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 Richmans' Trade and Taxes Blog

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs - We were published in American Thinker this morning
Howard Richman, 1/15/2010

Here is how we begin:

The economic news for January has been dominated by disappointing employment news released on January 8 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Total non-farm payroll employment edged down by 85,000 in December from November, led by a loss of 57,000 construction jobs and 27,000 manufacturing jobs. Public dissatisfaction with the Obama administration's handling of the economy has been following employment levels down.Here's how we begin:

Follow the following link to read the commentary: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/jobs_jobs_jobs.html

Comment by Howard Richman, 1/18/2010:

There was a great comment to this article posted by a reader identifying himself as GeorgiaBoy61. Here is a selection:

My late father was a senior executive for a Fortune 500 electronics firm, with extensive international business experience, including managing operations in Japan, China and elsewhere. Beginning in the 1970s, he was very concerned with the position of U.S. manufacturing versus our international competitors, then primarily Japan, but later on China. His experience was that these nations did not conduct trade with the U.S. on an equal basis, and engaged in protectionism and complex schemes of all kinds to effectively prohibit American electronics from their markets, or erect all sorts of bureaucratic and other barriers to slow the entry of our products into their markets. Japan's Ministry of Trade was notrious for doing this. My father passed away in 1999, so did not live to see the powerhouse the PRC has become, but I know he would have been very concerned indeed at the direction things have taken, and the practices of the Chinese government, in terms of manipulating currency, limiting access to markets for our goods, and the like.

"Free trade" and unfettered competition are supported by most conservatives, myself included, but only with the caveat that the game must not be rigged, as it has been for the last three decades, in favor of our trading partners. As Paul Weyrich and Bill Lind note in their book, "The Next Conservatism," international trade that favors our partners at the expense of Americans, should not be one of our policy goals. values. The Globalists may want it, but I certainly do not. Nor should our trading partners want an enfeebled USA, broke and unable to serve its role as the driver of the world economy.

At the very least, trusting the Communist oligarchs of the PRC to act in our best interests with their nation's trade policy is dangerously naive. It is the task of each nation's leaders to maximize trade benefit for that nation, not other nations; the Chinese are doing just that.

Response to this comment by Howard Richman, 1/18/2010:
This comment got us checking out Weyrich & Lind's book, The New Conservatism.

Response to this comment by Howard Richman, 1/18/2010:
People like Weyrich, on the Christian wing of the the Republican Party, are much more receptive toward balanced trade than the etablishment wing.