l hear you can make good money panhandling tourist from China and Europe when they arrive in NYC.
l used to enjoy visiting Third World countries for vacation now l think l'll just stay home and wait for us to become one.

The four decades following WW2 were the best for American workers and for Americas economy.

Time to revert back to the tarriff and labor rights enforcement of that era.

End the Free Trades.

Not sure if it's true, but I heard yesterday that some manufacturers in China will either close or take their business to Thailand because wages are increasing in China and the government is looking at global warming and the pollution problem from polluters in various industries.

"Clinton's rarely been the threat to the business community that many on the right typically allege… She advocated weakening the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, telling Feingold to "live in the real world." Unlike Edwards and Obama, she accepts campaign contributions from lobbyists and corporate PACs. "Ask them why they don't take money from lobbyists," Wolfson retorts. "We're proud of our support."

"Hillary, Inc."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070604/berman

The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.00001:

"Senator Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat who was tapped by leaders to oversee ethics overhaul, said the legislation would "ensure that committees aren't slipping in earmarks in the dead of night."

After overcoming resistance inside his own party, Mr. Obama pushed for a provision requiring, for the first time, disclosure by lobbyists who bundle political contributions of more than $15,000 in six months.

"My argument was that it was worth it for us to try to be aggressive on this front, particularly since we were just coming into power," Mr. Obama said, adding that he wished the rules could be enforced by an outside group. "I do think that the public would have more confidence in the process if we had an independent enforcement mechanism."

The legislation is designed to limit the social interaction between lobbyists and lawmakers, making it more difficult for them to get together at sporting events, parties at national political conventions and other social activities.

The bill also deprives former members of Congress who now work as lobbyists of some of the privileges that critics say give them an advantage in pushing legislation. The measure revokes floor privileges to former lawmakers who are lobbying, and denies them access to the House and Senate gyms, other exercise facilities and members-only parking."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/washington/03lobby.html

"A Chance to Change the Game" by Barack Obama

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301620.html

"The Republicans who controlled the Senate last year refused to let it come up. And on Jan. 12, before the details of the proposal had been disclosed, Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat in charge of his party's fund-raising as head of the senatorial campaign committee, used a run-in on the Senate floor to deliver an angry rebuke to the disclosure idea's lead sponsor, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, several people present or briefed on the confrontation said.

In a subsequent conversation, Mr. Schumer said he worried that the proposal could cramp fund-raising by placing an undue burden on potential bundlers, said aides who were briefed and a lawmaker familiar with their talk, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the talks.

"Senator Obama has not been the most popular person in our caucus in the last couple of weeks," said a Democratic aide involved in deliberations over the bill. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/us/politics/20ethics.html

"Ethics Fencing in the Senate"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/opinion/15mon4.html

"Bundlers in '08"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/opinion/19fri3.html

joneden: You are so right -- the way forward is vast public and private investment in renewable energy technology; our last chance to rejuvenate the U.S. manufacturing base. Of course, we'll need laws to prevent the solar panels, windmills and other green technologies from being made overseas -- and that includes components!

I wish Obama would flesh out his proposals on this very soon. He uses only a sentence or two about "renewables," yet they're our future in SO many ways: drastic reductions in oil importation (helping our balance of trade) ... huge reductions in greenhouse emissions ... health benefits from pollution reduction ... well, I don't have to preach to the converted, because this is commondreams. C'mon, Barack -- give us the details!

As an ex-Ohioan from the Dayton area I'm glad the rest of America is finally tuned into how NAFTA and Most Favored Nation Status are ruining our manufacturing base. It is long past time. And as a former fair trade activist at The Ohio State University, I am glad to see that Progressives are rallying around Barack Obama who has the only clearly Progressive record on this issue.

People should investigate for themselves the connection between Wal-Mart, based in Arkansas, and the Clintons' push for Most Favored Nation Status for China and NAFTA and the current crisis of affordabilitiy in healthcare. If, like me, you don't believe there is any economy that isn't a political economy you will be able to see why the Clintons are not a safe bet to lead us into a new industrial era based on green manufacturing. In addition to being wrong about Iraq and the Deregulation of California's Utilities Market, they are wrong about Trade and Healthcare.

Barack Obama is the one candidate who can lead us in the 21st Century, not the 20th Century, where under Bill Clinton jobs were left in the Rustbelt, where I grew up, packed up and shipped to China, Mexico, and other countries where workers are paid scrabble in return for Mexico letting us push family farmers off their farms with subsidized Archer Daniels Midland corn that couldn't find its way into our french fries and Coke. Bill Clinton's America, where instead of creating manufacturing jobs, we shipped them overseas, and threw their workers into Wal-Mart, an Arkansas-based company the Clintons mortgaged their political future on, a place where Hillary Clinton once sat silently on the Board as the corporate officers savaged union organizers to rise to global prominence. And in return the American worker got a trade deal with China, which competes against the American worker with low wages, government-owned labor unions, smog, and environmental destruction so Wal-Mart can make a few more bucks on the margins.

Hillary Clinton has taken more money from the Healthcare Insurance industry than any candidate in this country. Of course she wants to mandate that every American worker- whether they can afford it or not- to pay the Healthcare Insurance industry. Wall Street doesn't bank in losers. They bank with people who know how to sell out when the price of reform is high and retire to a comfortable non-competitive Senate seat in New York.

"Hillary, Inc."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070604/berman

"Md. Passes Rules on Wal-Mart Insurance: Bill Obligates Firms On Health Spending"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28219-2005Apr5.html

Obama's Plan

"Employer Contribution: Employers that do not offer or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. Small employers that meet certain revenue thresholds will be exempt."

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

"Over the last two years, 13 states have disclosed employers that are major users of state provided health insurance programs which are aimed at low-income families. Wal-Mart has topped the list in all the states, except Massachusetts where it was second and Wisconsin, which did not disclose the usage of employers other than Wal-Mart.

Combined, the 13 states disclose that at least 55,000 Wal-Mart employees, children, and spouses are covered by state health insurance programs. A total of 480,000 Wal-Mart employees work in these 12 states, meaning that on average for every nine Wal-Mart employees, at least one Wal-Mart family member is getting state-provided health care."

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/state-reports.html

"Our governor-elect and the Legislature are about to embark on another cycle of budget discussions. In normal budget times, it is a moral obligation for lawmakers to spend taxpayers' funds wisely. During the worst budget crisis in California's history, it is imperative. Every dollar spent should be used strategically, effectively and toward meeting our obligation to protect our most vulnerable citizens and to educate the next generation.

That is what makes recent revelations about Wal-Mart, one of the world's wealthiest corporations and the largest private employer in America, so disturbing. Wal-Mart is one of many large corporations that skimp on health care for their employees. Inadequate health insurance coverage, high deductibles and cost-sharing that is out of reach for low-wage workers add to the corporate bottom-line. Wal-Mart also reportedly carefully controls the number of workers who achieve full-time status and higher benefit levels.

In the marketplace, where one of these giants is competing against a small business that is responsible to its workers and to the community, the giant will win every time.

Who picks up the tab for this lack of responsibility? We all do. Wal-Mart provides its workers with access to a Web-based service that allows a county social services worker to immediately verify income and employment. Such access can help to qualify workers quickly for Medi-Cal benefits, food stamps and other taxpayer-funded aid.

While the use of this fast-tracked system may help deliver government services to those who qualify for them; it can also raises a number of concerns: In an environment of low wages and meager benefits, it can be seen as encouraging big business to make taxpayer-funded services a part of their business plan.

The use of this system obscures information consumers need to make informed decisions. When consumers buy back-to-school clothes at Wal-Mart they should know whether they are encouraging a business practice that relies on siphoning taxpayer dollars out of education and other state needs."-Assemblywoman Sally Lieber

http://www.commondreams.org/scriptfiles/views03/1107-07.htm

"Wal-Mart. An Example of Why Workers Remain Uninsured and Underinsured."
www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/walmart/upload/Wal-Mart_final.pdf
"More than 80 percent of the 6,000 factories in Wal-Mart's worldwide database of suppliers are in China. Wal-Mart estimates it spent $15 billion on Chinese-made products last year, accounting for nearly one-eighth of all Chinese exports to the United States. If the company that Sam Walton built with his "Made in America" ad campaign were itself a separate nation, it would rank as China's fifth-largest export market, ahead of Germany and Britain."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22507-2004Feb7?language=printer

"Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought Unions"

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4218509&page=1

"But she supported most favored nation trade status despite concerns about China's human rights record.
William Kristol, a self-described Reagan-era internationalist and the editor of The Weekly Standard, said Mrs. Clinton's speech sounded like the thoughts of Senator Moynihan. But, he said, her remarks hearkened back to Reagan as well. "You've got to be happy that Democrats are now willing to embrace at least some aspects of energetic American leadership," he said."

'Mrs. Clinton Suggests That U.S. Engage Aggressively in World Affairs' by Dean E. Murphy, The New York Times, October 18, 2000

"China's entry into the World Trade Organization was supposed to improve the U.S. trade deficit with China and create good jobs in the United States. But those promises have gone unfulfilled: the total U.S. trade deficit with China reached $235 billion in 2006. Between 2001 and 2006, this growing deficit eliminated 1.8 million U.S. jobs (Scott 2007). The world's biggest retailer, U.S.-based Wal-Mart was responsible for $27 billion in U.S. imports from China in 2006 and 11% of the growth of the total U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2006. Wal-Mart's trade deficit with China alone eliminated nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs in this period

The manufacturing sector and its workers were hardest hit by the growth of Wal-Mart's imports. Wal-Mart's increased trade deficit with China eliminated 133,000 manufacturing jobs, 68% of all jobs lost. Overall, the Wal-Mart trade deficit displaced 308,100 jobs in 2006. On average, 77 U.S. jobs were eliminated for each one of Wal-Mart's 4,022 U.S. stores in 2006″

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20070627

"The Wal-Mart effect: Its Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs"

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/ib235

Good article by David Sirota. I read it this morning in the San Francisco Chronical.

As for Ms Clinton, "Beware of a wolf in sheeps' clothing."

I'm sick of tryna get people off the NAFTA drug. I'd settle for just getting rid of Chapter 11, since that's where our taxpayer dollars are going.

Cheap goods from China purchased with borrowed money from Asia has eased the pain of the outsourcing of our jobs to the third world. As this mitigation becomes increasingly untenable--given the falling dollar, rising inflation, and flat incomes--avoiding an era of decline in the American standard of living is going to be difficult.

There is though a very sensible way out of this emerging dilemma--the evolution of a new economy (and psychology to go with it) grounded in ecological realism. Over anything other than the short run, there never was any other possibility given that our ever expanding human economy is based on the spending down the natural capital capital of the ecosystem--an obviously self limiting process.