Do you have a bitch against free trade?
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All arguments against free trade (total unilateral free trade) will be posted in this site and debunked.
WITHOUT OBJECTION, SO ORDERED
For what purpose does the free-trade-basher from North Carolina rise?
In the following excerpts from the Senate floor on Oct. 26 ('99), Senator John Edwards expresses, in coded language, the general protectionist line of thought that textile and apparel workers are worthless scum who are incapable of doing anything other than the work they are accustomed to in the mills where they have worked all their lives.
Without saying it outright, he is effectively demanding welfare, or a handout, for these workers. It is to come in the form of protection for their "jobs," which must be subsidized by employers and consumers. The reason we must subsidize the "jobs" of these workers, according to Sen. Edwards, is that these people are too stupid to ever retrain and become anything other than textile and apparel workers. They are inferior to the rest of us, being the uneducated (and uneducatable) imbeciles they are, and so we have no choice but to let them leech off the rest of us, in one form or another.
Presumably, the simplest way to do this is to protect them in their present uncompetitive jobs. Most of us must compete in the economy and must adjust to changing times, but these particular workers lack the necessary intelligence to do this, being inferior, and thus they are incapable of competing and can only survive as parasites off the rest of us.
The occasion for this speech was trade legislation which included extension of the Caribbean Basin Initiative and the African Growth and Opportunities Act.
". . . both bills are dramatically deficient in one respect: and that is, they make it almost impossible . . . to enforce provisions against transshipment. 'Transshipment' means that a country such as China can ship goods to Africa that they otherwise could not ship directly to the United States because of quotas, have a button sewn on to a garment or piece of apparel, and then have it shipped to the United States, and otherwise circumvent existing tariffs and quota requirements."
The purpose of the tariffs and quota requirements is to subsidize uncompetitive U.S. businesses and workers, such as the textile companies and workers. All the rest of us must pay this subsidy in the form of higher prices. If China could ship those goods directly to the U.S., rather than do the circumvention, it would be even better for U.S. consumers.
Many of these consumers are poor people. The tariffs and quotas represent basically a transfer of wealth from the competitive to the uncompetitive. Which makes the U.S. economy weaker, because it protects the less productive, preserves them in the less productive uncompetitive "jobs" while penalizing the more competitive.
"The problem is, the enforcement mechanism against transshipment, in the House bill, is virtually nonexistent."
Good. Bad laws should not be enforced. Better yet, the quotas and tariffs should be eliminated, thus eliminating the need for the transshipment.
"The Senate bill, while somewhat better, still relies on African countries to develop and enforce rules against transshipment. Unfortunately, transshipment has the potential of putting an enormous number of folks out of work in North Carolina, and having a dramatic impact on the textile and apparel industry in my state."
Only the uncompetitive will be hurt. Those "folks" put out of work are not worthless scum, despite Sen. Edwards' belief, and are capable of finding another place in the economy where they will be valuable. It is best for all of us if they relocate rather than being subsidized and protected in their present uncompetitive "jobs."
"The second problem with these bills is the issue of yarn and fabric forward. Now the Senate bill provides for yarn and fabric forward, which means that African countries operating under this trade bill, if it were passed, would be required to use American yarn, American fabric, which theoretically would help protect American manufacturers in those two areas."
But only at the expense of consumers. It would be better to let the African countries obtain their yarn and fabric from the cheapest source, thus reducing the cost of production and reducing the prices to U.S. consumers. The U.S. yarn and fabric producers should have to compete. Those which cannot should go out of business. This is best for U.S. consumers.
"The problem is those provisions are not in the African trade bill on the House side, and unfortunately I think there would be enormous pressure, if this bill passes the Senate, once it gets to conference, to drop out the yarn forward, fabric forward provision."
Good. Eliminating protectionist measures is best for U.S. consumers. There is no "problem" here.
"Which means the textile and apparel industry here in the United States and in my state of North Carolina would be dramatically affected."
I.e. it would have to compete. It would have to better serve consumers.
"Now, I said when I began that I believe in free trade, and I do believe in free trade. But . . . "
The most common protectionist phrase: "I believe in free trade, BUT . . ."
". . . I think there are certain fundamental principles that every free trade agreement we enter into as a nation should comply with. First, the agreements must be negotiated and must be multilateral."
No, ideally, free trade should take place without any government negotiations. The best trade arrangement would be for the U.S. to open all its markets and invite other countries to do the same. It is not necessary to require them to reciprocate. It is in their own interest to reciprocate, but it is not in our interest to retaliate against them if they fail to reciprocate.
"The countries we're entering into these agreements with have to give something up."
No, no one should "give up" anything. Opening one's market is not "giving up" anything. Opening one's own market is good for one's country, no matter what other countries do. Senator Edwards does not believe in free trade, despite his "I believe in free trade, but . . . " claim. Anyone who really believes in free trade understands that opening up one's own market is in their country's interest and is not "giving up" anything (except the subsidizing of uncompetitive "jobs").
"All the trade laws have to be fair and enforceable."
If they are bad laws, then it is better if they are NOT enforceable.
"And, as I indicated a few minutes ago, there is at least one major area, that area being transshipment, that is not enforceable in this bill."
Not only should an anti-transshipment provision not be enforceable, but it should be done away with.
"Third, the bill must have adequate labor and environmental protection overseas. And that's common sense."
No, it makes no sense for the U.S. to impose labor or environmental requirements onto other coutries as a condition for trade. Those other countries are better qualified to set their own labor and environmental standards. They don't need us to dictate this to them.
"And finally, the trade bills must have tangible and provable benefits for both U.S. companies and U.S. workers."
If they allow more free trade they benefit all U.S. consumers. That's all that's necessary. It isn't necessary that uncompetitive U.S. companies or workers benefit.
"Those four criteria must all be present in order for a free trade bill to make sense for our country and for my state of North Carolina. Now, I'm going to talk about some of these principles and how they apply to this specific bill.
First, I just mentioned tangible beneifts for U.S. workers. Let me tell you a little bit about what's happening with textile and apparel industry jobs in this country and specifically in my state of North Carolina. We have 177,000 textile jobs in North Carolina. We have 45,000 apparel jobs. Almost a quarter of a million workers in my state of North Carolina are dependent on the textile and apparel industry to put food on the table for their families.
"Now let's look at what's happened to folks who worked in that area in North Carolina over the last several years. In the last five years, from 1993 to 1998, North Carolina lost 62,000 jobs in the area of textile and apparel manufacturing."
No, North Carolina did not "lose" these jobs. Rather, North Carolina and U.S. consumers gained more textile and apparel products at lower prices than they otherwise would have. And some individual workers lost their jobs because they were uncompetitive in those jobs. They are slowly moving into other places in the economy where they are more competitive. This is a gain for all of us.
"That's 62,000 families who had a breadwinner working in that industry who lost their jobs. And I believe studies have shown that those folks have had a terrible time finding other employment."
But they're finding other employment, or other means of subsistence. When you are terribly uncompetitive, you may have a "terrible" time finding your place in the economy. But you must do it if you are not to become a parasite. Being a parasite and leeching off others is also "terrible." For all of us, including ultimately the parasites themselves.
"The reality is that the people who work in these jobs need these jobs. They're critically important to provide them and their family with a livelihood, and oftentimes there is nowhere else for them to go."
Only if they are utterly worthless scum. And if Sen. Edwards is right and these people are utterly worthless scum who can do nothing good in life but work in an uncompetitive cotton mill, then they are inferior dumb animals, incapable of anything except to leech off the rest of us like parasites. They are pests, like mosquitos or termites. Do we provide "jobs" for mosquitos and termites? Why should we provide phony makework "jobs" for human pests any more than for insect pests?
If "oftentimes there is nowhere else for them to go" then sometimes there is somewhere else for them to go. But if we subsidize all of them in their uncompetitive "jobs," then even the ones who could adjust and find real employment will instead remain in the uncompetitive subsidized "jobs" and remain parasites off the rest of us. But if we stop subsidizing and protecting them, then the ones which are capable will change and become competitive.
So the best solution is to end the protection, let them compete, if they can. Everyone else is made better off. Those who can change and compete will do so. And the only losers are the few who really are the utterly worthless scum who cannot change.
Why should we protect and subsidize all of these workers, only in order to save a small number who are worthless scum, while the rest of them don't really need the protection but are capable of changing and competing? and along with it make all the rest of us worse off because we must pay for this protection?
No. Stop all the protection. Let them all compete and stop leeching off the rest of us. All of us as a group are better off if there is no protection and everyone is required to compete. Even though a few worthless scum will be made worse off because they can no longer leech off society.
"I want my colleagues to recognize that when we pass the kind of legislation we're talking about in these trade bills, it's not just an economic issue. This has real and human consequences, on families in my state of North Carolina."
Consumers are humans. Consumers benefit from the cheap imports. This benefit also has real human consequences and should not be sacrificed in order to protect the "jobs" of a few parasites who can't compete.
"We've lost during that same five-year period, in the textile and apparel industry, almost 300,000 jobs nationally.
No, "we" have not lost any jobs.
Which means 300,000 families in this country have lost their source of income, during that same five-year period."
And businesses fail when they are uncompetitive. But millions of consumers benefit from the competition, and experience real income increase as a result. Even those who lose out in the competition benefit from the competition of others.
"Now, what's happened during the ten-year period, from 1989 to 1999? In North Carolina we've gone from 220,000 to 177,000 textile jobs. Almost 43,000 jobs lost. 20% drop in ten years. We've gone from 83,000 to 45,000 in the apparel industry. Which means we've almost been cut in half. Half the people in North Carolina who were dependent on the apparel industry to provide income and a livelihood for their families have been put out of work -- 45%, almost half. These are families that have been devastated by the loss of these jobs."
And millions have benefitted. And even these textile and apparel workers have benefitted from cheaper cars, cheaper TVs, radios, steel, tomatoes from Mexico, and so on. Every uncompetitive worker who loses a job benefits from the cheap imports overall. The increased competition benefits us all, especially the poor.
"And the bill we're talking about today, the African-Caribbean trade bill, could very easily have exactly the same impact. Because it insures that these jobs that we're trying to hold onto in the United States are very likely to be exported to the Caribbean and to African countries."
It's good when the jobs are exported (as long as it's due to increased competition), because we all benefit as consumers. We should not want to "hold onto" the uncompetitive jobs. Let them be exported to the Caribbean, Africa, or to Asia.
"The average apparel wage in the United States is $8.00 an hour. Let's see how that compares with these other countries. In Mexico, the average wage is 85 cents an hour. In the Dominican Republic it's 69 cents an hour. El Salvador, 59 cents an hour. Guatemala 65 cents an hour. And Honduras, 43 cents an hour.
$8.00 an hour to, in all these countries, well under a dollar an hour that companies would have to pay in wages. Now, it doesn't take a mathematical wizard to figure out what's going to happen to these jobs."
Let them go. It's the shirts we need, not the jobs. The purpose of jobs is to get the work done and produce the product for market, not to provide babysitting slots for jobless North Carolinians.
"To all these folks in my state who are completely dependent on the textile and apparel industry to provide for their families, many of which have been working in this industry for many many years, and I might add on a personal note that I grew up in the textile business . . . and I have seen firsthand, having worked in mills in North Carolina when I was in high school and college, how heavily folks depend on these jobs -- they have nowhere else to go. The bottom line is: it's all they know."
Yes, they're really stupid worthless idiots, aren't they. Ask Senator Edwards -- he knows firsthand.
"And it's all well and good to talk abstractly about retraining, but when you talk about retraining somebody who doesn't have a high school education, who spent the last 30 or 40 years of their life working in a cotton mill, they have no idea what to do."
"No idea"? It's "all they know"? Of course, Sen. Edwards himself must be superior to these worthless scum he is describing. He was a textile worker, but being of superior blood he was able to rise above his inferior co-workers. Let's take his word for it -- he knows from direct contact with the inferior low-class ones that they "have no idea," like mindless cattle.
"And they have no realistic prospect of going to some other field of employment."
Of course not. They're too stupid. Unlike Sen. Edwards and the rest of us.
"These people need these jobs, . . ."
Or better yet, we need them in these jobs, to keep them out of mischief. We have to have some place to put these worthless scum. Someone has to babysit them for us. ". . . this is a human tragedy that's created oftentimes by these trade bills." For the uncompetitive parasite, yes, it feels like a tragedy. But for most consumers it is a benefit. And many who benefit are poor people. If all the cheap imports were taken away, millions of poor people would suffer a great human tragedy. And increasing the cheap imports reduces human tragedy for millions, and helps bring them out of poverty, even bringing them into the computer/information age, providing them with products which were never before available to the poor. ". . . and there is nowhere for these people to go to work, they have no comparable jobs, there is nowhere else for them to go. These figures also bear witness to the decline of a distinctively Southern way of life. And Lory Coleman said it best. She spent her life working in this mill, and all of a sudden it's gone." No, not "all of a sudden." All this is gradual. There is time to see it coming. Any uncompetitive worker can foresee the eventual day when the plant will close. They have no excuse. They can prepare for that day. People who are capable of seeing change coming and fail to adjust have no one to blame but themselves. It does not happen "all of a sudden." What happens is that protectionists like Sen. Edwards keep telling these people how worthless they are and how they cannot change and how he and the government will protect them in their uncompetitive "jobs" so they won't have to change. Thus giving them false hope and making the problem for them worse. Pretending to be a friend of the low-wage workers, he is really their worst enemy. Protectionists like Sen. Edwards are a part of the problem for the uncompetitive factory workers, not a part of the solution. "Everything she spent her life learning to do has disappeared." She should have spent some of her life learning to be more flexible, and preparing for a more competitive career. Sen. Edwards would preserve these uncompetitive workers in their low-level "jobs" and preserve their uncompetitive lifestyle and ensure an ongoing race of uncompetitive unneeded textile workers who will require an endless subsidy from consumers in the form of makework babysitting slots in these unneeded factories. "There's another fundamental problem with this bill. These bills are unilateral. They are not multilateral. . . . in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic charges a 30-35% tariff on apparel imports. Honduras charges 25%. Nicaragua charges 20%. We're lowering our tariffs in this bill. Do we have a corresponding lowering of tariffs in those countries? The answer is no. We are unilaterally lowering our tariffs and expecting nothing from the countries that are part of this trade agreement. Their tariffs remain exactly the same."
Whether other countries reciprocate or not, U.S. consumers benefit from the U.S. market being open. To retaliate only hurts U.S. consumers. In theory, retaliation can benefit only as a threat which is not actually used. If this threat can pressure the other country to lower its tariffs, then everyone benefits. But the threat is beneficial only if it is never carried out. If it works as a bluff, we benefit. But if we have to carry through on the threat, then we all lose. "Where's the fairness in this agreement?" The benefit to consumers is all the "fairness" we need. Serving consumers is the primary function of the economy. Not abstract notions about "fairness." There will never be total "fairness" to producers/workers, even within the U.S. "In Africa, the average tariff on apparel is 27%. And the same tariff is charged on textiles. This simply makes no sense. Why should we as a nation unilaterally lower our tariffs and have our companies in this country subjected to tariffs in the countries we're entering into agreements with, where they can charge any tariff they want?" Because U.S. consumers are made better off. We are better off still if the other country reciprocates. But restricting our market as a retaliation only makes us worse off. The above argument against free trade is based fundamentally on the idea that the textile workers are inferior and stupid, and that they can never earn their own way and so must be pitied and subsidized at the expense of the rest of us. And kept in their stupefied state, preserved in their uncompetitive "Southern way of life" as some kind of monument to failure and inferiority. This is the kind of logic upon which the case against free trade is based. Return to: