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Ford is offering to pay its workers up to $140,000 to quit their jobs.
The company has 54,000 workers. More layoffs are coming, it
seems. GM is extending buyout offers to its 74,000 workers.
These
companies could have been a force for good, not bad, in American trade
policy. They are big, well connected, and still respected by
some. Hillary Clinton cites the auto industry almost exclusively
in her opposition to the South Korea Free Trade Agreement.
GM could have demanded currency manipulation be addressed by
us. It did not. Instead, they choose to outsource to China.
Ford
could have demanded that we neutralize the VAT-tariff/VAT-subsidy
advantage many other countries have with us. It did not.
Instead, it also outsources to China.
Ford and GM could have
looked at the U.S. trade surplus that existed for decades before we
signed a hodge-podge of trade agreements that tied our hands.
They could have said, "Look at the trade deficits that immediately
followed these agreements. American consumers are not gaining
earning power in conjunction with U.S. productivity gains. This
must stop because now they cannot afford our cars." But they did
not.
Instead, the auto companies continue to aid and abet
U.S. wacko free traders, and aid and abet the destruction of the very
companies built by very smart Americans such as Henry Ford and Alfred
P. Sloan.
Shame on them.
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