What Happened To Our Manufacturing Jobs ?

It's important to talk ceaselessly about out national debt of $13.8 trillion, but we must not ignore our trade deficit. In 2008, our trade deficit was nearly $700 billion. In 2009, our trade deficit with China was almost $227 billion. In other words, we are purchasing a whole lot more products than we are selling. 


We are exporting a lot but we are importing a hell of a lot more. The big economic issue is that we are losing millions of good paying jobs because of our disastrous trade policy. On top of that, we are seeing a decline in wages and benefits provided by the jobs we still have. 

It's not just an economic issue. It is a moral issue as well. Take for example the story of General Electric(although they aren't the only culprits). The Federal Reserve's recent disclosure about bailouts pointed out that the taxpayers of this country, through the Fed, provided a $16 billion bailout to General Electric during the recent financial debacle. Here's the immorality of the issue : On December 6, 2002, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric told his managers this : 

   When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China. You need to be there. You need to change the way people talk about it and how they get there. I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to $5 billion. We are building a tech center in China. Every discussion today has to center on China. The cost basis is extremely attractive. You can take an 18-cubic-foot refrigerator, make it in China, land it in the United States, and land it for less than we can make an 18-cubic-foot refrigerator today ourselves. 

But guess what ? ! ? A few years back when GE had some difficult economic times, and they needed $16 billion to bail them out, I don't recall hearing about Mr. Immelt going to China, China, China, China, China. Nobody heard anything of the sort. I heard all about Mr. Immelt going to the taxpayers of the United States for his welfare check. 

So I say to Mr. Immelt and the other CEOs who have been so quick to run to China that maybe it's time to start investing in the United States of America. Way too many American corporations see the future in China, in Vietnam, in countries where people work for pennies an hour. 
  Mr. Immelt came to his China decision of December 6, 2002 in the footsteps of the former CEO of GE, Jack Welch. What Jack Welch was famously quoted as saying is this : 
   "Ideally," said the guy who was head of General Electric before Immelt, "Ideally, we would have every plant on a barge."
   What did he mean by that ? What he meant by that is this : if you are on a barge, you can move your plant to any part of the world where the labor is the cheapest. So if it gets too expensive in China, and you have to pay people 75 cents an hour, you go to Vietnam. If it gets too expensive in Vietnam, maybe you can go to North Korea and have people work under martial law. 
   But what he was saying is that his goal was to make sure that GE would create jobs in those countries where workers were paid the lowest possible wage. 
   Former GE executive vice president Frank Doyle said : "We did a lot of violence to the expectations of the American workforce. We downsized,we delayered, and we outsourced." 
   
It's worth mentioning John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco. He said we should tell young people that the future is in information technology. We want them to be smart, to learn how to use computers because they will not be going to work in factories. Then, in 2004, Chambers turned right around and said : "China will become the IT center of the world. And we can have a healthy discussion about whether that will be in 2020 or 2040. What we are trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company." He went on to say : "We believe in giving something back and truly becoming a Chinese company." 
   Meanwhile, when Cisco needs tax breaks, they get it from the taxpayers of the United States of America. Boy, are they playing us for a bunch of dumbasses. They outsource their jobs to China and we give them tax breaks. But, this is what corporate America believes is the righteous thing to do. They believe it is appropriate to throw American workers out on the street, move to low-wage countries, pay people a few cents an hour. and bring their products back to the United States. And some of the managers of these sleazy American corporations actually go to church and synagogue. 

  TOM DONOHUE, CEO OF U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Tom Donohue is the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He got a lot of publicity during the 2008 POTUS election because  the Chamber of Commerce is a funnel for a lot of money that went into campaigns around the country. They raised tens of millions of dollars, on top of a huge chunk that was undisclosed. Most of the billionaires and other rich folks gave money to the Chamber of Commerce, and they were able to elect candidates who were sympathetic to their point of view. 

Let's find out what that point of view is. Way back in 2004, Tom Donohue said this :" One job sent overseas, if it happens to be my job, is one too many. But the benefits of offshoring jobs outweighs the cost."

Members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are in favor of offshoring American jobs. They think it is a good idea. They understand that if corporations throw American workers out on the street and go to China and pay people there pennies an hour, it will make more profits. They don't care about the United States of America. They don't care about young people in America. They don't care about the future of this country. The future of the world is in China. Here's an AP story about  Donohue that appeared in the press in 2004 : 

  " ' Donohue said Wednesday that exporting high-paid tech jobs to low-cost countries such as India, China, and Russia saves companies money. ' It's no surprise that Donohue, who tripled the Chamber of Commerce's lobbying team since 1997 and aggressively promotes pro-business policies, endorses offshoring. The 3 million member organization, the Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business consortium, champions tax cuts, free trade, workers compensation reform, and more liberal trade policies with China."

If we want to understand why the middle class is collapsing, why unemployment is high, why our manufacturing base has been depleted, why it is hard to purchase a product made in the United States, it has a lot to do with our trade policies, which were pushed by people such as Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other greedy, selfish individuals. 

But it is not just a disastrous trade policy that has brought us to where we are today. The immediate cause of this crisis is what the crooks on Wall Street have done to the American people. These people fought for years to deregulate the banking industry. These people said to us : Well, if you would do away with Glass-Steagall, if you will just allow financial institutions, commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies to merge, do away with these walls which Glass-Steagall, since the Great Depression, established, my God, it will be just terrific. It will be good for the economy, good for the American people, good for our international competitiveness. 
   Hot shots appeared before the Financial Services Committee of the House of Representatives to argue for deregulation. People like Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin came before the congressional committee and said : "You have to deregulate. You have to let these guys merge. Bigger is better. " 

   What we saw is people on Wall Street operating from a business model based on fraud, based on dishonesty, understanding that the likelihood of them ever getting caught was small, that if things got very bad, they would be bailed out by the taxpayers, understanding that they are too powerful to ever be put in jail, to be indicted, understanding that in this country when you are a CEO on Wall Street, you have so much wealth and so much power and so many lawyers and so many friends in Congress, you could do pretty much anything you want and not much is going to happen to you----and they did it. Their greed and their recklessness and their illegal behavior destroyed this economy. 

   What they did to the American middle class is so horrible. Here we had a middle class that was already being battered by shameful trade agreements, loss of manufacturing jobs, health care costs, health care costs going up, college cost becoming out of reach ---that had been going on for years --- and then these Wall Street crooks started pushing worthless and complicated financial instruments and the whole thing exploded. 

And they came crying to the taxpayers of America to bail them out.