Can you imagine Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and our Founding Fathers creating this debacle?  They felt their job was to build a country.  That country is named the United States of America.  They were leaders.  They would never gut the U.S. economy and democracy by tolerating trade agreements that give away our sovereignty, our environment, our manufacturing capacity and our agriculture. 

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch each lost $9.8 billion for the 4th quarter of 2007.  This is very big money, even for them.  These globalization promoters thought they were immune from the trade deficit.  They were wrong.  Now they are selling themselves to the Saudi and Chinese sovereign wealth funds, those that have the money.

Trade among nations will always continue and grow.  Commercial trade is different than "trade agreements" - though many try to say you are against "trade" if you oppose a "trade agreement".  Trade agreements just modify some rules of commercial trade. 

The rules we have now incentivize offshoring jobs and factories and food production.  The U.S. drops tariffs, and other countries increase tariffs through currency manipulation and value added taxes imposed upon us.  Unilateral disarmament.  We drop our guns, they do not but pretend they do.  

Our jobs are created in government, health care, home construction, and burger flipping.  Manufacturing and agriculture are a major part of our economy, but shrinking because of trade policy, and do not create jobs anymore.  Home construction filled the gap in many ways.  The gap filler was temporary, and all should have known it.

Home equity has funded the deficient gap between U.S. citizens' income and their expenses.  The Fed helped create the housing bubble, for better or for worse, with low interest rates.  I like low interest rates, by the way.  But subprime mortgages attracted new homeowners with low teaser rates that ballooned.  The subprime loans were packaged together and resold as a package to big financial institutions.

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch got the shaft.  They are supposed to be smart.

The bust has killed the home construction portion of our economy.  The bust has killed the home equity portion of our consumption.  Manufacturing and agriculture are being gutted and cannot perform the function, as in the past, of stabilizing us and helping the economy out of the recession.  High tech cannot fill the gap, because we have deficits there too.  We buy a lot of high tech, but sell much less.  Someone tell John McCain.

Voters need to ask their candidates what they will do about this.  It's not good enough to just give workers temporary payments for job loss.

Please allow me to apologize. I am a farmer.

 
The farm bill embarrasses me by pointing out that under normal circumstances it is difficult for me to make a living. I do not care for the word “welfare.” I prefer the terms “pride,” “earn,” and “labor”. Yet the crops I produce are subsidized. I must admit that my pride has suffered.  

 
Growing food is an honorable occupation, one that ought to demand respect. Sadly, almost every aspect of what I do has been called into question. It was never my choice to be subsidized. I would prefer simply to be profitable. But as the many special interests are juggled in the making of farm policy, mine nearly always come in dead last.  

 
For example deep inside the farm bill is a subsidy for farmers who choose to plant seeds from one particular corporation. This is a large corporation, Monsanto, one with substantial earnings and record profits. My government has favored Monsanto by granting its customers a 14 percent savings on crop insurance. Meanwhile, there is little for farmers who use techniques that would conserve valuable resources like fuel and soil, or for reducing greenhouse gases.

There is talk in Washington about tax cuts and a stimulus package to help us out of the recession.  Some say legislation is likely.  Put more money in the hands of citizens.

I don't necessarily object, except on the fundamental ground that it misses the target.  

Our trade deficit is at a record.  There is little sign of balancing the deficit.  

This is the core problem:  We buy more than we sell.  More than ever. 

You can provide economic stimulus through tax cuts and government spending, but to what end?  So we can temporarily finance buying more than we sell? We cannot pull out of the tailspin without correcting the deficit.

Wal-Mart will fight us, and so far is winning.  But Wal-Mart is not America.  Everyday low prices saves us a few sheckles while costing us tens of thousands in wages per person.  The net is not good.

John these-jobs-are-gone-forever-so-deal-with-it McCain found his free trader Straight Talk did not play well in Michigan.

Funny thing.  MIchigan has borne the brunt of McCain's don't-enforce-trade-rules policy. 

The Tooling, Manufacturing and Technologies Association business members were not about to go out of their way for McCain.  TMTA members include many tooling companies that serve the automobile industry.  Their businesses are built in the heart of the auto industry, they are efficient, the transportation cost for delivery is low, and they can feed the just-in-time inventory system well.  But China subsidies and currency manipulation, plus our worldwide VAT-tariff disadvantage has decimated the tooling companies.

McCain claims to be the biggest free trader since Phil Gramm left the Senate.  He opposes enforcing the rules in trade agreements.  He opposes neutralizing currency manipulation and VAT tariffs.  He opposes including labor and environmental provisions in agreements.

And he lost Michigan. (read more)