Pundits Should Be Labeled Also

This letter appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times this morning.

Cokie Roberts’ and Steven V. Roberts’ commentary from Nov. 28 reached a new level of idiocy. They suggested we should rejoice at the fact that most of our goods are made abroad. Try telling that to the millions of workers who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing in the last decade.

We should sacrifice good jobs, with pensions and health care benefits, so Cokie can buy cheap trinkets at Wal-Mart. In these trying times, I think we should show how patriotic we are by spending our hard-earned money on American-made goods. A simple Internet search will connect you with companies that are still supporting American workers instead of exploiting children. To save the middle class we need a strong manufacturing sector. We can save our children’s future by spending our money on goods and services made in this country, not China.

Kirk Heilner
Northampton, PA

As we know, the issue isn’t just the junk made in China and dumped into this country for consumption, but stuff made anywhere overseas (sorry if I sound like Lou Dobbs a bit too much, but trust me; we buy our share of electronic and motorized toys made especially in China, and most of the stuff is truly awful). And Mr. Heilner is so, so right about manufacturing and the middle class.

And I want to thank him for jogging my memory on the column written by these two last month. He’s right – it was truly idiotic and full of the typical “free” trade lies and nonsense that Democrats and Republicans alike have been foisting on us for far too long. But I didn’t respond to it at the time because I couldn’t find an online link to it.

Well, I just found one, so here it is (never mind - the link is flaky).

A TV commercial 20 years ago, urging shoppers to buy American-made clothing, contained the memorable refrain: "Look for the union label." That era is long over. Buying only domestic garments would leave your kids shivering this winter.

And we're supposed to be happy about that?

Maybe you’re right, but how do you know? Are we just supposed to take your word for that? Any information on which clothing manufacturers are based in this country versus overseas? Any information on how much clothing purchased by retailers such as Old Navy or higher-end stores is made in this country versus overseas?

Oh, how silly of me – I forgot that the Robertses are self-appointed Beltway media geniuses as opposed to actual reporters.

But here's a heretical suggestion for the holiday season: as you purchase sweaters and games and bikes to put under the tree, look for the foreign label. Notice how many of your gifts are made abroad, and take a moment to realize you are benefiting from globalization and free trade.

How am I “benefiting” from something cheaper that is going to be more cheaply made than something in this country?

I’ll give you a good example of quality, which is the exception these days unfortunately: toys from Tyco. Every toy we’ve bought from them was made in this country (including Shell Shocker and Terrain Twister, the motorized contraptions that curl into a ball, spin around and generally run amok). They’re expensive, but you know what? They last. They don’t wear out or break a day or so after you bought them. And, in all likelihood, they weren’t made by some likely emaciated underage boy or girl in a Third World country working for the equivalent of pennies a day under the threat of imminent violence if they didn’t meet their quota.

And how is this country “benefiting” when we prop up the regimes responsible for this stuff in the name of making a quick buck?

Free trade is hardly a popular idea today. Just before President Bush flew to Asia, Congress slapped him in the face by shelving a market-opening pact with Vietnam. The deal will probably be approved next year, but the vote signaled a major shift in public sentiment.

His own Repug Congress “slapped him in the face”? I don’t think so.

As noted here, the legislation was “fast tracked” in anticipation of Dubya’s visit to Vietnam, but as it turned out, they wanted more time to review the legislation and ultimately passed it anyway during their final week in session.

As former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a strong advocate of open markets, told bankers meeting in Hong Kong: "There's a tremendous backlash against trade liberalization. It's one of the biggest challenges facing the global economy."

This backlash is not only dangerous, but wrong-headed. Every economic study confirms that free trade is a powerful engine for growth and prosperity, by far the best anti-poverty program anywhere. All those workers in China and Chile crafting toys for Santa can now afford American-made movies and computers.

Sorry, but we have to take care of our own people at home first before out-of-touch columnists or anyone else should try to indulge themselves.

But there's a problem.

Even though free trade creates far more winners than losers, the losers tend to be louder and more visible. It's easy to put a picture on TV of a shuttered factory or an unemployed worker. It's much harder to show a family who earns more from expanding exports, or pays less because of inexpensive imports.

Wow.

So someone whose job has been eliminated due to outsourcing/offshoring is “a loser”? And it’s somehow their fault when pictures appear on T.V. of shuttered factories or unemployment lines? And I'm still waiting to see families benefit from this in the way that the Robertses describe.

I was so shocked by these remarks that I actually did a little bit of research into Cokie Roberts to find out what could be in this woman’s mind that would allow her to think that these comments are acceptable, and this is what I found.

She is the daughter of the late Hale Boggs, former House Majority Leader and a 1964 political science graduate of Wellesley College. She has accumulated all sorts of honorary degrees and recognition for her academic achievement. She was also appointed by Dubya to something called “The President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation” (so she’s really going to be impartial...right; that no doubt explains her "slap in the face" remark above). She is an accomplished journalist and author to be sure, and to her credit, she is also a breast cancer survivor.

But I have no evidence at all that she has ever held a manufacturing or service job at any time in her life, so how the hell she thinks she’s qualified to write about the economy is something I cannot imagine.

As a result, political demagogues, most of them Democrats, have exploited the anxieties that are inevitable in a rapidly changing economy. One example: Jon Tester ran for the Senate in Montana charging that trade deals were putting "our jobs and the viability of family farms and ranches across Montana in jeopardy."

That's nonsense, but Tester won, and so did several dozen other Democrats who fashion themselves as "populists" on trade but would better be described as fear-mongers. That's where the "foreign label" idea comes in.

I’ll try to explain this for Roberts as best I can; I don’t live in a farm state either, but apparently I have more knowledge on this than she does.

When overseas interests (or interests in this country, actually) are allowed to exploit trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA by acquiring farms or agricultural properties – or anything, really – in Montana or elsewhere and bring in workers cheaper from elsewhere to work at those locations, you’d better believe that that’s depressing wages in that community, and that has ripple effects all over the place when it comes to supporting other area businesses, charitable donations, etc. Also, these interests can use their clout to achieve market advantage in ways that family farms cannot, such as depressing prices to the point of driving out smaller competitors. Tester is talking about stuff like that.

Now it will remain to be seen how much he or anyone can really do, but at least he intends to try (of course, that means Roberts and her friends may have to pay a few cents more for farm-state items they may find at Sam’s Club and similar places such as breakfast cereal, hence the whining and carping).

Many American families who profit from trade don't know it. They don't realize the benefit to their budget when they fill out their Christmas lists with foreign-made gifts at Wal-Mart or Target.

Still waiting for you to make your case…

Free traders are notoriously poor at public relations. A second way to promote their cause is publicizing the American companies that are growing because of exports. Many workers don't realize the products they make, package, load, ship and market are sold to foreigners.

This may be the most condescending piece of columnist garbage I’ve ever read. Workers are too dumb to realize that their exported goods “are sold to foreigners”?

So the problem isn’t the fact that people are losing their jobs due to outsourcing/offshoring and our government refuses to account for how many are lost and actually provides tax incentives for companies to perform such heinous cruelty. The problem is that “free traders are notoriously poor at public relations”?

Would you like some brie with your Chardonnay, Cokie darling? Let’s talk a stroll onto the veranda to watch the polo match while the “workers” neatly unfold the table linen so the cutlery and bone china can be properly displayed. Oh, and don’t forget the crystal champagne flutes also.

One example: a company called Dunlee-Philips in Aurora, Ill., which makes high-tech X-ray tubes for medical scanners. Company president Pat Fitzgerald told the Chicago Sun-Times that 40 percent of his business is now overseas: "I think if you're only looking at your market as being the U.S. market, you're missing something."

Neil Hartigan, head of Chicago's World Trade Center, pointed out that as firms like Dunlee-Philips expand, they open opportunities for other businesses. "We're trying to develop the service side of it," he said. "These people need accountants, they need lawyers, they need suppliers."

Roberts continues to look only at the “demand end” of the equation, of course, as opposed to the “supply” end.

In fighting the anti-trade backlash, the new Congress has a role as well. Rep. Charles Rangel, the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, says that "trade is one issue" that's ripe for bipartisan cooperation. He can start by brokering a new farm bill reducing lavish federal subsidies to agriculture, which have helped stymie global trade talks.

First, even Jon Tester has said that he doesn’t like federal subsidies for farmers, but they need them to help with the cost of materials to help them stay in operation. And what’s more important, helping our people in a somewhat imperfect manner, or tossing them aside altogether? I would advocate for them if, for no other reason, to prevent more of these awful trade deals.

Second, if Roberts thinks Charles Rangel is actually a friend of workers in this country, then she’s more out of touch than I ever realized (as David Sirota notes here).

Then he can kill the insane embargo against Cuba, a country hungry for American products.

I absolutely agree with Roberts 100 percent on that.

But the biggest problem facing free traders is the stagnation of American wages.

I would say so also (and even a defender of this odious stuff acknowledges that this is happening, by the way).

That provides fertile ground for the charge that globalization is depressing domestic income. The answer is not shielding American companies from competition, which won't work anyway. It's making American companies (and workers) more competitive than ever. That means subsidies for retraining and research; it means lowering the barriers for foreign students and entrepreneurs who want to create and invest here.

At the time she and her husband wrote this, anything mentioned in that last sentence (which I support – they make somewhat more sense at the end of this column) was totally unachievable with a Republican congress and President Stupid Head sitting in the Oval Office. At least the first part of that awful twosome has been eliminated.

No matter how competitive Americans become, however, globalization will always cause some folks to lose out, like those workers who used to make garments under the union label. They can't simply be discarded. They need help in coping with hardship -- lower drug costs, better health coverage, extended unemployment benefits.

Again, I agree with that, but these are just empty words…everything the Roberts have said already would defeat this, especially under Bushco.

Free trade is in America's national interest. That's why you should look for the foreign label this holiday season.

And to keep their conservative “cred,” the two of them have to repeat this nonsense at the very end.

To provide something close to a response from the reality-based community on this, I located a link to a Council on Foreign Relations Q&A on the effects of offshoring on our economy, and the following is noted (we know this, I realize, but it bears repeating).

Economists…concede that the low level of job creation in recent years has made it more difficult for workers who lose their jobs to outsourcing to find new ones. Some 3 million private-sector jobs have been lost since the U.S. economy peaked in 2000, most of them in manufacturing.

I’m not going to highlight anything else from the CFR article because, though it is good with pro vs. con viewpoints, it contains mostly background material explored by me and my lefty blogging “betters” at various times. Suffice to say that this has been legitimized partly because of the Robertses and others of their ilk for whom those paying the price of job loss are utterly invisible.

In the event that the Robertses observe Christmas (maybe – the Wikipedia article tells me Steve is Jewish and Cokie is Roman Catholic), I hope they both receive coal in their stockings (made in China, of course).