{"id":119,"date":"2006-02-16T14:28:14","date_gmt":"2006-02-16T18:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2006\/02\/16\/our-hollow-prosperity\/"},"modified":"2006-02-16T14:28:14","modified_gmt":"2006-02-16T18:28:14","slug":"our-hollow-prosperity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2006\/02\/16\/our-hollow-prosperity\/","title":{"rendered":"Our hollow prosperity"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Posted: February 15, 2006, 1:00 a.m. Eastern,<\/font><\/font> By Patrick J. Buchanan
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Now that the U.S. trade deficit for 2005 has come in at $726 billion, the fourth straight all-time record, a question arises. What constitutes failure for a free-trade policy? Or is there no such thing? Is free trade simply right no matter the results? Last
\nyear, the United States ran a $202 billion trade deficit with China,
\nthe largest ever between two nations. We ran all-time record trade
\ndeficits with OPEC, the European Union, Japan, Canada and Latin
\nAmerica. The $50 billion deficit with Mexico was the largest since
\nNAFTA passed and also the largest in history.
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

When
\nNAFTA was up for a vote in 1993, the Clintonites and their GOP
\nfellow-travelers said it would grow our trade surplus, raise Mexico’s
\nstandard of living and reduce illegal immigration. None
\nof this happened. Indeed, the opposite occurred. Mexico’s standard of
\nliving is lower than it was in 1993, the U.S. trade surplus has
\nvanished, and America is being invaded. Mexico is now the primary
\nsource of narcotics entering the United States….<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

The Bushites point proudly to 4.6 million jobs created since May 2003, a 4.7 percent unemployment rate and low inflation….The
\nentire job increase since 2001 has been in the service sector – credit
\nintermediation, health care, social assistance, waiters, waitresses,
\nbartenders, etc. – and state and local government. But,
\nfrom January 2001 to January 2006, the United States lost 2.9 million
\nmanufacturing jobs, 17 percent of all we had. Over the past five years,
\nwe have suffered a net loss in goods-producing jobs. “The
\ndecline in some manufacturing sectors has more in common with a country
\nundergoing saturation bombing than with a super-economy that is ‘the
\nenvy of the world,'” writes Roberts.
\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

… Non-Hispanic
\nwhites, over 70 percent of the labor force, saw only a 1 percent
\nemployment increase in 2005. Hispanics, half of whom are foreign born,
\nsaw a 4.7 percent increase. As Hispanics will work for less in
\nhospitals and hospices, and as waiters and waitresses, they are getting
\nthe new jobs. But
\nare not wages rising? Nope. When inflation is factored in, the Economic
\nPolicy Institute reports, “real wages fell by 0.5 percent over the last
\n12 months after falling 0.7 percent the previous 12 months.” …
<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

The
\naffluent free-traders, whose wealth resides in stocks in global
\ncompanies, are enriching themselves at the expense of their fellow
\ncitizens and sacrificing the American worker on the altar of the Global
\nEconomy. None dare call it economic treason.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted: February 15, 2006, 1:00 a.m. Eastern, By Patrick J. Buchanan Now that the U.S. trade deficit for 2005 has come in at $726 billion, the fourth straight all-time record, a question arises. What constitutes failure for a free-trade policy? Or is there no such thing? Is free trade simply right no matter the results? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[780],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-globalization"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}