The Largest Export Product From the US Is What? Four Graphs That Will Make Your Blood Boil

What is the largest export product in the United States since NAFTA? The answer is simple: Jobs and with them, the US tax base that supports government services, such as roads, police and schools. These exported jobs are also what is fueling the recent gains in the stock market because the difference between the old wages and the new lower wages goes into the pockets of the 1 percent via higher corporate earnings, rising dividends and surging share prices. Coincidentally, the graph only shows job losses via export until 2010. This trend has had increase since then.

The United States is importing more manufactured goods, primarily from jobs that have been exported, or created overseas, by US corporations. In other words, the imports we purchase from overseas are from jobs that used to be, or would’ve been, in the US, in the absence of the free trade treaties that have paved the way. The difference between the old wages and the new lower wages overseas goes into the pockets of the 1 percent via higher corporate earnings, rising dividends and surging share prices.

Some of the jobs have been lost to automation, but most have been exported.

Manufacturing gone south since and because of Nafta and other trade agreements

Free Trade Agreements Mean Jobs Are Evaporating All Over the World

Cumulative Jobs Exported Since Nafta became law. These figures are from the Federal Reserve. Notice, Fed officials don’t suggest these jobs have been lost to automation.

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The Great Propaganda Hoax: Automation is the Great Job Killer

Automation is not the great job killer, shipping jobs overseas is the great job killer and tax base destroyer. That’s why the deficit is so great.

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Warning From the Economic Policy Institute (EPI): Jobs Growth Sucks!

A robust jobs recovery remains out of reach. The March jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last showed job growth of 88,000 in March—far lower than the 2012 average increase of 183,000.

“This morning’s jobs report was a big, negative surprise and underscored that a robust jobs recovery, even now, has not yet solidified,” said EPI economist Heidi Shierholz. At 168,000 per month, the average growth rate of the first quarter is not even close to adequate; at that rate, we would not return to the prerecession unemployment rate until late 2019. Additionally, although the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.6 percent in March, the decline is due to people dropping out of the labor force. In fact, the labor force participation rate dropped to its lowest point of the downturn, 63.3 percent.

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March jobs report shows slowdown in hiring with only 88,000 jobs added

The recovery in the US jobs market hit the skids in March with just 88,000 new jobs being created, less than half the figure economists had been expecting. The figure, the first since Washington implemented deep spending cuts, reanimated fears that the still lackluster recovery would suffer a “spring swoon”.

The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 7.6%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced, but the dip from 7.7% came only because 496,000 people stopped looking for work and fell out of the workforce. The surprisingly poor numbers triggered a sell-off on the US stock markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 139 points as the market opened, and closing down over 40 points after two up days.

The number was far worse than expected. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast that 200,000 new jobs were created in March – down from 236,000 jobs added in February. Private companies added only 95,000 jobs. Federal government payroll jobs fell by 14,000 as 12,000 postal workers were laid off.

The problem with the US economy is simple. The 1 percent steal over 30 percent of the national income compared with about 8 percent thirty-three years ago. The 1 percent invest their money in derivatives, politicians, legislation that ships jobs overseas such as free trade treaties and overseas tax havens, rather than purchasing the goods and services necessary to create jobs. Meanwhile, the 99 percent takes home 68 percent of the national income compared to 92 percent way back when the economy was creating jobs left and right. Nowadays, the 99 percent don’t have the cash necessary to create jobs at the same rate as thirty-three years ago.

President Obama knows this. The Republicans know this. The Democrats know this. But they don’t give a rat’s ass, at least very few of them do. They’re on Wall Street’s payroll. Wall Street wins again by sucking main street financially dryer.

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Does Obama’a Secret Negotiations Aim to Destroy the Constitution and Redistribute Income and Wealth From the 99 to the 1 Percent

Obama’s plan

Labor, trade, health and environmental Advocates are urging open negotiations, protections for American workers as the Trans Pacific Partnership Trade Deal is being negotiated. The Guardian newspaper calls the trade pact the largest in history, “Nafta on Steroids” and “an end run around the US Constitution.”

On the eve of his fifth State of The Union Address, President Barack Obama was urged by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and a broad coalition of progressive organizations to ensure that strong, enforceable labor, health and environmental protections are included as part of the largest “free” trade agreement ever negotiated by the U.S. The president most likely doesn’t care about these issues since the current negotiations will likely send 200,000 low paying textile jobs in El Salvador to lower paying Vietnam. This will cause tens of thousands of US textile workers to lose their jobs since many US textile workers manufacture thread, fabric and yarn and export them to El Salvador. About 2 percent of all US manufacturing exports are textiles. Vietnamese textile firms, on the other hand, get their thread, fabric and yarn from Chinese businesses. So Chinese workers will likely get American jobs, while Vietnamese workers get the jobs of 200,000 people in El Salvador. Good job President Obama! The difference between the old wages in El Salvador and the new lower wages in Vietnam will go into the pockets of rich shareholders. The same holds true of the US jobs that will be lost to China. In other words, the TPP is another income redistribution scam, just like all the rest.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership currently is being negotiated in secret among the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Roughly 600 corporate lobbyists have access to the negotiations and nobody else does, not even Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade, and one of Wall Street’s fiercest warriors in their financial plundering and rape of the middle class.

“Unless President Obama insists on strict standards of openness and iron-clad protections for American workers, the TPP will likely become the biggest and most destructive free trade agreement we’ve ever seen,” said CWA Chief of Staff Ron Collins. “This agreement will provide even more incentives for corporations to off-shore U.S. manufacturing and service jobs to countries like Vietnam which pay extremely low wages and suppress workers’ rights. Also, it could lead to lower wages and benefits in the U.S. as the remaining U.S. employers are forced to compete with these low wage countries. These same incentives will further erode labor rights, health and environmental protections among all participants. It would be part of a global race to the bottom that only benefits multi-national corporations.”

Collins noted that CWA and the other organizations support fair trade, but not the giveaway of jobs that has been the outcome of previous agreements, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the entry of China into the World Trade Organization. The current TPP process has given corporate lobbyists access to all negotiating documents, while the public is shut out of any discussion.

“We will only support trade agreements that secure fundamental labor rights for workers and fundamental protections for our health and environment in America and abroad,” Collins said.

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Barack Obama’s War Against the Middle Class: Rising trade deficits with Japan illustrate problem with proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership

From the Economic Policy Institute:

“The U.S. trade deficit with Japan has increased steadily over the past four years, reaching $79.9 billion in 2012, an increase of $13.4 billion (20.2 percent). Last month, the United States and Japan agreed on language that could allow Japan to join negotiations to enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed free trade agreement with 10 other Asia-Pacific countries (a new round of negotiations on the TPP began in Singapore last week ).

Exports support U.S. jobs but the larger volume of imports displaces even more jobs. Trade deficits such as the one we have with Japan have cost the United States millions of jobs, most of them high-paying jobs in manufacturing. Signing trade deals is an ineffective way to create jobs, in large part because they usually result in higher trade deficits. One of the biggest causes of our trade deficits is currency manipulation, which acts as an artificial subsidy to other countries’ exports and a tax on U.S. exports. Japan has a history of currency manipulation, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he intended to weaken the yen when he was elected in December. The yen has declined 11.9 percent since then.”

The US also has a trade deficit with China, but that’s not quite the truth. The US has a trade deficit with US corporations that do their manufacturing in China, such as Nike, Apple and Microsoft. The worse thing is that the Obama man may force US textile manufacturers to move their facilities to China, as well. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that there are plenty of US textile manufacturers in China, already.

The TPP is being negotiated by officials from the Obama administration. Obama’s policy preferences, like George W. Bush before him, have been to redistribute income and political power from the 99 to the 1 percent, or at least the slice of the 1 percent that Obama represents, such as the Crown Brothers of General Dynamics. That’s what the TPP is all about.

The TPP will off shore more US jobs and continue a deadly race to the bottom in order to support the Ponzi Scam known as Wall Street. That’s because US corporations must experience long-term rising share prices, which means profits must continually rise, more or less. And the best way for that to occur is if wage rates are reduced more and more. And so the TPP is an engine not only to get around the US Constitution (That’s another story), but also to depress wages and other compensation worldwide. So naturally Obama is aiming to destroy US textile jobs and redistribute the wages of the people who actually do the work to the 1 percent via higher corporate earnings, rising share prices and surging dividends.

Within the framework of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the government of Vietnam is demanding “preferential rules of origin to use raw materials from China.” This includes yarn, thread and fabric.

Central American textile businesses are also worried that Vietnam will get more flexible terms to import its apparel into the US, such as an end to tariffs on apparel goods. In which case, some estimates suggest El Salvador alone will lose 200,000 textile jobs. These jobs are located in large part within Maquila zones, which are zones in which US companies are allowed to assemble goods and then export them duty free to the United States.

Once these zones were established, US corporations sent jobs to Central America. The difference between the old wages in the US and the new lower wages in Central America went into the pockets of corporate CEOs and rich shareholders. The people whose jobs were shipped away as part of the Democratic and Republican Party’s war against the 99 percent were lucky if they got unemployment insurance. The Central America Free Trade Treaty (CAFTA) did the same thing, only on a grander scale.

Nowadays, every year, the 1 percent legislatively steal about 32 percent of the income of the United States compared to about 7-8 percent thirty-two years ago. That means the 99 percent have less money to burn, which creates less jobs. And guess what else? The 1 percent destroy jobs by pressuring the government to enact more and more free trade treaties because they wipe out American jobs and redistribute the income from the lost jobs into their own pockets.

It just so happens that textile workers in the El Salvador Maquila zones earn .78 cents per hour, compared to .60 cents of their Vietnamese counterparts. However, the Maquila Zones in Central America have a cost advantage over their Vietnamese rivals since there are no tariffs for their products exported to the USA. If Vietnam is allowed to ship their apparel products into the US duty free, El Salvador will have a labor cost disadvantage vis-a-vis Vietnam.

Now here’s the real problem.

“U.S. textile manufacturers produce yarn, thread, and fabric for apparel, home furnishings, and for various industrial applications. In 2011, the U.S. textile industry generated $53 billion in
shipments and directly employed about 238,000 Americans, accounting for 2% of all U.S. factory jobs. Approximately one-third of U.S. textile production is exported, with the bulk of the exports
going to Western Hemisphere nations that are members of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or the Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement
(CAFTA-DR), like El Salvador and Honduras.

Both free trade agreements provide that certain exports from member countries may enter the U.S. market duty-free only if they are made from textiles produced in the region. This has encouraged manufacturers in Mexico and Central America to use U.S.-made yarns and fabrics in apparel, home furnishings, and other products. Exports to the NAFTA and CAFTA-DR countries contributed to a U.S. trade surplus of $2.5 billion in yarns and fabrics in 2011.”

So the TPP has the potential to affect U.S. textile exporters in at least two ways. As mentioned earlier, it could enable Asian apparel producers, principally Vietnam, to export clothing to the United States duty-
free.” Roughly 40 percent of Nike’s products are produced in Vietnam. Guess what corporation is lobbying US politicians to support the TPP and eliminate the import duties from Vietnam?

“This (TPP) would eliminate much of the advantage now enjoyed by Western Hemisphere apparel producers in the U.S. market and, because Vietnamese manufacturers make little use of U.S.-made textiles,” will likely “reduce demand for U.S. textile exports,” killing US jobs, and redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent in the process. Second, it is possible the TPP will allow Western Hemisphere apparel manufacturers to use yarn and fabric made in any TPP member nations, such as China, which is where Vietnam gets its yarns and fabrics.”

In other words, Vietnamese apparel makers could wipe out El Salvador apparel makers, and that’s how Obama’s scam would destroy a couple of hundred thousand textile jobs in El Salvador. But this process would eliminate tens of thousands of US jobs in the textile industry, since the jobs in El Salvador are dependent on yarn, thread and fabric made in the USA.

In other words, Obama’s TPP scam is intended to make the 1 percent richer at the expense of the 99 percent, precisely because all free trade treaties are negotiated with this as the intended consequence. And this is just one of the income redistribution scams hidden within the negotiations of the TPP.

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Corporations lighten the load

Corporations lighten the load

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How to Short the Student Loan Bubble

“Houston, we have a problem,” writes Jordan Walthem. “After years of more and more aid, more loans, and fewer jobs, the student loan bubble looks ready to pop. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report that indicated that 35% of people under 30 who have student loans are at least 90 days late. Despite all the talk of an economic recovery, more people under 30 are now late on their payments than in 2008.”

Click below for the complete story.

How to Short the Student Loan Bubble

Student loans have been pushed on students by Wall Street, which influenced congress and President Ronald Reagan to cut federal grants so that students would need to borrow more and more money in order to obtain an education. Investment firms take the loans, slice and dice them, and use the payments by students to back the bonds. Wall Street then sells the bonds to rich investors. The payments made by students go into the pockets of the those investors, the same ones that are receiving all sorts of government handouts, and that are shipping jobs overseas and destroying the US tax base in the process. In other words, student loans are a carefully orchestrated scam by the 1 percent to redistribute income from the 99 percent to the 1 percent.That’s why student loan debt exceeds over a trillion dollars and is greater than all US credit card debt, which, coincidentally, is another income redistribution scam perpetrated by the 1 percent.

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Senator Jeff Merkley Calls for New Approach to Labor and Environmental Standards and Crackdown on Unfair Foreign Subsidies in Upcoming Trade Agreement

On February 15 2013, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley urged President Obama to include in the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement new, stronger provisions to ensure that responsible U.S. businesses that pay well and meet high labor and environmental standards are not disadvantaged and that middle class Americans benefit from trade, which is something that happens, but it’s an accidental by-product of free income redistribution of income from the 99 to the 1 percent treaties. This is a radical difference between Merkley and Oregon’s other senator, Wall Street Ron Wyden. Wyden has been using free trade treaties to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent since he entered congress two decades ago. On the other hand, Merkley has been fighting for the middle class since he entered the senate in 2008. Nobel Prize Economist Paul Krugman nicknamed Wyden, the “Useful Idiot.” By the way, President Obama and Wyden are almost always on the same page when it comes to redistributing income as described above.

Merkley’s letter asks the President to negotiate for a new approach to labor and environmental standards that makes them meaningfully enforceable using existing trade remedies. This request is likely to go nowhere with President Obama, whose base is such characters as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Inc,. The letter also asks that the treaty crack down on the threats to U.S. businesses and workers from foreign industrial policies, such as subsidies from state-owned banks and forced technology transfers that disadvantage American businesses, especially manufacturers. In the president’s State of the Union address, President Obama prioritized destroying the middle class and eroding Constitutional protections for people of the 99 percent by finishing the negotiations for the TPP.

“When free and fair, trade can encourage competition in the market, offer consumers a wider selection of better quality products at lower prices, and raise living standards around the world,” wrote Senator Merkley. “The success of our trade policies, like our economic success more broadly, should be measured by whether they move America’s middle class forward and help advance a vibrant, diverse economy with a robust manufacturing sector. I look forward to working with you to make trade with Asia a source of economic strength for U.S. businesses and workers.” The president and Useful Idiot Ron Wyden want none of this. They want the opposite.

Ideas presented by Senator Merkley in his letter to President Obama to strengthen the upcoming TPP Agreement include:

* Specifically and powerfully addressing the multi-tiered industrial policies that are particularly prominent in the Pacific region and that pose a serious threat to a free and open global trading regime, including:
* trade-distorting subsidy programs and practices, such as major, inappropriate grants for cheap land and utilities, preferential loans from export development banks, and discriminatory or unaccountable tax rebates;
* broad-based industrial subsidies such as strategically misaligned currencies, discriminatory policies that favor state-owned enterprises, and artificially cheap financing from state-owned banking systems; and
* strategic non-tariff barriers, such as mandatory joint venture requirements, forced technology transfers, opaque approval processes, and discriminatory technology standards.
* Taking a new and creative approach to stopping the global “race to the bottom” on labor and environmental practices , specifically by setting benchmarks for fair labor and environmental practices, and making them enforceable using the same tools available for enforcing other provisions of trade agreements.

The full text of the letter to President Obama is included below.

The senator Oregonians can be proud of, Senator Jeff Merkley

Dear President Obama:

Without question, trade is an important part of our nation’s foreign and economic policies. Trade solidifies our relationships with other nations, establishes the rule of law internationally, and encourages international educational and cultural exchange. When free and fair, trade can encourage competition in the market, offer consumers a wider selection of better quality products at lower prices, and raise living standards around the world. Moreover, for America to be prosperous long-term, we must be able to export our goods and services to growing international markets. Oregon, in particular, has many jobs that depend on trade.

You have stated that our trade policies should be oriented towards strengthening the American middle class and building thriving export and manufacturing sectors. In your State of the Union yesterday, you prioritized concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Given the strategic importance of the Asia-Pacific region economically, you have repeatedly emphasized the need to make it the gold-standard for a 21st century trade agreement. Although I have expressed concern about past trade agreements, I write today to emphasize my support for getting the TPP right. Late last year, I joined letters led by Senator Al Franken (on a range of issues) and Senator Ron Wyden (on the environment) that set forth a number of views I share. I would like to offer now several additional thoughts and suggestions for how to make the TPP an agreement I can support.

First, the TPP must specifically and powerfully address the multi-tiered industrial policies that are particularly prominent in the Pacific region and that pose a serious threat to a free and open global trading regime. Policies that should be addressed include:
· trade-distorting subsidy programs and practices, such as major, inappropriate grants for cheap land and utilities, preferential loans from export development banks, and discriminatory or unaccountable tax rebates;
· broad-based industrial subsidies such as strategically misaligned currencies, discriminatory policies that favor state-owned enterprises, and artificially cheap financing from state-owned banking systems; and
· strategic non-tariff barriers, such as mandatory joint venture requirements, forced technology transfers, opaque approval processes, and discriminatory technology standards.

The policies noted above are fundamentally at odds with U.S. economic and political traditions. Even when federal and state governments have attempted to match some of the industrial subsidies available abroad, basic democratic protections such as transparency and taxpayer accountability, as well as tight budgets, have tended to limit their scope. In contrast, some less democratic governments have been able to adopt policies that, although arguably wasteful in the short-run, have over time been able to achieve long-run shifts in supply chains and industrial competitiveness. Moreover, with companies from emerging markets increasingly investing abroad, including in the U.S., the subsidies they receive, especially in the form of beneficial financing arrangements, could put U.S. companies at a disadvantage even on U.S. soil. The TPP presents an opportunity to address the risks – and waste – from foreign industrial policies in forceful ways.

Second, the TPP should take a new and creative approach to stopping the global “race to the bottom” on labor and environmental practices by mandating enforceable minimum standards in these areas. Maintaining basic labor and environmental standards are fundamental to a fair and level playing field in trade and are at the core of what it means to live in a middle class society. Recent FTAs improved upon earlier agreements by including provisions relating to labor and environmental standards, but much more needs to be done. Instead of resting on past progress, the TPP should raise the bar by including clear and appropriate standards requiring adherence to basic labor rights, fair wages, and specific environmental protections, along with clear and appropriate new enforcement tools.

One approach to consider would be using our existing anti-dumping laws as a model to enforce minimum labor and environmental standards, an innovation that would take advantage of the ability for FTAs to go beyond WTO requirements.[1] In this scenario, if a TPP party exports goods that are produced by workers paid less than a “fair wage,” those goods could be subject to an enforcement action that would raise the price of the import to what it would have cost to produce if a fair wage had been paid. The “fair wage” could be determined according to an agreed-upon, reviewable formula that would take into consideration the local cost of living.[2] A similar approach could be used to implement minimum environmental standards.[3] Implemented properly, this novel approach would create a “race to the top” in global markets – leveling the playing field for U.S. manufacturers and workers, raising living standards for foreign workers, and stimulating consumer demand overseas for U.S. exports. It could even benefit U.S. corporations that already adhere to good labor and environmental standards overseas but are competitively disadvantaged relative to less scrupulous competitors.

As you enter the next and critical stage of TPP negotiations, I hope you can keep the priorities I have outlined in mind. In the end, the success of our trade policies, like our economic success more broadly, should be measured by whether they move America’s middle class forward and help advance a vibrant, diverse economy with a robust manufacturing sector. I look forward to working with you to make trade with Asia a source of economic strength for U.S. businesses and workers.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey A. Merkley
United States Senator

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President Jimmy Carter is Beginning to Look Great: Only 181,00 jobs per month were created in 2012

Two million jobs were created last year.

The graph above says a ton.

1) 2.17 million jobs were created in 2012, which is the best annual amount since 2005, and is greater than seven of the eight years of the corrupt idiots Bush/Cheney.

2) “During the fourth quarter of last year, with the “fiscal cliff” looming, 201,000 jobs were created per month. “All these concerns that the fiscal uncertainty deterred businesses from hiring, they certainly haven’t materialized,” said UniCredit economist Harm Bandholz.”

3) “74,000 government jobs were lost last year. This includes 9,000 layoffs last month, 2,000 of which were in education. Since February 2010, the public sector has lost 600,000 jobs.”

4) “5.5 million lost jobs have been recovered. As Bloomberg News noted, ‘The economy has recovered 5.51 million of the 8.74 million jobs that were lost as a result of the last recession.’”

5) Roughly 100,000 construction jobs have been created since September 2012. The economy has added 296,000 construction jobs since January 2011, and a third of those gains occurred in the final four months of 2012. Still, construction employment is 2 million jobs below its 2006 peak.

Now here are some things the chart doesn’t tell you.

6) By 2012, a good three years after the end of the last recession, fully 49.1 percent of the US population received some form of government assistance compared to 30 percent in 1980.

7) Under President Jimmy Carter, during the period from June 1980 to June 1981, the economy created nearly three million jobs, more than 230,000 jobs per month, and in a nation that was more than 2/3s smaller in population and gross domestic product than the current economy. What happened to cause such giant differences between then and now? Here is the difference. The 1 percent have stolen ove 30 percent of the total income produced in the US every year, compared to 7 to 8 percent in 1980. The US government was taken over by the 1 percent years ago. The result has been a massive redistribution of income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent via free trade legislation, deregulation and privatization scams, as well as profitable wars for the 1 percent and stuff like that. That means the 99 percent have less money to spend, which creates a weaker economy, less jobs and fewer opportunities.

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