First they took your manufacturing jobs

[Elwood P Dowd]

Then they took your service jobs.

Now they're taking your high tech jobs.

Next, they will take YOUR JOB!

CAFTA and FTAA are on the agenda the next few months. If these two bills pass, you might be next. Between these two bills, the increased illegal immigration taking lower paying jobs, increased outsourcing, and the inevitable Bush recessions/depression, the END of the middle class as we know it is near. Reagan started it, Bush 41 and Clinton helped it along the way, and Bush 43 is the chosen one to totally finish it.

It was fun for about 50 years, but now the Old Deal is coming back.

P.S. Remember, Clinton forced NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and the Telecommunications Bill down our throats. He is not innocent in this.

[Maple]

1. Who is 'they'?

And how did they get to be 'your' jobs?

[Elwood P Dowd]

2. You don't know?

x(

[Maple]

3. I know they don't have

your names on them.

So I fail to see how they can be 'your' jobs.

[Tux]

5. They are

Corporations that support Republicians so they can send jobs overseas, give the CEOs raises, and destroy the middle class so the working class can take the brunt of the new tax code.

[Maple]

7. I'm sorry

but those jobs are going no matter who you elect.

It's not a plot against the 'working class'

[Tux]

13. Plot?

It's not against the working class, it's against the middle class. Without a healthy middle class, the working class can't get to the upper class except by winning the lottery.

Those jobs wouldn't be leaving if our politicians weren't anti-American and wanted to support out economy instead of borrowing money from China and India.

[Maple]

16. There is no plot

against anybody.

And it's not class warfare either

The jobs would be leaving no matter who you elected.

The world economy is shifting, and it has little to do with America, and certainly not your local internal quibbles.

But if you want to save money, stop attacking people.

You can't eat tanks

[Tux]

26. ???

Like the Iraq war is doing it. Globalization is a trend but it won't last. Take tech support for example. Ina few years, Dell will lay off Indians and send the jobs to China then Indonesia then Cuba then anywhere they can find cheap labor and repeat as long as workers want raises and benefits. Globalization only helps the CEOs and libertarians that actually believe their party's bullshit.

[Maple]

29. Globalization is not a 'trend'

or a fashion fad. It's the way the world works.

Yes, business will always go for cheaper costs, and when they can't find people to do it, they will use automation.

[rman]

39. Globalization is implemented by means of trade agreements,

created by top level financial- and trade organizations (WTO, IMF, World Bank). It is the way the uber capitalists *make* the world work.

[Maple]

41. Well trade agreements

are being made between countries and trade blocs. And eventually we'll all be one huge free trade zone.

So you can complain about it, or you can get on with it.

[rman]

75. so, globalization is created, it's not "just the way the world works"

-

[Maple]

79. Everything is created

and it is indeed how the world works.

[Tux]

105. For now

Remember the Great Depression? It's a historical event that crashed the American economy first then the world's. Why? In essence, free trade.

With the $ falling in value, oil prices on the rise (and near peak oil), and the increasing raises of CEOs, it is only a mater of time until the free trade crap falls again only to be rebuild. It didn't work before and it will never work.

[JDPriestly]

112. Globalization in some form

may be an ongoing trend, but in what form ? In its current form, i.e., unregulated by any international body that reflects various national and regional interests or the interests of working people, globalization will not survive. That is because it is cannibalistic and will soon have nothing to eat but itself. As some DUers point out, as globalization now works, it allows companies to move into a labor market, exploit the labor force, destroy the environment and then, when the labor force demands decent compensation and/or the environment is wasted, it moves on to devour yet another vulnerable labor market. This is an inherently violent mode of operation, and sooner or later, the violence is likely to turn on the globalization movement itself.

That is unless either laborers/employees join together to demand international regulations on pay, working conditions, etc. and/or the environment -- the earth -- fights back. World trade will be OK if we can balance our desire for economic progress and production with our need for human dignity and justice and environmental and personal health. The laissez faire approach to world trade that dominates now cannot achieve that balance. The big corporations are acting like "terrible twos," toddlers who've just learned to walk but don't have the judgment to know where to walk or what not to do after they get there. If guided wisely at this stage, the corporations may grow up to be responsible citizens -- good kids. But, thus far, they are just running amok, destroying everything in sight including the U.S. economy.

If you who favor world trade as it now exists, tell me what products -- other than food and other agricultural commodities and weapons does the U.S. export in greater quantities than it imports? We used to export ideas and inventions, but I suspect we are now importing more of those than we are exporting. Our exports suggest that we are turning back to a primarily agrarian/warring society -- to a more primitive state. That's bad news. That's globalization gone wild.

[wuushew]

4. Bill Clinton appears to an intelligent man

however the fact that he never seems remorseful or capable of changing his stance on globalization seems to confirm the suspicion that he favors the enrichment or the corporate class at the expense of the American worker.

[Maple]

6. Or that he's aware

globalization is here, and isn't going away.

And 'corporate class' and 'American worker' are terms from the 19th century

[wuushew]

21. Tariffs are a very real way of stopping global trade

as they have done so in the past. Democrats in 19th century were for low tariffs as a way of improving the lot of farmers, which formed a substantial portion of the population. During the 20th century the emphasis was again protecting the largest number of people, which by then was in the manufacturing sector.

Perhaps your Canadian enthusiasm for NAFTA is clouding you from the fact that free trade as it is practiced now is not based on comparative advantages in the manufacturing process but rather inequity in wages. The dollars which form this countries savings will slowly flow out of this country like paper towels soaking up a spill. It will take decades to equalize currency values in terms of trade, but well before then everything that can be outsourced will be packed up and shipped out. This country which can't even provide decent health care or education for its citizens is in no shape to compete in the services sector either. Of course the system will benefit the wealthy few you that have ownership stake in multi-national corporations. The lack of taxes in this country combined with little or no labor pressure means that the rate of wealth concentration will continue to increase.

NAFTA with only Canada makes sense because of the similar levels of societal development and manufacturing capacity. The need for timber tariffs is therefore illogical considering the workers in the two coutries are more or less interchangeable. Agricultural tariffs should also discouraged because the economic harm on for example sugar imports. The added expense to all consumers and those manufactures who use it is greater than the benefit to the producers of the primary product. Trade policies should be formulated in a manor that provides the maximum benefit to the greatest number of people. Unfortunately today's trade polices are to the great benefit of large soulless multi-national corporations.

Additionally the great American lifestyle is made possible by the disproportional consumption of resources. To benignly spread this affluence does not promote our short term ability sustain our lifestyle nor does it help the environment in any helpful way. China and India are environmental nightmares which are combining western consumption with third world population levels.

[Maple]

31. Tariffs simply cut you off

from the world. And you'll pay very high prices for your goods.

That won't last for long.

You can't have barriers in today's world. I'm sorry, but it's not possible.

Canadians complained about it too, but it's a reality, so people adjust.

The 'great American lifestyle' has always been built on cheap overseas labor.

Not anymore I'm afraid.

And the US is the worst polluter in the world

[bridgit]

11. clinton has always understood with a great precision...

what will sooner be here come hell or high water. he facilitated papers already on the flow chart and flowing; to have scraped them would have contributed to violence imo.

globalization seems as inevitable as rain water. he gave the baby its bottle and the baby continues to cry. bad baby!!

[Deja Q]

113. Bingo.

Sad. But bingo.

[earth mom]

8. Thanks for your post-you are spot on! eom

[Maple]

12. which won't change reality

[JDPriestly]

9. The film, The Corporation, says it all.

It's a must see.

[Maple]

10. Movies are movies

They have nothing to do with reality.

It's just entertainment

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Maple]

15. Sorry...Maple...like the tree

And I don't know anyone cutting down Maple trees...although goodness knows we have millions of them, and they seed like crazy.

Free trade will soon extend around the world. It's called globalization.

You can't stop it, and if you put half the effort into learning about it, as you do complaining about it, you might get somewhere.

The industrial age is over. This is the information age.

Mining, shipbuilding, factory work, oil drilling and so on are all on their way out.

Marx, Lenin and even Adam Smith are all dead and gone.

Paradigm shift. New age. Move on.

[Elwood P Dowd]

17. And the money made on this is going right to the top

Workers are getting left in the dust. They can eat cake.

You didn't explain why you have 1,000+ posts, yet you haven't contributed one damn dime to DU.

[Maple]

19. What money made on this?

Jobs are shifting around the world. No one group is 'making money'. It's business as it's always been.

You didn't mind taking jobs from other countries. Well now the shoe is on the other foot.

Workers in the US need to upgrade.

Did you think the world was never going to change??

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GirlinContempt]

25. Over 8,000

But that doesn't mean he's (or she's) a freeper. It just means he's.... at odds with the 'party line' on this issue.

[Maple]

28. Yes, they do

And you can go to school online if you like.

Almost every university on the planet offers degrees online.

Nice legitimate degrees.

CEOs in the US have always made big money. Globalization didn't do it.

Environmental impact? Kyoto. Global.

Labor laws...it ain't America. But if it makes you feel better, people in China have begun to demand better pay for their skills.

And no, just because you persist in living in some 18th century socialist dreamworld doesn't mean I'm a freeper.

I just disagree with you.

You see, I'm in economics, and in Canada.

[Lone Pawn]

43. Why should Maple have to?

It's a free board. What gives you the right to arbitrate who may or may not post their opinion--and for what charge?

[GirlinContempt]

18. Bulls...

Globalization and free trade do not have to go hand in hand, and to dismiss people who disagree with a free trade agenda is absolutely ridiculous. If you'd read any Marxist literature, you'd know that Trotsky was pro-globalization, as were most Marxist philosophers. Don't talk about learning to get you somewhere, learn to use your voice as a human being in a wealthy nation with more power in your wallet than many third world nations to at least make an attempt to DO something about the atrocities that are taking place in the name of trade.

Moving on can't happen until you've worked to create something worth moving on to.

Like free trade all you want, but being a disparaging defeatist isn't exactly going to do much good.

[Maple]

20. Trotsky died last century

and globalization and free trade are indeed intertwined.

So is the UN and Kyoto and WHO and all the other global organizations and movements.

[GirlinContempt]

24. Yeah, he died

So have countless others who's principals I refuse to dismiss because they're dead.

Globalization and free trade ARE intertwined, but they don't have to be that way. And it wasn't always that way.

Just because something IS doesn't mean it should be.

[Maple]

33. Here's a thought

I refuse to contemplate the idea of my being dead.

It simply shouldn't happen.

On the other hand, I don't step in front of moving buses.

[Lone Pawn]

49. You might consider dismissing their principles because

they're simply unworkable. Unless, of course, you can point to a historical counterexample.

[GirlinContempt]

100. Communism

has proven no less unworkable than capitalism.

But, that wasn't even the point.

[Lone Pawn]

109. Communism is 'no less unworkable?' Are you mad?

Of the world's top 40 economies, 39 are capitalist and 1 is communist: Vietnam, coming in strong at number 39.

[GirlinContempt]

118. I worded that

improperly. Should have been "no more unworkable"

But the fact is, we have yet to see either a true communist country, just as we have yet to see a true capitalist country. And if you want to take into account the number of countries that have a basis in socialism and are growing through gradual socialist policies, that number would be a lot higher.


This is WAY late, I know.

[Hardrada]

30. I think smug attitudes of your variety

Are what provoke demonstrations such as the "Battle of Seattle" and the Genoa confrontation. The Left is evolving to globally combat global corporate exploitation (a word which is, of course, still and quite applicable). You are big on historical and social inevitability but consider that your thesis has an antithesis. What the end result will be, however, no one is analyst or prophet enough to really know.

[Maple]

35. Well you can demonstrate

all you want. However it won't get you anything but a cracked head.

And when Columbus came home with word of the 'west'...it didn't take a psychic to foresee the future.

[GirlinContempt]

42. Antonio Gramsci:

"Here the philistine comes forward and replies: the bourgeoisie had to restore order, because it has always happened in that way - a patriarchal and feudal economy and a bourgeois political constitution. The philistine sees no salvation outside the pre-established schema's; he conceives of history as simply a natural organism passing through fixed and predictable stages of growth. If you plant an acorn, you can be sure of getting and oak shoot, and of having to wait a certain number of years for the tree to grow and give fruit. But history is not an oak tree, and men are not acorns."


:loveya: Gramsci

[JDPriestly]

114. Ha! The bit about the information age is a boondoggle.

Do you live on information? I don't. I need a house; I need a steel (or wooden) frame for my bed -- produced by mining or logging. I need to travel -- ship, plane and car manufacturing. I need a paycheck -- for most people that means menial labor, or a step higher, industrial factory work. I need transportation -- which, thus far, pretty much means oil. Do I need information? -- probably not nearly as much as I have. Information age sounds good, but unless the computer, TV, radio, whatever vehicle, carrying the information is manufactured out of raw materials that are produced usually from the earth, there is no information age.

Marx advocated that to gain power, workers had to take control of the means of production. How ironic that we boast of having defeated Marxism, yet have lost control of the means of production of the things we most need to foreign interests, to foreign nationals. I don't know where I'm going on this, but this direction seems to be leading somewhere interesting.

[JDPriestly]

115. Ha! The bit about the information age is a boondoggle.

Do you live on information? I don't. I need a house. I need a steel (or wooden) frame for my bed -- produced by mining or logging. I need to travel -- ship, plane and car manufacturing. I need a paycheck -- for most people that means menial labor, or a step higher, industrial factory work. I need transportation -- which, thus far, pretty much means oil. Do I need information? -- probably not nearly as much as I have. Information age sounds good, but unless the computer, TV, radio, whatever vehicle, carrying the information is manufactured out of raw materials that are produced usually from the earth, there is no information age.

Marx advocated that to gain power, workers had to take control of the means of production. How ironic that we boast of having defeated Marxism, yet have lost control of the means of production of the things we most need to foreign interests, to foreign nationals. I don't know where I'm going on this, but this direction seems to be leading somewhere interesting.

[oblivious]

117. Maple, why do you bother posting this drivel?

Even if we were complete fools, 3 minutes of googling would tell us you are spouting nonsense.

Maple quote: The industrial age is over ... Mining, shipbuilding, factory work, oil drilling and so on are all on their way out.

Look what I found in 3 minutes:

Mining: World mining activity was down 0.5% in 2002 and up 3.5% in 2003.

http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/its2004_e/its04_overview_e.htm

Shipbuilding: The latest shipbuilding figures published by Lloyd's Register (LR) show that the world merchant shipbuilding order book has risen for the fourth consecutive quarter. It is now at the highest level ever.

http://www.deh.gov.au/coasts/publications/maritimedigest/010398.html

Factory work: World manufacturing was up 1% in 2002 and 3% in 2003.

http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/its2004_e/its04_overview_e.htm

Oil drilling: Well I just spent a few seconds on that one because it's so obvious. The April 2003 rotary rig count was 983, 4 percent higher than the count in March 2003 and 31 percent higher than the count in April 2002.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2744/is_5_2003/ai_104211742

And you said you were in economics? What kind of economics would that be?

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Maple]

36. Nope, just a Canadian

and in economics.

I work with globalization.

It has no connection whatever to your 19th century socialism.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lone Pawn]

54. That's counter to the principal functionality of Maple's economics.

While your idea of economics is "everybody should be looking out for my well-being," the real world works on "everybody is working to maximize their own well-being." Recognizing that doesn't make on a Freeper, you know. And stop saying that. It's against DU policy.

[Maple]

57. I'm not a bank, sorry

Nor am I a shoulder to cry on.

I'm simply telling you what has already occurred in the world, and that you should gear up for it, instead of complaining. It would be more productive.

Btw...I have no interest in your freepers, being Canuck, and I'm female

[Lone Pawn]

38. It's a violation of DU rules to claim other DUers are freepers.

And terrible taste to claim a more active DUer--that is, a DUer with more posts than you have--is a freeper.

[rman]

44. But we can say a DU-er is pushing RW rethoric, no matter how many posts

anyone has. There are several examples of DU-ers who got exposed as such after years and many 1000's of posts.

[Maple]

45. Or we could say

someone is speaking truth to you...instead of encouraging you in unsustainable fantasies.

[rman]

52. so liberal viewpoint = unsustainable fantasy?

that's what RW-er think.

[Maple]

58. No, being a 19th century socialist

is unsustainable in the 21st century.

Being a liberal is not.

I'm quite liberal socially, but the world is globalizing all the same.

[rman]

65. name one example where trade agreements have improved

the economy of a developing nation and the living conditions of it's people (as predicted/promised by IMF, WTO et all), rather then doing the reverse.

"We tried to help Bolivia, it went under. We tried to help Brazil, it exploded. We tried to help Indonesia, it was burning in riots. Maybe there's a pattern here.
Our systems for eliminating barriers, eliminating unions, cause pain, but not pain that leads to gain, it's pain that leads to collapse, failure and economic death."
-- Joe Stiglitz, former Chief Economist for the World Bank

For suggesting, simply suggesting that they reevaluate their positions, the World Bank fired him. He wasn't even allowed to resign, he was banished from the entire World Bank.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=128&row=1


"...He survived his sacking from the World Bank and IMF complaints about his bad attitude. In september 2001 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Stiglitz, remember, had been fired merely for seeking to study why IMF policies failed so often. he conceded to me, however, the globalizers could point to one big success: Argentina. Then, five months after we spoke, I received the sad news that Argentina had died."
-- Greg Palast, "The best democracy money can buy"


Yes i know, a journalist is just a journalist, a book is just a book and a Chief Economist for the World Bank is just a Chief Economist for the World Bank.
Your claim of what reality is, is so much more believable, we'll just take your word for it.

[Maple]

71. Canada has been a trading nation

since day one.

The British empire existed to trade. Rome traded for heaven's sakes!

The US has also always traded with the world, and it's made your nation better.

Well, everyone on the planet is doing it now, and they're improving too.

And yes, it means changes.

When cars were invented, blacksmiths lost their jobs. People felt sorry for blacksmiths...but they bought cars anyway.

[rman]

73. you did not answer my question

the question was not about who is trading.

[Maple]

76. I believe I did

It's helped all of us...and we were all developing nations at one time. Still are actually...it's arrogant in the extreme to say we are 'developed' when we obviously aren't.

If you want today...India, China, Japan, Brazil, Russia....

[rman]

82. "helped all of us"? depends on your definition of "us"

it didn't help the majority of the populations of Bolivia, Brazil, Indonesia, Argentina, Equador, Thailand, Nigeria, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, amongst others. For those nations the trade agreements did the opposite of what they were supposed to do.

[Maple]

85. It's not over

and yes, it will help everyone.

When the industrial revolution began, people complained that it was taking away jobs. And it did, by automating them.

Once it got underway...it produced more jobs than the world had ever seen. So will this.

[Lone Pawn]

64. Sorta like saying "evolution = truth?"

that's what LW-er think.

Well, yes. But that alone is meaningless.

[Lone Pawn]

50. Maple hasn't said anything "freeperish," though.

It's possible to be a liberal and have a realistic economic viewpoint at the same time.

[Maple]

59. Globalization is reality

It is not rightwing rhetoric to say so.

Anymore than it's rightwing rhetoric to say the sun rises in the east.

Simple fact.

[rman]

68. it's RW rethoric to say globalization is inevitable

ie Venezuela is doing just fine while not going along with this so called "globalization".

[Maple]

74. No...it's fact

Like the 'sun is coming up tomorrow'

It has nothing to do with left or right wings, or rhetoric of any kind.

And Venezuela is indeed globalizing. I don't recall a word about them cutting off trade with the world, and hiding behind barriers and walls. They are tired of being exploited, but those are two very different things.

[rman]

77. Venezuela is globalizing differently

it is not submitting the globalizers' trade agreements - which indeed are exploitative.

[Maple]

80. Venezuela is globalizing

one way or another...and in the end, we'll all be the same.

And all trade freely.

[earth mom]

56. Exactly! I agree 100%

All those great high tech jobs...where are they now? India! Talk about giving people the shaft big time! And do people need a degree to work at Walmart or McDonalds or to sell on eBay-I think not! But that's where the jobs are. What's happening to the jobs and economy in this country is insane, scary and just very sad.

[Maple]

60. What on earth

would you be doing looking in Wal Mart for a high tech job??

Are you aware of all the high tech fields beating the bushes for qualified people??

[earth mom]

89. Yeah right-Not!

:eyes:

Job Woes Plague High Tech 

Associated Press Page 1 of 1

04:00 PM Sep. 14, 2004 PT

SEATTLE -- The U.S. information tech sector lost 403,300 jobs between March 2001 and this past April, and the market for tech workers remains bleak, according to a new report.
Perhaps more surprising, just over half of those jobs -- 206,300 -- were lost after experts declared the recession over in November 2001, say the researchers from the University of Illinois-Chicago.

con't

http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,64955,00.html
____________________

High-Tech Market Recovery Rumors Are Just That
The Rebound That Wasn't

After many optimistic reports in 2004, the high-tech industry's first-quarter report card is a big bust. Time to hunker down and be nice to your boss.

Apr 28, 2005 | By Tim Wilson

Just a few months ago, high-tech executives were optimistic about the prospects for a 2005 rebound in hiring and spending. Talk about your wishful thinking. The industry actually cut nearly 60,000 jobs in the first quarter--the worst job loss since fourth-quarter 2003, according to outplacement specialist Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Telecommunications job losses led the backslide, accounting for more than 35,000 cuts. And you can bet that telecom isn't done--SBC Communications plans to eliminate 13,000 positions if its merger with AT&T is approved, and Qwest Communications says it will lay off as many as 15,000 people if it succeeds in buying MCI.

The computer sector is also doing its share, dropping more than 16,000 workers in the first quarter, including Oracle's layoff of 5,000 PeopleSoft employees.

con't

http://www.nwc.com/showitem.jhtml?docid=1608buzz2

[Lone Pawn]

40. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but we've had economic growth

since the 1970s.

Also, all logging done in Canada, unless I remember wrongly, is sustainable, so your bizarre point makes less sense.

[rman]

46. documentaries on the other hand...

now what does your nihilistic approach remind me of...

[Maple]

51. I have no idea

since I'm not a nihilist.

Good grief, do you know what that means?? I'm not even close!

Documentaries are nice. I've seen a lot of them

About half were reasonably close to the truth. The rest were...well....

[rman]

55. you don't know "The Corporation" is a documentary?

maybe you should watch it before commenting on it.

[Lone Pawn]

61. It's a documentary, in much the same way Bowling for Columbine was

a documentary.

It was, it just wasn't.

[Maple]

62. I said I've seen lots of documentaries

and maybe half of them were close to truth.

The rest were propaganda and appealed to pre-established bias.

I think you can figure it out from there.

[rman]

66. and you are without bias of course

-

[Maple]

78. No, but I'm honest about mine

and if I enjoy a movie or documentary, I don't assume it's the truth...just that I like it.

I liked Bowling for Columbine, and F911 very much, and recommended them to people. I did not assume they were absolute truth. He was trying to make a point after all.

[rman]

So to you both movies and documentaries are just entertainment?

For me, a movie i can either like or not like.
A documentary i find good or not so good, depending on how compelling it is, how much evidence is presented.
Also i wouldn't say that simply because someone is "trying to make a point" is any reason to assume what he says is any less true.

[Maple]

86. Just ?

There is truth to be found in entertainment movies sometimes, and falsehoods to be found in documentaries sometimes.

Although I fail to see what any of this has to do with the topic at hand.

[JDPriestly]

111. The Corporation

is a very good documentary. It describes the history, development and functioning of the corporation with a focus on the corporation as an individual. It is based on good research, as informative and well documented as a book and worth seeing.

[GirlinContempt]

22. I'm less worried

about losing 'my job' and more concerned about the far reaching economic and moral reprecussions of these agreements. Which are, IMO, way more important.

[Lone Pawn]

34. OH NO! THEY are coming!

Fear THEM! THEY are going to take your job! THEY are going to marry your daughters and sire brown halflings!

[Maple]

37. Now this one

is funny! :D

[rman]

48. it's such a surprise you'd think that.

-

[Maple]

63. LOL no it's not

:D

[pnorman]

53. This is a good, thought-provoking thread.

I have nothing to add to it at present. But I'll post here, just so I can find it again a little easier.

pnorman

[Elwood P Dowd]

67. The difference between Maple and me

I've been working in the "real world" since the 1960s. I worked my way through college. I was drafted during Vietnam. I work in a business today that deals with regular working class people - some are middle class and some are working poor. These people are getting clobbered my friends.

I can't begin to tell you how many people I know who have lost their jobs or who can no longer afford to send their kids to college. It's like nothing I've ever witnessed in my 58 years. This Maple person is highly educated and probably has a nice, six-figure job. I seriously doubt she has ever made the pilgrimage to middle America to witness just what is taking place today. I seriously doubt it!

[Maple]

69. The difference is between fantasy and reality

Globalization is reality...and while I'm sorry as hell people are hurting, that doesn't change reality.

I don't know why you think it would.

[rman]

70. nobody is saying globalization is not real

what we're saying is that it's bad and that it's not inevitable.

again i challenge you:

name one example where trade agreements have improved the economy of a developing nation and the living conditions of it's people (as predicted/promised by IMF, WTO et all), rather then doing the reverse.

"We tried to help Bolivia, it went under. We tried to help Brazil, it exploded. We tried to help Indonesia, it was burning in riots. Maybe there's a pattern here.
Our systems for eliminating barriers, eliminating unions, cause pain, but not pain that leads to gain, it's pain that leads to collapse, failure and economic death."
-- Joe Stiglitz, former Chief Economist for the World Bank

For suggesting, simply suggesting that they reevaluate their positions, the World Bank fired him. He wasn't even allowed to resign, he was banished from the entire World Bank.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=128&row=1


"...He survived his sacking from the World Bank and IMF complaints about his bad attitude. In september 2001 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Stiglitz, remember, had been fired merely for seeking to study why IMF policies failed so often. he conceded to me, however, the globalizers could point to one big success: Argentina. Then, five months after we spoke, I received the sad news that Argentina had died."
-- Greg Palast, "The best democracy money can buy"


Yes i know, a journalist is just a journalist, a book is just a book and a Chief Economist for the World Bank is just a Chief Economist for the World Bank.
Your claim of what reality is, is so much more believable, we'll just take your word for it.

[Maple]

81. Well you can argue reality all you want

but this isn't philosophy class.

It's here...and it's been here for well over 20 years.

We are waaaay past 'inevitable'

[Elwood P Dowd]

72. And the reality is.....

Those at the top are benefiting enormously, and those in the middle class and working poor are sinking into the dept of despair and hopelessness. People like you are making it possible. Congratulations.

[Maple]

83. And the reality is

you are wallowing in self-pity about something you can't change.

And I'm sorry, but I'm not responsible for globalization, or your pity party.

How do you think people who went through the Depression felt?

Did feeling down in the dumps change it?

Won't help this change in the world either.

[bridgit]

84. people like richard nixon made it possible...

bush41 as ambassador to china, reagan with his 'take control of your destiny' gambit here read: "you no longer have a guaranteed job & wage while we sell satellite technology to china" union busting tactics/grover norquist tax breaks to the filthy rich gobbledygook can't be helping either.

those guys understood. for them it has been a marathon and not a sprint race and they have won it.

globalization; it is here today.

[rman]

87. again: nobody is saying globalization is not real, or not here today.

what we're saying is that it's bad and that it's not inevitable.

[Maple]

90. LOLOL that's funny

It's real, it's here and it ain't going away.

And a darn good thing it is for the world too.

It's the UN and Kyoto and WHO and satellites and caring about people on the other side of the world in a tsunami....

It's not just about trade...people have always traded. It's how civilization began! That isn't ever going to disappear.

One world, one race...the human one...no borders. Globalization

[rman]

92. how many f*in times do i have to say no-one is challenging the idea

that globalization is real?

[GirlinContempt]

101. Give up

This person is working within a false dichotomy, free trade or no trade. Or to put it another way, globalization=free trade, no free trade=no globalization.

It's hopeless.

[Cats Against Frist]

106. Reading these posts just made me realize how absurd the world

has become.

We have, on one hand, people calling the "globalist" a freeper.

The freeper's supposedly hate "globalism."

But, really, they don't, because they're in-line corporate lap dogs and good human capital (just like most of the Democrats, too).

They just don't trust the UN.

Because global corporatists tell them to.

Now, why would American global corporatists hate the UN?

Because, at the UN, other concerns besides "what's good for capital," can be given a world stage. (or, option no. 2, which is that the UN is actually a strawman, and the corporatists aren't afraid of the UN, but are simply using it as a rallying point, to get the knuckledraggers out, in full force, to keep the corporatists in power?).

I think you're right about globalism, and that it's here to stay-- and that the whole world's paradigm has shifted. This is why I'm developing a political philosophy based on parasitic/communal libertarianism. This is why I'm a flaming liberal who also wants to see the federal government drowned in the bathtub. (Of course, I suspect that this is also a strawman, and that the reason that the supposed "rugged individualists" have handed us a right-wing, authoritarian society is because they're actually corporatists).

You can't run from globalism, but you DON'T have to be its bitch, and you can find ways to make it work for you -- with enough like-minded people. My philosophy works on the aggregate theory.

And it all leads me to two immediate conclusions:

1. God damn the freepers are stupid pieces of shit.
2. Everyone else isn't too much better. They march along, but they don't love it.

[wuushew]

108. Unbridled libertarianism does not have a good track record

Free markets tend to concentrate wealth more than they create it. The few breaks on the inequality that arise have always been inventions of governmental policy to modify such systems.

Remember there is nothing that prevents widespread charitable giving, but yet people still go hungry and Paris Hilton is still a rich slut.

[bridgit]

94. i have a friend who's dad...

owns a photo lithographic reduction processing machine used in the production of computer chips that he sells in central china. at a thanksgiving supper some 4yrs back now; he was going rather on & on over the table about his ability to reap profits by way of paying Chinese labor .50cts/hr for work he has to pay up wards of $18/hr here. looking at me with that 'spider & the fly' look they all seem to have figured out quite well. i told him straight up,

"i'd be willing to work for .85cts/hr if i could still buy shoes for .75cts a pair" delivered with a smile on my part.

he did not think i was funny in the least. having been a shop steward, my sense is that he reckoned me the enemy.

maple is not seeing the bigger picture as well. many of the new world workers are already clamoring for rights and the ultra rich will in time be cutting new deals to quell what will be unrest world wide.

globalization will soon read: global worker's rights. that is the part of the marathon they have not reckoned as yet imo

[rman]

97. indeed, globalization is here, and we can change it for the better.

i will forever remember Maple's claim: "No group is making money"

[Maple]

88. Nixon had nothing whatever to do with it

It would have happened no matter who was in office.

British empire had world trade ya know. Just not globalization...which involves far more than trade.

[bridgit]

95. you're entitled to your opinion...

[rman]

91. "No group is making money" - oh please

What money made on this? Trillions of it. And it does go to the top. But you wouldn't understand, since in your reality there is no top.

Most people aren't surprised by the notion that a few hundred individuals own half of the planet's wealth.

There's nothing wrong with US workers, except that they'r used to higher wages and more worker's rights then the workers in China, India etc. From a globalist perspective the US labor market is not "flexible" enough.

Why is it that worker's rights and environmental laws are seen by globalists as "trade barriers" - that obviously need to be removed? How's that good for "all of us"?

[ultraist]

116. The rich are getting richer!

People are making boatloads of money on outsourcing all while taking corporate WELFARE. There must be a balance and ending corporate welfare to companies that outsource is a start. Repairing the tax system is also long overdue.

It's also concerning that R&D is also going abroad. The US cannot afford a huge brain drain. There must be incentives created to keep some of the work here in the US.

[Maple]

93. Thank you everyone.

Good night

[Hardrada]

107. No more back-asswards remarks for awhile!!

[anarchy1999]

96. You just had far too much fun with this post. Shame on you.

Kudos as well.

[rman]

98. to some, it's all just entertainment

-

[Elwood P Dowd]

99. G'nite rman

and all you other DU friends. Keep fighting.

Edit: I forgot to add that she kept referring to my "socialist" ideas. Now is that not a telling sign? Just what group of people constantly refer to us as "socialists"?

[Hardrada]

110. Someone is asleep at the alert switch.

[MontageOfFreedom]

102. Oh boy I guess its inevitable now.

McDonalds will become over run with applications.

[Disturbed]

104. Globalization is real and will expand.

Multi-Corps will make it so. Politicians will aide and abet. Maybe there will be a backlash to it and enough people will take to the streets to scale it back. Maybe not.

The guy below believed in Globalization.

[cap]

103. too many people paid a price with the industrial revolution

the industrial revolution occurred at a terrible price to the average person.

What is so wrong with some barriers to the ABSOLUTE free flow of K and L (capital and labor) in order to give some transitional time to folks on all sides a little time to adjust? If high-tech is going to India, fine . But a little assistance to the 58 year old so that he CAN do something else is warranted. Remember our population is aging.

If globalization of capital is here, so NOW is the time for the globalization of the labor movement. Remember how communism started? People got real tired of being stomped on so they organized and did so globally. So what that it hampered capital. That dont mean nothing when you are starving! You are going to take the political process into your own hands to change the rules when the rules are screwing you!


Also, the ruling class is operating the same way it did during the industrial revolution which occured at the same time colonialism did. Great global cartels which invested nothing in the people around them.
Same shit... different assholes.