Stinky's Free Trade Agreement

[Stinky The Clown]

Attention third world and developing nations with governments that support slave labor, environmental destruction and the undermining of the US economy:

After I get this magic spell thingie to work, here's what you're going to face. A new set of Free Trade agreements.

You will be free to trade with us after your goods are subject to import taxes designed to level the playing field. Your country will be indexed for all manner of things. Environmental laws. Working conditions, Child labor laws. Human rights. Etc.

For every demerit, your goods will be subject to an import duty increase. For every merit, you offset your bad shit.

The intent is that your cheap shit goods, after accounting for why the cheap shit is so cheap - and so shitty - will cost as much as the same product made here.

When you start acting like an equal partner, your goods will be subject to less imprt duty. Until then ... tough shit.

Now, lemme get back to making this magic spell thingie work .......

[whistle]

1. Who is Stinky?

[LincolnMcGrath]

2. Stinky the Clown!

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Does it matter?

(pssst .... read the sig line below .... )

[The Deacon]

3. Stinky Needs to Work On a Fair Labor Practices Bill

first - so workers in America can afford to buy quality, American-made goods instead of goods produced overseas by political prisoners & children.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. The Stinky Fair Trade Agreement will cause just that to happen

[Warpy]

4. STinky's on the right track

Also, any corporation that offshores jobs and intends to make the primary (sometimes ONLY) market for the goods and services the US will be subject to punitive taxes that will make offshoring as expensive as it is a pain in the ass to manage.

That is all.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. "Punitive Tax"

Stinky approves.

[Donna Zen]

8. H2S...did you read the links?

On the thread about dismantling the corporations, I posted a link to Sirota's blog. Basically there are 2 parts to the Free (cough) Trade Agreements. A. The trade part and B. labor, environment, etc. What happens is that A. gets agreed upon and everyone just skips part B. Or as they like to say "It is negotiated away."

The Sirota blog has quotes and statements from the latest Clinton meeting. Rule: never sacrifice part A for part B. Oh, and at the latest DLC meeting...they didn't include the subject at all even though that is their main concern. (she taps her chin)

Bone chilling.

[alvarezadams]

9. The worst thing about

the trade agreements is that the West wants to impose the elimination of trade barriers for foodstuffs... without removing the enormous subsidies that Western "farmers" receive.

The end result is that 3rd world countries' agriculture will go down the tubes, people will starve and their economies will disappear.

[Donna Zen]

11. They become illegal immigrants

And the very people who voted for the bills, get re-elected by grandstanding about putting them jail.

This must be stopped!

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Yup, I read them .......

... and in a way they kinda led me to make this thread.

[Donna Zen]

12. Well, that whole meeting

kinda made me ill. They sell us and our kids down the tubes.

[welshTerrier2]

13. cheap labor

it might be valid to target third world governments for their lax labor and environmental practices ... they are indeed part of the chain that makes it impossible for American manufacturing to exist ...

but while you're busy devising magic spells, it might also be useful to target some players right here in our own country ... when software engineers were at a premium in the 90's, H1B visas skyrocketed ... the goal was to drive down wages in the US in the software industry ... in a very short time, good old "patriotic American" employers realized they could export the work to India rather than importing the workers to the states ...

i don't discount the points you raised about leveling the playing field ... i think they are very important points ... but the anti-worker, class warfare goes beyond some of those points ... the simple reality is that so called American companies were able to significantly increase the supply of workers by outsourcing jobs internationally ... even on a level playing field, doubling the supply without increasing the number of jobs would have driven salaries down for American workers ...

my proposal? start punishing companies, and their shareholders, that export jobs ... there are numerous ways to accomplish this ... we could take a positive approach like providing a jobs tax credit for each new American worker the company adds to its payroll ... or we could pro-rata eliminate the capital gains discount companies could provide to their shareholders based on the relative proportion of US workers compared to foreign employees they hire ... so, for example, if capital gains rates are 20% (or whatever), sale of stock in a company that employs 10 - 25% of its workforce outside the US would be taxed at say 25% instead of 20% ... companies from 26 to 50% foreign labor would have profits in the sale of their stock taxed at 30% and so on ...

if this violates the WTO, let's quit the WTO ... companies based in the US should be hiring US workers ... the problem isn't just third world countries; the problem is US companies ... they and their shareholders seek to profit by using foreign labor ... i think we need to discourage them from doing that ... hey Stinky, got a spell for these bad guys?

[Stinky The Clown]

14. You'll get no disagreement from me

I can see why your point showed up in this thread. It is, indeed driectly related to the issue - American losses, of jobs, of technology, and of American leadership.

I get my 'protectionist' hackles up every now and again. I'd like to be downright punitive to American 'traitor' companies and would like to see their profits taxed for each offshore job that could be done by an American right here in River City. Just as an example, a person in Singapore working for an American wideget company who has the job of selling those widgets to Singapore customers could easily be more successful if he was a Singaporean. So that's not a problem. The staff who services those widgets could also be Singaporean since that would make their one on one interaction with the customers in Singapore easier. But if there are employees in Singapore actually making the widgets themselves, the company would be taxed on their labor.