Some history: I remember all through the 1980s American commentators and so-called economic experts were decrying Japanese auto makers as taking away American jobs. They had worked workers all across the country into a frenzy and in Detroit it led to the death of an Asian-American who happened to be on the wrong street that day.
Japan of course wasn't the problem. Japanese auto makers were taking what they had learned from Americans and were putting it into practice, something Americans themselves weren't doing all through the 1980s. Instead we were practicing Reganomics, now discredited except for some ultra right-wingers.
These commentators were wrong then and they are wrong now to oppose it. "Buy American" wasn't the answer to our problems back then, our lack of productivity and investment was, but "buy American" might just be the right thing today.
I'm of course taking about the "buy American" clause that is part of the economic recovery (or stimulus) package being debated in Congress right now.
What has changed is that our decades-long experiment with free trade has revealed one undeniable truth: the U.S. market is second to none and every country needs to sell to Americans to grow their own economy. Ask any non-U.S. CEO and they'll tell you that in order to be successful today, you have to sell in the U.S. Or just go look at the monthly trade imbalance; we buy more from others than we sell to them.
So why are editorial pages, such as my home town paper the "SF Chronicle" railing against the "buy American" provision in the bill? Because they represent the mouthpiece of American business and American CEOs want access to any and all markets for cheap labor and to sell services. These same CEOs aren't concerned with creating American jobs.
If our own government doesn't "buy American" goods and services then we have no hope of reversing the trend of Amercian CEOs throwing Americans out of work.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment