General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Obama lambasted opponents of free-trade agenda, arguing opponents are ignorant of the benefits [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The unions and middle class are doing miserably in countries like Italy, Spain and Greece.
The unions and middle class are doing very well in countries like Germany, Austria, Swweden and others.
The difference is the extent to which these countries devised strategies for dealing with a world of international trade many years ago. The countries that are doing well found the proper midddl;e ground between over-planning their economies and having healthily flexible strategies and a well trained workforce for competing with other national economies.
I know this for a fact. I was living in Germany and Austria during the years in which their strategies were taking shape. That was a long time ago.
America is divided. We have crazy nuts who think you don't need a national strategy for education, that it is best just to let profit-hungry leaches take over your education and that planning is just for fools, that focusing on short-term profits and selling your assets to the highest bidder, forget about tomorrow, is the way to run a national economy.
We need to have the employees of our large companies like GE and General Motors and Walmart, etc. SITTING ON THE BOARDS OF DIRECTORS OF THE COMPANIES. Employees are stakeholders in the companies. We should require by law that workers, employees that is and bosses cooperate to a certain extent in setting the goals of their enterprises. Everybody is in that together. The clerk in the grocery store is just as important to the strategy of the company and should understand and support that strategy as the CEO. As a customer, I meet the sales clerk, not the CEO. The sales clerk says more to me as the customer than does the CEO. Same for all manufacturers.
We need to get a national economic strategy. It should not be rigid. But we should not have states competing against each other for the job-creating industrial sitings. That divides our country. It may be good for big business. But it is very bad for our sense of nation, for the harmony within our country.
We should be on the same page as a nation before we enter into these trade agreements. We are putting our shoes on before we put our socks on. First things first. First we have to be a nation. Then maybe we will be able to compete in international trade. We are suffering under NAFTA and the many, many trade agreements we have. The last thing we need at this point is more trade agreements.
And each trade agreement contains provisions that contradict or usurp the authority given to Congress in our Constitution. Each trade agreement takes a little bite away from our national sovereignty and with it our self-determination.
No to trade agreements. We need to become a nation that is united and has a strategy before we relinquish our sovereignty to other better organized nations with these trade agreements.