Since I'm on a roll tonight and having fun turning certain "Tea Partiers" into piñatas by calling out their idiocies, I think I'll pile on once again!
Remember those "Free Trade" agreements? Southerland voted "YES". So did Miller. Both claim to be "fiscal conservatives" and "affiliated" with the "Tea PartyFraud."
Now let's look at the claim that this will provide "exports" to our economy and thus be of net benefit and bring jobs to America.
What's the history on these claims?
NAFTA was passed in 1994. Our trade imbalance in 1993 was -$70 billion.
One year later, it was nearly $100 billion in the hole, or more than 40% worse almost overnight.
China's MFN ("Most-favored nation") status was made permanent in 2000. In 1999 we had a $68.7 billion trade deficit with China. One year later it was $83 billion and by 2010 it reached a stunning $273 billion, almost a clean quadruple. Incidentally that's a 15% increase in the deficit with China annually. Did the United States benefit from this?
NO, THE MATHEMATICAL FACTS OF THE MATTER ARE THAT WE GOT SCREWED BLIND IN BOTH EYE SOCKETS.
Incidentally, you cannot run a trade deficit on a durable basis without a borrowing ponzi somewhere else in your economy, as otherwise the capital drain self-corrects the trade balance.
So along with raping the common man by exporting his job to Korea or Panama, we now get to add the charge of intentionally and serially blowing credit bubbles with monetary and fiscal policy (12% of GDP deficits anyone?) in order to sustain the bankrupt trade policies that these so-called "Tea Partiers" both voted for! This, incidentally is why the so-called "fiscal conservatives" did NOT block the debt ceiling increase and have not put forward a budget proposal that actually decreases spending.
They are intentionally running a Ponzi scheme and you're buying it!
It's not very hard to figure out why these agreements always screw the American people either -- there's no need for some complex negotiation with a nation like Germany. It's only when we want to employ slave labor in places like Panama or South Korea, allowing our corporations to offshore yet more jobs to a place where people are paid $5/day while they pollute the air and water with impunity that we need these "agreements."
A combined $2 trillion of capital was drained from the US to China from 2000 to 2010. If we work with a simple average ($200 billion a year) this is sufficient to support 4 million jobs at the median $50,000 a year over the entire ten year period. The household data says that at the present time there are about 14 million unemployed people for a rate of 9%. Approximately half of that, or 5%, is considered "full employment."
Put another way fully half of the unemployed currently out of work are directly out of work because of our trade policy with China alone.
There's where your jobs went America.
The "Tea Party" is raping both you and your children's future just as are the Liberals. They may be doing it a different way but when you're blinded by the repeated assaults it doesn't much matter which particular insult was responsible, does it?
They're right on the facts, whether you admit it or not.
