For the record, I don’t like the protectionist sentiment expressed in this Jeff Danzinger cartoon that appeared in the New York Times, but thank God somebody Stateside is noticing what’s happening here.
I suggest Korean leaders take a good look at the cartoon, because this is what four years of an Obama presidency could look like.
(HT to basilides)
19 Comments
It was only a matter of time. As an Ohioan, part of the rust-belt, a large amount of agriculture, with a large veteran population (most of which did their tour in Korea), and where whole towns shut down as the manufacturing jobs first went to Mexico, Korea, and now China I can tell you folks are pretty much pissed.
But it’s too hard too protest when you don’t have a job and can’t afford gas to go look for one.
I say Obama couldn’t screw things up any worse than they are now.
It’s interesting how different Obama can come across on either side of the Pacific. A lot of supporters I know don’t seem to acknowledge this issue.
Where are the protests? They’re planning to hold ones during the weekends, instead of everyday during week days. The movement also may died down a little due to rounding up of the ring leaders and rumor mongers coupled with law suits.
can’t read the wsj article. subscription required.
#2 IMHO, the protests have died out because the beef imports have in fact, resumed. The Mad Cow thing is played out. The NoSangMo bunch is re-stocking candles waiting for the next “issue” to break.
The lefties weren’t after a strategic victory (banning US beef) to begin with. They have embarrassed 2MB, delayed his agenda (or mandate) and that is a tactical victory enough for now.
France-style obstructionism, as another reader pointed out.
Linkd,
Here is a portion of the article that refers to Obama’s trade views. Hope this helps.
Trade Stance Weighs on Obama’s Plan
To Strengthen Foreign Ties
By AMY CHOZICK
July 9, 2008;
Barack Obama plans to visit Europe and the Mideast this month to promote his pledge to restore relations frayed by the Bush Administration. But the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee could undercut that promise with his tough stance on trade.
Sen. Obama’s Nafta criticisms in particular are raising hackles in the hemisphere. He has called for enforceable labor and environmental standards that weren’t in the original pact in part because the creators feared such regulations could infringe on national sovereignty.
“What he is proposing would be far too intrusive on the sovereignty of the laws of a country,” says Greg Somers, an international-trade lawyer based in Ottawa. “That’s not the job of a trade deal.”
Sen. Obama rejects the notion that a tough stance on trade runs counter to his foreign-policy agenda. “There’s nothing incompatible with us wanting to be tough negotiators and looking out for our interests and still being respectful of other countries and wanting to have strong ties with countries like Canada and Mexico,” he said in Zanesville.
“Robust diplomacy doesn’t mean we get our trade agreements right every single time,” says David Axelrod, Sen. Obama’s chief strategist. “It’s an American president’s job to protect American jobs.”
In Ohio and other Midwestern battleground states, Nafta has become a symbol of antiglobalization sentiment and is a constant source of contention between Sens. Obama and McCain. The agreement went into effect under President Bill Clinton in 1994 and created what remains the largest trade bloc in the world based on combined gross domestic product of its member nations.
Sen. Obama’s trade stance, while likely to rile allies, may be more resonant with American voters. Despite several nonpartisan studies that have concluded the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy, most Americans have a negative view of Nafta. According to a Princeton Survey Research Associates/Pew Research Center poll conducted in April, 35% of registered voters say agreements like Nafta are a good thing for America; 48% say they are bad for the country. The same survey shows 58% of voters say they believe trade in general is good for America, compared with 32% who say it is bad for America.
“35% of registered voters say agreements like Nafta are a good thing for America; 48% say they are bad for the country. ”
OK, have it your way. But don’t come begging to Canada when you need resources like sand oil and water.
the new york times again, huh? somebody oughta break somebody’s face!
Obama is not simply a breath of fresh air or a voice in the wilderness but an actual barometer of US political sentiment that is currently hardening against unfair South Korean trade practices. It seems Korea has finally managed to succeed in raising its profile in the US, setting itself up for retaliation.
Note that ABC news has an uncannily accurate account of the anti-beef protests: http://abcnews.go.com/Internat.....id=5282359
CBS:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....5144.shtml
Fox:
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2.....up,00.html
Wikipedia is all over the story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.....outh_Korea
The Washington Times warns that the FTA is probably in for a fight when it reaches congress:
http://www.washingtontimes.com.....eef-again/
“Chances for approving the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement before the end of the Bush administration are “fading fast,” said Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The beef dispute over the age of the cattle, which “involved a very small share of total U.S. shipments to South Korea, has soured the climate for getting a compromise,” Mr. Schott said.”
Cato Institute’s Daniel T. Griswold, director, Center for Trade Policy Studies clarifies that the protests have nothing to do with the actual safety of U.S. beef:
http://www.cato.org/pressroom......&id=44
Nafta, never heard of it. I wonder if the article meant NAFTA?
Anyways good (managed) trade between the States and Canada has always been around. Look at the 1965 Automotive Products Trade Agreement for a positive example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-United_States_Automotive_Agreement).
I gotta wonder if Obama wants to renegotiate this deal as well?
Of course few know of it so the APTA serves the Obama politics of opportunity no good.
Things will never be perfect, but they can always be better. Trade agreements are easy to complain about, so they are used as cheap political shots by cheap politicians.
True leaders like J. McCain take positions based on fundamental logic for the greater good.
Competition is good for any economy, therefore the more the better. Sorry to say, but change happens and the term ‘Luddite’ is used to describe the desire to impede it.
Obama (or anyone) should remember this before pissing into the wind.
Not really. This tactics, in France, is actually “successful” — using this word very generously… Many governmental projects, before the current government, have been stopped in their tracks because of that obstructionism…
“Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran!” — Sen. J. McCain
Ah yes. True leadership and logic there.
The toon has already been archived. Get it here:
http://www.gocomics.com/jeffdanziger/2008/07/08/
iwshim: “True leaders like J. McCain take positions based on fundamental logic for the greater good.”
No substance to this post other than bald assertions backed by…well other bald assertions, which is circular logic. Come to think of it, that does sound a lot like the logic of John McCain.
“Competition is good for any economy, therefore the more the better. Sorry to say, but change happens and the term ‘Luddite’ is used to describe the desire to impede it.”
As opposed to the term ‘Troglodyte’ which is appropriate to describe someone with an overly simplistic misunderstanding of the realities of the global marketplace.
Despite the typical free market academic prattle, in reality there is no such thing as a “free market economics.” In reality, commerce occurs within the context of the real world in which there are huge disparities in income levels and regulatory environments. The “huge sucking sound” that Perot predicted has not only come to pass but at a rate that is unprecedented and undeniable.
Republican policies aimed at the systematic elimination of the manufacturing sector, expensive and debilitating military adventurism, depletion of natural resources with no alternative energy strategies, environmental degradation, deficit spending, outsourcing labor overseas and dismantling the safety net of the underemployed apparently serve the interests of the privileged few who are immune to the effects of a weakened dollar, rising energy costs and loss of employment. For them, free market economics might indeed create profit opportunities. However, it is undeniable that their profits come at the expense of the average American consumer.
Massive gains in the productivity of the American worker have been accompanied by concurrent declining incomes in constant dollar terms and drastic increases in the incomes of top executives. It is abundantly clear who are the serfs and who are the masters in the new economic order.
It is ominous that the above passages are expressed by a pro-business political moderate who understands that, as you say, “competition is good for any economy.” The reality is that the new economic order actually eliminates any meaningful competition in favor of a radical redistribution of wealth to multinational conglomerates. How can an American entrepreneur “compete” with Chinese or Mexican labor?
The choice is clear: McCain’s positions represent an exponential increase of these debilitating trends while Obama’s positions intend to reverse of at least slow such developments, by bringing rationality and mindfulness - in other words, balance back into public policy.
Whether you consider yourself a conservative, liberal or moderate, the rotten fruit of these unsound economic policies can only be denied if one is in fact in ideological denial. A good dose of reality is on the way and if you still haven’t been hit by it, you are indeed a troglodyte.
Ripped from above…Republican policies aimed at the systematic elimination of the manufacturing sector, expensive and debilitating military adventurism, depletion of natural resources with no alternative energy strategies, environmental degradation, deficit spending, outsourcing labor overseas and dismantling the safety net of the underemployed apparently serve the interests of the privileged few who are immune to the effects of a weakened dollar, rising energy costs and loss of employment. For them, free market economics might indeed create profit opportunities. However, it is undeniable that their profits come at the expense of the average American consumer…..
My thinking pretty much to a T, but I still can’t get behind Obama. Our electable choices are limited by the corporate run election process.
14: I thought it was common knowledge that protectionism contributed to the Great Depression. I guess it’s not. Check out this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawley-Smoot and skip down to the “Economic Effects” section.
“Although the tariff act was passed after the stock-market crash of 1929, many economic historians consider the political discussion leading up to the passing of the act a factor in causing the crash, the recession that began in late 1929, or both, and its eventual passage a factor in deepening the Great Depression. Unemployment was at 7.8% in 1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed, but it jumped to 16.3% in 1931, 24.9% in 1932, and 25.1% in 1933.”
The same survey shows 58% of voters say they believe trade in general is good for America, compared with 32% who say it is bad for America.
WTF! Who are these 32%? Have high school drop outs reached that level! Or maybe the Amish have been recruiting lately. If they think trade in general is bad they must also think that business and money and jobs in general are bad. Dear lord! Whoever is the next president please, please, please invest in real education. (Not the creationism is science crap.)
“The same survey shows 58% of voters say they believe trade in general is good for America, compared with 32% who say it is bad for America.”
Naturally trade is generally good. However, a general maxim is meaningless without a proper context.
I would venture to say that an overwhelming majority would agree with the statement “violence is bad”. However, give violence a context of self defence and the majority will then agree that it is justifiable and good.
There is a proper time to exercise restraint and a proper time to meet aggression blow for blow.
For instance, outsourcing of jobs can be a good thing under certain circumstances, and under other circumstances it can be a bad thing. Few would disagree with the notion that a systematic policy of ripping away peoples’ livlihoods to fatten corporate profits is socially undesirable.
This is because “The purpose of the corporation is to harness private interests in service to the public interest.” Corporations are public institutions that in all societies are held to certain ethical standards.
While all societies through their elected officials hold corporations to certain standards of ethics, the question of what standards they should be held to is a matter for public discussion.
One of the most important ethical questions today is whether the fox is watching the henhouse. For instance, while the saftey of US beef is acknowledged, we may nonetheless express concern that just 1.3 percent of imported fish, vegetables, fruit and other foods are inspected and that the FDA is inspecting a smaller percentage of food products than it did 30 years ago.
Deregulation gone amok is as bad as regulation gone amok. The moderate position is that a cost benefit analysis should determine public policy.
Capitalism with a conscience. What would be wrong with that?