"I want to see a proposal to do a Bilareral Trade deal with Germany or Japan. The reason why we do not see such proposals with economic equals is that Bilateral agreements are neo-colonial." -- Burton Leed
Yes, that critique is correct -- we don't do trade agreements without a major labor arbitrage aspect. Rather than progress toward a Japan-USA trade agreement, our government is working on something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And all of that is putting the cart before the horse, because we first need to establish a protectionist system for all our trade relations.
My view on trade is like the OWS -- I don't have a simplistic political demand for fixing it, but I do know that there are systemic problems that require systemic reform. And as Buddy Roemer points out about USA politics, it's the money running things that messes up the system.
First, we need to establish our own pro-America trade regulation system -- including such legislation as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. We need a system that is established under US law that essentially treats all trading partners alike -- that is, a system that establishes standards for the protection of US workers and industry, making distinctions according to objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners.
We need to put a complete halt to the idea that domestic policy can be changed for the better by legislating through the backdoor of 'fast track' FTAs. If a trade agreement requires some change in domestic policy -- for product standards, national defense, patents, environmental law, food and drug safety, employment-labor law and the preservation of USA work force -- then, those areas need to be legislated separately before any trade agreement can be implemented.
The preference system that has been enshrined as a Holy Cow in the WTO bureaucratic mess has been proven dysfunctional and in need of thorough-going reform. We should know by now that we cannot reform the entire world through fast-track 'free' trade agreements, and we should also know by now that the basis of successful trade for USA must be a rational protectionist system.
We need to go all the way back to the philosophical or idealistic foundations of the Uruguay Round and consider how those foundations have been shown to be faulty. To continue building on a poorly laid foundation, when we see structural problems developing everywhere around the world, is insanity.
All that said, I would suggest that USA could profit most from a trade agreement or treaty with Russia or even with the Commonwealth of Independent States ... or such CIS members as want to participate.
_____
RUSSIA spells opportunity
You won't see a trade agreement with Russia -- if necessary outside the WTO -- suggested or discussed by WTO advocates, and that should tell you something!
Currently Georgia is allowed to block Russia from joining the WTO, as an aspect of the political agenda of the EU. In that context, Russia's Putin has questioned whether Russia even wants to join the WTO. US policy is stupidly tied to EU policy toward Russia, committing us to an absurd attempt at reviving the Cold War along the lines of the ancient division of European Christendom between East and West. To justify a situation where the USA allows the EU to dominate our policy toward Russia, objections are raised as to human rights, democracy and so forth, but those objections are patently hypocritical when we consider human rights in nations that we consider to be deserving of the highest preferential trade status -- People's Republic of China, Indonesia, Columbia and others.
That the USA is failing to advance toward the clear opportunities presented by a trade agreement or treaty with Russia, passing up a fantastic opportunity for both Russia and the USA ... is a clear example of the stupidity of USA trade policy.
GERMANY is the heart of the EU
Is a trade treaty or agreement with Germany possible outside of a general treaty or agreement with the EU? I don't think so. The EU is one of our major trading partners, and what that proves is the soundness of current USA-EU trade relations. There's no point in a special trade agreement with Germany, and that isn't a possibility anyway.
JAPAN is all about rice
Japan has reservations about food security. The Japanese government wants to support farmers, especially regarding rice. Rice costs 3 to 5 times more in Japan than in USA.
The United States said Thursday [29 September 2011] it would welcome Japan's participation in a future trans-Pacific trade agreement as it voiced frustration at a lack of new initiatives tying together the two allies.
Japan is debating whether to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact being negotiated by [USA and] nine [other] nations [Japan, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam], but the [Japanese] government faces strong opposition from farmers.
Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said that Japan and the United States needed to find new areas for cooperation ... "
The United States has been alarmed by a lack of momentum in its alliance with Japan, which has had a new prime minister each year since 2006, although many Japanese welcomed the rapid US response to its tsunami and nuclear crisis.
"I'm struck that sometimes when we meet we have huge challenges that we deal with, like how to respond to the nuclear challenge," said Campbell ...
President Barack Obama's administration has promoted the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a new type of trade deal that creates jobs while ensuring stringent labor rights and environmental standards. ...
Japan's Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives has campaigned vigorously against participation, saying the deal would reduce food security in a country where farmers -- especially of rice -- enjoy generous government support.
Campbell said that President Barack Obama spoke about trade issues during September 21 talks with new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in New York.
PROBLEMS IN THIS WHOLE THING
Do you believe this crap -- the implicit premises in all this scheming? I don't. Specifically ...
(1) It's pure bull pucky about the Obama administration (Obama's USTR) might conceivably negotiate a "new type of trade deal that creates jobs while ensuring stringent labor rights and environmental standards." That is just NOT in the cards, given the Obama administration's record in "renegotiating" the Columbia FTA and the reality that USA has yet to get our own house in order with such necessary trade policies as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act.
(2) I don't see that there is any necessity whatsoever for Japan to stop underwriting its rice farmers in order to advance solutions to what are essentially global nuclear and strategic issues. (Campbell uses the term "new areas of cooperation" as a codeword for "destroying Japanese rice production".)
(3) I don't believe that either President Obama or Prime Minister Noda had any business conducting a conversation that was anything but completely open and recorded in an easily accessible public record concerning trade negotiations. (Neither Obama nor Noda can claim to represent the working peoples of either nation, especially respecting trade relations!)
(4) I don't believe that USA "has been alarmed by a lack of momentum in its alliance with Japan," and I don't think it is any of our business that Japan "has had a new prime minister each year since 2006." (Good for them!)
(5) I don't believe that USA played a particularly key role in responding to the tsunami and related nuclear disaster. Government of the USA did what it could, but all that is irrelevant to the apparent push by the Obama administration for the next great US-economy-destroying trade initiative. I don't believe that there is any problem in a supposed "lack of new initiatives tying together the two allies."
In short, I am too old to fall for this same old corporate globalism okeydoke. Been there. Done that. Tried that. Doesn't work. End of story.
I want to see a proposal to do a Bilareral Trade deal
with Germany or Japan. The reason why we do not see such proposals with economic equals is that Bilateral agreements are neo-colonial.
Something very big is happening here, that you have heard. What you will not here from the Mainstream media are some crucial points of history. The path the OWS follows was traced by the Sons of Liberty from 1775 to 1777. Sons of Liberty took their message to join the American Revolution from village to village, town hall to town hall. In the process, Sons of Liberty won over almost all town halls of America and in the process made the illegitimate government of the rag-tag patriots into the legitimate government of America. Essentially, the American Revolution was won. The war that followed was the futile attempt at re-establish military occupation of the American Colonies.
Today, the Occupation has changed from a colonial one to Occupation by the blood thirsty gods of Wall Street. Do not say, Wall Street folks are your neighbors. Such neighbors will cut out and devour your beating heart.
In both cases, the Movements were viral and the paths the movements followed are laid down by politics, culture and the way the Land is built and wired. This movement will not go away for the same reasons we predicted its birth in 2008 on these pages. It is all about history and the demise of the Doomed Regime. The one relevant piece of news since 2008 was the failure of any kind of reform both frustrated by the knuckle-dragging Retrograde Mutants, and hyped by agents of the Bush-Lite Administration.
Failed reform movements, in times of great crisis, are a very big deal historically.
First, he's getting a complete media, GOP black out, so that should be a great sign and second, he seems to have a cross section of positions that are truly "Populist". Glad to see this too.
Presidential candidate Buddy Roemer visited OWS last Tuesday (11 October 2011). Here's from Buddy Roemer for President 2012 'Weekly Campaign Update" (14 October 2011) --
He [Roemer] didn't agree with everybody on everything, but he felt it important to have gone to listen.
Another recent visitor to OWS (Zuccoti Park, NYC) was Chris Martenson (investment-economics researcher and writer). There's no particular connection between Roemer and Martenson -- at least not that I know of -- but I have considerable respect for both of them. Martenson visited on 7 October 2011, with a video crew of two others. Here's from his Newsletter (13 October 2011) --
What we found were people united by a sense that our national narrative is off course and that resentment over the patent unfairness of our current system is building. Perhaps the most common expression we found was that people, to varying degrees, thought that there was something systemically wrong.
Martenson has declared his intention to return to OWS after completing his current California tour.
Obviously, corporate media and 'wingnut blogdom' are doing all they can to discredit what's happening at OWS. While there are efforts to co-opt OWS as well as efforts to popularize distorted caricatures of what's happening there, it appears to me that some of the best people grappling with what is happening throughout America are visiting the event, coming away with a positive impression that what's happening is serious discussion.
Those who label OWS as "radical" or "hippies" and so forth reveal much more about themselves than about OWS. "It's the First Amendment, Stupid!" People exchanging ideas without the mediation of TV, people thinking for themselves ... that's probably pretty scary to some.
Martenson --
Because of this widespread view of ‘everything being wrong,’ there was, naturally, no single message or thing around which everyone had gathered. Instead, the view was simply that the system being discussed -- political, capitalist, economic, or monetary -- was broken.
You need to register and get an account to use links and other site features. Also, we don't like people just linking to their site with a "Read this". If you want to discuss, great, we also do cross posting, but posts must be accurate, cited, formatted and attributed to the original publication site.
We obviously love statistical based articles and trade is a hot topic here.
Facts and statistics showing how "free trade" has destroyed American jobs:
Another Example Of Stupid: Trade
raw link: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=196063
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."
EP Admin: For some reason links aren't working. Message Preview is not showing links that I've added.
This post is about special interests trying to "move in" as it details but I'm not sure if those beyond OWS or the general consensus is.
Protesting income inequality, power, governments in the hands of the few, neoliberalism, all of that is one of the main reasons this site was started.
I'd say if they start promoting unlimited migration, then their movement is corrupted.
But so far, the message I'm hearing is 1% own 40% of the wealth plus our governments and this has to stop with side issues being "we need jobs right now".
These crowds are getting huge so assuredly there is now "noise in the machine" but as far as I know their message is still on target.
Where they "believe" that unlimited, unfettered global migration makes people "free". It's the opposite. Plus it breaks up family ties, a sense of community. But in terms of labor economics, it's all about supply/demand and when you flood a particular labor market, that supply goes up, wages goes down, worker displacement happens, worker rights go away.
They are playing right into the hands of the globalists with this agenda.
Unfortunately a few labor economics equations shall not enter their brains and this is because between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plus various ethnicity-based special interest groups, if any of those equations appear, the bringer of reality will be labeled a "racist xenophobe".
It's a real problem. If they bothered to look at any global migration maps from the slave trade, you'd get the picture clearer, but unfortunately labor history, labor market history is not investigated either.
From an entry at the occupywallst.org website on October 14, 2011:
"Over the last 30 years, the 1% have created a global economic system - neoliberalism [link to Wikipedia entry here in original] - that attacks our human rights and destroys our environment. Neoliberalism is worldwide - it is the reason you no longer have a job, it is the reason you cannot afford healthcare, education, food, your mortgage.
Neoliberalism is your future stolen.
Neoliberalism is everywhere, gutting labor standards, living wages, social contracts, and environmental protections. It is "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." It is a system that ravages the global south and creates global financial crisis - crisis in Spain, in Greece, in the United States. It is a system built on greed and thrives on destablizing shocks.
It allows the 1% to enrich themselves by impoverishing humanity.
This has to stop!
We must usher in an era of democratic and economic justice.
We must change, we must evolve."
This group -- full of young, discontent people worried sick about their economic futures in America -- is about the best audience for the NumbersUSA-type groups out there that favor immigration reduction they'll ever get. I saw Mark Krikorian, a spokesman for one of the immigration reduction groups, refer to the Occupy Wall Streets with disdain.
HUGE mistake. Look at hostile and deliberately humiliating and defiant message to liberal groups who are trying to ride on their wave and maybe take it over.
THanks for putting that up by the way, I hadn't seen that before and I really love it. The longer the group can stay as is, with a general message and sincere effort to be inclusive, the more they will grow, I think.
The desire to be fair and inclusive could lead them to support immigration positions that are self-defeating. I hope they don't do that.
"You can see who the bought and paid fors are by campaign contributions, "favors" for their family relatives, magically they get hired at some company and so on, revolving door, where they get their money after they "retire" or before they got into politics...." -- Robert Oak
Unfortunately, we can no longer follow the money on campaign contributions, and that is entirely due to Supreme Court decisions and to party-line knee-jerk GOP opposition to any legislation for transparency such as the DISCLOSE Act.
"look at the Democrats on the list who claim to be "for the middle class". Their constituents are: WA: Microsoft, Boeing, AK: Wal-mart, OR: Intel, CA: Cisco, G.E.,IL: Caterpillar (Iowa as well)" -- Robert Oak
(Minor typo here: I think Wal-Mart is Arkansas -- not 'AK' (Alaska) but 'AR'.)
To make state-by-state as well as party comparisons for the House would really not be a brief post. Looking at the Senate, however, it's pretty easy to see what's happening. Yes, both senators from the state of Washington (both D) are pro-FTA as are both senators from the state of Arkansas (one D and one R). As for Iowa, Harkin (D) voted against all three FTAs whereas Grassley (R) voted for all three! In the case of Oregon, Wyden (D) never saw a FTA he didn't like, whereas Merkley (also D) voted against all three.
As for Illinois, Durbin (D) was disappointing in voting for two out of three of the FTAs, but Kirk (R) voted for all three. In the case of California, Feinstein (D) "never saw a FTA she didn't like," whereas Boxer (also D) voted only for the Korea agreement and against the other two.
I think that with Washington and California (and to a lesser extent, Oregon), we have to include the ILWU as an important pro-FTA influence along with the MNCs. (The ILWU was probably a key influence on Boxer's vote for the Korea agreement.) The ILWU is also of tremendous importance in Hawaii.
Both in the Senate and the House, Republicans were nearly unanimous in support of the FTAs. However, it's interesting that the most outspoken opposition to the corporate FTA agenda is from Coburn (R) as well as from Sanders (I). As for the Independents, there again we see a split with Sanders anti-FTA while Lieberman is pro-FTA.
Overall, it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that, as a pretty good rule, Republicans are out to destroy American working people at least as much as is Obama -- whereas many, but not all, Democrats and Independents are opposing the WTO agenda. You cannot say, however, that a protectionist voter can look at party affiliation to decide how to vote: Kerry (D), for example, is all-out for the FTAs and Coburn (R) is outstanding against FTAs.
In summary, I don't think that we can see either specific corporate economic power within a state or party affiliation as determining in all cases. We see some bipartisan "rank and file" movement toward opposition to FTAs and for the currency bill. However, with the single exception of Harry Reid, leadership in the Congress remains as pro-FTA as ever -- on both sides of the aisle.
Do we see anyone in the video other than Senator Sanders? No, we don't ... and the chamber is probably empty. He is allowed time and the cameras roll, but it's pretty much symbolic. Nobody is listening, meaning, yes, "they do not care."
Anyway, the North Korea aspect is all about the idea that economic "integration" always leads to increased democratization and improved civil liberty. That's one of the pathetic excuses of the WTO apologists for deliberate and dangerous destabilizing of the U.S.A. -- it's all for good causes like world peace, democratization, improved civil rights, and, the elimination of WMDs.
"I link to the roll call votes so we don't have to clutter up the site with that database tallies." -- Robert Oak
Showing those who voted against all three FTAs requires some work. I didn't just copy and paste!
Although my list is derived from the roll calls, there's no way to go online to Thomas (Library of Congress) or any .gov site for a list of those who voted against all three FTAs. (You can't get it without examining the record, one member at a time, on each of the three votes.)
I posted the three tables, which don't take up much space, because it's the best way to show what's happening by party -- the power of the RNC to exact pro-FTA votes as the price of corporate support.
Also, I wanted to make a point with the term 'Honor Roll', to say that taking the 100% anti-FTA position won't go unappreciated. I doubt that any of MSM noted the statistic for opposition to all three FTAs or rewarded the individual representatives by publicizing their anti-FTA stands.
Even though there's been some mention that "rank-and-file" Democrats voted in opposition to Obama, the full meaning is better seen in the statistic 61% and, best yet, in the list of the representatives involved. As a rule, I would just post the link, as suggested. But I believe the recent votes are of tremendous significance.
Why is it perfectly ok for executives to be over the age of 35 yet none of their employees? Notice that? When it comes to age discrimination, they all are perfectly fine yet employees are magically "not up to snuff" the minute they turn 35.
Well researched, cited, economics related articles we do cross posting, although following the rules and correctly formatting an article is key critical.
We've had more than one get upset over this, when it should be a "copy and paste" when a few modifications. Email me if you're interested.
Here's a look at just how successfully American corporations can avoid paying taxes at the same time as they are paying their corner office dwellers record amounts:
I think you're right, more U.S. citizens just bail on STEM because who is willing to go $40k in debt to have a career of 5 years before you're labor arbitraged? I think we have some very discriminatory policies against U.S. citizens as well. For example, taking a BSc as a U.S. BS is absurd. Often these are high school, literally, or more like trade school, at best associates degrees. Now universities are accepting MSc of 90 credit hours, an entire year less than the U.S. BS and they are accepting them as a U.S. MS degree.
Add to that the impossible to live on stipends for RA/TA and you're lucky to get your poverty/slave wage to boot so it's no surprise U.S. citizens are being discouraged to study on multiple levels.
I guess we should remind everyone how difficult these degrees are too.
We really need more Americans calling it. Anyone at a top tier school knows what's going on and it's not a good thing.
It's one thing to compete internationally, it's another to get your knees capped right at the starting gate.
Unfortunately, we have educated a lot of the people who create foreign companies and lead foreign subsidiaries where the outsourced jobs go. It probably should be much harder to get a student visa in the US than a work visa. At least people who work here are paying taxes here and interacting and enhancing the work of others in this country. It's worse when they go back with a coveted American degree and immediately have twice the legitimacy of any other foreign contractor or researcher.
I'll tell you though, the composition of STEM classes in the US has become very foreign. There has been a boom in education despite dropping interest from US citizens. The labor arbitrage has definitely cost us in three ways 1) American talent doesn't want to go into STEM, 2) American talent that goes into STEM is more stressed about employment and less focused on new ideas or technical excellence, 3) STEM workers who get employment are working longer hours and with no faith in their organization; a monumental disaster for scientific thought and out-of-the-box creativity. This is how I see it from the ground in chemistry.
God Bless Senator Bernie Sanders. He's from Vermont and I guess they are small enough to not have large corporations buying all elected officials and he is an independent, not beholden to either the GOP or the Dems. (actually a democratic socialist, similar to political parties in Norway, Sweden and Finland).
Regardless, he gets some real facts from real economists, the actual trade agreements and research groups and puts them in speeches on the Senate floor that are damning.
Even more damning, the Senate itself has no excuse. They know these facts and Sanders makes sure they know, but they do not care....they vote for these things anyway.
"I want to see a proposal to do a Bilareral Trade deal with Germany or Japan. The reason why we do not see such proposals with economic equals is that Bilateral agreements are neo-colonial." -- Burton Leed
Yes, that critique is correct -- we don't do trade agreements without a major labor arbitrage aspect. Rather than progress toward a Japan-USA trade agreement, our government is working on something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And all of that is putting the cart before the horse, because we first need to establish a protectionist system for all our trade relations.
My view on trade is like the OWS -- I don't have a simplistic political demand for fixing it, but I do know that there are systemic problems that require systemic reform. And as Buddy Roemer points out about USA politics, it's the money running things that messes up the system.
First, we need to establish our own pro-America trade regulation system -- including such legislation as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. We need a system that is established under US law that essentially treats all trading partners alike -- that is, a system that establishes standards for the protection of US workers and industry, making distinctions according to objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners.
We need to put a complete halt to the idea that domestic policy can be changed for the better by legislating through the backdoor of 'fast track' FTAs. If a trade agreement requires some change in domestic policy -- for product standards, national defense, patents, environmental law, food and drug safety, employment-labor law and the preservation of USA work force -- then, those areas need to be legislated separately before any trade agreement can be implemented.
The preference system that has been enshrined as a Holy Cow in the WTO bureaucratic mess has been proven dysfunctional and in need of thorough-going reform. We should know by now that we cannot reform the entire world through fast-track 'free' trade agreements, and we should also know by now that the basis of successful trade for USA must be a rational protectionist system.
We need to go all the way back to the philosophical or idealistic foundations of the Uruguay Round and consider how those foundations have been shown to be faulty. To continue building on a poorly laid foundation, when we see structural problems developing everywhere around the world, is insanity.
All that said, I would suggest that USA could profit most from a trade agreement or treaty with Russia or even with the Commonwealth of Independent States ... or such CIS members as want to participate.
_____
RUSSIA spells opportunity
You won't see a trade agreement with Russia -- if necessary outside the WTO -- suggested or discussed by WTO advocates, and that should tell you something!
Currently Georgia is allowed to block Russia from joining the WTO, as an aspect of the political agenda of the EU. In that context, Russia's Putin has questioned whether Russia even wants to join the WTO. US policy is stupidly tied to EU policy toward Russia, committing us to an absurd attempt at reviving the Cold War along the lines of the ancient division of European Christendom between East and West. To justify a situation where the USA allows the EU to dominate our policy toward Russia, objections are raised as to human rights, democracy and so forth, but those objections are patently hypocritical when we consider human rights in nations that we consider to be deserving of the highest preferential trade status -- People's Republic of China, Indonesia, Columbia and others.
That the USA is failing to advance toward the clear opportunities presented by a trade agreement or treaty with Russia, passing up a fantastic opportunity for both Russia and the USA ... is a clear example of the stupidity of USA trade policy.
GERMANY is the heart of the EU
Is a trade treaty or agreement with Germany possible outside of a general treaty or agreement with the EU? I don't think so. The EU is one of our major trading partners, and what that proves is the soundness of current USA-EU trade relations. There's no point in a special trade agreement with Germany, and that isn't a possibility anyway.
JAPAN is all about rice
Japan has reservations about food security. The Japanese government wants to support farmers, especially regarding rice. Rice costs 3 to 5 times more in Japan than in USA.
The following is excerpted from an Agence France Presse (AFP) story (29 September 2011) via TerraDaily.com --
PROBLEMS IN THIS WHOLE THING
Do you believe this crap -- the implicit premises in all this scheming? I don't. Specifically ...
(1) It's pure bull pucky about the Obama administration (Obama's USTR) might conceivably negotiate a "new type of trade deal that creates jobs while ensuring stringent labor rights and environmental standards." That is just NOT in the cards, given the Obama administration's record in "renegotiating" the Columbia FTA and the reality that USA has yet to get our own house in order with such necessary trade policies as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act.
(2) I don't see that there is any necessity whatsoever for Japan to stop underwriting its rice farmers in order to advance solutions to what are essentially global nuclear and strategic issues. (Campbell uses the term "new areas of cooperation" as a codeword for "destroying Japanese rice production".)
(3) I don't believe that either President Obama or Prime Minister Noda had any business conducting a conversation that was anything but completely open and recorded in an easily accessible public record concerning trade negotiations. (Neither Obama nor Noda can claim to represent the working peoples of either nation, especially respecting trade relations!)
(4) I don't believe that USA "has been alarmed by a lack of momentum in its alliance with Japan," and I don't think it is any of our business that Japan "has had a new prime minister each year since 2006." (Good for them!)
(5) I don't believe that USA played a particularly key role in responding to the tsunami and related nuclear disaster. Government of the USA did what it could, but all that is irrelevant to the apparent push by the Obama administration for the next great US-economy-destroying trade initiative. I don't believe that there is any problem in a supposed "lack of new initiatives tying together the two allies."
In short, I am too old to fall for this same old corporate globalism okeydoke. Been there. Done that. Tried that. Doesn't work. End of story.
I want to see a proposal to do a Bilareral Trade deal
with Germany or Japan. The reason why we do not see such proposals with economic equals is that Bilateral agreements are neo-colonial.
Something very big is happening here, that you have heard. What you will not here from the Mainstream media are some crucial points of history. The path the OWS follows was traced by the Sons of Liberty from 1775 to 1777. Sons of Liberty took their message to join the American Revolution from village to village, town hall to town hall. In the process, Sons of Liberty won over almost all town halls of America and in the process made the illegitimate government of the rag-tag patriots into the legitimate government of America. Essentially, the American Revolution was won. The war that followed was the futile attempt at re-establish military occupation of the American Colonies.
Today, the Occupation has changed from a colonial one to Occupation by the blood thirsty gods of Wall Street. Do not say, Wall Street folks are your neighbors. Such neighbors will cut out and devour your beating heart.
In both cases, the Movements were viral and the paths the movements followed are laid down by politics, culture and the way the Land is built and wired. This movement will not go away for the same reasons we predicted its birth in 2008 on these pages. It is all about history and the demise of the Doomed Regime. The one relevant piece of news since 2008 was the failure of any kind of reform both frustrated by the knuckle-dragging Retrograde Mutants, and hyped by agents of the Bush-Lite Administration.
Failed reform movements, in times of great crisis, are a very big deal historically.
First, he's getting a complete media, GOP black out, so that should be a great sign and second, he seems to have a cross section of positions that are truly "Populist". Glad to see this too.
Presidential candidate Buddy Roemer visited OWS last Tuesday (11 October 2011). Here's from Buddy Roemer for President 2012 'Weekly Campaign Update" (14 October 2011) --
Another recent visitor to OWS (Zuccoti Park, NYC) was Chris Martenson (investment-economics researcher and writer). There's no particular connection between Roemer and Martenson -- at least not that I know of -- but I have considerable respect for both of them. Martenson visited on 7 October 2011, with a video crew of two others. Here's from his Newsletter (13 October 2011) --
Martenson has declared his intention to return to OWS after completing his current California tour.
Obviously, corporate media and 'wingnut blogdom' are doing all they can to discredit what's happening at OWS. While there are efforts to co-opt OWS as well as efforts to popularize distorted caricatures of what's happening there, it appears to me that some of the best people grappling with what is happening throughout America are visiting the event, coming away with a positive impression that what's happening is serious discussion.
Those who label OWS as "radical" or "hippies" and so forth reveal much more about themselves than about OWS. "It's the First Amendment, Stupid!" People exchanging ideas without the mediation of TV, people thinking for themselves ... that's probably pretty scary to some.
Martenson --
You need to register and get an account to use links and other site features. Also, we don't like people just linking to their site with a "Read this". If you want to discuss, great, we also do cross posting, but posts must be accurate, cited, formatted and attributed to the original publication site.
We obviously love statistical based articles and trade is a hot topic here.
Facts and statistics showing how "free trade" has destroyed American jobs:
Another Example Of Stupid: Trade
raw link: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=196063
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."
EP Admin: For some reason links aren't working. Message Preview is not showing links that I've added.
This post is about special interests trying to "move in" as it details but I'm not sure if those beyond OWS or the general consensus is.
Protesting income inequality, power, governments in the hands of the few, neoliberalism, all of that is one of the main reasons this site was started.
I'd say if they start promoting unlimited migration, then their movement is corrupted.
But so far, the message I'm hearing is 1% own 40% of the wealth plus our governments and this has to stop with side issues being "we need jobs right now".
These crowds are getting huge so assuredly there is now "noise in the machine" but as far as I know their message is still on target.
Are you saying that the Occupy Wall St group is for unlimited migration?
Based on the Wikepedia article, I would have thought you would have agreed that neoliberalism is bad for most Americans.
I saw some statement about their beliefs that mentioned they were against outsourcing of jobs but nothing mentioned about immigration.
Where they "believe" that unlimited, unfettered global migration makes people "free". It's the opposite. Plus it breaks up family ties, a sense of community. But in terms of labor economics, it's all about supply/demand and when you flood a particular labor market, that supply goes up, wages goes down, worker displacement happens, worker rights go away.
They are playing right into the hands of the globalists with this agenda.
Unfortunately a few labor economics equations shall not enter their brains and this is because between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plus various ethnicity-based special interest groups, if any of those equations appear, the bringer of reality will be labeled a "racist xenophobe".
It's a real problem. If they bothered to look at any global migration maps from the slave trade, you'd get the picture clearer, but unfortunately labor history, labor market history is not investigated either.
From an entry at the occupywallst.org website on October 14, 2011:
"Over the last 30 years, the 1% have created a global economic system - neoliberalism [link to Wikipedia entry here in original] - that attacks our human rights and destroys our environment. Neoliberalism is worldwide - it is the reason you no longer have a job, it is the reason you cannot afford healthcare, education, food, your mortgage.
Neoliberalism is your future stolen.
Neoliberalism is everywhere, gutting labor standards, living wages, social contracts, and environmental protections. It is "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." It is a system that ravages the global south and creates global financial crisis - crisis in Spain, in Greece, in the United States. It is a system built on greed and thrives on destablizing shocks.
It allows the 1% to enrich themselves by impoverishing humanity.
This has to stop!
We must usher in an era of democratic and economic justice.
We must change, we must evolve."
This group -- full of young, discontent people worried sick about their economic futures in America -- is about the best audience for the NumbersUSA-type groups out there that favor immigration reduction they'll ever get. I saw Mark Krikorian, a spokesman for one of the immigration reduction groups, refer to the Occupy Wall Streets with disdain.
HUGE mistake. Look at hostile and deliberately humiliating and defiant message to liberal groups who are trying to ride on their wave and maybe take it over.
THanks for putting that up by the way, I hadn't seen that before and I really love it. The longer the group can stay as is, with a general message and sincere effort to be inclusive, the more they will grow, I think.
The desire to be fair and inclusive could lead them to support immigration positions that are self-defeating. I hope they don't do that.
"You can see who the bought and paid fors are by campaign contributions, "favors" for their family relatives, magically they get hired at some company and so on, revolving door, where they get their money after they "retire" or before they got into politics...." -- Robert Oak
Unfortunately, we can no longer follow the money on campaign contributions, and that is entirely due to Supreme Court decisions and to party-line knee-jerk GOP opposition to any legislation for transparency such as the DISCLOSE Act.
"look at the Democrats on the list who claim to be "for the middle class". Their constituents are: WA: Microsoft, Boeing, AK: Wal-mart, OR: Intel, CA: Cisco, G.E.,IL: Caterpillar (Iowa as well)" -- Robert Oak
(Minor typo here: I think Wal-Mart is Arkansas -- not 'AK' (Alaska) but 'AR'.)
To make state-by-state as well as party comparisons for the House would really not be a brief post. Looking at the Senate, however, it's pretty easy to see what's happening. Yes, both senators from the state of Washington (both D) are pro-FTA as are both senators from the state of Arkansas (one D and one R). As for Iowa, Harkin (D) voted against all three FTAs whereas Grassley (R) voted for all three! In the case of Oregon, Wyden (D) never saw a FTA he didn't like, whereas Merkley (also D) voted against all three.
As for Illinois, Durbin (D) was disappointing in voting for two out of three of the FTAs, but Kirk (R) voted for all three. In the case of California, Feinstein (D) "never saw a FTA she didn't like," whereas Boxer (also D) voted only for the Korea agreement and against the other two.
I think that with Washington and California (and to a lesser extent, Oregon), we have to include the ILWU as an important pro-FTA influence along with the MNCs. (The ILWU was probably a key influence on Boxer's vote for the Korea agreement.) The ILWU is also of tremendous importance in Hawaii.
Both in the Senate and the House, Republicans were nearly unanimous in support of the FTAs. However, it's interesting that the most outspoken opposition to the corporate FTA agenda is from Coburn (R) as well as from Sanders (I). As for the Independents, there again we see a split with Sanders anti-FTA while Lieberman is pro-FTA.
Overall, it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that, as a pretty good rule, Republicans are out to destroy American working people at least as much as is Obama -- whereas many, but not all, Democrats and Independents are opposing the WTO agenda. You cannot say, however, that a protectionist voter can look at party affiliation to decide how to vote: Kerry (D), for example, is all-out for the FTAs and Coburn (R) is outstanding against FTAs.
In summary, I don't think that we can see either specific corporate economic power within a state or party affiliation as determining in all cases. We see some bipartisan "rank and file" movement toward opposition to FTAs and for the currency bill. However, with the single exception of Harry Reid, leadership in the Congress remains as pro-FTA as ever -- on both sides of the aisle.
Do we see anyone in the video other than Senator Sanders? No, we don't ... and the chamber is probably empty. He is allowed time and the cameras roll, but it's pretty much symbolic. Nobody is listening, meaning, yes, "they do not care."
Anyway, the North Korea aspect is all about the idea that economic "integration" always leads to increased democratization and improved civil liberty. That's one of the pathetic excuses of the WTO apologists for deliberate and dangerous destabilizing of the U.S.A. -- it's all for good causes like world peace, democratization, improved civil rights, and, the elimination of WMDs.
"I link to the roll call votes so we don't have to clutter up the site with that database tallies." -- Robert Oak
Showing those who voted against all three FTAs requires some work. I didn't just copy and paste!
Although my list is derived from the roll calls, there's no way to go online to Thomas (Library of Congress) or any .gov site for a list of those who voted against all three FTAs. (You can't get it without examining the record, one member at a time, on each of the three votes.)
I posted the three tables, which don't take up much space, because it's the best way to show what's happening by party -- the power of the RNC to exact pro-FTA votes as the price of corporate support.
Also, I wanted to make a point with the term 'Honor Roll', to say that taking the 100% anti-FTA position won't go unappreciated. I doubt that any of MSM noted the statistic for opposition to all three FTAs or rewarded the individual representatives by publicizing their anti-FTA stands.
Even though there's been some mention that "rank-and-file" Democrats voted in opposition to Obama, the full meaning is better seen in the statistic 61% and, best yet, in the list of the representatives involved. As a rule, I would just post the link, as suggested. But I believe the recent votes are of tremendous significance.
Why is it perfectly ok for executives to be over the age of 35 yet none of their employees? Notice that? When it comes to age discrimination, they all are perfectly fine yet employees are magically "not up to snuff" the minute they turn 35.
Well researched, cited, economics related articles we do cross posting, although following the rules and correctly formatting an article is key critical.
We've had more than one get upset over this, when it should be a "copy and paste" when a few modifications. Email me if you're interested.
Here's a look at just how successfully American corporations can avoid paying taxes at the same time as they are paying their corner office dwellers record amounts:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2011/09/ceo-excess-how-to-make-more...
The playing field definitely needs to be leveled so that everyone is paying a fair share.
I think you're right, more U.S. citizens just bail on STEM because who is willing to go $40k in debt to have a career of 5 years before you're labor arbitraged? I think we have some very discriminatory policies against U.S. citizens as well. For example, taking a BSc as a U.S. BS is absurd. Often these are high school, literally, or more like trade school, at best associates degrees. Now universities are accepting MSc of 90 credit hours, an entire year less than the U.S. BS and they are accepting them as a U.S. MS degree.
Add to that the impossible to live on stipends for RA/TA and you're lucky to get your poverty/slave wage to boot so it's no surprise U.S. citizens are being discouraged to study on multiple levels.
I guess we should remind everyone how difficult these degrees are too.
We really need more Americans calling it. Anyone at a top tier school knows what's going on and it's not a good thing.
It's one thing to compete internationally, it's another to get your knees capped right at the starting gate.
Unfortunately, we have educated a lot of the people who create foreign companies and lead foreign subsidiaries where the outsourced jobs go. It probably should be much harder to get a student visa in the US than a work visa. At least people who work here are paying taxes here and interacting and enhancing the work of others in this country. It's worse when they go back with a coveted American degree and immediately have twice the legitimacy of any other foreign contractor or researcher.
I'll tell you though, the composition of STEM classes in the US has become very foreign. There has been a boom in education despite dropping interest from US citizens. The labor arbitrage has definitely cost us in three ways 1) American talent doesn't want to go into STEM, 2) American talent that goes into STEM is more stressed about employment and less focused on new ideas or technical excellence, 3) STEM workers who get employment are working longer hours and with no faith in their organization; a monumental disaster for scientific thought and out-of-the-box creativity. This is how I see it from the ground in chemistry.
God Bless Senator Bernie Sanders. He's from Vermont and I guess they are small enough to not have large corporations buying all elected officials and he is an independent, not beholden to either the GOP or the Dems. (actually a democratic socialist, similar to political parties in Norway, Sweden and Finland).
Regardless, he gets some real facts from real economists, the actual trade agreements and research groups and puts them in speeches on the Senate floor that are damning.
Even more damning, the Senate itself has no excuse. They know these facts and Sanders makes sure they know, but they do not care....they vote for these things anyway.
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