The Obama campaign just released a campaign commercial talking about how Mitt Romney, while working at Bain Capital, oversaw the outsourcing of Americans jobs to China and Mexico. The ad calls Romney a "corporate raider" for his role at Bain.
The media has picked up the Obama campaign's attack on Romney, amplifying its message. The overall narrative being created by the Obama campaign is clear: Romney has through his business practices supported outsourcing in the past, and is likely to in the future -- unlike President Obama.
Unfortunately, the story is not that simple. "We should not oppose offshoring or outsourcing," said one high-ranking presidential economic adviser at a conference of companies interesting in outsourcing last summer. The adviser then went on to compare opponents of outsourcing to "luddites who took axes to machinery early in England's industrial revolution."
Those quotes do not come from a Romney adviser. They come from Larry Summers, who was President Obama's director of the White House National Economic Council. And Summers -- who gave the speech after he left the White House -- is not a lone voice among Obama officials.
Obama once promised to re-negotiate the outsourcing-friendly North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he criticized on the campaign trail. Here's a copy of a mailer that Obama used during the 2008 election to talk about his opposition to NAFTA:
Shortly after taking office, Obama announced that he would not be doing this. His administration then went on to push for trade deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea that are predicted to cost the loss of over 200,000 American jobs.
Despite strong opposition from a majority of House Democrats, these deals were passed into law and are currently in the process of being implemented.
So, as the record stands, President Obama, too, is also supportive of outsourcing. But Obama did not pass these trade deals alone. He had strong backing from many Senate Democrats and from most of the Republican party. This support materialized despite the fact that there is strong public opposition to "free trade" policies that privilege investor rights and do not protect worker and environmental rights.
Powerful lobbies continue to push for a regulatory and trade structure that promotes outsourcing. As we covered earlier this year, one group alone, the Automotive Free International Trade Political Action Committee, spent $696,000 on campaign contributions during the debate over the South Korean trade agreement. Of the 148 candidates it supported, only three went on to oppose the deal.
Meanwhile, most major American corporations, their trade associations, and their lobbyists backed these trade agreements. The Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, Dow Chemical, General Electric, Citigroup, and others signed on in support, and there was no organized lobbying force fighting the agreements except a segment of the labor union movement and human rights and environmental groups (who are outmatched in resources and lobbying firepower by those big corporate interests).
But the pro-outsourcing lobbyists are not through hollowing out America's manufacturing base. The Huffington Post reported earlier this month that the Obama administration is secretly working with lobbyists to pass a new trade agreement that could have devastating effects on labor and environmental rights, and open up a whole new avenue for outsourcing. This agreement could be stopped or altered to promote fair trade, but it depends in part on whether the media is prepared to accurately report on the issue.
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Robert Creamer: Romney's Bad Week
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
H1Bs are allowed to work in the USA when according to the law, they are filling a need which can't be fullfilled by any Americas.
So, as a computer consultant, I have witnessed hundreds of thousands of Indians being allowed to displace hundreds of thousands of Americans as computer programmers; at a fraction of the hourly rate / charge, which Americans would normally be paid.
Again, the politicians are selling the American Middle Class out, (that is you and me), in order to placate their campaign contributors: big business, who want to have this discounted high tech work force available to them.
So, every year Obama, and each of his predecessors, have increased the annual quota of H1Bs being allowed to displace us from these lucrative high tech positions.
Money is Americas' Achilles Heel.
I guess that won't be happening anytime soon.
And lets not forget Obama's support for work visas like H-1B. While Microsoft laid off American workers during Obama's first year in office, Microsoft was STILL importing foreign labor INTO the US. Obama has only stated that he supports work visas.
western society has put people on a treadmill where the chase for money is the be-all and end-all.. the reason we choose occupations, the reason we educate the kids, the reason we breathe.. shrug... until we as a race of beings sharing a planet decide that life can be better for each one of us nothing will change....
The lessons are there. We need to start new political parties dedicated to ENDING free trade and adopt reasonable trade protectionism. If we wait then we will either slide down further or over-react with mistakes like Smoot Hawley.
What is needed is a clear vision, and understanding of reality... no political solution exists.
I was there when Microsoft laid off American engineers and was still and is still importing Indians and Chinese on H-1B! How can you have a labor shortage and high unemployment? How can you have a labor shortage (yes, Democrats claim there is a labor shortage I kid you not) and have layoffs at Microsoft?
If you are paying attention...there is no way you can really beleive that Obama isn't anti-American worker. I mean, lets get real. Just look at his record on H-1B work visas or amnesty for illegals. Obama has done everything he can to crush US workers.
The proof is in rising poverty, falling wages, and rising infant mortality under Obama.
His policies are perfectly legal, and he realized the profits that were his only standard. Can it be good for our country that its work is subject to such an assault? If we restored a top tax bracket of 90%, companies with profits in the 90% bracket might do better to reinvest in their business since they would recover $90 along with every $10 of expenses. This worked in the years after WWII when we were the most productive nation in the world.
Which solution is closer to the real problem? Who started NAFTA? Who started normalized trade with communist China? If you know who actually signed those into law then you will know why Democrats will never talk about ending them. We lost 50,000 factories in the 10 years after NAFTA was signed. Was that because of tax policy?!
What is the question? Balancing the budget? Discretionary spending for 2012 is about $1,265,700, 000 -- that includes every cabinet post and all of the employees of every department -- while the deficit is $1, 033,701, 000. If we cut spending to balance the budget, but add on to Defense as Republicans propose, the rest of the government excepting mandatory spending (Social Security, Medicare, Federal Unemployment Insurance, and interest on the national debt) vanishes totally unfunded and there is still a deficit. I wouldn't miss this Supreme Court.
"Who started NAFTA?"
It was negotiated by the George H.W. Bush administration and is just another odious policy begun by Republicans but continued by a Democratic administration. This is how its main features include open banking, and the suppression of unions and environmental laws.
"We lost 50,000 factories in the 10 years after NAFTA was signed. Was that because of tax policy?!"
Yes. That is why we had a boom under Clinton and a perpetual jobs recession under Bush II with just a brief prosperity associated with the 2004 election.
Thank you for asking.
--Bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
YouTube - 1. A prophetic interview with Sir James Goldsmith in 1994 Pt1
http://desip.igc.org/gatt01.html
Goldsmith
on GATT: Part 1
"THE NEW UTOPIA: GATT AND GLOBAL FREE TRADE
by SIR JAMES GOLDSMITH
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
SENATE COMMERCE GATT IMPLEMENTATION
October 5, 1994
Global free trade has become a sacred principle of modern economic theory, a sort of generally accepted moral dogma. That is why it is so difficult to persuade politician s and economists to reassess its effects on a world economy which is changing radically.
The ultimate objective of global free trade is to create a worldwide market in products, services, capital and labour. Its instrument to achieve this is GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
I believe that GATT and the theories on which it is based are flawed. If it is implemented, it will impoverish and destabilize the industrialized world while at the same time cruelly ravaging the third world..."
Other Western countries, such as Germany, took steps to protect their labor markets from global labor arbitrage.
But the U.S. decided its workers should live by the Iron Law of Wages:
"The doctrine or theory that wages tend toward a level sufficient only to maintain a subsistence standard of living. "
I just added it to my reading list.
U.S. history classes don't include trade, labor movement, FDR's Executive Orider 9066, and other things that were wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls
YouTube - Giant Sucking Sound - Ross Perot 1992 Presidential Debate.flv
Perot said U.S. and Mexican wages would equalize, only after the U.S. economy was destroyed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhwhMXOxHTg
NAFTA: Ross Perot and Al Gore Debate 1993 - YouTube
In 2011, the Obama administration selected Jeff "I'm a nut on China" Immelt, GE's CEO, a high priest of the offshoring cult, to be the jobs czar.
Workers have few friends in D.C.
Workers need to accept that the current corporate-controlled two-party duopoly is not on their side.
o Reagan
o Clinton
o Bush I
o Bush II
o Obama