Why Are Teacher Cut Backs Coming? Blame Free Trade Agreements

The Oregonian writer Steve Duin wrote a nice piece about teacher cutbacks at Franklin High School coming in the next few months. He only told the effects, and I asked him to write about what has caused these cutbacks. Below is a link to his well written column, and below that is my response.

At Portland's Franklin High School, the Bell Tolls for…Them

Dear Steve Duin,
I appreciate your nice, but short-sighted, story titled, “At Franklin, the bell tolls for…them.” You quote teacher Portia Hall as saying, “’I’ve been teaching for fifteen years, and I’ve never had a year when we didn’t cut. Even when times were good.’”

Why don’t you tell the whole story about school funding and teacher cut backs? Why don’t you write about how free trade treaties have shipped jobs and much of the tax base overseas? Why don’t you write about how those treaties make it more profitable for American businesses to create jobs in other nations rather than here? Why don’t you write about how the difference between the old higher wages in the US and the new lower wages over there go into the pockets of Wall Street fat cats and other rich people via higher corporate profits, enhanced dividends and rising share prices? The people that lose those jobs wind up searching for work. That’s not a very good trade. This leads to a good question.

What are the federal government and the American economy for? Is it to redistribute more income to the already rich at the expense of working people? That’s been happening for the last thirty years.

These agreements are the primary reason why the rich are getting richer. They’re why the one percent received 93 percent of total US income growth from 2009 to 2010.

Why is the tax base crumbling? Why are teachers being laid off three years after the official end of the recession? Why can’t the economy create over 12 million jobs with rising real wages nowadays, like it did when Jimmy Carter was president and the economy and the population were only about 60 percent the size of what they are now? Why have only 4 million jobs with declining real wages and salaries been created in the twelve years since George W. Bush took office? Why is the economy so weak?

Free trade “income redistribution” agreements are the greatest reasons the one percent receive nearly 25 percent of the total US income nowadays compared with about 8 percent under Carter. The result has been devastating to the 99 percent in lost jobs, declining real income, demand too weak to create jobs in the US at previous levels, evaporating tax bases, teachers voting to strike in Gresham-Barlow and the Parkrose districts. These agreements are also the primary reasons why Portia Hall has never seen “a year we didn’t cut.”

Just open your eyes and look at those free trade treaties and ask yourself what the upcoming Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement is going to do to 99 percent of Americans. If it’s implemented, the agreement is going to redistribute even more income to the one percent from the 99 percent, leading to more jobs shipped overseas, jobs created in other nations rather than here, shrinking tax bases, cutbacks in education, police, firefighters and all kinds of government positions and programs that the 99 percent rely upon. Are these the results we want from our federal government and our economy? I don’t think so, but that’s what we’ve got.

So I ask you again, Why don’t you write about the causes, as well as the effects? Why don’t you tell the whole story?

Warmest Regards,

John Hively

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Class Warfare in a Rigged Game; the One Percent Steal 93 Percent of Total US Income Growth from 2009 to 2011

The rigged economic game continues and has gotten more one-sided. A new study below shows that the one percent extracted 93 percent of total US income growth from 2009 to 2010. The rest of us shared the 7 percent. This occurred through their manipulation of the government. Studies will likely show roughly the same numbers for the division of the growth in total US income from 2010 to 2011. And things will continue to get worse for the 99 percent and the total US economy now that “Wall Street Obama” signed free trade legislation with South Korea, Colombia and Panama last year. We’re hurtling toward third world status.

More US jobs will be shipped overseas, or US corporations will place jobs there rather than here, which would not have been the case without the president’s signature on those treaties. The difference between the wages of the old jobs in the US and the new jobs overseas will go into the pockets of the rich. So called free trade treaties are designed to do just that. Expect the economy to be weaker once Obama signs the Trans-Pacific Freely Redistributing Income Treaty sometime later this year. It’s not too late for the 99 percent to stop the madness.

The same redistribution process occurs in a number of other areas, such as deregulation. When, for example, the electricity market is privatized and deregulated, prices always go up, especially in the long term. “Aunt Millie” pays higher electricity bills so that rich folks can receive higher dividends and stock prices, straight out of her pocket.

That’s why the government cooks the books on inflation. Inflation is running about ten percent per year, but the government tells us it’s about 3 percent. In other words, raising prices is a way to redistribute income from the 99 to the one percent. The government has changed the way it measures inflation twenty times during the last thirty years so as to understate inflation, which is another way of understating the redistribution of income and wealth.

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One percent get 93 percent of total income growth from 2009 to 2010

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It's been an Amazing Ride for the Rich

The Numbers Racket; why the economy is worse than we know–Harpers Magazine

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The Shattering of the American Dream

The American Dream has been thrown out the window by the one percent and their lackeys in government.

Now they’re kicking the battered dream down the street with the toes of their boots as they negotiate the Trans-Pacific Income Redistribution Agreement. That back room deal means more of the same. Redistributing more income from the 99 percent to the one percent. That’s all it’s about. But these trade have given us something.

Lackluster job growth, high unemployment, a weak housing market, massive redistribution of income and wealth from working people to the rich, shipping away our jobs, as well as much of the tax base which has weakened our schools, fire and police departments; these agreements have given us potholes in our roads and in our future opportunities. These agreements are shattering the American Dream. Resist!

click here for the complete March 2012 job numbers

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Ten Years into the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement Brutal Sweatshop Conditions Endure

The Trans-Pacific Free Trade Negotiations are continuing in secret, and that’s the best way for representatives of the one percent to undermine our liberties, undercut our wages, and destroy our tax base. Sounds like a good plan to redistribute our income to themselves via higher profits, greater dividends and rising share prices. But what about those folks that get our jobs. They’ll be better off won’t they? Of course not! They’re on the bottom rung on the race to the bottom, but what nobody will tell you is that the bottom rung keeps sinking lower.

At the Taiwanese-owned Rich Pine Factory, the workers imported from China and Bangladesh are working “grueling, mandatory seven-day, 96 hour work weeks.” These people are producing stuff for Liz Claiborne, Macy’s, J.C. Penney, Kohl’s and others. Less than a year ago, these folks were working only 93 hours a week. The bottom run is sinking, and so is their and our standards of living.

Click here for the full story

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Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke warns jobs recovery may be ‘out of sync’ with economic picture. But What Is He Not Saying?

Bernanke said he believed the jobs problem (lack of job creation) in the USA is a “cyclical” rather than a “structural” problem. What is he really saying? It’s simple.

The redistribution of income and wealth from the 99 percent to the one percent is not part of the problem. Of course, he’s lying. It doesn’t take a whiz to figure out that if 99 percent of the population earns 93 percent of the total income generated in the USA, and so much of it is redistributed to the one percent over the last thirty years so that the 99 percent earned only 75 percent of the total income, then the demand for goods and services would be less. Demand is what creates jobs.

click here for the complete story

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How many more of Obama’s lies do we need to endure? Obama cages Native-American Protesters

I voted for Obama to be president of the United States, not to be the president of big oil and Wall Street. I gave his campaign fifty bucks. I manned his phones and called his supporters. I went door-to-door for the lying rat bastard. I voted and worked for hope and change and all I got was a worthless slogan. The lying liar gave his Wall Street supporters everything they could have wanted, which includes sucking us 99 percenters dryer. That’s what they’re doing. Thank you Mr. President.

Today, as he gave his speech endorsing the KXL pipeline, Native-American protesters were “‘caged’ miles away from the event.” They were protesting the destruction the pipeline will have on their native lands. But Obama doesn’t care about anything except pleasing the rich. He’s just another Republican disguised as a Democrat.

Wall street and big oil want the pipeline, but most of the rest of us don’t want this environmental disaster. Remember this when it election time comes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Don’t vote for the lying rat bastard.

click here for the complete story

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Trade War Heating Up Between China and the US? How Stupid Is Mitt Romney?

According to the Guardian Newspaper, “The potential for a trade war is hovering in the background as Congress and the Republicans agitate over what they regard as underhanded tactics by Beijing. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential candidate in November, is threatening important restrictions and other barriers because of China’s alleged currency undervaluation.”

Some of this stuff is totally stupid. The United States has a trade deficit with China. Right? Wrong! The United States has a trade deficit with US corporations producing their stuff in China and shipping their stuff to the United States. You know who these “persons” are; Nike, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Microsoft and on and on.

So what Mitt is saying is simple. If Mitt, the king of corporate raiders, becomes president, somehow, he’s going to place restrictions on Nike, Apple and tons of other US corporations that will minimize their ability to export their stuff to the USA. I don’t buy it anymore than I buy the same crap from Obama. It’s all just theater meant for us to consume. Obama and King Mitt are creating an illusion not in harmony with reality when it comes to trade with China.

Click here for the latest news of how Obama and Mitt plan to keep the illusion alive

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Obama praises Job Exporting Treaty

Yesterday, President Barack “Wall Street” Obama praised the South Korea Free Trade Treaty that he signed into law last year. The treaty is expected to cost the USA nearly a million net jobs during the next decade. It was viciously opposed by main street in both countries and enthusiastically supported by Wall Street and Corporate America.

That’s because the difference between the old wages here and the new wages there will go into the pockets of the one percent, while a million citizens of the 99 percent will lose their livelihoods. The loss of the income tax money from those jobs means schools, police and other governmental agencies will lay off workers. In other words, the main purpose of the treaty is to redistribute income from the 99 percent to the one percent. The federal government is a tool used by the one percent to achieve this objective.

You’ve got to wonder how anybody can take Obama’s claim to be a job creator seriously when he is able to so readily write his signature on a sheet of paper that ships those jobs away.

By the way, the treaty is unconstutional. The Constitution clearly states that a treaty must 2/3rds of the Senate vote for it in order for it to become law. The Senate vote failed to reach that goal, as did every other free trade treaty in US history.

The South Korean Income Distribution Treaty is set to illegally take effect at Midnight on March 15, 2012.

click here for the complete story

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US Manufacturers in China Exporting Less Stuff to the World Bodes Evil for the Rest of the World

China has a trade deficit and it bodes evil for the world’s economy. Let’s face it. Much of China’s manufacturing is done on behalf of US corporations. The US government doesn’t want you to know that. The hideous US international trade deficit is mostly with US companies and their contractors and subcontractors. Nike makes of ton of its stuff there, so does HP, Apple and hundreds of others. Now all of sudden international demand has dampened for these goods. That suggests layoffs are ahead in China, which dampens demand for US made products there. But there’s something significantly more sinister about the Chinese trade deficit. It means that demand for manufactured goods is declining throughout the world. Maybe that means large geographic areas are going into recession. When your government continues to redistribute income from the 99 percent to the 1 percent via legislation, that weakens the demand for goods and service. That process has continued under Obama. Are we heading for recession? Maybe. We’ll see.

click here for the complete story

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Obama signs order to level playing field for Detroit auto industry – video

Speaking to the Auto Workers Union in Washington DC, President Barack Obama trumpeted his bailout and rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Not mentioning Mitt Romney by name, Obama cited a 2008 opinion piece by Romney called ‘Let Detroit go Bankrupt’ when discussing politicians who were against the bailout. Obama also announced a trade enforcement unit to help US businesses compete globally

Click here for the video

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