Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
In the first quarter of 2015, in the sixth year of the historic Obama recovery, the U.S. economy grew by two-tenths of 1 percent.
And that probably sugarcoats it.
For trade deficits subtract from the growth of GDP, and the U.S. trade deficit that just came in was a monster.
As the AP’s Martin Crutsinger writes, “The U.S. trade deficit in March swelled to the highest level in more than six years, propelled by a flood of imports that may have sapped the U.S. economy of any growth in the first quarter.”
The March deficit was $51.2 billion, largest of any month since 2008. In goods alone, the trade deficit hit $64 billion.
As Crutsinger writes, a surge in imports to $239 billion in March, “reflected greater shipments of foreign-made industrial machinery, autos, mobile phones, clothing and furniture.”
What does this flood of imports of things we once made here mean for a city like, say, Baltimore? Writes columnist Allan Brownfeld:
“Baltimore was once a city where tens of thousands of blue collar employees earned a good living in industries building cars, airplanes and making steel. … In 1970, about a third of the labor force in Baltimore was employed in manufacturing. By 2000, only 7 percent of city residents had manufacturing jobs.”
Put down blue-collar Baltimore alongside Motor City, Detroit, as another fatality of free-trade fanaticism.
For as imports substitute for U.S. production and kill U.S. jobs, trade deficits reduce a nation’s GDP. And since Bill Clinton took office, the U.S. trade deficits have totaled $11.2 trillion.
An astronomical figure.
It translates not only into millions of manufacturing jobs lost and tens of thousands of factories closed, but also millions of manufacturing jobs that were never created, and tens of thousands of factories that did not open here, but did open in Mexico, China and other Asian countries.
In importing all those trillions in foreign-made goods, we exported the future of America’s young. Our political and corporate elites sold out working- and middle-class America — to enrich the monied class.
And they sure succeeded.
Yet, remarkably, Republicans who wail over Obama’s budget deficits ignore the more ruinous trade deficits that leech away the industrial base upon which America’s self-reliance and military might have always depended.
Last month, the U.S. trade deficit with the People’s Republic of China reached $31.2 billion, the largest in history between two nations.
Over 25 years, China has amassed $4 trillion in trade surpluses at our expense. And where are the Republicans?
Talking tough about building new fleets of planes and ships and carriers to defend Asia from the rising threat of China, which those same Republicans did more than anyone else to create.
Now this GOP Congress is preparing to vote for “fast track” and surrender its right to amend any Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that Obama brings home.
But consider that TPP. While the propaganda is all about a deal to cover 40 percent of world trade, what are we really talking about?
First, TPP will cover 37 percent of world trade. But 80 percent of that is trade between the U.S. and nations with which we already have trade deals. As for the last 20 percent, our new partners will be New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Japan.
Query: Who benefits more if we get access to Vietnam’s market, which is 1 percent of ours, while Hanoi gets access to a U.S. market that is 100 times the size of theirs?
The core of the TPP is the deal with Japan.
But do decades of Japanese trade surpluses at our expense, achieved through the manipulation of Japan’s currency and hidden restrictions on U.S. imports, justify a Congressional surrender to Barack Obama of all rights to amend any Japan deal he produces?
Columnist Robert Samuelson writes that a TPP failure “could produce a historic watershed. … rejection could mean the end of an era. … So, when opponents criticize the Trans-Pacific Partnership, they need to answer a simple question: Compared to what?”
Valid points, and a fair question.
And yes, an era is ending, a post-Cold War era where the United States threw open her markets to nations all over the world, as they sheltered their own. The end of an era where America volunteered to defend nations and fight wars having nothing to do with her own vital interests or national security.
The bankruptcy of a U.S. trade and foreign policy, which has led to the transparent decline of the United States and the astonishing rise of China, is apparent now virtually everywhere.
And America is not immune to the rising tide of nationalism.
Though, like the alcoholic who does not realize his condition until he is lying face down in the gutter, it may be a while before we get out of the empire business and start looking out again, as our fathers did, for the American republic first. But that day is coming.
Even allowing for interest, people get back far more from SS than they put in. And medicare? Yikes!
SS was not intended as a retirement fund – it was intended as insurance. It is not a guaranteed in legislation, by the way.
Star – I love hard working people. Love them.
But unlike you, by and large, I find there just are not very many of them.
I have hired literally thousands of people. To find one hard worker, I hire five or more people.
There are very few hard workers anymore. Nyou say there are folks that just want to do a good day’s work for a good day’s pay. Yes, there are. But they are the vast minority.
You have blinders on. The sense of entitlement has pervaded the masses. They want a middle class lifestyle but do jot want to work hard for it. They have come to think a middle class lifestyle means a middle class effort – they do nt understand that it requires a mighty effort to maintain, and that what they consider a middle class lifestyle is actually living like a king compared to the rest of the world.
To keep a middle class lifestyle would have meant consistent, mighty effort, and good govt policy. That did not happen.
I value hard work more than anyone I know. All work is sacred and to be respected. But hard workers are a dying breed.
IS is totally right. Star is obviously math challenged.
BTW – thanks IS and EC and anyone I missed for setting the record straight re my position on work and those who do it.
No problem. I will be glad to correct you. So, the people who worked hard and played by the rules, paying into SS for 45 years didn’t live up to their didn’t live up to their end of the bargain? I take back the part about your occasional brilliance. Maybe SS needs tweaking. But those aren’t grifters by any sane definition
starfucker, watch this video and ask yourself WHY they cannot guarantee the purchasing power of the “benefits of any size” going forward. Ask yourself if he could or would even need to make this statement if we had sound currency.
Our fiat currency system, thin air + printing press, is the only reason the “middle class” has ever existed. It was unsustainable from the very beginning and just a tool to transfer wealth, power and control to our owners. Keep the sheep fat, dumb and happy and it’s less likely that they will resist or notice the trap closing.
Star – there is no bargain re SS. It is an insurance and no where is it called a retirement fund. And no where is there a promise that $1 in means a lot more than that out.
People believe that, but it is not law nor is it possible that it can continue forever.
Llpoh, there is an enormous mass of people in south florida exactly as you describe them. They live in endless, trackless, shithole suburbs, and more recently, in astonishingly accurate replicas of jim’s mantua square. They share several universal traits, foremost, they are unemployable. And what enrages me, they aren’t from here. I don’t care what their status is legally, but they weren’t brought here to work. They were brought to Grift.
I have no contact with these people. I don’t think about those people. I know the deal. They are the FSA, brought here because our underclass doesn’t reproduce fast enough to keep walmart shareholders happy. You like them. You care about what they think, and what they want. We are very different in that way.
Star – I guess you have not read my many thoughts on the FSA.
I am not talking about them at all here. I am saying that I do not see all those hard working folks to which you refer. And I have looked through the deck long and hard.
For fuck sake dude, I’m not claiming SS recipients hatched a plan to become grifters. There was no “bargain” or grand plan they “agreed” to. We are forced to “contribute” against our will. We would have been better off if we simply placed our money in a simple savings account and earned interest over 45 years.
Say a SS contributor pays in $20,000 over 45 years. With a monthly benefit of $1000 they will have received every penny they “contributed” in just 20 months. I think I read somewhere that most recipients exhaust their actual contributions in five years. Where does the rest come from? If you set up a private business administering the SS plan as the got does it you would arrested for running a ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff ring a bell?
Every penny paid to a SS recipient beyond their own contributions is stolen from someone else still in the workforce or printed from thin air which burdens future generations in the form of national debt. What part of this is a fucking mystery?
Once a person receives every penny of their own contributions they are no different than Free Shit Army members (except for intent) and when they vote for and support causes that increase their benefits they ARE grifters (by intent at this point) living off of the largesse of others.
If you were allowed to make your contributions to a savings account earning interest over 45 years, once the money was gone…….that’s it. Too bad, so sad. Just because govt runs a fucking ponzi scheme or printing press doesn’t make it right.
The very fact that SS exists makes people lazy and prevents from contributing to their own retirement (another artificial, unsustainable anomaly of the printing press) and instead think they’ll have SS to fall back on. It’s true…….they will have it………right up until they don’t.
Ida M. Fuller
January 31, 1940 Ida M. Fuller became the first person to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484. Her first check, dated January 31, was for $22.54. She retired in 1939 and received monthly checks until 1975.
YOU paid for her retirement benefits after her very first check starfucker! Don’t you think you might be better off if she had paid for her own and you for yours? There were millions of people like Ida Fuller that paid in almost nothing yet received hundreds, even thousands of times more than their contributions. How the fuck is that fair? Conversely, there will be many millions who paid in for 40+ years who will get nothing. Perhaps they will be your kids or grandkids. (I don’t know your age) How fucking fair will that be? Your elected leaders are pushing for increasing the age of SS eligibility. Do you think you’ll get to vote on that or that your congress critter will give a shit or even ask your opinion or the opinions of those affected? You think they do this because the system is flush with cash or insolvent/unsustainable?
Like I said, you are missing some fundamental understanding of the REALITY of our situation. This shit cannot be fixed. This shit WILL NOT be fixed. Some people believe our situation is the cumulative effect of uniformed, stupid decisions. I’m not one of them. Our owners have a deliberate plan and are willing to implement that plan in an incremental manner over hundreds of years. Despite the fucked upness of the situation, it benefits our owners…..the central bankers……and it will continue until it longer benefits them or it collapses. You have got to a be a progressive libtard to not see this shit. Liberalism is a mental disorder and I think you’ve got a particularly troublesome case.
We are doomed . You are doomed. The world is doomed. Good thing is God is in providential control of this mess.
starfucker,
Sensetti just posted this elsewhere:
Social Security Unfunded Liability $15,109,147,085,903.48
Medicare Unfunded Liability $79,023,567,265,061.27
Prescription Drug Unfunded Liability $19,943,404,004,350.64
National Healthcare Unfunded Liability $9,201,699,743,219.48
Those numbers are in TRILLIONS. That’s over $123 TRILLION dollars. Know that that means to me? A whole lotta people gonna be gettin’ a whole lotta NOTHIN’ going forward. Know what and unfunded liability is? A promise……….nothing more. Why don’t you ask the injuns or current veterans laying in VA hospitals or politicians promising to uphold and defend the Constitution about promises. Our hard debt is $18 TRILLION plus and none of this speaks to any other US budget items like defense, education, infrastructure or anything else.
Derivatives on bad debt exceed one QUADRILLION dollars!
How do you fix any of this shit? Please………..I really want to know.
Llpoh, I read you loud and clear. Nobody ever worked hard, except you. Nobody ever deserved what they got, except you. I’ll file that away so you don’t have to keep reminding me. Got it. IS, don’t know what to say. So many problems that could use your focus and energy, and you want to start with SS retirees? I’ll just say OK you win so I don’t have to ever think about it again. You win. It’s the SS retirees. Kill them, sunny days ahead
IS, please try to stop subject hopping. I thought we were talking about SS. 15 trillion in unfunded SS liability and that worries you? That number spans how many decades? You do realize that’s less than our annual GDP. And we can reduce that number significantly by cutting loose the disability grifters and foreigners who never paid in. That concerns yoy? Not me,Iin the least
Star must be Billy’s idiot cousin. He cannot read for comprehension.
I don’t win…..we all lose. You see, our owners figured out that keeping slaves in the traditional sense did not work well. When you beat them, don’t pay them and make them work in horrible working conditions, productivity remains low and health suffers.
They figured out a better form of slavery where the slaves are allowed to think they have real choices. They get to pick their leaders, pick careers, go on vacation, retire etc. The slave masters control the leaders, tax the shit out of our labor, tax our plane tickets/recerational activities and tax our retirement which is money you already earned and paid taxes on. During your entire life they devalue your money which is nothing more than a hidden tax wealth transfer to them forcing you to work harder and earn more which just puts more tax in their pockets but you’re still free right?
It’s a tough pill to swallow man but the owners DO NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT US. Period!
I would seriously love to hear your ideas to “fix” things. If I’m wrong then please show me. I’m not above learning a new trick. It’s why we come here……..to build knowledge and benefit from diversity of opinion. If we’re all wrong and these things were fixable why would admin invest his time here?
I want to be on your side but I quit drinking the Kool-Aid and swallowed the red pill. After the red pill, no amount of Kool-Aid helps.
I want to be on your side and believe that this shit is fixable…….really I do but it’s going to take some tangible evidence to put me on that path.
llpoh, I think he’s still sipping the Kool_Aid. He stopped gulping it down like his life depended on it but he’s still sipping it. I was there once myself. It’s a shock to the system when you finally realize how deep the rabbit hole goes. That’s why you can’t talk about this shit in mixed company because they all think your nuts. Some people need to believe our govt is benevolent and has our best interests at heart in order to function.
Evidence that things are not what they seem surrounds us but you can’t force people to see it. I’ve always know something was not right. Shit just doesn’t add up if you follow their narrative but it still took half my life to realize the pure evil of our reality and even after I realized it I still didn’t WANT to believe it. Hell, I still don’t WANT to believe it but I can no longer deny it.
I don’t know how star thinks I win in any of this. I hope he offers up some solutions or objective evidence that we’re wrong because I’ve never wanted to be more wrong in my entire life.
“You do realize that’s less than our annual GDP. And we can reduce that number significantly by cutting loose the disability grifters and foreigners who never paid in. ”
Where do you see any serious effort to move in that direction? Ron Paul? Pat Buchanan? Even then you’re only talking about reducing the the problem.
I’m not subject hopping at all………this shit all ties together. ALL of this shit is converging in a way to cripple us.
To be totally honest, I’m no longer against the graft that is going on. I wholeheartedly welcome and encourage it because it will hasten the collapse and it’s only after we hit rock bottom that we can change directions.
How old are star?
Ok llpoh. One question. I know answering questions isn’t your strength, but give it a try. Here it is. How do you distribute resources through the population so they can buy what they need. I prefer employment. And your choice would be???????
IS, 54
One year’s gdp on one unfunded liability is insurmountable. Just how can it be paid off when there is a trillion a year deficit already? And then there is medicare, govt drone pensions, state and local liabilities, etc.
Come on Star. Think straight.
Star – I do not distribute resources. They have to earn what they get.
Whiffs again.
Thanks star.
Any single or maybe two or three of our financial problems may very well be solvable. However, to solve these problems you need men of integrity and conscience plus a populace of informed citizens to do so. Do you agree?
Suppose you do get men of integrity and conscience to lead, where do you get an informed populace? An even bigger problem is getting an educated populace. Do you agree?
You accuse me of subject hopping but I contend that you need a minimum set of requirements to meet and solve our problems. Obtaining these minimum requirements is an almost insurmountable problem in itself considering the course we’re on.
Our owners are importing criminal, diseased and uneducated people by the millions into our country. Do you think this is going to help or exacerbate the fixes you imagine?
You can’t just pick one or two problems to solve that will magically lead to everything else being fixed. It’s alot like fixing your flooded basement……you can’t accomplish anything until you fix the source of the flood.
Star, what is your answer to the question you posed to llpoh?
IS, out to dinner,, will answer later. Great article about free trade dooming baltimore over at hotair, by jazz shaw. Link it if you know how
Star – Take the time to watch George Carlin’s “American Dream” YouTube video. The sooner you come to grips with the fact that we live in a controlled matrix the better. A truer word was never spoken than when IS said above that this is a global plantation. How do you figure the criminal elites that are destroying this country give two shits about fixing it. And OBTW, the same elites pay Buchanan’s paycheck.
IS -your posts today are spot on, and I know just what you mean about not discussing this in mixed company. People just CAN’T get out of their comfort zone of what they believe to be real.
Bea, you didn’t have much, but you showed up. Props to you. IS, here we go. Let’s start at the root, the trade deficit. Why do we have a 50 billion dollar a month trade deficit, if free trade is so good for us? A trade deficit is like a leaky bucket, or a cut that won’t cauterize. The bucket would be empty or the patient dead at some point, so we print, instead of doing the obvious. Tarriff imports. It worked for centuries. It would work tomorrow.
Giving corporate america a pass on using foreign slaves has been ruinous for us. Not only do we leak 50 billion a month, now we have to cut benefit checks because america ain’t working. So we get screwed twice. Simultaneously with tarriffing imports, you slash the welfare. There is your workforce. Adapt, or be really poor.
Suspend payroll taxes on the employer side for owner operated business for 5 years. Drop the corporate tax rate to 25%. Suspend the corporate tax for owner operated business manufacturing, mining or farming for 5 years. Cut legal immigration in half. End the wars. Use sherman anti trust and RICO to bust up the entities that have grown too large or out of control. Remove john roberts.
Give a single mother the basics so she can raise a healthy child. If she has another child out of wedlock, cut that in half. The price of public assistance is naming the father. If he won’t support his child, it’s off to work camp. Promote basic literacy in elementary schools. The 3 R’s. Cut out the federal student loan backstop.
Stop bailing out the cities and their pension woes. Let the equilibrium between property values and wages return by not backstopping morgages over 100 grand. Agressively prosecute corruption. Look, I know all this won’t happen tomorrow. But ask yourself, how did we get where we are now? it took 25 years. It could be fixed a lot quicker than that.
The answer to all the bullshit, IS, is employment. Without employment we have EBT, or cuban style ration cards or whatever. Offshoring is treason, like DC said the other day, the emperor has no clothes. Open your eyes. Speak up. Refuse to be cowed. Some things you can’t control. But you don’t have to get into the boxcar voluntarily.
Star, you propose ideas as if they’ve never been suggested or considered before. Good ideas abound. What we are short on is anyone in power with the will to make it so. We don’t even have a media that is willing consider reporting on such ideas and the majority of sheople can’t name the vice president or speaker of the house let alone understand what you propose. They can’t even be outraged by something they don’t understand.
Whether you believe 40%, 50% or 60% of people are on the govt. tit, those people will never vote for the change you propose. Add in all the govt employees who will never vote to shrink govt and jeopardize their own jobs and you have an easy majority that will oppose meaningful change. Beyond that, all of the influential politicians are already playing for an opposing team.
Where we differ is that you still believe things can and will be fixed. We both see how fucked up things are and we can both come up with reasonable solutions but neither of us can put the solutions into practice. Doing that would require a monumental 180 degree change in direction. I just don’t see it going that way.
Welfare pays more than most jobs a former free shit army member can get. Take the wholesome yutes recently rioting in Baltimore. What are they qualified to do? Why would they work when they already get paid not to work? Are you willing to start a company and hire them? They can’t spell HIGH SCHOOL let alone graduate from one. Maybe they’d be good at front end customer service? How exactly is a business supposed to turn a profit with that kind of workforce? Even if everyone wanted a job, where are these jobs? We can’t mow each others lawns, clean each others pools and brew each others coffee to sustain an economy. We need to make things that other people value and are willing to pay for. We don’t do that anymore………by design in my opinion…….but surely we did not just offshore every decent manufacturing job just so that we could turn around and build them all back up again right?
I’m out Star, I enjoyed solving the worlds problems with you today.
Look, the idea of calling out bea and the rest, was to have a good discussion. We did. Pat did us solid by giving us a good piece to debate. You’re right. This doesn’t see the light of day very often. But lots of people do read this. I know jeb does. I’m pretty sure pat does. Unmoderated forums basically free of moonbats are rarer than you might think. We are privileged to have the audience that we do. Keep up the good work.
Star – one thing could change things – do not let anyone receiving money in any form from the government vote.
It is that simple. But it will never happen, as IS says.
And because those on govt bennies has reached critical mass, this snowball will continue its descent into hell.
This is interesting, Hijra in America.
Card ,just think !!! Your new loveable neighbors that hate your guts. All Arabs , Blacks and probably all Moslems. Weeeeee.This is what you get for voting for Obama…… ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!!!!!!!!!
I/S – I absolutely believe that people are entitled to interest on loans and ROI. One small catch though, your contributions to SS is not a loan and no interest is paid on your contributions. I stand ready to be corrected.
Regardless how the seizure of an individuals money is classified or whether there exist or not a binding contract between government and the individual , there is nothing to negate the fact that money was involuntarily taken from the producer with the promise of a set return at a certain age with no penalty for living pass life span expectations.
Now SS payers are certainly not only entitled to their money, we are damn well owed a return on money that was forcibly taken from US . If a person borrows or a thief steals from a person , the victim is entitled to appeal to a court of law for the return of their assets. Now if the creditor nor the borrow has neither possession of you cash nor the means to pay, then you are SOL, but still this does not negate the fact that the victim is owed a return , just as with the Federal moocher , regardless whether the SSA has the means to pay or not , the money is still owed.
You can quote all the figgin’ legalese you wish , but in the court of natural law -not the court of political appointment – there remains an obligation of one receiving money with the implied promise to pay to damn well pay.
Now I know the money is not there, so there is no0 use gettign on that rocky horse, but whose fault is that ?Not the taxed, and that’s for damn sure.
I rest my case.
SSAES!
Llpoh -SS was not intended as a retirement fund – it was intended as insurance. It is not a guaranteed in legislation, by the way.
It doesn’t make a fuck what it was intended for or what it’s called .It could be called the old age limp dick fuck , regardless it is still owed to those who paid in.
Thanks CARD, there’s one monsterous backlash coming. That’s why I live among intolerant white conservatives that are heavily armed.
flash, I can certainly understand your reasoning but the fact is that that kind of reasoning leads to your benefits being stolen from somebody else, likely your children or grandchildren. How fair is that? Perhaps it’s just another attempt at creating division by our owners? Young against old.
The older I get the more I believe that each generation should be allowed, nay, required to revisit the prudence of laws passed by previous generations. I didn’t have a say in the Federal Reserve creation or SS and that hardly seems fair. But, this is life and “fair” has nothing to do with it.
Flash – If it was owed, then folks would not be able to collect more than they put in. It is set up and funded as insurance, but folks use it like a retirement fund, and the govt has allowed that falsehood to become what is believed.
When you buy car insurance, but do not have an accident, you do not then demand a refund, do you?
SS is an insurance fund, and does not collect nearly enough to be a retirement fund as well as an insurance fund.
Keep expecting it to be a retirement fund. I am sure it will work out fine.
SS is neither an insurance fund or a retirement fund, it’s not even a fund. It owns no assets. It has no legal obligation to pay anything. It collects taxes, not contributions. Read the fucking laws. Flash, so sorry, but the fact that you were robbed your whole working life gives you no moral right to demand that others be robbed in their turn.
Flash….SSI is a tax. As a tax it belongs to the gooberment. The SCOTUS has ruled on the fact that it’s a tax many times.
LLPOH….when I buy insurance I can pick the agent,the coverage and cancel at anytime. SSI types of insurance are illegal in all 50 states.