4um: The future looks very bleak

Title: The future looks very bleak
Source: Unknown News
URL Source: http://www.unknownnews.org/070326a-LeonF.html
Published: Mar 28, 2007
Author: Leon Fisher
Post Date: 2007-03-28 04:36:57 by noone222
Keywords: None
Views: 70
Comments: 1

The crash of the US economy has begun. Although the reasons for the now-accelerating economic fiasco have been in place for decades, the chickens are only now coming home to roost. The murder weapons used to kill the economy are "free trade," outsourcing, illegal immigration, special work visa programs, and unrestrained government spending, which have all contributed to the death of what was just a few decades ago the economic powerhouse of the world.

The balance of trade between most of our trading partners in this so called system of "free trade" is completely lopsided. For instance, the flood of products which are imported to the US just from China alone, in contrast to US exports to China, has created a trade deficit in the trillions of dollars. This sort of one-way trade is unsustainable, and if nothing drastic is done to address this situation, America's economy will be reduced to that of a third world country.

The first indicators of economic collapse have already manifested themselves in the housing industry, and the big three American auto makers. Teetering on bankruptcy, they will be the first of the large economic dominos to fall, and the rest will follow in short order. As a consequence, something on the scale of another Great Depression may be a possibility.

America has been scammed big-time over the years. The corporate wheelers and dealers, with the complicity of their bought and paid for political whores in Washington, have sold the American working man down the river, and the general welfare of the entire country as well.

Reacting to mounting criticism of the present economic status quo, the corporate crooks and their political hit men blame the miserable economic situation on their victims -- the greedy American worker, the communist labor unions, the demand of Americans to have clean air and water, and worst of all the bunker mentality of the American people to put up fences against free trade, protectionism. This unenviable anti business situation, they say, was instrumental in forcing harried U.S. corporations to locate elsewhere in more business friendly areas of the world.

Because these same corporations own most of the mass media in America, very little if any blame at all is placed upon the multi billion dollar corporations whose decisions, based entirely on greed, have set off these disastrous events in the first place.

Coinciding with the mounting economic problems of the nation is that of a growing threat to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness by a group of unelected conspirators who have seized control of Americas highest political office. This group of traitors, with Bush crime family member and usurper of the Office of President, George Walker Bush, has ceaselessly undermined the authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Since the installation of this cabal, a series of events have unfolded not seen since Hitler's burning of the Reichstag. The attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, followed by the anthrax threat to Congress, was carefully contrived to give the Bush Cabal the support necessary to begin military operations to secure the resources of the Mideast, and to pass the PATRIOT Act and other draconian legislation, bestowing upon this illegal regime the power to spy, arrest, and torture anyone, including American citizens, they deem as enemy combatants.

With the economy failing, and the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan continuing with no end in sight, the newly-elected Congress sits on its hands, unwilling to act. Nor are they moving to remove the 9/11 conspirators and war criminals from the White House.

This is not only a bleak scenario for the American people but for the entire world as well. Emboldened by the timidity of the new Congress, the Bush cabal is moving ahead with their plans for war with Iran, which will not be long in coming.

Although I would like to end my remarks on a positive note, at this moment I do not see anything good happening in the near future. Despite the growing disenchantment and suspicion of Bush and his policies, he and his cabal are still in firm control of the Country.

Further, it is foolish to think that after Bush leaves office, the next occupants of the White House will set things straight. This is not going to happen.

The fact of the matter is that our Government is no longer in charge of matters, but operates as a rubber stamp for those parasitic entities which have infiltrated into the core of government. In reality, policy in Washington is not determined by the wants and needs of the American people, but by the whim of the wealthy and powerful elite whose seemingly inexhaustible riches and thirst for more riches supercedes everything else. These corrupt and treasonous individuals within the halls of power will stop at nothing, including war and murder, in order to attain their diabolical ends.

We should also not delude ourselves that an economic collapse will somehow quicken the removal of the cancer which is hastening the demise of our Republic. Just as they have used the threat of terrorism to cow the people, so will they use economic failure to justify a further tightening of the screws. It is going to be a long hard struggle to rid ourselves of this evil, make no mistake about it.

Europe's latest infatuation: the idea of TAFTA, a trans-Atlantic free trade area, is getting hot.(Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Area)

From: The International Economy

| Date: September 22, 2006

| Author: Schonberg, Stefan

| More results for: transatlantic free trade area

European trade politicians keen on "shaping globalization" (alias protecting unskilled European workers against global competition) are digging out an old idea: the establishment of a Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA). In Germany, senior representatives of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are pressing Chancellor Angela Merkel to make a key topic of her forthcoming EU presidency. Politicians in other EU countries, members of the EU Parliament, and part of the financial press have been echoing the idea.

The possibility of establishing a TAFTA had been pondered intermittently in Europe in the past, above all during the heydays of free trade during the 1970s and 1980s. This time, the plan rests on defensive thinking: The mature western market economies are at risk, it is argued, of becoming outmanoeuvred by the state-directed economies of China and other Asian countries. These countries are not willing to play by the rules. Through currency manipulation, product piracy, violation of copyrights, and various forms of wage, social, and environmental dumping, they were rolling up western markets, resulting in unemployment and falling living standards. The democracies of North America and Europe could succeed only by jointly protecting the interests of their citizens against the "economic attacker states" of Asia. Transatlantic political and defense cooperation were not enough--it was also necessary to align the economic strategies. The "New Transatlantic Agenda," established in 1995, had not brought sufficient progress in this respect. The stumbling blocks were the bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic. Therefore, political guidance was needed in order to achieve a breakthrough with the aim of establishing a "transatlantic market" through 2015, for financial services and capital markets even already until 2010. An agreement would need to tackle tariff and non-tariff trade barriers and also include anti-trust policies and coordination in international trade policies without creating new supranational institutions or new legal systems.

On an abstract level, the idea of a TAFTA is not without charm: Both the United States and the European Union have entered into economic partnership agreements with the whole world, but not with each other, a somewhat strange situation given the common economic interests in many areas. Both are facing a range of similar economic problems, from the uncertain supply of energy to demographic developments. Through transatlantic market integration, a counter- balancing force could be established, large enough to stay in control of the global regulatory principles and of technical standards. Based on such considerations, German industry, and probably industry in most other EU countries, has favored a TAFTA for many years.

The problem with the European position is that a trade agreement with the United States is seen as an instrument not for more, but rather for less free trade. Together, the United States and Europe would be in a better position to protect their markets against "unfair competition" from Asia. In uncoded terms, TAFTA would be an instrument for a new form of protectionism.

The European debate over "guided trade" is burdened with questionable arguments. For instance, the 4.5 million unemployed in Germany are being directly related to the 4.5 million jobs created by German industry abroad over recent years, whereas numerous studies indicate that investment abroad has benefited the German economy.

The debate is also a reflection of the European inclination to look for the culprits for economic problems beyond its borders. In the 1960s it was Japan, in the 1970s it was Korea, whose rapidly growing exports were interpreted as an attack on the economic position of Europe. Meanwhile, Japan and Korea have proven that global trade does not resemble David Ricardo's famous 1817 comparison of Portuguese wine being exchanged for English cloth. The majority of global trade takes place among industrial countries as an exchange of goods produced in the same sectors.

In the context presented, the TAFTA proposal is largely a diversion from the insight that major groups of society in Europe do not profit from global trade, because sectoral adjustment is delayed by national governments. There are still other reasons for being cautious, for instance the question of why reaching agreement over further opening agricultural markets, one of the major stumbling blocks in the Doha trade negotiations, would be easier in a bilateral than in the multilateral context. There is also the risk that a European initiative in favor of trans-Atlantic free trade could be regarded as turning away from the multilateral WTO.

As to be expected in the light of the institutional self-interest of bureaucracies, the EU Commission has promptly rejected the TAFFA proposal. That plan would conflict with the efforts of the Commission to strengthen trade with Asia, and to remove trade barriers with Korea, India, and the Southeast Asian states. The European Union lacks the resources to pursue both projects at the same time. Finally, attempts to establish a TAFFA would be a slap into the face of developing countries.

According to a recent Goldman Sachs survey, on balance, Europe is profiting from globalization. The ascent of new markets, like those of the BRIC countries, is stabilizing the European business cycle. Germany and other Western and Northern European states have specialized in sectors subject to comparatively low competition from emerging market economies; 68 percent of industry in the old EU member states and most of their services industries were offering products complementing the Asian range of production. In Germany and the Scandinavian countries, the share of "winner branches" was even higher due to their product mix. Southern European countries, on the other hand, specialized mainly in products such as textiles and leather goods, competing with those made by the emerging market economies. A TAFFA may constitute a proper instrument for pushing forward trans-Atlantic economic integration benefiting both sides. It would be a mistake, however, to look at it mainly as an economic defense mechanism against Asia.

Stefan Schonberg is the former head of the International Relations Department of the Deutsche Bundesbank.