I would like to see our own chicken coop do well. That means, given the metaphor, that all the chickens lay their eggs and get well fed for their efforts. When the chickens get well paid they can invest in new paint for the sides of their abode. They could pay someone to sweep out the chicken droppings. It would be a swell place after awhile.
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brooksdr/DRB_web_page/fox/fox.htm
The foxes might also be fed well if they did their job of protecting the chickens in their own coop. Maybe, if the domestic chickens would be productive enough, there would not be any need for our foxes to go roaming the countryside looking for other coops to raid.
The problem we have here is that the foxes have had entirely too much influence on what happens here in our own chicken coop. Seems they've thought the chickens here work for too much pay. They are overpriced, apparently. When the farmer comes out looking for the days product, the foxes have been placing eggs they've stolen from other cheaper coops into our coop. Then, the foxes have been taking the profits instead of our chickens.
http://midnight.hushedcasket.com/2008/05/14/of-foxes-chickens-and-voter-demographics/
It's a scam. The foxes are getting fat off the work done by foreign chickens, even as their domestic chickens are getting weaker and weaker from not eating as much as they need.
What to do...?
People have been complaining about what our domestic foxes have been doing for years now. Part of the problem with our economic crisis, these people say, is a result of the economic treaties and agreements the elites put in place in the past. We are reaping now what we sowed then, so to speak.
What did they say about 'free trade' agreements? Much as what they are saying now. Here is Roberts complaining that Obama still is not dealing with the causes of our problems, so much as he is still going after the symptoms,
February 18, 2009
The People Be Damned
President of Special Interests
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The Bush/Obama bailout/stimulus plans are not going to work. Both are schemes hatched by a clique of financial insiders. The schemes will redistribute income and wealth from American taxpayers to the shyster banksters, who have destroyed American jobs, ruined the retirement plans of tens of millions of Americans, and worsened the situation of millions of people worldwide who naively trusted American financial institutions. The ongoing theft has simply been recast. Instead of using fraudulent financial instruments, the banksters are using government policy.
Michael Hudson captures the nature of the heist in CounterPunch (February 12):
“When it comes to cleaning up the Greenspan Bubble legacy by writing down homeowner mortgage debt, the Treasury proposal offers homeowners $50 billion – just [half of one percent] of the $10 trillion Wall Street bailout to date, and less than half the amount given to AIG to pay its hedge fund speculators on their derivative gambles. The Treasury has handed out $25 billion to each and every big bank, so just two of these banks alone got as much as the reported one-quarter of all homeowners in America suffering from Negative Equity on their homes and in need of mortgage renegotiation. Yet today’s economic shrinkage cannot be reversed without a recovery in consumer demand. The economy has lost the “virtual wealth” in higher-priced homes and the stock market, and must rely on after-tax earnings. But I see little concern for wage earners in the Treasury plan. Without debt relief, consumer spending and business investment will not recover.”
The big money men cannot conceive of anyone’s suffering except the mega-rich. If billions are not at stake, what is the problem? How can a family losing its house bring down the economy?
There was a time in America when the interests of elites were connected to those of ordinary Americans. Henry Ford said that he paid his workers good wages so they could buy his cars.
Today American corporations pay foreign workers low wages so CEOs can pay themselves multi-million dollar “performance” bonuses.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/12/gates-seeks-more-hightech_n_91188.html
Congress has had a parade of CEOs, ranging from Bill Gates of MIcrosoft and IBM brass on down the line, to testify that they desperately need more H-1B work visas for foreign employees as they cannot find enough American software engineers and IT workers to grow their businesses. Yet, all the companies who sing this song have established records of replacing American employees with H-1B workers who are paid less.
...The American economic elite are hiding their treason to the American people behind “free trade.”
I want to say this as clearly as it can be said. The offshoring of American jobs is the antithesis of free trade. Free trade is based on comparative advantage. Jobs offshoring is an activity in pursuit of lowest factor cost--an activity that David Ricardo, the originator of the free trade theory, described as the betrayal of one’s own country in pursuit of “absolute advantage.”
The “free market” shills on the payroll of the U.S. Chamber, NAM, and in economics departments and think tanks that are recipients of grants from transnational corporations are whores aligned with elites who are destroying the American work force.
Obama has appointed to his National Economic Council blatant apologists for the offshoring of American jobs.
Possibly Obama loves the country that elevated him to its highest office. But his administration is populated with people whose loyalty does not extend beyond elites to the American people.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.
The problems with 'free trade' agreements have been pointed out time and time again. Congress knows about them, I suspect. It is not in the interest of their benefactors to do anything to correct them. When the elites who benefit directly are in power, then special efforts are made, apparently, to make sure the agreements are passed surreptitiously (secretly). And, if anyone notices the consequences are not good for the workers around the world, the reports are covered over as best as they can be.
June 10, 2004
Force-Feeding Lies About Free Trade
Really Bad Trade News Obscured by Distractingly Bad News on Other Fronts
By SAUL LANDAU
"The poor and the marginalized are most commonly denied justice and would benefit most from the fair application of the rule of law and human rights. Yet despite the increasing discourse on the indivisibility of human rights, in reality economic, social and cultural rights are neglected, reducing human rights to a theoretical construct for the vast majority of the world's population. It is no mere coincidence that, in the Iraq war, the protection of oil wells appears to have been given greater priority than the protection of hospitals."
Amnesty International Annual Report, May 2004
...
Unfortunately, no major newspaper or TV news show offered prime space to the UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) biannual report. This document calls into question the entire "globalization" or "free market" system. Increased international trade, it concludes, has not led to reduction in poverty in the world's poorest countries. Indeed, during this boom of world trade poverty has increased, as has the income gap between rich and poor.
The study found little linkage to show that trade had enlarged the income of the poorest in the world's 50 least developed countries. UNCTAD officials confirmed that trade had helped integrate some poor countries into the world economy; but their negative trade balances had grown more distressing as a result of the neo-liberal trade policies.
So opening up markets does not spread benefits? Why does it take a panel of experts to state what observant people already knew: world trade investment--without tariffs, taxes or government regulation harms the world's 3 billion plus neediest people and helps the wealthiest.
Data to back this conclusion comes from a recent report from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The report's authors estimate that 227 million Latin American and Caribbean citizens live below the limits of poverty. In the first years of 21st Century, this region recorded an unemployment rate of 10.3 percent almost akin to the depression of the 1930s.
Interamerican Bank President Enrique Iglesias confirms that 44 percent of Latin America's population lives below poverty levels. The region, he concedes, experiences a ghastly wealth distribution gap, severe unemployment and "social exclusion influenced by ethnic and racial factors."
Conversely, on the editorial and business pages of the New York Times and Wall St. Journal, financial experts debate whether former NYSE head Richard Grasso merited his $188.5 million "compensation package" after being forced to leave his post prematurely and whether CEOs should get $10 or $20 million bonuses for laying off thousands of low-paid workers. Celebrities, whose contributions to world culture we need not debate, regularly accept or reject deals for hundreds of millions of dollars. One basketball player "earns" millions of dollars by endorsing shoes, which may sell for $100 or more. Half the world's population does not earn that much in six months; hundreds of millions don't make $100 a year.
In Africa, Asia and Latin America hundreds of millions somehow manage to stay alive on less than a dollar a day. A cow on a US government subsidized dairy farm receives more than a child in a Nicaraguan slum.
http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve08/1378wto.html
Welcome to the supposedly reasonable and democratic world of free trade. In this system, the neediest receive "tests" to qualify for loans that will ultimately make the wealthiest even wealthier. IMF and World Bank economists routinely demand that poor governments invest in "export opportunities." They advise leaders of poor third world countries to drop all the "nonsense of self sufficiency" and cultivate crops for export flowers instead of corn, macadamia nuts instead of beans. IMF officials typically withhold loans until begging governments agree to follow their harsh rules. For example, to qualify for an IMF loan, the Jamaican government in the mid 1970s had to prove it had cut subsidies to the poor, devalued the currency, making the poor even poorer, and reduced spending on social services to those who most needed them. "Don t worry," crooned the IMF salesmen, "private capital will soon rush in to create jobs and fuel overall economic growth."
Countries that followed such counsel now find themselves hosts of low-wage-low-cost textile plants. Honduras, for example has become a Wal-mart super supplier, but does not receive super dividends. Little of the "invested" capital actually stays in the country and the jobs pay typically less than the amount required to sustain a human being. Honduran workers earn approximately 70 cents an hour after getting a big raise.
Yes, we have problems here at home. Some people, though, may not be that sympathetic to our plight at the moment. That would be that the American people seem to have allowed our foxes to go down there and put them in the same situation for a long time previously. Once the elites stole all they could do so easily, they have come home to steal from their own chickens. Chickens in other coops are not about to cry about what happens to us I would imagine.
Here's a list of complaints that some made about the NAFTA agreement that President Clinton and Bush were hot to pass. It was seen to be harmful to the chickens who lived outside the United States.
September 12, 2002
Another Bad Trade Pact
From NAFTA to CAFTAby Krystal Kyer
Under cover of the corporate (and independent) media's obsession with GW Bush's maniacal 'war on terror,' the US is pursuing new trade negotiations to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) debacle to Central and South America. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) aims at creating a free-trade zone throughout the western hemisphere, with a target date of January 2005. The effects of which could have an even more dismal impact on millions of people throughout North and South America then has the latest imperialist government's war.
... The White House's brief Fact Sheet on CAFTA makes numerous claims regarding the perceived benefits of expanding NAFTA via CAFTA. Several points are worth disputing, based on the measurable results of NAFTA since its passage in 1994, as well as government actions in Central America today. These include the following statements:
Claim #1: American farmers, businesses, workers and consumers will benefit from free trade.
Rebuttal: Last year Public Citizen released a 70-page review of NAFTA's agricultural outcomes, which empirically refutes this claim. Since NAFTA, American, Canadian and Mexican independent farmers have seen prices plummet and safety nets removed. Thousands of small farms have gone under since NAFTA. As a result, farmland has shifted into the hands of agricultural mega-corporations such as Tyson and Cargill. Small farmers are clearly losers under NAFTA. Correspondingly, large businesses have been the greater beneficiaries of free trade. Since NAFTA began, ConAgra's and Archer Daniels Midland's profits have both tripled to $413 million and $301 million, respectively. As for American workers, or any workers for that matter, benefiting from free trade--we haven't found any. Promises of more manufacturing jobs were never fulfilled. Instead, many jobs were transferred to maquiladoras in northern Mexico, where US corporations could pay workers less while evading US worker safety standards and environmental protection laws. It is estimated that nearly 15 million peasant farmers throughout Mexico have lost significant income. American consumers have not felt the lower prices, either. In reality, domestic food prices rose 20% during NAFTA's first seven years.
Claim #2: CAFTA would "support Democracy and Economic Reform."
Rebuttal: There is no doubt that the US trade policies support economic reform outside of the US. But the fundamental question is: do the people of these countries want the kind of economic reform being offered by free trade proponents? It is a neoliberal economic model that is pushed forth by US trade and foreign policy, which is, by all accounts, antithetical to what social movements throughout Central America are calling for. Dozens of movements and direct actions throughout the region have been meet with resistance from the government and military leaders, often backed by the United States. If citizens do not want CAFTA, then how can implementing CAFTA be a vessel for democracy?
Claim #3: "The United States has supported the development of democracy, enhanced economic growth, and security for human rights..."
Rebuttal: US support for democratic governments in Central America cannot be found in any historical record. In fact, the US has a tendency (a policy?) to support military regimes and dictatorships in that region, more than anything else. The US, through the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as the US Army School of Americas), has trained tens of thousands of Central and South American military officers in the ancient art of violating basic human rights. It has also worked covertly and overtly to install and maintain governments that are undemocratic (to say the least)--El Salvador's US-backed coup in 1979, Nicaragua's contra war during both the Carter and Reagan administrations, and Guatemala's 1954 CIA-engineered coup, etc. . .(Read Noam Chomsky's book, Turning the Tide: US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace).
Claim #4: CAFTA would "commit these countries to even greater openness and transparency, which would deepen the roots of democracy, civil society, and the rule of law in the region..."
Rebuttal: The "openness and transparency" that the White House if referring to here has nothing to do with democracy, civil society or the rule of law. Rather, it applies to the movement of goods and services, financial and material, across borders without penalties. It involves a further weakening of those countries abilities to protect their comparatively weak economies from large industrial countries. Privatization of public services such as water and sanitation, electricity, and healthcare has taken place throughout the region behind closed doors and against the will of the populace. Proponents of CAFTA in Central American countries are actually actively working against the interests of civil society and democracy, through union-firings and arrests, rollbacks of labor and environmental standards, and police violence at anti-FTAA rallies. The people of El Salvador have been struggling against FTAA and neoliberal economic policies for decades. Here in the US, the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is lending their support to the campaign against CAFTA and FTAA. El Salvadoran labor and civil leaders have identified CAFTA as the greatest threat to their current struggle for democracy in El Salvador. In reality, CAFTA is destroying the roots of democracy and civil society, while instituting military regimes who determine, interpret, and carry out the 'law.'
Claim #5: Free trade, along with increases in trade and investment flows would ". . . support common efforts to achieve stronger environmental protection and improved working conditions."
Rebuttal: Free trade has achieved a route circumventing environmental protections and worker's rights. US corporations often move manufacturing to countries like Mexico, where labor unions, worker's rights, and minimum wages are weaker than in the US. In agriculture, deadly
http://www.iam250.org/mexico/welcome-to-nafta.html
pesticides that have banned in the US for environmental and worker safety, like the carcinogen DDT, are used freely (and then imported back to US consumers). In all likelihood, CAFTA would further weaken environmental protections and worker's rights, just as NAFTA has done here and abroad. Like it or not, there is more going on in the world besides the latest 'war of terror.' CAFTA is an important issue that should not be overlooked by social/economic/environmental justice activists in the coming months. If it is passed, the expansion of NAFTA will likely result in a reduction in workers rights, higher unemployment and lower wages; higher prices for food; environmental degradation; and an ever-widening wealth gap
http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/latinlife/2008/08/latino-quote-of-the-day-23.html
between the world's rich few and poor billions. The devastating impacts of corporate-style free trade makes one wonder whether Bush Jr. is actually waging two wars right now. . .
Krystal Kyer is an activist writer, and has a Master of Environmental Studies degree.
I am not sure what the Republicans will want to do after their loss to Obama. I doubt, however, that they will come to see that this issue that 'free trade' agreements have a harmful affect on workers both foreign and domestic could be their issue. That might be a good thing if they did. However, the fact is, both the business Republicans and business Democrats that move and shake their parties at the moment should be expected to leave well enough alone. Their benefactors are profiting nicely, I would imagine.
The left, however, should argue that Democrats and the rest of the country should revisit these agreements. They benefit a small number of elites who control these businesses. They do not benefit the workers or the economies that struggle if their chickens are hurting.
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