Globalization has had its heyday, putting American workers down and bleeding them out in favor of uplifting everyone else. The people are getting tired of being put out of work and they're getting tired of being told that this is how it's supposed to be. Many of you readers probably haven't heard of this, but pro-outsourcing boneheads out there have been saying that it's racist and xenophobic not to support American jobs leaving the country: take this column by Mary Hayes Weier which outright overexaggerates the opposition to her screw-the-American-worker stance. At the same time, these so-called anti-xenophobes dedicate a lot of energy to bashing Americans. Moreover they've been saying that opposing offshoring is harmful to the poor people in other nations. As if it's not at all harmful to our working class, or our working class doesn't matter! You probably will never hear this out in public because pro-globalization people are too scared to say it to anyone's face, but you will see it on the internet a lot, particularly in discussion forums.
Granted, America actually used to support foreign outsourcing, back in the days of H Ross Perot, who opposed NAFTA, which Bill Clinton supported. However, since 2004, globalization has been in the public opinion doghouse. As a result the pro-globalization bullies have been putting on the pressure, trying to shame or coerce America into accepting the status quo. Meanwhile, our trade deficit has grown to $450 billion yearly, half of which is goods and services, not oil. What this means is that we import far, far more goods and services than we export to other countries. That's all those TVs and computers and other manufacturing jobs that American workers are categorically excluded from, simply because Americans don't work for $2 a day in dangerous, collapsing factories under smog-choked skies. Globalism is anti-American, and the numbers overwhelmingly show it: we've lost 2.8 million jobs to China alone from 2001 to 2010 according to the Economic Policy Institute, which is not exactly the most xenophobic of organizations.
But now these pro-globalists have hit a whole new wall that I have long predicted and which they were completely unprepared for. What wall is that? The inevitable reality in which America runs out of jobs to export. The globalists and America-bashers who have long said that globalization is needed to uplift the poor, did not see the day coming when America would bleed out. When that day comes, it doesn't matter whether "the foreigners are taking our jobs" is true or not true... there simply won't be any American jobs left to take. And on that day, the third world, which relies heavily on the shipping of American jobs to their shores, will have to look elsewhere besides America for jobs.
That day, readers, is fast approaching. So fast, in fact, that the World Bank is itself acknowledging its inevitability.
The World Bank, too, sees a need for many countries to avoid the model of export-led growth that has long relied heavily on wealthy consumers in Europe and the United States. A slowdown in richer nations means poorer nations must look more to their own markets or neighboring countries.
The World Bank is saying this, not just a bunch of angry evil xenophobic American boogeymen. America's vein is running dry. Full stop. The effects of this are already starting to be felt. For instance, in 2009, as a direct result of the financial panic in Western nations (mostly the United States), China lost 20 million jobs - and that is big, even for China. And China is still dependent upon exports to the United States. This is true for many nations, notably those that manufacture goods, and especially those that produce and export oil.
But this is where the good news starts: the political tide is turning against foreign outsourcing. President Barack Obama has fought back at China and has even prevailed prevailed numerous times against China in World Trade Organization disputes. President Obama also earned big political capital by attacking Mitt Romney and calling him out on his outsourcing of American jobs. In addition, the American people are fighting back. They're making their voices heard by supporting politicians who oppose the outsourcing of American jobs.
"I oppose offshoring" is becoming an "I win" button in politics... and this is something that the globalists fear. It's going to take but just one high-profile political race that hinges heavily on foreign outsourcing, to spark an electoral revolution in which everyone hops on the bandwagon. It is a revolution that is attracting Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike.
The American people are precious inches away from putting globalization in its place. When that moment comes, it needs to be done in the correct fashion. It is possible that xenophobia could arise from a political wave of anti-globalization. That is because of the simple fact that political revolutions can go wrong. Let's face it, things can go wrong. There's a right way and a wrong way to fix this globalization problem. The way is not eliminating it, but rather, reforming it.
Reforming globalization accepts the fact that globalization is here to stay, while at the same time putting it in its place and letting it know that it has overstepped its bounds. How has globalization overstepped its bounds? That's easy: it has done so by keeping America mired in a ~$450 billion dollar yearly deficit, give or take a few billion.
It's time, America, for a LOW DEFICIT international trade policy. We need a new trade policy that strives to enforce a non-oil trade deficit of no higher than one billion dollars per year.
Globalists will tell you that it's impossible. Yet they will also tell you that we should keep running a 450 billion dollar yearly deficit and that we can run this into perpetuity, even though people who know economics say that we cannot. $450 billion trade deficits grow the national debt, even if America has no Federal budget at all; and it also devalues the dollar. The globalists have to accept the fact that America cannot keep outsourcing domestic jobs - the system will collapse. It must collapse. There is no escaping that eventual outcome if foreign outsourcing keeps going like it is. Globalists have spent all their energy fighting the imaginary xenophobe boogeyman and anti-offshoring activists, while ignoring the fact that globalization, as it is today, is a modern day Ouroboros: it is slowly eating itself into oblivion.
America needs countervailing tariffs which will rise and fall in response to the size of our non-oil trade deficit, with the goal of keeping the trade deficit below $1 billion a year. Plenty of other nations can do this, without being called xenophobic, so why not us? Oh and while we're at it, how about a national policy of researching clean alternative fuels so we don't need so much oil? (Uh oh. Now I'll be accused of being racist toward the Saudis, Russians and Venezuelans...)
Oh, and on a side note, for those who still think that anti-globalization is xenophobic, would you care to explain why globalization does this to poor countries?
Rising U.S. Trade May Increase Carbon Emissions
Congratulations, globalists, in your war against xenophobia you not only have been an accomplice to the suppression of third world wages, but you have also helped corporations destroy third world ecosystems and increase global warming. I hope you feel proud of yourselves!
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