One in five families have suffered losses of more than 25 percent of their income. This is inescapably a moral issue. We cannot consider ourselves civilized — never mind Judeo-Christian — if the rest of us do not respond forcefully to the suffering of our fellow Americans. They have lost their jobs and often their homes, while corporate profits and executive salaries reach obscene levels. This is failed policy!

The effect of this suffering is to threaten the very fabric of our society. Those who are still in their homes find they are worth less. Those who help the poor are now facing overwhelming demands that they cannot fulfill. And the children! While we want every person to reach their full potential, poverty is the surest way to deny that potential, both psychologically and in terms of decent medical care, good nutrition, stimulating child care, effective education, and job opportunities. Poverty diminishes the future of America’s children and of our nation.

Persistent Unemployment

There are two main factors in the loss of American jobs. One is the automation of many jobs through technology. Stores of all kinds have fewer salespeople; some markets ask you to check yourself out. We have all experienced frustration because telephones are answered by machines or by people who speak a foreign English. The greatest reason for job loss is the outsourcing of jobs to poorer nations with much lower wages and very little environmental regulation.

It is common knowledge that worker income has stagnated while the cost of living and corporate profits are increasing. This is the result of sending jobs overseas. The jobs that remain are either low-paying service jobs or threatened by the possibility of being exported — an excellent way to discourage union organizing.

The Role of the WTO

“The World Trade Organization is the international organization whose primary purpose is to open trade for the benefit of all.”– From the statement of the WTO Director-General.

The ten benefits listed on the WTO’s own website, with our responses in italics are:

1. The system helps promote peace. This benefit is hard to find in today’s world.

2. Disputes are handled constructively. The WTO rules override local labor and environmental laws. Is that constructive?

3. Rules make life easier for all. Easier for corporations, worse for workers, their environment and the economy overall.

4. Freer trade cuts the costs of living. The U.S. cost of living adjustments are not noticeably less since WTO rules have been in effect.

5. It provides more choice of products and qualities. For us in the U.S. there is often little choice but to buy China-made goods.

6. Trade raises incomes. For corporations, maybe. For the millions of our unemployed, not at all.

7. Trade stimulates economic growth. We have a huge trade deficit and very little economic growth.

8. The basic principles make life more efficient. WTO has made profits easier for large, international corporations, but life is not more efficient.

9. Governments are shielded from lobbying. When does that start? How we wish they were!

10. The system encourages good government. By enhancing corporate profits and weakening labor, the WTO has encouraged the congress to listen to corporations and ignore the voice of the people. Is that good government?

Going by their own promised benefits, the WTO has failed the American people. Studies have shown that millions of U.S. jobs have been lost to off-shoring. In the process our technology has been shared with many Asian nations. Our trade deficit has soared as imports have increased. From 1995 to 2005 productivity grew by more than a third, while wages remained stagnant. In 1965 U.S. CEOs in major companies earned 24 times more than the average worker. By 2005 this ratio grew to 262 times more. Recent studies have shown that this extreme inequality lowers the satisfaction of people at every income level. Our society is becoming increasingly frustrated and angry, which is dangerous for our democracy.

We Can Stop Exporting Jobs

It is unconscionable that this rich nation has one in five families suffering from extreme economic insecurity. Superficial fixes won’t do. We must change the policies that have robbed people of the opportunity to find work and that have reduced buying power in the American market and lowered the federal tax base.

The one thing that will bring entrepreneurs back into business is the assurance that they can compete with imports produced in developing nations. That assurance is called a tariff. We should immediately place tariffs on all imported goods of industries that have been hurt by the WTO rules that encourage outsourcing. Of course, big business and some economists will condemn tariffs, claiming that slowing trade will cause the world economy to collapse. It won’t. Nor will it immediately return our nation to prosperity. What it will do is enable American industries to compete fairly with imported products. That assurance will encourage investment and the hiring of American workers.

It takes years for the WTO to bring charges against a nation that violates its rules.
So long as the WTO operates in secret and favors only international corporations, without regard for the labor and environmental aspects of free trade, the U.S. should not support or participate in it. The WTO has not produced the benefits that free trade promised in the mid 1990s, and our poorest families are paying the price for the corporate profits it has generated. The needs of the American people are more important than the rules made by top corporate executives in secret.

Many economists look only at money without reference to other factors. We have passed peak oil with the result that shipping of foreign goods will become more expensive. Shipping products around the world adds to the pollution of the air and oceans. There is also a security dimension to regaining our manufacturing ability. If the current trade disagreements between the U.S. and China were to escalate into a trade war, most Americans would soon be walking around barefoot. In the long run it is folly to outsource essential products, if they can be produced in the U.S.

We are ignoring the advances of a dangerous enemy. Climate change and global heating must be taken into account in every decision. The Free Trade policies of the WTO will become increasingly self-defeating as global climate chaos destroys the food, water and industrial capabilities of many nations. All nations must become as self-reliant as possible, while creating jobs for their people. Trade has existed throughout human history and it will continue, but America does not need to lose its manufacturing ability in order to please the executives of international corporations.

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