In Rep. Alan Grayson’s (D-Florida) excellent 9 minute “Hollywood-produced” video he explains how we have "fake trade" and not "free trade" agreements.
"We're creating tens of millions of jobs in other countries with our purchasing power, while were losing millions of jobs here in America, because people in other other countries are buying THEIR own goods and services rather than ours. They’re not creating jobs in America, but they’re buying our assets — our stocks, our bonds, our mortgages, our homes, our farms, our coast lands, our big businesses and our small businesses."
He goes on to say that our debt to foreigners totals $35,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. — and that foreigners already own 7% of America's assets. (Last year deals worth at least $1 billion in
the U.S. merger-and-acquisitions market saw the number rise 43% from the year before.)
Rep. Alan Grayson's petition:
http://tradetreachery.com/
Maybe he could be Bernie Sanders' VP ;)
The Political Roots of Widening Inequality (Robert Reich): "The increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs."
ReplyDeletehttp://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2015/05/the-political-roots-of-widening-inequality.html
From one (of many) reader comments at Mark Thoma's blog:
All markets have rules.
The rules determine the distribution.
The wealthy have bought the process that makes the rules.
The rules we have help the market distribute the wealth upward to benefit the market.
The wealthy argue that the market is "free" and good.
It is not free, it is controlled by the wealthy.
It is good for the wealthy but not good for the rest of us.
The rest of us need to fight for rules that are more fair.
The US as a Debtor Economy
ReplyDeleteWhen a country runs a trade deficit and imports more than it exports, like the US economy, producers in other countries are by definition receiving a greater value in US dollars from selling in the United States than the value of the foreign currency that US producers are receiving from exporting abroad. Through the windings of the foreign exchange markets and the international financial system, these US dollars are invested or loaned back into the US economy. In this way, a trade deficit is inevitably accompanied by an inflow of investment capital. The long string of US trade deficits means that, over time, the US has become a debtor economy, which can be defined as an economy where the total amount that foreigners have invested over time in the US economy is greater than the total amount that US investors hold in the economies of other countries.
(Lots of charts, etc.)
http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-us-as-debtor-economy.html