<div>Perhaps the most important issue for Jane and Joe six pack (oh, I mean, plumber) is jobs outsourced to cheap foreign labor that do not have labor rights (child labor, lack of safety, exploitation of the uneducated or of women, no over time pay, no reasonable minimum wage, etc.), and to nations with few or no environmental regulations that might get in the way of business profits. Consider that many of the "Made in China" goods we buy in the US are produced with cheap dirty coal electric power sourced from Chinese workers with very low safety standards in the coal mines, that directly harms the health of the Chinese via poor air quality from coal fired plants, that emit huge amounts of CO2, accelerating climate change for the whole planet. A new coal fired plant opens in China every week, and sometimes the pollution from China drifts across the Pacific to increase air pollution in California:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Article on China's pollution hitting California:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11chinacoal.html?ex=1307678400en=e9ac1f6255a24fd8ei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rss">http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11chinacoal.html?ex=1307678400en=e9ac1f6255a24fd8ei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rss</a></div>
<div>--------------------------</div>
<div>Free market globalization advocates will insist eventually open global markets will raise all boats and benefit US workers who can sell US made goods to the emerging middle class in China, India <a href="http://et.al">et.al</a>. But in the meantime, even if this is true (which is doubtful, given the shift in wealth to an elite global class controlling governmental policy, China's continuing one party dictatorship, the possibility that a widespread middle class similar to the US will not ever happen in China and India, and the continuing huge US trade deficit with China), workers in the US are not competing on a level playing field given the lack of consistency in basic protections for labor and the environment across global markets. Either other nations adopt our standards for labor and environmental protection or we weaken ours, or, we produce goods with a higher efficiency. The optimism the US would shift from a manufacturing to a service economy without a lowering of our standard of living is now being shown questionable. Other nations manufacturing gurus are also trying to be as efficient as possible, and offering services cheaply on the global digital information net (call centers in India for US corporations). We need global standards for labor and environmental protection, or the US worker is liable to see their standard of living decline. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>And even with a level playing field for international labor and environmental standards, the hard cold facts are that there is not enough cheap energy (if fossil fuel powered, and alternative energy sources may not be as cheap, convenient or abundant) and resources on the planet for just all the citizens of China and India, let alone the other 3 or 4 billion planetary citizens increasing in number every year, to live with the energy and resource consumption rates of the average US citizen. As other nations want a bigger slice of the energy/resource pie, well, the writings on the wall... The recent spike in oil prices, a major hit to the US consumers disposable income, was in part driven by increasing global consumption of oil from China and India, which in the long term is likely to happen again and with more severe impacts from even higher prices for fuel. If the optimists promising cheap abundant alternative energy are correct, these technologies can't be rolled out fast enough for both economic and environmental reasons:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Consider the hard cold facts about energy and resources regarding China's industrialization:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/index.htm">http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/index.htm</a></div>
<div>-----------------------</div>
<div>The "giant sucking sound" that Ross Perot warned of during his presidential bid in 1996 (amazing that a third party candidate got over 19 million votes!) regarding the impacts of NAFTA, is really sucking big time now, if viewed from a global perspective; and including that fact that the US is now hugely indebted to China, Japan et. al., to finance our government and economy, with some of the 700 billion US Federal "bail out" bill money for the financial system going to foreign banks:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://usliberals.about.com/od/theeconomyjobs/i/FreeTradeAgmts_2.htm">http://usliberals.about.com/od/theeconomyjobs/i/FreeTradeAgmts_2.htm</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Comments below from URL above:</div>
<div>
<p>But industrialist H. Ross Perot famously predicted a "giant sucking sound" of U.S. jobs heading to Mexico if NAFTA was approved.
<p><i>Mr. Perot was correct.</i> <a onclick="zT(this, '1/XJ')" href="http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm?id=1545">Reports the Economic Policy Institute</a>:
<p>"Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993, the rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2002 has caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 U.S. jobs. Most of those lost jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries.
<p>"The loss of these jobs is just the most visible tip of NAFTA's impact on the U.S. economy. In fact, NAFTA has also contributed to rising income inequality, suppressed real wages for production workers, weakened workers' collective bargaining powers and ability to organize unions, and reduced fringe benefits."</p>
</p></p></p></div>
<div>-------------------------</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If you want US made shoes and other stuff, try this website below. Some shoes are manufactured in the US, but most shoes sold in the US are not:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.usstuff.com/shoes.htm">http://www.usstuff.com/shoes.htm</a></div>
<div>-------------------------</div>
<div>The glory days of the 1950s and 60s when US manufacturing offered stable high paying jobs in abundance with good pensions already looks like an impossible dream in today's globalized "free trade" world.<br>
</div>
<div>Ted Moffett<br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/22/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Ellen Roskovich</b> <<a href="mailto:gussie443@hotmail.com">gussie443@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div><strong>I was cleaning out some old files when I ran across this. Back in July 2007 only one person picked up on this and replied to me. . . but today maybe it's a more timely topic. So, I'm putting it out there again. . . 15 months later. Any thoughts?</strong><br>
<strong></strong> <br><strong>Ellen A. Roskovich</strong><br><br><br><br>
<hr>
<br>From: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:gussie443@hotmail.com" target="_blank">gussie443@hotmail.com</a><br>To: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:38:59 -0700<br>Subject: [Vision2020] Made in China
<div><span class="q" id="q_11d265cb5ce37d20_1"><br><br><br>
<div>
<div><strong>Do we, this country, actually produce products anymore? I mean, can you go shopping and buy something that has a tag in it that says "made in the USA"?</strong></div>
<div><strong></strong> </div>
<div><strong>I'm not talking about walking the aisles of Wal-Mart where we've come to expect everything to say "made in China" on the shelves.</strong></div>
<div><strong></strong> </div>
<div><strong>Cute summer sandals at Macy's. . . $89.00 (wow! they weren't THAT cute) and the sales person says "they're from Europe". . . . Well, folks, let me tell you that an umlaut in the brand name does not make your sandals European because when I flipped them over. . . MADE IN CHINA. Now, I might be a tightwad, but I consider $89.00 a pretty hefty price. . . and the product better be made in some other factory, with higher paid slave labor, than the Wally World's $7.98 special. . . .</strong></div>
<div><strong></strong> </div>
<div><strong>Even familiar brands that I grew up with. . . . my Mother's Day card my daughter sent me. . . a Hallmark Card," because she cared enough to send the very best". . . isn't that what they always said? Well, now they also say "MADE IN CHINA". What happened? Did American presses break down? Did we run out of ink? What does this mean for the future. . . . DO WE CARE?</strong></div>
<div><strong></strong> </div>
<div><strong>Is it really in our best interest that we can no longer produce the shoes we put on our feet or a greeting card in a friends hand? </strong></div>
<div><strong></strong> </div>
<div><strong>I was going through a closet the other day, sorting out stuff for Goodwill. I ran across one of the kid's games. . . Chinese Checkers. . . and I was about to put it in the Goodwill pile when I noticed the box said "made in the U.S.A." and I decided on the spot. . . . that was a "keeper". </strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>Ellen A. Roskovich</strong> </div></div><br clear="all">
<hr>
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