Debate - FREE TRADE/Unions - who is the best candidate & why??

[LynneSin]

Ok, since it seems we have a decent size group of us P&C junkies who were interested in discussing the issues and their presidential candidate stance on that issue. I figure we'll give it about a week or so and then some other P&C member can pick the topic and moderate the discussion.

The main thing is to keep the discussion in a positive manner. It's ok to discuss how one candidate varies from another, but do not badmouth, gripe, complain, denounce any of the democratic candidate.

It's ok to post stuff like "I think Candidate X has had a poor record in issue-of-the-day because he tends to vote with Bush on these issues" HOWEVER, none of this "I think Candidate X is a Bush-Loving Dino who will suck the brains out of all Americas if elected because he/she doesn't go along with the democrats on the issue"

I think that's pretty easy to do. Facts and Footnotes are greatly appreciated!

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Debate: As you know, in the past 2-3 decade, American Industrial jobs have been heading overseas where products can be made at a cheaper prices. Many Union members, mainly those in industrial unions, feel that NAFTA, GATT and the China trade agreements are especially hurting our country and jobs. Many say the loss of these jobs hurt Americans who only have a high school degree since these Unions hire a larger percentage of people without college degrees and with the rising cost of college we may find more people on the market looking for these types of jobs. Please discuss how your choice for president can keep America competitive with foreign markets and best bring industrial jobs back to our country.

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[BrewCrew]

1. i say gep

Thank you so much for posting this. I really appreciate it. This is an issue that’s in my heart. I know a lot of folks who have lost their factory jobs because of what I believe are unwise trade practices by our government. First, I apologize for not adhering to your “No Bashing” clause, but I must bash somebody specifically for a moment. And that bash is directed at our President, George W. Bush. You see the problem with W is that when he has a daily briefing where some Cabinet secretary says to him’ “we’ve lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs this month” or “unemployment is 6%”, he doesn’t see the faces behind those statistics. When the debate about CAFTA or FTAA comes before him, he’ll just hear the voices of corporations that line campaign’s pockets whispering about how it will benefit them, but he won’t hear the voices of the workers and families of those auto/steel/mine plants that will suffer because their job was been transported to some place where corporations can exploit labor. It’s inhumane and it must stop. It’s sad, but true. Bush doesn’t know folks who have had to picket for better wages or retirement benefits. He was born with all those things. Executive privilege I guess?

For almost 20 years now, corporations have been trading in $15 an hour jobs in the industrial heartland for $15 a week jobs in China or Mexico. I’m here to tell you that those old industrial towns have really become quite unhappy places. Not only have the factories been shutting down, but nothing is being done to revitalize the communities hurt. Most of these workers have no education past high school and not subsequently trained to do anything else. So when the factory shuts down they are just plain screwed.

OK. Enough of my rant. So who do I believe is the best candidate to reverse this trend? Well I got to go with what the records and history say and for me I believe that man is Dick Gephardt. I remember reading a news story during the NAFTA debate talking about how Dick Gephardt worked himself sick trying to kill NAFTA. Besides that, he has also led the way against unfair trade proposals like Foreign Steel dumping, China PNTR, Fast Track 1997, Fast Track 2002, and most recently the Singapore and Chilean Trade agreements. Time and time again Congressman Gephardt has been there for the workers of this country. I know under a Gephardt presidency trade agreements that send our jobs to the lowest bidder will cease.

Moreover, the guy is also advocating an International Minimum Wage. The living conditions that most these workers in China and Mexico live through is downright sickening. We need to do something to protect them also. Plus, corporations will be hesitant to fly the coup if they have to pay their workers in China and Mexico livable wages.

I think we have some good candidates on Free Trade in this field. I won’t take the time to talk about each, but will mention my personal Top 2 besides Gephardt. For example, Kucinich has been a real champion of unions throughout his career, I can say with utmost confidence that under a Kucinich administration agreements like CAFTA or FTAA would be vetoed in a moments notice unless they include protections for American workers. Edwards doesn’t seem to get the praise like Kucinich or Dick on trade, but he did vote against steel dumping, Fast Track, and the Singapore and Chilean Trade agreements. The loss of textile jobs in North Carolina has really hurt that state. He made a mistake with PNTR, but because of his roots and background I’m sure we’ll make a great pro-worker President also. These 3 they, unlike our President, do see the faces of those who have been hurt by our “green-light” trade policies. Our fight has been their fight for a long time. I’m thankful for each.

[genius]

2. Dennis and his Worker's White House are on top when it comes to labor

Dennis is also the only candidate to commit to cancelling NAFTA and withdrawing from the WTO.

[diamondsoul]

3. Normally I'd say a toss-up between Gep and Kucinich.

Unfortunately Gep's recent voting record tells me that even his strong support of workers rights isn't enough to make him tend to his elected duty, and that's a shame. That's not an unfounded bash, it's purely an acknowledgement of what his current voting record shows. That's a bad detraction from Gep in my eyes.

Kucnich has the strength of his voting record as well as his clear and repetitive statements about trade agreements and workers rights behind him. When comparing the two, I have to say I thik Kucinich has the stronger position on the issue, purely because he's been there for all the votes.

One other thing- The Kucinich campaign has a policy about using Union labor as much as humanly possible for campaign supplies. I don't know if Gep follows that or not. Anyone else know one way or the other?

[JeniB]

6. Gephardt's campaign uses nothing but union-made.

For anything else anyone might want to say about him, no one can refute his union support.

[gottaB]

4. Gep and Dennis are right about labor, however

I'm not sure they're best on promoting international trade or economic growth as a whole.

I support Moseley Braun, btw, who has said that her vote on NAFTA was wrong, so score one for Gep. Kerry is on my list of potential candidates, and he too has expressed some regrets about NAFTA and support for "fair trade" but you no doubt heard what he said about WTO and international trade at the Sheet Metal Workers' forum in Philly. I don't entirely agree with his positions, but he does have a point about the need for trade and the importance of having opportunities in this country to create wealth.

I'm a little worried that Dennis' vision of economic rebuilding is too focused on traditional industries, steel, auto manufacturing, etc. For instance, I would think he were a lot more visionary if his proposals for high-speed rail were explicitly promoting maglev, because I don't like the idea of subsidizing traditional steel and rail companies with projects that accomplish some public good, but not enough, imo. Well, you have to make compromises in politics, so I wouldn't say that only maglev should be funded with federal support--that would be silly--but if the goal is long-term economic growth and competitiveness in the global marketplace, then we need to look at new technologies, education, and expanding trade.

Likewise with Gep, his ideas on energy are for the most part inspiring, but doubts creep in. You know the critiques of the "hydrogen economy" (here's just one). As much as I want GM and Ford and the like to prosper, I'd almost rather imprison the ceos and nationalize the darned things rather than forking over any more boondoggle. As for the foreign competitors, well, as long as Toyota and Honda respect the right to organize and respect OSHA and other regulations (and that has been iffy in the past) it doesn't bother me that they're successful because they are innovative, and they provide jobs for Americans. So on the auto industry, I say we like sick John Edwards on them and get some accountability in the boardroom, and a genuine competitive environment. Executive malfeasance and health care costs I believe are as damaging to these industries as any foreign competition--but by all means I do favor fair trade and not competing with prison labor and child labor and the like, and on that Gep has been unwavering.

So basically I trust Gephardt and Kucinich on labor, but for economic growth, I lean towards Braun, Edwards and Kerry. Graham and Lieberman don't appeal to me, and Dean and Sharpton I'm just unsure of.

[Mairead]

5. I think it depends on what we're talking about when we say 'intl trade'

What are we selling vs buying? What SHOULD we be selling vs buying?

Right now, we seem not to be selling much more than food, software, weapons, and some medical technology, and I'm not completely sure about that. Oh, and services...in some sectors.

We never sold automobiles (okay, a few). We used to sell airplanes, but that seems to be declining. We sell grain, but import veggies and animal flesh. We've about depopulated the sea (truly frightening!) and I'm not sure we ever sold much of the catch anyway. We used to sell (perhaps still do, for some species) lumber, especially to Japan. We sell software--Windows and most apps are still all-American.

So what do we want to sell?

Dennis wants to make a complete array of manufacturing capability --from raw material on up to finished product-- a strategic national-security priority. Rather than (e.g.) rebuild our bridges and create high-speed rail using imported steel and other raw materials, he wants it to be home-made.

If he does that, could we sell (e.g.) steel? Perhaps. We're still pretty good at engineering technology, so it's possible that we could do something--e.g., JIT, improved quality, boutique steels--that would make us competitive. (I use steel as both an example and a metaphor for other raw materiel here.)

If we can't compete on that level, perhaps we can start to compete again on finished goods, specifically innovative technology products. US corporations basically gave Taiwan the computer hardware industry by setting up shops over there to manufacture hardware for house-branding in the US. The Chinese learned how to do it, and now they own the business. So it's pretty clear that we'll face the same problem with most other commodity technologies -- we can make and sell the first round and maybe the second, but then the Asians will take over the business and commodify it. So our best bet will be to innovate -- sell innovative, quality products, not commodity.

But before we can go there, we have to rebuild our capacity to build. And that's where Dennis's WPA program comes in: bring the entire US infrastructure up to the mark. We can sink a lot of person-years doing that and, instead of putting the money into the military or prison industries, put it into the research and goods industries. I believe (I hope I'm not confused) Dennis would mount that effort at a 'national mobilisation' level, a bit like JFK and the space race but even more like FDR and the massive, all-in WW2 mobilisation.

The real problem, though, will be that our national socioeconomic structure is dependent on a vast army of poorly paid, poorly educated serfs keeping a few in unimaginable luxury. Those few elites will resist converting to a world in which everyone is needed to design and build the future. That's not how they keep their perqs, pelf, and power. I don't know whether Dennis has a plan to deal with that.

[Mairead]

7. Oh, and I forgot to mention unions

Dennis believes Taft/Hartley goes too far and wants trimming back. That's a stance I think anyone who has done any labor-dispute-watching would have to agree with...unless they're a member of corporate management! When we can watch working people being forced to choose between work and prison, there's something deeply, deeply wrong.

He also believes that hiring scabs should be illegal, that unions should be certified even if they only represent a minority of employees, and that majority-union certification should be automatic--get 51% of the employees to sign up and --poof! instant union, no waiting.

[Nicholas_J]

8. From an American style Pro Union Stance

It would be Kucinich...

But like EVERYTHING in America, even union, union activity, and unionization in general is 50 years behing the Europeans...

Looking at Trade policy, Nafta, and the WTO, in general, you cant trade, unless you have people to trade with. If the U.S. simply produced what it needed for itself, and had no outside nations to trade with, the standarrd of living of the average American worker would fall lower than the standard of living of people in Indonesia.

So trade agreements are not the problem. Having a president who abides by ALL of the terms of these agreements, and is active in demanding that other signatories abide in the agreemetns they have made is mandatory.

First, the establishment of international minimum living wages, high and equitable environmental standards that are enforced on all nations, safe and healthy working environments, outlawing of all child labor and severe penalties to those who are found to break these rules, especially those who harm, mutilate, or enslave workers, and child workers.

Merely raising the wages of minimum wage workers to a living wage is a solution fraught with massive economic problems. To raise the wages of a bagger at a supermarket from the current minimum wage to a living wage of say 11 dollars an hour will eventually create a massive problem. One must make than worker more productive, educate and retrain these workers in newer and competative technologies that increase the value of what they produce and the services they offer. AN 11 dollar bagger will eventually end up with an eleven dollar salary that is no longer a living wage. train the bagger to build or repair equipemt that does the bagging. This is how the U.S. economy becomes competative, and its workers invaluable. Keeping at the cutting edge is what America used to do best. It is why for years, the work of its workers simply could not be exported to cheaper countries.

We need to look at the European models in which the department of labor isnt the muscle used by business in order to strongarm workers.

Workers and Unions are powerful in Europe, and Departments of labor are mediaries between workers and management. It is essnetial to move law in this direction.

The absolute stupidity of "FISCAL CONSERVATISM". Democrats go wrong when they state that the time for big governmnet and big government programs is over is one of the biggest myths spread by the rich.

Europeans have big government, they hjave big givernment programs, they have big government benefits.

And if you use euqla scales to measure the productivity of Europe and America, Europe is kncking the crap out of the U.S.

Far higher standards of living, far less poverty, far smaller gap between the wealthiest Europeans and the poorest. Even those in poverty have better standards of living than Americans in poverty. THey have health care, their unemploymewnt benfits do not expire, the are also given housing and food subisdies on top of their government unemployment ot welfare.

When you use a yardstick in which you include the public sector in with the private sector ad include ALL of the products and services that are performed or created in both areas, the Europeans are far more productive than we are.

The U.S. tries to forget, that money spent by the government is still money that is placed into the economy and works there to create growth.

Merely balancing a government budget has nothing to do with productivity and growth.

It reminds me of the New Testament story in which a man gives his servants a gold coin and tells them to keep it safe. Three of the men go out and invenst it, or do something that makes their master mpre money. One burys it and hides it and when it is time to return the money safely,getas a severe tongue lashing form his master for his lack of the proper use of the coin.

Evne while the government was running a deficit, on program changed the entire way we live, and has provided the technological resources yjsy have made out lives totally unrecognizable from the lives our parents lived. That was the space program. You cannot turn around and look at something in your apartment, or look out your window without seeing dozens, hundres, or even thousands of everyday items that reached the private sector through government pure research. Business is still creating new products out of the last leftovers from the Apollo Program. Virtually all medical technology as we know it today came out of the human factors team of Apollo. New textiles. Lightweight composite materials, stronger. longer lasting materials for automobile tires, bodies and engines. Fiber optics. Laser Discs, CD's, DVD's. extreme miniaturization of electronic components. Plasm screen television. For every dollar spent in pure research in this ENORMOUS government program, thousands were made in profits pumpend into the economy and into expanding the middle class.

And who kills this goose that laid the golden egg. Ronald Reagan who beleived that pure reseach was a waste and the government should only fund practical projects. Reagan and the Fiscally Conservative Reagan Democrats who kept this senile old idiot in office.

There is one word that all true democrats should rund screaming from as fast as possible, and that is conservative, attached to ANYTHING.

The Europeans ALL have BIG government. Somehow, they manage to pay their workers higher living wages, support large government social safety nets, and provide a great deal of government services to working citizens of all economic levels.

In general event Europeans living in poverty live in poverty at a greater comfort level than Americans who live in poverty.

This move towards fiscal rewsponsibility and fiscal conservatism that the Republicans have brainwashed the average American into and they myth that all of Europe is teetering on the brink of economic collapse must be exposed. THe latest travesty of an enormous blackout in which it is clear to everyone that we are a supposed superpower with a third world energy grid.

It is time for government to own business, not for business to own government, and the only way to do this is through the DLC's economic platform. The creation od a progresive tax system, based on income, the elimiation of consumption, property, adn excise taxes, as well as protectionist tariffs wich ultimately do not help anyone. FOr example, a tariff onm imported automobiles may help american auto workers, in Detroit, but this then hurts all other working Americans who must pay more for cars. So then politicians and workers in North Carolina textile mills demand protectionist tariffs that make clothing more expensive, costing the Detroit auto worker more.

The real solution is for the government to keep encouraging busnesses to work at creating new technologies on the cutting edge, and keep its workers trained at that cutting edge. For the better part of a century, the U.S. ALWAYS was at that cutting edge, and the jobs of American Workers could not be exported.

The American worker too must co-operate in this venture, and be willing to move into training and jobs on that cutting edge.

But the answer to all of the questions in the subject area of this thread lies iin a totally new vision of the world and its economics. John Nash's vision of co-operative socially responsible capitalism, not competative, grab for the brass ring 18th century laissez faire capitalism.


This economic vision lies at the heart of the DLC's platform, nad has only been held back by those members of the party who cling to the ideas of smaller government, smaller government budgets, program cuts, and shinking tax revenues.

Again look at Europe, who cleans up in the cellular phone market, two of the most social democratic, so called welfare state nations. Finland with Nokia, Sweden with Ericsson. High pay, high tax, enormous government Scandanavia. It is like this in virtually ALL comparisons between the U.S. and European economies. The ultimate irony is that Europeans are keeping the U.S. government and economy alive by financing our enormous deficit.

Europe not as productive as the U.S. I wish. The Europeans with what we describe as economies on the brink of failure seem to be thriving, stay thriving, and pay to buffer us from the effects ot OUR screwed up economy.

It is time for Democrats to leave all ideas about conservatism where they belong. In the past.

It certainly is long past the time to be proud of being Democrats.

It is time to become extremely proud of being TAX AND SPEND, BIG GOVERNMENT DEMOCRATS. And start living the good life that the European middle class seems to have been living for the thirty years because of it.

[DrFunkenstein]

9. I Love When You Post Positive

I'm in complete agreement.

(Although I would qualify the "tax and spend" to make sure the right programs were fully funded, and the wrong ones (corp welfare, for instance) were fully eliminated.)

[Nicholas_J]

12. When you compare

The total gross domestic product, and then compare the percentage that the government portion of GPD is compared to that of every other European nation, you realize that all of the BS about BIG government in the U.S. is just comservative B.S. The fact is that the rich are a greedy bunnh of son of a bitches who cannot bear to see one cent anywhere that is not in their control and at their personal disposal.

I personally preferred the bolshevik solution for dealing with such creatures, but these are daintier times.

One of the primary ways we could get rid of environmental polution is not to make laws prohibiting poluting rivers and the air and such, becasue even major pollutors when they get caught, get fined some petty sum. One of the largest river pollution fines ever given was a whopping 2500 dollars.

What you do is check the amount of pollution present in a companies outflow, adn then TAX them for the right to pollute, and give no deductions for any equipemt that pollutes. You just tax them at a rate that makes it unprofitable to pollute. You want to see how fast the come up with methods that allow them to do business in an environmentally sound fashion. It is impossible to police polluters, and fines are rarely punitive enough to make them stop dong it, so you check the outflow, and tax them per unit of outflow, and make the tax so high that by the tax makes them come up with methods that are pollution free. Businesses HATE taxes and will do just about anything to avoud paying them.

[molly]

10. Nick - I think you are correct - as an example

"Even while the government was running a deficit, on program changed the entire way we live, and has provided the technological resources yjsy have made out lives totally unrecognizable from the lives our parents lived. That was the space program."

IMS DB/DC was developed jointly by Rockwell and IBM - actually Rockewell started it for the first moon program. This was the Mainframe technology that was used to put men on the moon - the first real online programming/database tool (my expertise when I had a job). It started it all - look at us now merely 30 odd years later.

We sleep on a Tempur-pedic mattress - developed for the space program. I am no longer in extreme pain when I get up in the
morning.

John Nash's vision - what a "Beautiful Mind".

[srpantalonas]

11. Rise Up: Our Fight for Fair Trade in Pennsylvania

My name is Charlie Crystle and I am running for US Senate in PA.

http://www.charliecrystle.com

Pennsylvania has been eviscerated by Free Trade; for us there's been nothing free about it. We've lost 30% of our manufacturing jobs in the past 10 years (not to mention the previous losses caused by Reagan's madness), while at the same time have gained 49,000 WalMart jobs (in PA alone!). Those are replacement jobs, jobs that pay crap and offer crappy benefits if any. Clinton's "Bridge to the 21st Century" leads nowhere for about 90% of the population. (Keep in mind, the Y2K bug forced EVERY organization at the end of the 90's to rip and replace every computer system, router, etc in the world, producing a temporary, one-time spike in spending, which the markets interpreted as the tech boom but was really a false economy). We have large numbers of people underemployed and off the unemployment rolls, many of whom have no health care coverage. Many now work two or three jobs just to keep their homes. The forces that put them in this situation are far beyond any individual's control, unless, of course, you're the president or the US trade rep (a former Enron beneficiary).

I am not pro- or anti-DLC. But I'm anti- "stupid insensitivity". The DLC answer to "personal economic downturn" is training. My question is on what? For what? What new and wonderful industry is coming to Westmoreland County, Erie, or York? I have heard a number of "centrist" Democrats say that manufacturing is dead, get on with your lives and get some training. Again, for what industry? Tech?

Further, I've met with dozens of small and mid-sized manufacturers and union workers who don't believe manufacturing has to be dead, but they are getting killed by stupid trade policy, lax enforcement of trade agreements, and the failure of the US government to care about anyone but the multi-nationals. We are at a rare time in history when both labor and business (except huge corps) see the same problem--"Free Trade" is killing American business, or all but the top 5% of manufacturing corporations. We used to be a country of makers. I saw the argument that good ol' American ingenuity and elbow grease would get us back on top again. But if we continue to allow companies like Boeing, GM, GE, Intel, and Flextronics to ship not just jobs, but the ideas and innovations that created those jobs (that create entire new markets), we have no chance in competing. As soon as we create an edge, they sell it down the river just like they sold us down the river. Today I spoke with a venture capitalist who invested in my first company, whose software has now been outsourced to India (I left in 1999). He said all of his software investments outsource programming to other countries now as a matter of survival. This is no longer a blue collar problem (though I would argue that a blue collar problem is a problem for everyone). "Free Trade" is uninformed by any principle other than chasing the cheapest price. It's unsustainable and just plain wrong.

Agri-business, automakers, multi-national manufacturers, big energy companies, and huge insurance companies already have a seat at the table. They've bought and paid for their power and they are reaping the benefits of the race to the bottom, chasing the cheapest price regardless of what it does to our communities. Regular people need a seat at the table. Small and mid-sized businesses need a seat at the table. And the US needs to carry a big stick and enforce its trade agreements. We are on course to reach a $130 billion trade deficit with China alone this year, equal to our ENTIRE trade deficit 6 years ago. That's real money and real jobs: it represents about a third of the auto industry. China fixed their currency to the US dollar after they cut its value in half so market fluctuations would not affect their illegal advantage; since then they've dumped products on the US market and have done an end run around trade laws by assembling in Mexico to get the Made in Mexico label to slip more stuff through the holes of NAFTA. At the same time they have no labor or environmental standards, and commit human rights abuses regularly and publicly. This is not a level playing field.

China is not the only problem, only the most obvious. We need backbone, we need to stand up to Free Trade for the sake of our communities, our futures. Free Trade benefits the few at the cost of the many. It is unjust not only for Americans, but for those without power worldwide. We must carrry a big stick--impose tarriffs against countries that do not play fair fall in line. We must also scrap our existing trade agreements and write new ones that protect the interests of the many--middle America, the poor, US labor, the environment, and small and mid-sized businesses. We need to etablish a princples-based trade policy that respects Human Rights. We must make this next election a referendum on the politics of powerful corporate interests, and bring a new politics informed by common sense and a deep desire for economic and social justice.

My picks for Fair Trade v Free Trade? Kucinich and Gep, but Dean will get it soon. I don't think he gets it quite yet, but he will.

http://www.charliecrystle.com (Trade posting at bottom of blog)

[Nicholas_J]

13. That happens everywhere

Politicians bring in BIG businesses in order to "CREATE JOBS" they all too frequently destroy smaller local businesses in the process, people who were once running their own businesses and making a fair living, end up working for these NEW businesses at minimum wage.

And the SMALL business keeps the money IN the local community. Thet do not move the money spent and made in the state OUTSIDE, to the state of the corporate headquarters or into the hands of shareholders in other states. Local businesses keep the economy in local control.

One must look at the NET effects of creating jobs by bringing in Wal-Marts and Toyrs R' US and large corporate agricultural businesses at the expense of small farms. You might raise your bond rating, but you destroy the local economy at the same time. Raising a city or sate bond rating does little or nothing for the little guy. This is using old fashioned, big business strategy. Talking about running government like a big business. Well we all know how and who big businesses are run for. The rich and powerful. The average citizen still lives like a pawn in the hands of the powerful. The idea that all politics is local extends to govnment. THe effects on the LOCAL community, on individuals should be first and foremost whenever government makes decision like this. If they are not, one can be sure that the government is on the make and on the take for a little corporate cash, whether in campaign suoport, or more tangibly and more secretively.

[JI7]

14. i would say gep and kucinich

gephardt and kucinich. i live in california and there are union guys who love gephardt. a few years ago i saw pro gephardt things around some union place, and i was wondering why in california they have anything on gephardt, especially since he wasn't running for any national office at the time. but i learned of his closeness with unions later and can understand why he is getting those endorsements and much respect from them.