend to have better, more lasting impacts. Remember how Ghandi defeated the British Empire, without shedding a drop of his or anyone else’s blood? There are other ways of fighting back that not only are less destructive, but also more effective; like for example, when it comes time to cast our votes, kicking all those fascist goons out of the House & Senate, and electing Bernie Sanders for president! If we can do that much, the sky’s the limit. Without bloodshed.
I keep reminding myself and those around me that if our votes didn't matter, the oligarchs would not have gone to such trouble finding, inventing & legislating ways to suppress them.
We don’t have to live like this forever. But it won’t change unless we get up off our butts and make it change. Electing Bernie is a good place to start, along with electing the kinds of public servants that would comprise a functional Congress... the latter of which we’ve not had for a very, very long time.
#12
As Paul Krugman has stated many times, economics does not have the type of experiment that one has in Chemistry, Physics or Biology, where one adjusts a factor by a little or much and examines the result.
Nevertheless, we have had many periods of policies that are radically different from other times. We can evaluate the results of these different conditions.
It is interesting to note that periods of lo employment are low productivity periods and low receipts of state, local and federal taxes leading to an increase in debt or a decrease in in services necessary to a "well regulated society".
Other periods of policies with "pay as you go" high marginal taxes on those individuals with excess incomes beyond the necessities of life, health and the requirements of a good society, are periods of higher productivity, higher rates of tax receipts and better welfare for society in general.
We must learn from thees "natural" experiments and not ignore them.
Robert Reich's analysis of the democratic candidates is another form of "natural" experiment. I would add that the polyglot of candidates on the conservative political side follows the same type of logic. Their idea is that being protected by mother and father when a child, leading to a sense of security and love and confidence in the future is nice but it is not conducive to solving the problems of today or the problems that might occur in the future. The candidates of the GOP seem to think they can go back to their childhood for the mythical security and peace of their childhood. One cannot do that. We must be adults, looking forward to the opportunities and challenges of the future.
That is why I am in favor of Robert Reich's analysis. Lets's go with Bernie.
#13
Regulations are necessary to allow business to behave ethically. Without them a business that chooses to behave ethically puts itself at a competitive disadvantage and the inevitable "race to the bottom" ensues.
When a business enterprise saves cost or gains profit by dispensing with ethical considerations all its competitors must do so as well or be competitively done in. Thus regulations are legislation of ethics and the only ethics possible in a competitive society. They are the collective moral, ethical decisions and priorities of a society when arrived at democratically.
#14
You're my hero, Alice!
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