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In the Bureau of Labor Statistics for July, 2010 report, about 14.5 million
Americans are wanting work but unable to find any. In addition, another 1.2 million
discouraged Americans have given up looking, and 8.5 million are working only
part-time for economic reasons. That represents almost 16 percent of the work force
-- about one out of every six adults, with 3.4 million fewer private-sector
jobs than there were ten years ago. We're stuck at 9.5 percent unemployment, despite
non-financial companies sitting on nearly $2 trillion in cash (Newsweek,
8/7/2010).
Finally, the original early 1800-ear arguments supporting Free Trade make
a number of assumptions that don't hold up in practice. These include David
Ricardo's 'immobile capital' -- investors would not want to move their funds
to another nation (Free Trade Doesn't Work by Ian Fletcher), no externalities
such as pollution or a nation losing control of its destiny (remember the Arab
Oil Embargo; China now holds $2.4 trillion of our debt, and Detroit has become
so hollowed out it is no longer capable of the military support it provided to
win WWII), mobile labor (not true when workers are bogged down with underwater
housing, language limitations, and unwilling to accept Chinese living
standards), and currency manipulation doesn't occur (China's RMB is estimated
to be 40 percent undervalued).
Three areas of action would revive our economy, end the unemployment
problem, and revive government treasuries:
1) Impose a 40 percent tariff on all imported goods from China; freeze all
proposals to expand Free Trade (Columbia, Panama, South Korea).
We should also stop using the Trade Deficit to blame tax policy, and
instead learn from: