Tapsearch Com EditorThese are not ordinary times
February 8th 2012 01:48
Ray Tapajna Trade Traps Workers Dignity
Our economy is imploding with big government bailing out big money and not anyone else. Workers and small businesses were promised help if they lost their jobs or businesses due to free trade. They get nothing while big money and giant corporations get bailed out. This involved trillions of dollars. It mortgage future generations with the coming generations carrying a tariff on their heads. It throws the economy totally out of sync.
Economic diseases spred in unholy economy
Workers Dignity Destroyed
We are not living in ordinary times. We must include this in our thoughts when we try to find new ways in restoring our economy local or nationally. President Franklin Roosevelt said economic diseases are highly communicable. Free trade is a cancer. It is spreading into every part of our lives. It is the major cause behind our economic crisis. It is time to stop denying this reality. It is not even part of the presidential debates and yet it encompasses everthing we are and what we must do during these unusual times. When a patient comes in to see a doctor for a illness, the doctor does not treat them until he finds out what is wrong. We need to first diagnose what went wrong with our economy and what caused it. We need to first do this before we try to find a solution. Two things stand out. This thing that is called free trade is not trade. It is not trade as historically practiced and defined. Workers are the main commodities being traded. They are put on global trading block to compete with each other for the same jobs down to wage slave and even child labor.
Also the news media has the responsibility of questioning the unemployment rate reporting. It is irrational. Using the present statistics to do comparative analysis conjures things that do not compute. How can we restore much of anything based on these lies. We told our newspaper editors at the Plain Dealer they should have an investigative journalist working on the these obvious lies. This would be better than any other advocacy or editorial position.
What can we do until things get back to where they were. People will try many new things to survive. People turned to buying and selling when there is nothing else left to do. We should attach ourselves to this practice now and not when the economy implodes as it obviously will. The bail outs of big money and big banks are only temporary props. They will fall in time and most likely it will be sooner than we think. People naturally become merchants when they have no other possibilities left. This is why I proposed my ideas years ago at Restoring our cities If these simple plans would have been enacted years ago, our city would have had an good platform to launch many things from the bottom up. We have a mayor who has surrendered to free trade ( click on Trade Traps or search under the phrase and add tapart news. ) We have a governor who took part in the grand betrayal of workers caused by free trade and then made many dollars after the fact. The investment communities and big money who funded this failed system ended up being bailed out my the taxpayers with an added tariff put on future generations. The governor now attempts to create new jobs by giving tax money to corporations to create jobs. This too will prove to be a failed system. Until some real common sense solutions are found, mercantilism from the bottom to the top must be initiated at as many levels as possible. The Plain Dealer could play a major role in becoming an authority on micro loans to fund these enterprises of the people. Every eligible small business should be sought out. The next economic meltdown is on its way but we have ways to make it through the economic storms this way. However, thinking we can restore our economy by token endeavors backed by money from the top down will not work. If we keep trying to do the things in the same way as always, all we will get is the same results. Funding research and development, high tech and green industries are useless efforts if the production goes somewhere else in the world. From what I see, all the tax funded efforts so far end up with a net zero if not negative results.
What is possible now? Actually the reality programs on television offers us some insights. For example, Pickers, Pawn Shop, Storage Wars, Antique shows, Restoration and Gold Rush give us ideas of how to form new local value added economies with the inventory we have in place. Restoration shows us we can add value to this inventory. Gold Rush shows us that anything in the ground represents a way to start with a raw product and grown added values up through several levels. Even when these miners do not make a profit, we see examples of millions of dollars poured into a local economy. Just with the equipment needed, new economies are formed. The same applies to growing food where small entities can work from the ground up creating new supplies of food channels. In other areas, craftsmen can find ways to add value to what is already in place especially in solar kits for individual homes and vehicles. We have ignored the fact that only local added value economies work. It is equally obvious that the retail industry that sells primarily imports do not. All the money spend in the big box stores, quickly fans out to where the products are made and does not stay in place to recycle the economy in the surrounding environment where the products are sold. It is also obvious retail workers do not make a living wage with many needing government and private assistance to survive. A working poor class that is underemployed selling imports to others is indeed a race to the bottom.
Right out of high school , I became a set up man for three oil burner assembly lines. I was taught many skills in a short time by foremen on site. When the orders slowed down, workers were taken off the assembly line and helped make the parts. The company had a heavy inventory of parts that increased in value by just sitting in the bins. This was before personal tax on inventories took this option away. Inventory at any level is the key to restoring our economy. This inventory can include all things we have on hand where a mark up can be enjoyed. For example, I noticed after our garage street sale that many people were did not want to take the things they had for sale back into their homes or storage areas. I saw how someone could go into business and name it "Just leave it", where those who did not want the items could have someone come and pick them up and do a clean up for the people who were too tired to bring the items back in. Many just threw the things that they did not want to sell on the tree lawn. Neighbors were reluctant to pick anything out in front of everyone else. The garbage men were not. Newspapers are hooked on slick advertising inserts that promote and push imported products. The classified ad sections are small. I recall when the classified ads and the help wanted ads were about two pounds on a Sunday. Today, the slick advertising inserts full of imported products actually promote people to shop their way out of their jobs. It is a contradiction for a newspaper to foster things to restoring a local economy when they send out so many inviting ads for imports. Newspapers have become part of the problem. They need to find a way to increase their classified ad services in an E-Bay fashion. Perhaps they can offer free advertising upfront and take a commission after the sale. The newspapers could offer some extras for a fee. Instead of doing things like this.
A Plain Dealer editor wrote that they will support free trade no matter what readers think. We have big money and banks controlling not only our economy but the news too. They failed. Now we have to find ways to go back to simple free enterprise endeavors where someone can make or grow something and add a reasonable mark up to make a living plus have something left to have all their workers enjoy a living wage. It is senseless to try to build an economy using the working poor. Common sense solutions are there. However, everything must be based on adding values from the raw product up through to the end user or retail level. There are about five to seven levels or stages where values can be added before the retail or end user level. The levels should be as local as possible. Many reports indicate just by shopping at local independent businesses there is an added value at about three levels instead of just one after shopping at a big box store. At these stores, the money spent at retail quickly fans out to the places where the products come from. The money does not stay in place to recycle our local economies. The money goes outside the country to grow other peoples' economies at our expense. Our economies based on making money on money are burning out. We need to find ways to make and grow things that can carry the label Made in the USA or Made in Cleveland etc. not labels that read Made in China or even reading Assembled or Built in America. It is senseless to fund foreign assembly plants here that hire only a small portion of workers when the parts come from somewhere else in the world. The State of Indiana paid out about $160 million dollars to Honda to build their assembly plant in their state. This came after thousands of auto workers lost their jobs in the state with Honda only able to hire about 5,000 workers at a lower wage. At the same time 20,000 auto parts workers in the state lost their jobs. This is economic insanity. And the newspapers remain silent about all these obvious contradictions. What is human dignity in the workday all about ?
Our economy is imploding with big government bailing out big money and not anyone else. Workers and small businesses were promised help if they lost their jobs or businesses due to free trade. They get nothing while big money and giant corporations get bailed out. This involved trillions of dollars. It mortgage future generations with the coming generations carrying a tariff on their heads. It throws the economy totally out of sync.
Economic diseases spred in unholy economy
Workers Dignity Destroyed
We are not living in ordinary times. We must include this in our thoughts when we try to find new ways in restoring our economy local or nationally. President Franklin Roosevelt said economic diseases are highly communicable. Free trade is a cancer. It is spreading into every part of our lives. It is the major cause behind our economic crisis. It is time to stop denying this reality. It is not even part of the presidential debates and yet it encompasses everthing we are and what we must do during these unusual times. When a patient comes in to see a doctor for a illness, the doctor does not treat them until he finds out what is wrong. We need to first diagnose what went wrong with our economy and what caused it. We need to first do this before we try to find a solution. Two things stand out. This thing that is called free trade is not trade. It is not trade as historically practiced and defined. Workers are the main commodities being traded. They are put on global trading block to compete with each other for the same jobs down to wage slave and even child labor.
Also the news media has the responsibility of questioning the unemployment rate reporting. It is irrational. Using the present statistics to do comparative analysis conjures things that do not compute. How can we restore much of anything based on these lies. We told our newspaper editors at the Plain Dealer they should have an investigative journalist working on the these obvious lies. This would be better than any other advocacy or editorial position.
What can we do until things get back to where they were. People will try many new things to survive. People turned to buying and selling when there is nothing else left to do. We should attach ourselves to this practice now and not when the economy implodes as it obviously will. The bail outs of big money and big banks are only temporary props. They will fall in time and most likely it will be sooner than we think. People naturally become merchants when they have no other possibilities left. This is why I proposed my ideas years ago at Restoring our cities If these simple plans would have been enacted years ago, our city would have had an good platform to launch many things from the bottom up. We have a mayor who has surrendered to free trade ( click on Trade Traps or search under the phrase and add tapart news. ) We have a governor who took part in the grand betrayal of workers caused by free trade and then made many dollars after the fact. The investment communities and big money who funded this failed system ended up being bailed out my the taxpayers with an added tariff put on future generations. The governor now attempts to create new jobs by giving tax money to corporations to create jobs. This too will prove to be a failed system. Until some real common sense solutions are found, mercantilism from the bottom to the top must be initiated at as many levels as possible. The Plain Dealer could play a major role in becoming an authority on micro loans to fund these enterprises of the people. Every eligible small business should be sought out. The next economic meltdown is on its way but we have ways to make it through the economic storms this way. However, thinking we can restore our economy by token endeavors backed by money from the top down will not work. If we keep trying to do the things in the same way as always, all we will get is the same results. Funding research and development, high tech and green industries are useless efforts if the production goes somewhere else in the world. From what I see, all the tax funded efforts so far end up with a net zero if not negative results.
What is possible now? Actually the reality programs on television offers us some insights. For example, Pickers, Pawn Shop, Storage Wars, Antique shows, Restoration and Gold Rush give us ideas of how to form new local value added economies with the inventory we have in place. Restoration shows us we can add value to this inventory. Gold Rush shows us that anything in the ground represents a way to start with a raw product and grown added values up through several levels. Even when these miners do not make a profit, we see examples of millions of dollars poured into a local economy. Just with the equipment needed, new economies are formed. The same applies to growing food where small entities can work from the ground up creating new supplies of food channels. In other areas, craftsmen can find ways to add value to what is already in place especially in solar kits for individual homes and vehicles. We have ignored the fact that only local added value economies work. It is equally obvious that the retail industry that sells primarily imports do not. All the money spend in the big box stores, quickly fans out to where the products are made and does not stay in place to recycle the economy in the surrounding environment where the products are sold. It is also obvious retail workers do not make a living wage with many needing government and private assistance to survive. A working poor class that is underemployed selling imports to others is indeed a race to the bottom.
Right out of high school , I became a set up man for three oil burner assembly lines. I was taught many skills in a short time by foremen on site. When the orders slowed down, workers were taken off the assembly line and helped make the parts. The company had a heavy inventory of parts that increased in value by just sitting in the bins. This was before personal tax on inventories took this option away. Inventory at any level is the key to restoring our economy. This inventory can include all things we have on hand where a mark up can be enjoyed. For example, I noticed after our garage street sale that many people were did not want to take the things they had for sale back into their homes or storage areas. I saw how someone could go into business and name it "Just leave it", where those who did not want the items could have someone come and pick them up and do a clean up for the people who were too tired to bring the items back in. Many just threw the things that they did not want to sell on the tree lawn. Neighbors were reluctant to pick anything out in front of everyone else. The garbage men were not. Newspapers are hooked on slick advertising inserts that promote and push imported products. The classified ad sections are small. I recall when the classified ads and the help wanted ads were about two pounds on a Sunday. Today, the slick advertising inserts full of imported products actually promote people to shop their way out of their jobs. It is a contradiction for a newspaper to foster things to restoring a local economy when they send out so many inviting ads for imports. Newspapers have become part of the problem. They need to find a way to increase their classified ad services in an E-Bay fashion. Perhaps they can offer free advertising upfront and take a commission after the sale. The newspapers could offer some extras for a fee. Instead of doing things like this.
A Plain Dealer editor wrote that they will support free trade no matter what readers think. We have big money and banks controlling not only our economy but the news too. They failed. Now we have to find ways to go back to simple free enterprise endeavors where someone can make or grow something and add a reasonable mark up to make a living plus have something left to have all their workers enjoy a living wage. It is senseless to try to build an economy using the working poor. Common sense solutions are there. However, everything must be based on adding values from the raw product up through to the end user or retail level. There are about five to seven levels or stages where values can be added before the retail or end user level. The levels should be as local as possible. Many reports indicate just by shopping at local independent businesses there is an added value at about three levels instead of just one after shopping at a big box store. At these stores, the money spent at retail quickly fans out to the places where the products come from. The money does not stay in place to recycle our local economies. The money goes outside the country to grow other peoples' economies at our expense. Our economies based on making money on money are burning out. We need to find ways to make and grow things that can carry the label Made in the USA or Made in Cleveland etc. not labels that read Made in China or even reading Assembled or Built in America. It is senseless to fund foreign assembly plants here that hire only a small portion of workers when the parts come from somewhere else in the world. The State of Indiana paid out about $160 million dollars to Honda to build their assembly plant in their state. This came after thousands of auto workers lost their jobs in the state with Honda only able to hire about 5,000 workers at a lower wage. At the same time 20,000 auto parts workers in the state lost their jobs. This is economic insanity. And the newspapers remain silent about all these obvious contradictions. What is human dignity in the workday all about ?
| 24 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
