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Baobab

(4,667 posts)
Sun Mar 27, 2016, 05:07 PM Mar 2016

Bill Clintons True Legacy: Outsourcer in Chief

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-white/bill-clintons-true-legacy_b_1852887.html

"the biggest beneficiaries of his administration were Wall Street, Chinese factory owners and U.S. banks and the biggest losers were blue collar workers. Mitt Romney may have run a company that outsourced jobs but Clinton ran a country that did."
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Response to Baobab (Original post)

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
2. the outsourcing has barely begun because its been hung up in two decades of negotiations which are
Sun Mar 27, 2016, 05:48 PM
Mar 2016
almost completed.

Seriously-

-AND- listen closely to this...

Since you mention infrastructure, guess what. This is practically unknown outside of a very narrow circle of trade wonks here in the US, but globally, its just part of globalization.

Procurement of goods and services globally has been moving towards a global procurement model, but this change has been late in coming to the US.

Another big change, begun during the Clinton era revolves around the mandatory privatization of large chunks of the public sector - when combined with the new procurement rules, guess what-

Future investments of taxpayer money in infrastructure may create lots of jobs but its just as likely if not more likely (more likely more likely) that those jobs won't be American jobs, even though the construction is here!

Similarly with the schools and hospitals and myriad other commercial institutions that will eventually come out of what used to be the public sector.

I've been telling economists this, and to say the least, they are surprised, incredibly, most of them didn't even know this.

But its easy to verify. And its true! Americans will likely be told sooner or later, hopefully sooner rather than later.

felix_numinous

(5,198 posts)
3. The TTIP will bring it on.
Sun Mar 27, 2016, 05:56 PM
Mar 2016

Yes, being sold off to the highest bidder, without our consent. It needs to be stopped, and this election is bringing a lot to light.
Thank you for posting this.

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
4. VERY GOOD.. you knew about that..
Sun Mar 27, 2016, 06:09 PM
Mar 2016

You're actually the very first person Ive spoken to outside of the world of trade wonkery who made that connection.

Of course, TiSA is the big services deal, and it basically extends GATS which has been gradually getting the bugs worked out in its various disciplines on domestic regulation.. its taken 20 years.. (presumably TiSA since its supposed to be GATS compatible will just use them. )

But TTIP has got US-EU procurement in it too.

So, no more New Deals, I guess!

Wish they would tell the country. It's not going to be pretty if these deals pass for working people. Not all all.



felix_numinous

(5,198 posts)
5. Yes!! It's more like running the country as a high stakes gambler
Sun Mar 27, 2016, 06:21 PM
Mar 2016

rather than a business. It's now like a cartel with gambling addictions to power... and addicts many times cannot stop themselves, there has to be an intervention..

Thank you again

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
6. I don't see what good it possibly does to tie the hands of our country in these things.
Sun Mar 27, 2016, 06:25 PM
Mar 2016

its like they are trying to hijack the future.

Response to Baobab (Reply #6)

KoKo

(84,711 posts)
10. Here are snips of why this is still relevant:
Mon Mar 28, 2016, 10:32 AM
Mar 2016
But the only thing worse than being a taxpayer forced to bail out reckless banks is losing your job because it’s been outsourced or offshored. As Richard McCormack pointed out in the American Prospect, in the beginning of this century American companies stopped making the products Americans continued to buy, from clothing to computers. Manufacturers never emerged from the 2001 recession, which coincided with China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.
(From the article which is a very good read because nothing much has changed and much has gotten worse since 2012)

Between 2001 and 2009 the U.S. lost 42,400 factories and manufacturing employment dropped to 11.7 million, a loss of 32 percent of all manufacturing jobs. The last time fewer than 12 million people worked in the manufacturing sector was in 1941.

Clinton had the gall to accuse those who opposed China’s entry into the WTO of “aligning themselves with the Chinese army and hard-liners in Beijing who do not want accession for China.” Clinton claimed that the agreement that he championed “creates a win-win result for both countries,” arguing that exports to China “now support hundreds of thousands of American jobs” and “these figures can grow substantially.” (Clinton’s press person at the Clinton Global Initiative did not respond to my requests for feedback.)

The facts contradict these assertions. Imports of computers and electronic parts accounted for almost half of the $178 billion increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2007 and the loss of 2.3 million jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute.


Clinton then went on to enact NAFTA, or the North America Free Trade Act, which as American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner has observed, “was less about trade and more about making it easier for U.S. based multinationals and banks to take over Mexican companies.”
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