The free trade act

Please read The Root Cause of Recession before reading this. See below.
In breaking down the root cause of recession we ended up at the free trade act. To review very briefly we start with the loss of a job, cause: company profits are down, cause: less customers, cause: high gas prices, cause: high oil prices, cause: demand is going up, cause: developing countries are growing very rapidly, cause: the free trade act. What is the because behind the free trade act? As large corporations reach maturity their growth slows. They've bought up all the smaller competition. All that's left is large companies competing for market share. Without growth you don't attract investment in your stocks. The natural next step is to create a larger economy to grow in. The free trade act creates a global market place. How many stores did McDonald's open in China and Russia? Let's just put it this way, the business growth there is very big. There's a big difference from how the USA developed from small start ups and new products. This time the large developed companies are walking in and taking over way to fast. McDonald's is no start up company. Not very much chance of starting a new burger joint and growing the franchise. These other countries were poor dictatorships, Communist etc... so how do we sell things to the poor where the leaders will not let us in anyway. We had to start by letting them sell things here. It started with toys, small household items. Electronics were quickly gobbled up. Do you remember when we had toys made in America? It seems like they never existed. We gave away the electronics industry. Do you remember computers manufactured right here? American made TVs. and radios Not any more. Lesser know is clock companies. Sligh clocks were made here until just a few years ago. They were true craftsmanship with beautifully engraved brass clock plates. Real wood cabinets crafted with pride. They were the last clocks made in America. Lionel trains, hand built, finely crafted, highly collected, built right here in America. They folded to foreign competition and closed their manufacturing a few years back. Now they import components and do a little assembly here. What's left but the auto industry. Hang on to your hats because their on the edge of bankruptcy. Of course you can always buy a foreign car so who cares. 10 million people who will loose their income and health care, that's who. It's to bad no one could stand up for the smaller manufactures as they were driven out by low cost (cheap) foreign goods. Well the foreign strength has grown to threaten the largest manufacturing in America, auto companies. Of course Washington is saying it's just a matter of time. They'll be loaning (25 million bail out) money to companies they've been working so many years at giving away to other countries. Do they have the immoral guts to wipe out 10 million Americans with one swoop of excuses. You know they want to. They've been leading up to this for a long time. One statement said that letting the autos go under would wipe out the middle class. Yes that old story of all that's left is the wealthy and the poor. I wonder if that would piss anybody off? So why would you want the auto companies gone? Well it's the number cruncher dream world. Simple middle man philosophy. Let someone else do the work, own the facilities and you just sell the products for more. It's so close now they can taste it. You might wonder how they will be able to sell things if most of the people are poor. I wonder that myself. My mother always said " Don't say good luck because that implies you need it" For my 50 years of life I haven't said it but I'm thinking it now. The largest companies, biggest pools of cash wanted global growth. Washington created the free trade act. The free trade act is the enabler for global corporate growth. This act came with a huge cost to American manufacturing jobs. The jobs that can't be moved out are left. Health, service, environmental, law, financial and what ever else you can think of. No manufacturing left after autos.

Put People First

For anyone following this blog I'll get back to the root cause next. I had to post this comment to a news article on the auto bail out.

This is a loan to keep the auto industry from going bankrupt. It's not giving them money free. Drop the political games. You either give the loans or America, possibly the world suffers another depression period. Put it into perspective - for comparison lets say you have a job, but your employer can't pay you for 4 months. You knew this was coming and worked hard to cut costs. You need a loan to hold you over or you loose your house. There's only one bank that can give you the loan. The bank tells you you screwed up by not saving enough money and having to big a house. OK, they'll give you a loan but you have to promise to move into a mobile home by the end of next year and stay in the mobile home for life. That's crazy!! Just give you the small loan, which you'll pay back with interest. You tell the bank you've been cutting back and have been looking at a smaller home. You weren't given enough time to sell everything, pack and move. So, do you promise to live in a mobile home the rest of your life because it will be the law or loose everything, go broke and move into a tent. Don't forget, you have a family. Now I have to ask, just drop all the opinions and save the world from collapse. The kids will thank you for not making them live in a tent and beg for food. If you're rich just ignore this note. Oh, I forgot, the people making the rules are rich. They don't need to worry about you and your family living in a tent. Come on people. More and more people I know are loosing their incomes every day. People I know are considering stocking up on canned food for when everyone is broke. People need jobs and that's what the auto industry above any other has millions of. Just stick to the point, get the job done and move on otherwise look for my family in the tent next to yours. It's sad that people 60 to 80 years old, retired are loosing their health care and income. Does anyone hear their cry. They already buy fast food when it's on sale and freeze it for later so they can buy medicine for their heart. I'm sure there will be whine responses and excuses to my comment but remember. This is about people, families, kids, Seniors, not money. If you put money above people the outcome is on you. Crime is already up. A family was caught while trying do their grocery shopping by robbery. Rich or not rich, protected or not. Take away a families food and homes, they will come. My wife and brother have already lost their job. My other brother, nephew and brother-in-law have their hours/income cut to the bone. My wife's grandmother's GM retirement and health care has been slashed. If it hasn't effected you yet, don't worry, it will unless the corporate and political groups don't start worrying about people more than money or the wants of special interests which are just another pot of money that will dry up also. What happened to the business owner that refused to lay off people even though he/she was loosing money. Right to the bitter end the owner paid his people and held them and their families as his own family. in the end he was loved by all those people and a joke to most other business owners still hanging in there by cutting jobs, benefits and pay. I propose a movement to put people above money. give them confidants that they're jobs are safe to the bitter end. People will shop, businesses will have customers, everyone will make money and no one will have to move their family in a tent. If you even care enough to have read this far thank you. Please put people first and I wish for the best for all of you.

The Root Cause of Recession

Why is there recession? What made it happen? We heard on the news that people went into debt to deep. Bought big houses because the banks made it easy. That's not it. Why would people just stop paying? Interest went up and flexible rates made the payments to high. That's not it. Yea you can say all kinds of things that are happening but what's the root cause? Interest rates go up if inflation goes up. Inflation goes up because oil goes up. But is that the root cause? If oil goes up gas goes up. Oil makes all kinds of products. Gas gets us to work. Every ones costs go way up. Interest goes up with the inflation so mortgage goes up. People buy less so companies make less and their costs are way up. They lay off people so lost jobs lead to less buying, more foreclosure but is that the root cause? No it's not. Why did oil/gas go up? It's said to be supply and demand. China, India and all kinds of countries are booming. Their oil demand goes way up. Global oil demand is up so price has to go up. Is that the root cause? No it's not. Why are China and India and all these other countries doing well? It's called the Free Trade Act, put in place by US. Both Democrats and Republicans supported it. That Free Trade Act allowed other countries to sell their goods here with no tariff. For them they get an unfair competitive advantage to take a chunk of the great American market. We buy the products for less, they get our money and jobs. We've watched one business after another go out over the past years until they now say "What do Americans produce? It's easy, The American dollar" We still need the hands on service industry. You can't put up a house here if you're in China. That Free Trade Act caused growth in other countries and shrink in America. We all did OK until the demand for gas/oil shot up fast. The price shot up and the whole world slowed down causing the oil and gas to go down. Now we're all trying to recover. The root cause is The Free Trade Act. It's easy to fix but President Bush is pushing for more. Now it's with Columbia. More unfair competition for America. Why you ask would we have a Free Trade Act. We'll save that for the next Post. Come back soon.

http://barackobamanownext.blogspot.com

Please read on but when you're done here http://barackobamanownext.blogspot.com is where I'm tracking briefly the daily progress and events of the government / Obama. Will he or can he fill his promise of change?