The following article is from the Columbia Tribune.

If corporations are indeed people as the Supreme Court recently ruled, one would think they would be more patriotic. As the American economy continues to muddle along in a jobless, slow-growth “recovery,” it is clear a decadeslong series of trends has quietly stilted the world’s greatest productive engine. Employment growth remains stubbornly resistant to stimulus, cash for clunkers or tax cuts for the 1 percent.

I have always considered myself to be a free-trade, free-market kind of guy. I was ecstatic when President Bill Clinton pushed through the North American Free Trade Agreement. Surely the alphabet soup of trade agreements that followed would herald a new era of expanding exports and declining trade deficits.

Well, a funny thing happened on the road to Damascus. Free-trade agreements and globalization opened foreign markets for American products. But the more visible result has seen the United States become the world’s dumping ground for cheap foreign-made consumer goods, coinciding with increased hiring abroad by U.S.-based multinational corporations.

Essentially, our companies making cheap products with overseas labor and selling them back to us.

Over the past 10 years, U.S.-based multinational companies have slashed more than 800,000 domestic jobs, according to a recent report from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. During this period, these same companies added 2.87 million jobs outside the United States, resulting in a net loss of more than 3.6 million American jobs. Bring back half of these jobs to the States, and the unemployment rate falls almost a full percentage point.

U.S.-based multinational companies have focused hiring efforts mostly in emerging markets, where economic growth has been faster than in other areas. In China, where growth has exploded more than 10 percent per year over the past decade, U.S. multinationals have added 691,000 jobs, according to the report. India and Latin America have benefited from 425,000 and 532,000 jobs, respectively, according to statistics from the Huffington Post.

Obviously, corporations will hire where the growth potential is. However, a troubling trend is shackling the U.S. economy. With each recession since World War II, the amount of time needed to get back to pre-recession job levels continues to lengthen. Without calling for trade wars and other measures that could sink the global economy, it does seem entirely necessary for a fundamental shift in direction.

After decades of job loss and job-sparse recoveries, the time has come to rethink our tax and trade policies. Our government needs to construct a comprehensive program that deals with globalization in ways that can benefit our economy. It also is time for U.S. corporations to remember there’s no place like home.

Read the whole article at the Columbia Tribune.

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