Tapsearch Com EditorWas free trade worth the ride
June 29th 2011 18:51
Bizarre Politics Reports:
Free trade came, Globalization came. Was the trip worth playing a global monopoly game and who said we had to compete like this with each other for the same job?
Is free trade a trap - has it caught you in the fields of broken dreams
Was the free trade ride worth it? Compare things with the past.
I grew up in a family food store. If a house went up for sale, it made news. If a wife had to get a job, it made news. If someone lost a job, it made news. Now neighbors homes are foreclosed and little is said about it. Today both spouses have to work and we have latch key children raising themselves.
A working poor class has replaced the middle class and things keep going down all around us. They tell us we new ways to make a living but no matter what is innovative venture arises if the production phase goes outside the country, we are in the same boat. Every time a factory is moved to some far off place, a burn out community is left behind. Was free trade worth the ride?
COMPARE.....
In the food ad above from our family store, we sold all steaks for 25 cent per pound. You could buy 3 lbs of ground meat for 25 cents. A pork roast was just 15 cents per pound.
Going on to 1955, family still spent only about $10 a week for groceries. New automobiles were under $2,000. Cigarettes were less than 20 cents a pack. A first class postage stamp was 7 cents. Baby sitters and other jobs paid 50 cents per hour. Today if a single mother makes just a $100 a month, she is considered employed. Back then it would be laughable to count a person making only a $10 per month as employed. Back then, mothers who had a baby could stay in a hospital for a week. As an advertising art apprentice, I made $35 per week. It was not easy to pay all the bills even back then when every thing was about 10 times less. Today many have to raise a family on the equivalent of that amount at about $350 per week.
I worked in several factories while going to college and made the equivalent of $15 to $20 per hour. I made much much more when I accepted overtime and worked a 12 hour shift. I worked a 14 hour shift a few times and came home a " a rich man." More and more American workers are suing their employers for working too many hours without pay. At the same time more and more workers have to find baby sitters in order to work all these hours.
Gas only cost 25 cents a gallon. You did not need much money to go out on a date.
In the early 1970s, prices were still cheap related to the jobs available. Many made $10,000 a year or more. You could buy a decent home for $25,000 and a new car for less than $4,000. A first class stamp was only a penny more at 8 cents each.
In any comparison, you have to mulitply these numbers by at least five. This means there should be plenty of $50,000 jobs around but they do not exist.
If the factory jobs, I had while going to college were still available, there would be literally thousands standing in line to get them including college grads.
Compare what we had to what we have now and the first question should be this ... Who said we had to compete like this for the same jobs in a global economic gladiator existence? Who put the money changers in control?
We now see our economies based on making money on money instead of making things buring out. President Obama and President Bush bailed out big money by putting tariffs on future generations. How is this going to play out?
Was the free trade ride worth it? Compare things with the past.
Compare our times with the past. Were 1939, 1955 or 1970 bad years or what
I grew up in a family food store. If a house went up for sale, it made news. If a wife had to get a job, it made news. If someone lost a job, it made news. Now neighbors homes are foreclosed and little is said about it. Today both spouses have to work and we have latch key children raising themselves.
A working poor class has replaced the middle class and things keep going down all around us. They tell us we new ways to make a living but no matter what is innovative venture arises if the production phase goes outside the country, we are in the same boat. Every time a factory is moved to some far off place, a burn out community is left behind. Was free trade worth the ride?
COMPARE.....
In the food ad above from our family store, we sold all steaks for 25 cent per pound. You could buy 3 lbs of ground meat for 25 cents. A pork roast was just 15 cents per pound.
Going on to 1955, family still spent only about $10 a week for groceries. New automobiles were under $2,000. Cigarettes were less than 20 cents a pack. A first class postage stamp was 7 cents. Baby sitters and other jobs paid 50 cents per hour. Today if a single mother makes just a $100 a month, she is considered employed. Back then it would be laughable to count a person making only a $10 per month as employed. Back then, mothers who had a baby could stay in a hospital for a week. As an advertising art apprentice, I made $35 per week. It was not easy to pay all the bills even back then when every thing was about 10 times less. Today many have to raise a family on the equivalent of that amount at about $350 per week.
I worked in several factories while going to college and made the equivalent of $15 to $20 per hour. I made much much more when I accepted overtime and worked a 12 hour shift. I worked a 14 hour shift a few times and came home a " a rich man." More and more American workers are suing their employers for working too many hours without pay. At the same time more and more workers have to find baby sitters in order to work all these hours.
Gas only cost 25 cents a gallon. You did not need much money to go out on a date.
In the early 1970s, prices were still cheap related to the jobs available. Many made $10,000 a year or more. You could buy a decent home for $25,000 and a new car for less than $4,000. A first class stamp was only a penny more at 8 cents each.
In any comparison, you have to mulitply these numbers by at least five. This means there should be plenty of $50,000 jobs around but they do not exist.
If the factory jobs, I had while going to college were still available, there would be literally thousands standing in line to get them including college grads.
Compare what we had to what we have now and the first question should be this ... Who said we had to compete like this for the same jobs in a global economic gladiator existence? Who put the money changers in control?
We now see our economies based on making money on money instead of making things buring out. President Obama and President Bush bailed out big money by putting tariffs on future generations. How is this going to play out?
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Comment by peterxdunn
CognizantNation
They might call it the 'free market' but that doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny. It has always been rigged. 'Crony Capitalism' is, I think, a title that more accurately fits the bill.
The recent bank bail-outs (quantitative easing) were really mega welfare payments made to the mega rich. None of this money was lent out: to get the economy moving again, as intended by the government. It has, instead, been used to provide cheap loans to market speculators. This has led to a level of stock market activity that gives the economy the 'appearance': with higher share prices, that it is in much better shape than is actually the case. In fact, many commentators are openly saying that the 'recovery' never actually happened.
To add insult to injury - a lot of the money lent/given by the taxpayers to the banks has been used to buy up food stocks: and food futures, this practice is pushing up food prices all over the world. So we bail them out and - by way of saying thank you - they try to starve us.
Comment by Tapsearch Com Editor
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Thanks for your excellent comment.
* We suggest all should visit your blog too - it has a wealth of knowlege. Click on Pete's site above.
Our economies based on making money on money instead of making things are indeed burning out. Free trade has failed and Pres Obama ignores this main cause behind our economic crisis. Instead, he calls for the new world order and shows his hand as international organizations rule on things that control the flow of food outside of any democratic process.
He bailed out big money and the funny money games but not much will come of it as we wait for the next economic bubble to burst and only God knows what Pres Obama meant by calling for the new world order.