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Interdependent Bankruptcy
Open up your latest financial journal and the economic crisis pours out of every
corner of the globe. Read your favorite business newspaper and the headlines scream out that the financial markets are in
free fall. Then open your last brokerage statement and sit down, have a stiff drink.
This is the reality of the interdependent world, that the Globalists have given us
with their not so "Free Trade" system. The United States was once a self sufficient society where essential goods and products
were produced domestically. Now we are a society that imports our ever necessity from China, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and
every sweat shop that can be found to sell below real costs. Those prices seldom reflect the real costs if made in the U.S.A.
So why complain, we are saving money when we buy our Nike’s, RIGHT?
Simply put the party is over . . . The United States trade deficit is the ultimate
test of reality. It is real money! Its outflow drains national wealth. Forbes magazine reports: "Although final figures are not yet in, analysts believe the United
States imported some $425 billion more in goods and services in 2002 than it exported, which would mark a record." Goldman
Sachs, in a recent report, anticipated a larger trade deficit in 2003, saying that would trim about one-quarter of one percent
from U.S. economic growth. Now Forbes points to: "The gap in the current account, the widest measure of trade because it includes
investment income flows, has been a nagging worry for Federal Reserve officials and private economists alike. They fret that
the roughly $500 billion current account deficit is unsustainable over the long run, leaving the currency vulnerable to heavy
selling in the event of an abrupt correction in the balance."
You should already know this background and appreciate its significance. But what
may have escaped your observations is that the twin terror of a deflating domestic economy can be accompanied with the horror
of rising prices. Here is why you should be concerned. When your federal reserve notes slide in relative value against foreign
currencies, you have been told that exports will improve, and over time will help restore the imbalance. But what happens
to exports when our domestic economy no longer manufactures any meaningful consumer product for overseas consumption? The
United States now exports high tech systems, military armaments and sophisticated technology that allows foreign competitors
to lower the costs of their own production, while the short term cash inflow disguises the root causes of the trade deficit.
Couple this course with the lowering of the purchasing power on the US Dollar, and
you experience higher prices at the consumer level. Since domestic jobs are non existent to produce our own home-made supplies,
we are unable to escape this disastrous cycle. The fruits of "Free Trade" have brought us the closing of native factories.
National corporate icons still trade on the exchanges under their familiar names, while their plants employ "Third World"
labors, working on foreign soil, in mills financed by Wall Street capital.
The personal wealth of the American public has taken a severe hit with the declines
in equities. But the relative safety of bonds and fixed instruments are also under assault because the there is no immunity
from a contrived contraction of the American economy. Protection based upon the ability to work your way out of a recession
is not an option, when the indigenous economy consists of pseudo professions, superfluous services, government toadies, and
insatiable public parasites - demanding a higher calorie intake for their ‘Free Lunch’.
These conditions are not temporary, they are the result of an intended and permanent
policy to reduce the independence of America and to integrate it into an international economy - A "Cirque de Flambé" show - with entertainment provided by jesters as the audience is required to
walk among the lions to find their assigned seats. "The Clowns", out of this ersatz Fellinis film knock off, leads the choir
to the tune of that Johnny Cash's hit, "I fell into a burning ring of fire". We have listened to the barker and have been
lead into a sideshow. Our economy is walking the high wire and the net that is supposed to save us is rotten - being a foreign
import.
Our trade deficits are integral to trading away our future. Four steps proposed
by the Economic Policy Institute that could reverse this trend are:
First, the U.S. should enter into no new trade agreements, including China's
proposed entry into the WTO, unless and until those agreements are revised to include enforceable labor rights and environmental
standards as core elements. This will require, at a minimum, agreements to achieve internationally agreed upon standards,
international performance reviews, and enforcement of these standards through trade sanctions.
Second, measures must be taken to reduce chronic U.S. trade deficits with certain
key countries, and in a few critical industries such as motor vehicles and commercial aircraft. These include China, Japan,
the NAFTA countries, and Europe. The reasons for these deficits differ in each case. Part of Europe's problem is simply slow
growth. The Chinese situation is more complex, involving exchange rate manipulation and systematic discrimination against
U.S. imports, as well as advanced industrial policies that pilfer critical jobs and technologies from U.S. firms doing business
there.
Third, the U.S. must reduce steadily reduce the value of the U.S. dollar, in
coordination with other major advanced industrial nations. Similar steps were taken between 1985 and 1987 period, the last
major period of dollar-overvaluation and exploding trade deficits. The over-valued dollar is having a particularly damaging
impact on U.S. agriculture (Scott 1999b).
Finally, we must develop new incentives to interest developing countries in
joining the developed world in raising labor and environmental standards. Developing countries also need an alternative to
the model of export-led growth that has become the core of the commonly accepted Washington consensus growth package. That
model has become exhausted because too many countries are competing for access to the only open market in the world, and the
U.S. can no longer afford to be the market of last resort.
We can see merit in points one, two and four; but reject that lowing the purchasing
power of our own currency will bring back prosperity to America. The systemic problem is the interdependent NWO Global economy.
The traditional method to preserve and protect our domestic industries and work force is to reestablish tariffs. Our country can no longer sip the hemlock of international elites and survive as an
independent nation. Money, Trade and Commerce - THE LIFE BLOOD OF SOCIETY - needs to be genuine. Our money must be a
true store of value, our trade must become FAIR and our commerce must be conducted with mutual benefits to all concerns. Today
the global economy is in chapter 11 on its way to liquidation. The prospect of domestic depression accompanied with rising
prices would be a new experience. If the U.S. stops buying, the rest of the world won’t be able to sell their goods.
At that point the interdependent cabal will get their wish. A world held hostage to the whims of the central banks, the political
hacks and the Trilateral International “Mattoids” . . .
SARTRE - January 29, 2003
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