Since the Us Dept of Labor won't tell us, how many jobs left America due to "Free Trade"-guess?

[Union Yes]

Job loss experts can't even accurately estimate.

The job loss number is that high.

Well, it's time to open our eyes and start talking about that number.

We need to stop waiting for so-called 'experts' to tell us how to think.

Scorn them. Be a thorn.

Talk about that number. Estimate it.

Scorn government of the megacorporation, by the MC, for the MC by talking about that number.

Talk about what our Serfmasters don't want us talkin about.

WTF am I talkin about?

I've said it before and I'll say it again..

NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT/WTO ARE THE FUCKING ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE AND THE AMERICAN LABORER.

My best guestimation..

40 million jobs have left America due to outsourcing/"Free" trade.

Serfmasters scorned.

I feel better now, kinda.

Your best guess?

[HillbillyBob]

1. Too goddam many jobs have gone....

......

[Union Yes]

4. Right on. It's difficult to estimate. The job loss numbers due to FT are that f'n high. nt

[Juche]

2. 0 net jobs in the past 10 years

The normal rate is 20-40% growth in net jobs per decade.

So I'm assuming (unless my math is missing something, which it could be since I don't know how net jobs relates to population growth) that with roughly 150 million jobs, a net growth of 20% would mean 30 million new jobs.

Of course not all of that is due to free trade. But if history is any guide the 1999-2009 period should've created 30-60 million net jobs. It created 0.

[Union Yes]

9. Not only has FT caused massive outsourcing, it's stifled job creation through recession..

and the hurting, unemployed middle class/working class and poor.

Growing poverty is an economic and job killer.

FT is a vicious cycle.

[Juche]

19. FT victimizes other countries too

Its a shitty cycle. I posted an article a week back about workers in Mexico experiencing the same problems we have in the US (mass layoffs, people having to face losing their jobs and friends of over a decade, etc). When jobs in the US are done cheaper in Mexico (because labor and environmental standards are worse) they move to Mexico. But when China became even cheaper they moved to China. Now that Vietnam is becoming cheaper than China, they are moving there.

It is truly a race to the bottom, and tons of people (as well as the environment all over the world) are getting hurt.

We need to mandate strong labor & environmental protections in our trade agreement, and we need to change the tax code to encourage domestic job growth. We also need an international labor movement.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. For a short time those jobs were replaced with retail & real estate

jobs. Now every month hundreds of thousands of those jobs continue to evaporate.

[avaistheone1]

5. I believe it could be 40 million.

When will Washington wake up we can't keep free-trading America out of jobs?

[Union Yes]

8. I'm hoping for progressive gains in the upcoming primaries. Beyond that it seems..

that nothing will wake up these DLC corporate owned puppets.

Their letting America die in front of their eyes.

F'n sad.

[juajen]

6. I can never remember exactly Ross Perot's famous quote, you

know, the one about the giant sucking sound being the sound of jobs leaving this country. I did vote for him because I felt the loss of jobs would be enormous. I also did not want normalized relations with China. Gee, what was I thinking?

[truedelphi]

7. I guess that you wanted jobs in this country and

You didn't want melamine in your pet food!

[Vinca]

10. 40 million wouldn't surprise me.

Within 10 miles of where I'm sitting there used to be a handbag factory, a shoe manufacturer, a book printer (of major bestsellers)and a paper products company. Those were the big employers in the area and used to offer jobs to people right out of high school that would provide an income sufficient to raise a family, buy a home, etc. Smaller businesses have gone overseas as well. Most recently a small company that made cosmetic product cases. 300 people lost their jobs. You can't have a vibrant economy based on jobs flipping burgers and greeting customers at Walmart.

[Union Yes]

11. So f'n sad and that's what's happening all across America..

I live in the midwest and the whole region has been ravaged by outsourcing. Same can be said for the whole nation.

The Dems just sit on their hands and watch it happen. Of course, at the behest of the corporate wing of the Dem party. The DLC.

It's f'n disgusting.

Peace

[juno jones]

18. I grew up in Freeport

:hi:

The factories began moving out as soon as Reagan got into office. I've been moving with the jobs ever since. I haven't been back but my sisters tell me it's pretty much a ghost town now.

I witnessed another wave in the 90's when I lived in Spfld, IL, as Clinton's free trade treaties pulled more business out while his welfare reforms screwed over the displaced workers in it's wake.

I sit now on the edge of the continent knowing full well there is nowhere left to go...

[pampango]

12. Tariffs don't create prosperity. Check the Depression and FDR's oppositon to Smoot/Hawley tariffs.

Europe protects its jobs and the countries there have more "free trade" than the US does.

Trade doesn't kill jobs and skew income distribution, the lack of progressive policies does. It is the massive cutting of taxes of the well-to-do, the shredding of the safety net, the lack of effective regulation of markets and the financial industry and the absence of effective national health care that have caused our economic problems and job losses.

If Germany can maintain a healthy manufacturing and exporting base (China just passed it as the largest exporter in the world and China has 15 times the population of Germany), so can we. Germany does it with a well-paid workforce and more open trade than the US. The reason for their success is that their society is typical of the EU and has all the progressive policies that the US lacks.

[anonymous171]

15. The EU allows for free movement of Labor.

NAFTA and all other "free trade" agreements that America is involved in do not. Opening the borders is the only way to "fix" these shitty agreements. Otherwise, it has tariffs and protectionism.

[Elwood P Dowd]

16. Smoot-Hawley had almost no effect on The Great Depression

International trade was only 4% of GDP when it was passed. That dropped eventually to 2%, but then ALL trade was declining, both foreign and domestic, because people didn't have any fucking money.

These so called "Free Trade" deals are really not "Free Trade" at all because most of our trading partners work under a totally different set of rules. Back when I was shipping product to Europe and Asia, they would often apply a 20% or higher VAT to it. We have no VAT on imports. That's just one of a multitude of trade issues we have that adversely effect our current account. NAFTA, GATT, CAFTA, etc. are not "Free Trade".

[pampango]

17. Certainly no positive effect which is why FDR realized that S/H was a hindrance to recovery.

He got around S/H by negotiating trade deals country by country in order to reduce tariffs. He believed that more international trade was better for peace and prosperity than the tariffs wars of the Depression era which is why he was behind the creation of GATT (the predecessor of the WTO).

I agree that GATT/WTO does not result in "free trade". FDR (and Truman) did believe that a multilateral organization to regulate international trade was better than the "free-for-all" that existed before and during the Depression. (They also believed that multilateralism was a better way to deal with international politics and pushed for the creation of the United Nations.)

Neither the UN nor the WTO always work the way they are "supposed to" because they depend on politicians to step up and defend their country's interests using the agreed upon rules. Bush did almost nothing to hold China accountable for its mercantilist trade policy. Obama has taken some steps to hold China accountable to actually following the trading rules that they, and everyone else, agreed to.

We could withdraw from the UN, the WTO, a new climate change treaty (if we ever get one), NAFTA, CAFTA, and a thousand other international organizations and go back to the "free-for-all" days. (The repubs would probably like that since it sounds like the "cowboy diplomacy" that Bush was so fond of). The return of the "free-for-all" days would probably be good for us (even though FDR might turn over in his grave). We're a "big kid on the block" (not the only "big kid" any more, but one of them) and could probably get our way in bilateral negotiations with most other countries.

Maybe this is an area of potential bipartisanship between republicans and some progressives. The former hate the UN believing that we sacrifice our "sovereignty" by belonging to it and abiding by its rules. The latter hate the WTO believing that we sacrifice our economic sovereignty by belonging to it and abiding by its rules. The repubs may not want to withdraw from the WTO and some progressives might not want to withdraw from the UN, but hey, in the spirit of bipartisanship perhaps we can agree to withdraw from every international organization we belong to and get our "sovereignty" back. (Sorry, Franklin, but new times demand new solutions!) ;)

[flamin lib]

13. One company in Fort Worth exported 6000 jobs to China.

That company was Motorola. With those 6000 Motorola management, engineering, manufacturing and R&D jobs went all the technical sales jobs to provided engineering support, all the hotel and hospitality jobs that surrounded the Motorola campus, all the support jobs that serviced that hospitality sector and all the jobs that touched Motorola employees like the real estate profession.

The real estate values in the area fell 20% overnight as those thousands of people were forced to move to find new jobs or lost their homes to foreclosure.

That's just ONE company.

[azul]

14. The problem is international and complex

and will take a lot of popular education and involvement to turn this run-away financial freight train onto some kind of sustainable track. (And I don't think sustainable war is a viable option.)

First, real people have to decide if they want money (the whole financial system) to be working for their benefit and welfare, or do they want to work for the sake of money itself (financial institutions). But how to even decide such in an intelligent manner when there is no money or time for education because we are too busy being afraid of and fighting each other? Like 1984?

Labor, most of the world's population's jobs, are at a disadvantage to capital in free trade international law as they are currently written for capital/corporate benefit. Money and corporations can move across international borders much more easily than people. Corporations can pick and choose their labor force among the various nations, but labor must come begging with concessions for jobs to businesses because the people are more stationary.

We the living people have the right and responsibility to rein-in these international Frankenstein-monsters that we have misguidedly created if they are doing real people or the planet harm.