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Sat 31 Jan, 2004 10:45 am
By ELIZABETH BECKER
Published: January 31, 2004
COLUMBIA, S.C., Jan. 30 Challenging the wisdom of free-trade agreements has become a blood sport in South Carolina.
Local newspapers here trumpeted the state's latest job-loss figures in 2003, the worst in the nation. One newspaper said the job losses suffered by South Carolina in the past three years marked the worst period since "the Great Depression."
New billboards ask passing drivers: "Lost your job to free trade or offshoring yet?"
South Carolina offers the most extreme example of the anxiety coursing through the country as white-collar and blue-collar jobs alike disappear to foreign competition.
A CBS News poll of likely Democratic primary voters in South Carolina released Friday night found that 56 percent want the party's nominee to support more trade restrictions. In addition, three-quarters of the likely primary voters attributed the loss of jobs in their area to trade with other nations.
The Democratic candidates tried to tap into those trade fears on Friday at a poverty forum, saying President Bush had mishandled free trade and promising not to sign another trade agreement until workers and their jobs got the same protection as corporations now do.
Walking a thin line between bemoaning globalization and flirting with protectionism, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said he would stop the stream of jobs overseas by only negotiating fair-trade agreements that contained labor and environmental standards. "I will not allow everyone to go, you know, to the bottom," he said.
Senator John Edwards of North Carolina repeated what could be the emerging Democratic trade policy: "We've been so focused on free trade we don't ask for fair trade."
In a sign that trade could become a preferred Democratic weapon against Mr. Bush, the complaints were bipartisan on Friday.
A few blocks away from the forum, South Carolina's two senators ; Ernest F. Hollings, a Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican ; took turns spewing anger and frustration at the current state of the American trade imbalance during a hearing about trade with China.
And it was Mr. Graham who warned the administration that its new trade agreements would meet stiff resistance in Congress so long as nothing was done about what he called the unfairness of Chinese trade. He also took aim at Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, for offering too much at trade talks. "I don't think he's a very good negotiator," Mr. Graham said.
To woo middle-class voters, Democrats link trade to the loss of three million jobs during the Bush administration even though experts are split on the number of jobs lost to trade rather than to, say, new technology or increased productivity.
Mr. Hollings, one of the few senior lawmakers who describes himself as a protectionist, was even more adamant. "I don't know how to wake up this country, but we have got to have a competitive trade policy," he said.
In the sound bite of a campaign, that is reduced to "jobs."
"In this election, the issue is about jobs, jobs, jobs. Moving jobs offshore is not what Democrats think trade is all about," said Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, said at the forum that "all we've globalized are the corporations' rights to do business in other countries not the workers' rights, human rights or the environment."
The formerly wide distinctions among the candidates on trade are a blurring now that Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who wanted an international minimum wage, has left the race and the campaign of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who has accused his opponents of flirting with protectionism, has stalled.
There is now something approaching unanimity that the rules of global trade must be re-examined. While this may sound like old-fashioned protectionism, some of the party's most vocal free-traders say the candidates are right.
Mickey Kantor, the trade representative under President Bill Clinton, said the Democrats need to elevate trade as a critical issue facing the country and that they should question the current rules of trade, even if he wrote some of them.
"There may be a lot of heated rhetoric out there, but this is a serious issue, and the Democrats have the correct position to challenge some of the rules," said Mr. Kantor, who supports Gen. Wesley K. Clark. "Critics are laying too much at the altar of trade but it affects livelihoods and futures and it has to be debated seriously."
Like the other candidates, General Clark wants the trade laws to be more strongly enforced.
Trade now accounts for nearly a third of the economy, and the trade deficit has hit a record $38 billion.
In critical campaign states like the Carolinas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the link between trade and the loss of manufacturing jobs is an old complaint. But with accounting, medical and computer-software jobs also headed overseas to workers who often make a tenth of the salaries of Americans in comparable posts, the free-trade backlash is growing.
Republicans admit there is a crisis in confidence over trade. Carla A. Hills, the trade representative under the first President Bush, said the solution is to reinforce Americans' faith in free trade by explaining how many jobs are created through globalization, and assisting the workers and professionals who lose their jobs in the inevitable global shifts.
"We ought to take care of our people, provide them with good retraining and benefits," she said.
But as the American manufacturing base declined by 6 percent last year, Congress has reduced job training programs by 12 percent, or $800 million, since 2001.
Popular disaffection is driving much of this debate. Several recent surveys show that Mr. Bush is vulnerable on his trade record. The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes found this month that a majority of its poll respondents questioned his administration's approach to trade and criticized him for failing to help retrain Americans who lost their jobs.
Critics of the Democrats' emerging position on trade say that two leading candidates Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards should take some of the blame because they voted for many of the trade agreements.
"Nobody ever wants to be called a protectionist," said Daniel T. Griswold of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies. "But I think it is a disturbing sight to see so many prominent Democrats running away from their party that has historically supported trade expansion to improve our economy and help developing nations."
Is this the issue more than any other that resonates with the American electorate? If so could it be Bush's Achilles heel?
Bush has more weak spots than Carter's got pills, au.
This one may resonate with white Southern men, who go for President Whistleass to the tune of about 85%.
A HiTech company in my part of Connecticut shut down it's manufacturing plant two weeks ago, laid off 250 employees, and moved it's operation to China. A large Hartford insurance company moved it's computer operations to India last fall. But Bush seems not to be hurt by these events. Most white males seem to regard this as someone else misfortune, not their's.
Acquiunk wrote: Most white males seem to regard this as someone else misfortune, not their's.
That seems to be the sentiment Bush and the far right so frequently and successfully exploit. Their refrain "life is good" is freely translatable as "I got mine, f--k you!"
John Webb
I disagree all of the polls that I have seen places the economy as the number one concern of the American public.
Acquiunk
As more and more"white males" become chronically unemployed they will change their tune. Pocketbook issues are almost always the number one concern. .
But is that shift likely to occur before November?
Au, the way things seem to be going at the moment, by the time what is going on sinks into most peoples thick skulls. The radical group around Bush will have so completely restructured the economy, and the rules that govern this country, that it will take something akin to the shock of 1929 to kick them into action. By that time it may be too late.
hobitbob
Hope springs eternal. At the rate of the sucking sound [jobs and companies leaving the US] it is hard to see why it would not effect the vote of these people. Unless of course they are brain dead.
Dems
If the Dems want to recapture the White House they better develope a spine. Trying to be Bush LITE aint gonna get the job done. Like Dean has said there must a be a difference, a real clear diff., between the parties. If Dems don't start spelling out that diff. the voters will yawn as they usually do.
South Carolina carefully eyes Democrats
A tried, torn South Carolina looks to the polls – and the future
By Patrik Jonsson | Correspondent
LONE STAR, S.C. — Leaning forward in his dark bait shack on the edge of Lone Star, Frank Ott points an accusing finger at a computer hung with fishing lures and comic strips: According to a headline on his screen, the Bush administration admits that the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq may have been faulty.
Mr. Ott has always been a bait seller, catching herring as a teenager and selling it to fishermen in search of striped bass in Lake Marion's swamps. He's also always voted Republican. Until now. Not only did he lose his shirt in the stock market; he feels the GOP is taking the country in the wrong direction—and misleading the public in the process. "I'm a lifelong Republican from the South and I'm voting for John Edwards," he says. "What does that tell you?"
Ott isn't the only one complaining in this state that's gone Republican in every presidential election since Jimmy Carter. With income disparity growing, unions weakening, and more continuous job losses than any time since World War II, the rural routes and city streets of South Carolina are a prime example of the widening gap between rich Americans and those clinging, barely, to the middle class. Here, Sen. John Kerry's suggestion that "Southerners are just like everybody else" raises a poignant question: How will the Democratic front-runner, and others, sell a "one America" solution to this stronghold of the GOP?
"In the South it's still an uphill battle for the Democrats, even with all the job losses," says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "In the short term, though, the populist appeal is working to the Democrats' advantage."
On a 100-mile journey here from the low country near Lake Marion, through the state's hard-hit midlands, to the edge of textile territory with its rolling hills – that uphill battle was in motion in the days before Tuesday's key primary. In conversations with farmers, lawyers, nannies, and laid-off plant workers, a deepening frustration and soul searching was clear—not just over the economy and the war, but in a genuine search for the country's next steps and a tarnished American dream.
"It just seems we've lost something in this country, and frankly it's upsetting," says Glenn Costenbader, a laid-off plant worker and union boss in hardscrabble Winnsboro, S.C.
To be sure, the South's mythology is very much alive. In Orangeburg County, there's the aging black woman sweeping the yard of her tidy homestead with its peeling paint, cotton bolls blown into the fence and grandchildren playing by a working hand pump. Five miles down the road, bejeweled museum trustees dine on ginger chicken in the town square of Elloree.
Indeed, while the top third of wage earners here make nearly $20,000 more today than 20 years ago, the bottom third has lost ground—a disparity compounded by three straight years of job losses and a recovery that still feels jobless to many South Carolinians.
"There is a whole group of people in the country who feel that the recovery is underway, but the bottom half – the working class, the working poor, and the lower middle class –do not feel that at all," says Cal Jillson, a government professor at Southern Methodist University who's studied President Bush's popularity in the South. "They're having ever greater difficulty in meeting not only their expenses, but their expectations."
The frustration is palpable. Winter is a lonely business for Mr. Ott: He keeps the Lone Star Market open only so he doesn't "waste time" waiting for March, and the spawning runs that draw bass fisherman to the swamps.
The question now, for politicians, is whether despair can get people to polls. There are many here who won't vote for a Democrat, on principle. Take brothers Dennis and John Stoudenmire: Holding onto their 100-acre family farm by working as farm mechanics, they shrug at the mention of Mr. Bush. But they've voted for Democrats before, they say – and they've lived to regret it.
BUSH' ACHILLES HEEL
anyone remember a fellow by the name of ROSS PEROT, who came up with the quote "THE BIG SUCKING SOUND" ? you'll find a number of comments at this site >>>
THE BIG SUCKING SOUND . a canadian political commentator argued recently that there is no way that the outflow of jobs can be stopped. even today many strategically important goods are already produced off-shore. have a look at the computers and hardware and software we are all using; how much of it is produced in north-americe ? i saw a letter in a photo-mag recently, where a customer complained that he found out that the lens in his GERMAN ZEISS-IKON camera came from asia; the reply by the zeiss people was that yes, the lens was not produced in germany BUT THE FINAL INSPECTION WAS DONE IN GERMANY ! have you noticed that mercedes-benz(chrysler) has a car-manufacturing plant in china ? won't be long and you'll be able to buy a mercedes built in china - perhaps not such a bad thing since the quality of their german built cars has started to suffer. hbg
Quote:Mickey Kantor, the trade representative under President Bill Clinton, said the Democrats need to elevate trade as a critical issue facing the country and that they should question the current rules of trade, even if he wrote some of them.
"There may be a lot of heated rhetoric out there, but this is a serious issue, and the Democrats have the correct position to challenge some of the rules," said Mr. Kantor, who supports Gen. Wesley K. Clark. "Critics are laying too much at the altar of trade but it affects livelihoods and futures and it has to be debated seriously."
au
That's a lovely piece, thank you.
The notion above from Kantor is the wise one, it seems to me. Globalization has consequences which can be very positive for certain portions of the community (those at the top) and yet negative for very many others. Previously, that was a 'philosophical' point, but now it is real and increasing numbers of folks are hurting, and that includes blue collar and tech people increasingly.
"Globalization" is merely a contemporary word for capitalism, which, as we know, is a very efficient way to distribute production and create wealth for all who will act constructively in the economic process. Free trade is the most efficient and effective way to foster development in poverty-stricken areas of the world. It also benefits developed nations by lowering the prices of goods and developing new markets for their own goods and services. Protectionism helps no one.
We heard all the same hysteria about the flight of manufactuiring in the early '90s. It didn't materialize then as the prophets of doom forecast, and it isn't happening now. Manufacturing in the US has grown in the last decade, and is growing now.
Right now the most adverse element of our trade situation is a result of the continuing recession in Europe. The Administration is already taking the most effective action available to it to improve the trade balance - it is letting the dollar fall relative to the Euro.
globalism is not merely another word for capitalism. It is something completely different which is why our vocabulary's are failing us. We have yet to fully understand what it is that we have created.
Acquiunk wrote:A HiTech company in my part of Connecticut shut down it's manufacturing plant two weeks ago, laid off 250 employees, and moved it's operation to China. A large Hartford insurance company moved it's computer operations to India last fall. But Bush seems not to be hurt by these events. Most white males seem to regard this as someone else misfortune, not their's.
Do you believe we should act to oppose the economic development now ongoing in China and India? It seems to me that there is much to admire and welcome in this development. Certainly no one could reasonably prefer the poverty that has previously afflicted these countries which comprise about 40% of the earth's population.
While the loss of the Connecticut plant and the Insurance company back room operation are certainly bad news for those directly affected, the fact is that unemployment in this country is low both by international standards and by our own historical standards. Both appear to be classic low value added activities for the U.S. economy, and eminently suitable for export. The capital and labor dedicated to them will be better used in other econiomic activities here.
Northeastern Connecticut where that plant was located is a collection of depressed former textile towns. The replacements being offered those works is $10 an hour at a warehouse Wall-Mart is building close by. The computer jobs at the insurance company was not "back room operations" but their nerdy and very expensive programing unit. What you say sounds fine in theory, but you look at it in reality and it is a disaster. This has nothing to do efficient use of capital but with greed. I live besides the McMasions of those owners and have had plenty of opportunity to observe them. Further, if it comes down to a choice between the well being of the Chinese and the people I live with, the Chinese are on their own and good luck to them.
Greed may well be a part of the motivation. However the result is a more efficient use of capital. They are not mutually exclusive.
Unemployment in India is much higher than in the United States. Our GDP per capita is, by a wide margin, the highest in the world - and more than ten times that of China or India.
Programming of all sorts is moving to India. They have a well-educated and English speaking population, well able to do these functions - and for a lot less money. They are also aided by many Indians who worked in Silicon Valley and Austin during the IT boom and who have since returned to India and started their own companies. To a large extent the basic programming has become a commodity in the software business. The higher value added parts are system design and architecture and the identification of new processes and markets for their application. Those functions are still here.
We live in a world economy whether we like it or not. Economic success on the part of people beyond our borders will inevitably benefit us if we work to remain competitive. The end point of protectionism is feudalism. The wealthy few live in closed castles, surrounded by poverty. Inevitably the walls will fall....
george pangloss
Have you noticed how the folks who are most comfortable in speaking about the benefits of globalization are generally the same folks who are already personally quite financially comfortable and in no real danger of losing that status?
There are real and critical negatives which arise, locally and more broadly, from our present path. What shall be the consequences of China and Pakistan and India and Mexico consuming resources at the rate in which we consume them, or produce waste products and pollution such as we do? What will happen when China outflanks the US in production, in trade smarts, and in wealth? What will happen if the gap between those here who have wealth and those who live in daily fear of job loss and real poverty continues to grow?
Competition, driven by fierce and proper self-interest is surely the only way to organize human activity. That's how church communities get on best. Or families. Cain knew this.
Scrap 'em
Scrap NAFTA and other such programs and the WTO. Stop rewarding companies that outsource and relocate mfg. Insist on fair trade. Insist that China stop cheating with the currency.
Vote out the Neo Fascists.
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