Look at the graph below. Almost 30 million US jobs have been shipped away since the signing of NAFTA, according to the Federal Reserve. That’s your tax base for schools, police and other government services. That’s why classes are overcrowded and school district’s are finding it difficult to keep up with constantly rising prices.
The total number of jobs exported since Nafta was enacted into law in 1994.
When jobs are shipped overseas, the difference between the old higher wages and the new lower wages are redistributed into the pockets of rich corporate shareholders via rising corporate earnings, soaring share prices and skyrocketing dividend payments. That means the wages of nearly 30 million jobs and the tax base these jobs used to support have been redistributed into the pockets of the 1 percent. That’s precisely why CEO pay has gone up and up since Nafta and other free trade treaties have been enacted. Check out the graph below. Notice that the massive rise in CEO pay began in 1994.
It should also be pointed out that free trade treaties not only pave the way to redistribute your child’s education to the .01 percent richest of Americans, these income redistribution treaties also pave the way for US companies to create jobs overseas, rather than here, where they belong.
The US propaganda media tells us that the jobs are going away because of automation. This is a lie because nobody would have a job nowadays since automation has been occurring since the industrial revolution began, and for the most part, more jobs are always created by new technologies and automation. Think about computers. They replaced typewriters. Computers support far more jobs and job creation than typewriters ever did. Where do you think all that software comes from? The Internet wouldn’t exist without computers. So why is there a jobs crisis? Check out the graph below. According to the Federal Reserve, every year one to two million jobs are shipped away. That doesn’t count the jobs US corporations create overseas, rather than here, due to free trade treaties.
US corporations continue to ship millions of jobs overseas, and they continue to create them overseas due to free income redistribution trade treaties. Almost three million jobs were shipped away in 2009 and 2010. Probably another two million were shipped away in 2011, and even more in 2012. Did automation do that? I don’t think so. Did automation sign a free trade treaty so that US corporations could create jobs overseas rather than here? I doubt it.
Look at the graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average below. Notice that when NAFTA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in January 1994, the Dow took off, from just under 4,000 to up and up. Opening Mexico to free trade allowed US corporations to move production there and redistribute massive amounts of income from working people to the 1 percent in the process. It also paved the way for US corporations that produced goods in extremely low paying places like China to ship those items to Mexico, and in the process, this crushed Mexican production in such things as shoe manufacturing, but it was profitable for American companies, and the 1 percent. Record corporate earnings, due to redistributing income from working Americans to the 1 percent, has pushed the Dow Jones to record levels.
The Dow is over 14,000 nowadays. One reason is because of record corporate profits. How can that be since we have a weak economy? The world economy is also weak. So what can possibly explain the rise in the Dow? Since the demand for goods and services are historically pathetic, the only way for corporations to bid up their share prices has been to ship jobs overseas, and that means millions of them.
The result of free trade income treaties have been a financial miracle for the top 1 percent, and especially so for the top .1 percent. Those are the people who own the federal government, sheep dogs like Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden. Notice that a massive shift in income going to the 1 percent began, oh, judging by the graph, about January 1994, when Nafta was signed into law. That’s the result of your free trade treaties.
The rest of us are being driven into banana republic status since our income is being redistributed to the 1 percent.
One other point needs to be made. The graph below only goes to 2007. Since then the 1 percent has been stealing well over 88 percent of all income growth. That means the 1 percent are now stealing over 30 percent of all the income earned in the USA.
This is why free trade treaties are so popular among the 1 percent. This is why their propaganda machines, like Fox News, MSNBC, the Oregonian newspaper, the New York Post and the New York Times and all the major and cable propaganda networks love free trade treaties and why they lie to us by telling us that automation is the great job destroyer.
So we know free trade is the great job destroyer, the primary vehicle of income redistribution, and the great conduit of wealth redistribution.
More income means more wealth. So the 1 percent now own over 40 percent of all wealth in the US compared to 8 percent forty-five years ago. Take a look at the video below to get a good idea about the actual distribution of wealth, which are assets. The US is the 75th most unequal nation in terms wealth inequality in the world, and that was several years ago. It’s gotten much worse since then. And it’s getting worse. Want to reverse this trend? Take action. Get involved. Stop the newest trade treaty that’s being negotiated; the Trans Pacific Partnership. The Guardian newspaper calls it “NAFTA on Steroids.”
