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There is a double standard in America.
It is a double standard promoted by the double talk of many
of our leaders, and most especially corporate business interests.
While this nation talks the talk of issues like global warming,
immigration, jobs, and the economies of developing nations, the actual walk
follows the same old trails where corporate special interests based on one
shore evade responsibility either by enticing illegal immigrants to them, or
accessing the same type of work force on foreign shores where they gain a bonus
of little or no regulation or responsibility toward worker welfare or the
environment.
How much more demeaning to the Constitution can it get?
In today’s Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required) are
2 articles pointing out that not only are the laws enforcing environmental
rules for corporations irrelevant in today’s business climate, but that even
banking regulations are placed up for sale for something as minor as tickets to
a rock concert. According the article titled Lobbying
Abetted Mortgage Mess , state legislators and certain state attorney generals
accepted contributions and gratuities from the likes of subprime lender Ameriquest,
Citigroup
Inc., Wells
Fargo & Co., Countrywide Financial Corp. and the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Besides manipulating usury laws for their own profit, lenders used their power
to convince borrowers that they should refinance with loans that were much more
costly to the borrower than those they replaced.
And so, on the one hand our lower middle class can be victimized
through home mortgage abuses and investor losses, while on the other hand WSJ
article number 2 shows that not only our jobs, but our environment can be sold
out for more profitable manufacturing in lightly regulated China. According
to the front page story titled Chemical
Projects Boom in China , notable corporations like General Electric, Celanese,
Praxair, and Dow are set to profit on Chinese shores through technology that
converts coal to gas and chemical feedstocks, while it transfers carbon
emission liabilities to Chinese manufacturing plants that bear no responsibility
for the resulting CO2.
Fewer high paying jobs at home, more pollution, more worker
abuse, more investment abuse, less enforcement; how much more demeaning to the
Constitution and our Bill of Rights can it get?
Only our newly elected leaders in November of ’08 will hold
the answer to that and many other questions of Fair Trade.
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