BRIEF OVERVIEW

 

The hard facts are that a country needs some level of protectionism to preserve its identity and to protect the local economy.  Anyone thinking that poorer countries will be fiscally responsible by adhering to “contracted policies” can only be described as delusional and irresponsible.  China and other Asian countries validate why protectionism policies are crucial to the survival of any economy. 

 

Manufacturing is and will continue to be an integral part of the so-called “new economy”.  Without a solid manufacturing base, players in this new economy have no hope of surviving the challenges imposed by the lax trade policies, difficulties created by an unstable marketplace and by the entities poised to "cash in" on the process of “selling America to the highest bidder" (or lowest bidder as the case may be in this instance.)

 

Innovation has proven to be extremely helpful to other sectors of the American economy.  Finance, services, technology are all clearly on the rise, but these do not replace the solid manufacturing jobs.   These industries are intended to support the manufacturing base.  Service industries are secondary industries and they have a definite timeline attached to them. 

 

THERE'S GOOD NEWS AND THERE'S BAD NEWS

 

Contrary to popular misconceptions that the industrial age is "last century", this is a false and poorly conceived illusion as the industrial age is still in its infancy.  By today's standard, the industrial age is moving forward and it is the exact opposite:  it is only beginning.  From nanotechnology, robotics, lasers, and biotechnology, we are on the cusp of incredible manufacturing and new discoveries.  We live in a "consumer" driven society and America can be and must be the nation that leads the world into the next stages of development.

 

Poorer and other financially challenged countries are reinforcing the point that certain countries will use every trick and abuse every loophole available to them in order to overwhelm and undercut the economies of the richer countries with a flood of low cost labour, lower standards, and highly questionable “imitations quality products”.

 

The risk of failing to abide to agreed policies is a short term victory for certain parties - namely for the People's Republic of China.  Whatever happened to the WTO trade agreements? The UN international monetary fund? The thought continues to be that the WTO will interfere.  Not so.  The WTO is playing “dumb and blind” and pretending that all is good and well.  Or as the saying goes, they’re playing the “dumber than you can possibly imagine” game.

 

The newfound “futuristic thinking” terminology is a “smoke and mirrors” ruse to ensure that support is given for trade policies muddled in fine print.  The price of these new policies can only be measured by the increase in outsourcing of white collar opportunities, blue collar job losses, plant closures... and all for the benefit of other countries that fail to appreciate democracy and the democratic way of life. 

 

Certain proponents of offshore outsourcing go to great lengths to misinform the general public about offshoring manufacturing jobs.  At the end, the rich get richer and in the end, the poor get poorer.

 

The real problem focuses on the inability, and in many cases the unwillingness, of elected policy makers to enforce current trade laws that are basically stacked up against the USA.  As a result, U.S. manufacturers are forced to play to different rules than their “offshore” competition.  This has greatly contributed to the loss of more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2000 and the closing of countless manufacturing facilities.