Tag Archives: American Jobs Alliance

State of the Union – A recipe for disaster

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In tonight’s State of the Union address, our Offshorer-in-Chief, announced a plan custom made to destroy jobs. By combining an ill advised increase in the minimum wage with an utterly blind commitment to two additional “free trade” pacts President Obama is creating a perfect storm of structural unemployment.

The inverse relationship between wages and the availability of jobs is one of the most fundamental concepts in economics. – in fact, I taught it just last night at Chapman University. Employer demand labor, like demand for any commodity, obviously goes down when the price goes up. Further, the supply of workers increases with higher wages as non-workers in various categories (stay at home moms for instance, or students) choose to enter the work force to grab the new higher wage.

Consequently, there are very few economists (whose paychecks don’t come from the administration) who would dispute that wage floors kill jobs. Now, in a robust economy the employer’s burden is offset by strong market demand for their products and services. In those good days, liberals have a foot to stand on when they sing the praises of helping the working poor through wage mandates. In the middle, of a deep, dark employment abyss raising the cost of labor in hopes of helping the poor is simply insanity! And make no mistake, despite the President’s hand waving, we are still very much in that abyss.

The real measure of those who can’t find adequate work is at least twice the government’s fantasy unemployment number. Consider the chart below from the folks at Shadow Government Statistics who have added back in the long-term and short-term discouraged workers that the government wants to bury as well as those who are stuck in part time jobs but want full time. OMG! Not only is that blue line above 20%, but unlike the number we get from the job each every month, this very real situation for millions of struggling Americans is getting WORSE.

sgs-emp

Now, I don’t want to see any American trying to raise a family on minimum wage. Those jobs should be going to teenagers, eager to cut their teeth and learn responsibility. But the sad reality is that the victim of the President’s higher minimum wage who get laid off from Joe’s Burgerstand are more likely to be a 30 year-old former assembly worker or a 55 year old factory foreman. These folks shouldn’t have lost their jobs in the first place and the primary cause of their burger flipping nightmare has been a two decade long, bipartisan effort to export America’s manufacturing capacity, technology and capital to China. We’ve lost not just millions of jobs, but more than 2% of our GDP growth every year – just to China.

Trade  is a great thing for consumers and exporters for nations that play it smart and understand the game is hardball. Countries like South Korea and Germany have been able to power right through the Great Recession and even face down a mercantilist China. Even their neighbors in Asia and Europe are feeling the pain of this. Ask Taipei or Rome what they think about the way Seoul and Berlin conduct their business and you will get an earful. We need to emulate that aggressive and successful approach, but we don’t do that. America prances into the world series of trade wearing shorts and swinging a badminton racket at 100mph fastballs. Our goal always seems to be some fuzzy headed idea like engaging our trading partner not beating them fair and square. Frankly, while it sounds good, that is NOT how a free market actual works. Most of the time real capitalism is a brutally competitive arena with actual winners and very real losers. Apple Computer didn’t get where it is today by trying to find a “win/win” with Dell or HP. Steve Jobs was out to kill and the results of that are pitilessly obvious as Dell tries to crawl under a private equity rock in hopes of staying alive. This ruthless process of creative destruction is how the market improves efficiency and increases the standards of living – for the survivors.

So while we do want to expand trade with our friends in Asia and in Europe, the last thing we should be doing is signing up for another naïve American led trade pact full of wishy-washy objectives with the open-ended specifics left to negotiators who already know they are going to be working as “consultants” for our “trading partner” as soon as they roll out of public service.

The worst possible jobs program I could imagine is a higher-minimum wage combined with more “free trade.” On the other hand, to quote my buddy, Peter Navarro, “The best jobs program is trade reform with China.” Do that and you won’t have to worry about the minimum wage.

 

Greg Autry serves as Senior Economist with the American Jobs Alliance, Economist with the Coalition for a Prosperous America and is co-author (with Peter Navarro) of Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – a Global Call to Action. He teaches Macroeconomics at the Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University and blogs regularly at: http://www.gregautry.us/blog  and on the Huffington Post.

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The Time Has Come – BOYCOTT

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The American Jobs Alliance and TAP America have joined in calling for a BOYCOTT of China. Further announcements of support and events will be forthcoming. It’s time for American Consumers to alert American Firms to the market risk they face when they cooperate with and support the Communist Government of China and its mechanisms of repression!

Read about it at Business Week:

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/markets/news/article.asp?docKey=600-201205150753MRKTWIREUSPR_____887428-1&params=timestamp%7C%7C05/15/2012%207:53%20AM%20ET%7C%7Cheadline%7C%7CTAP%20America%2C%20American%20Job%20Alliance%20and%20Made%20In%20the%20USA%20Foundation%20Form%20National%20’Buy%20American’%20Coalition%7C%7CdocSource%7C%7CMarketwire%7C%7Cprovider%7C%7CACQUIREMEDIA

Complete Text of the Press Release:

TAP AMERICA, AMERICAN JOB ALLIANCE AND MADE IN THE USA FOUNDATION FORM NATIONAL ‘BUY AMERICAN’ COALITION

Organizations Partner to Promote Job Creation & Encourage Boycott of Products Made InChina

 

SEATTLE, WASH. – May 15, 2012 – TAP America, a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening America, Made In the USA Foundation and the American Job Alliance today announced the ‘Buy American Coalition’ to stimulate our national economy, protect our nation’s values and weaken authoritarian regimes abroad that violate human rights.

 

The formation of the ‘Buy American Coalition’ comes on the heels of the latest troubling news out of China. Customs officials have seized thousands of pills made from the flesh of dead babies, the product of the Chinese Communist Party’s forced abortion policy.  The Chinese dissident who fled to the U.S. Embassy, Chen Guangfeng, was imprisoned and persecuted by Communist officials for protesting this inhuman practice.

 

TAP America Founder Mark Bloome said, “The ‘Buy American Coalition’ is of great importance to our country now more than ever. We are seeing our jobs being hollowed out in America by unfair competition from China. Working with both the American Jobs Alliance and Made In the USA Foundation, we believe that this issue is large enough to require examination by multiple organizations. We at TAPamerica.org are leading thecharge.”

 

The China Threat

The Buy American Coalition calls on citizens to buy American and boycott China. This grassroots action sends a clear message that Americans believe that our people and our nation prosper when we adhere to traditional values of liberty and human dignity, not when we abandon them to appease foreign tyrants.

 

China’s authoritarian regime is critically dependent on American cash and investment to fund its machinery of repression.   “When consumers buy American-made products they put Americans to work and starve the Chinese Communist Party of resources.  This is a double victory – for American workers and American values,” said Greg Autry, Senior Economist with the American Jobs Alliance.  “It is not possible or even necessary to completely shun Chinese-made products to have a positive impact.   Even the threat of a substantial boycott would change the behavior of corporations that benefit from China’s exploited labor and mercantilist trade behavior,” Autry notes. “A 20% drop in imports from China would easily destabilize Beijing.  Buying American will make U.S. firms appreciate that.”

 

“For decades the US government has said that doing business with China would bring democracy and human rights to the Chinese people, but it is now clearer than ever that buying up their cheap prison-made goods has only strengthened the Chinese Communist Party,” said Harry Wu, Human Rights Activist and Founder of the Laogai Museum in Washington D.C. the first U.S. museum to directly address the human rights issues in China. “This imbalanced relationship is hurting the American people too, as they see their health threatened by unsafe Chinese products, their jobs lost, and their economy undermined. If governments do not insist that the repressive Chinese regime abide by fair trade practices, then it is up to American corporations and consumers to hold China accountable for its prison slave labor, lack of compassion for other workers, and countless human rights violations.”

 

The coalition will explore the foundations of America’s chronic joblessness and rising underemployment with the goal of finding actionable solutions.  Important issues under consideration include: international trade, geopolitics, currency devaluation, product safety and compliance, human rights, resource availability, and consumer interest in American products. The coalition is already experiencing broad, non-partisan support from many individuals and organizations. It does not endorse any political party, candidate, union, trade association or corporation.

 

The ‘Buy American Coalition” is comprised of:

·       Mark Bloome, Founder of TAP America

·       Richard Tso, Executive Director of TAP America

·       Greg Autry, Senior Economist for the American Jobs Alliance

·       Curtis Ellis, Communications Director of American Jobs Alliance

·       Joel Joseph, Founder of Made In the USA Foundation

 

“Our organization is all about creating jobs for Americans,” said Curtis Ellis, Communications Director with the American Job Alliance. “Forming this coalition aligns our organization with TAP America so that we can tackle the issues preventing job creation in the United States.  High on the list are the predatory trade practices of the Chinese Communist regime.  We can put our money where our values are by buying American at every opportunity.  Our ancestors built this great country by doing what was right, not what was easy.  We must follow their example to rebuild the country.”

 

“There are three main causes of our trade deficit:  trade with China, imports of automobiles and imported oil,” said Joel Joseph at Made In the USA Foundation. “The deficit with China is the most dangerous because many Chinese industries are owned by the People’s Liberation Army, and American consumers are thus funding a military force that poses a significant danger to the well-being of the United States.”

 

TAP America recently announced their TAP Certified Merchant program to encourage stores to stock at least 20% ofU.S. goods and to increase their American made inventories by just 1% per month. As incentive, businesses who sign up are featured in news articles, included in the TAP online business directory, and are featured in a Groupon-like service called AmeriCoupon that helps people find deals on products made in America. TAP Merchant Filson was recently awarded the TAP America Loyalty to America Award for its commitment to keeping over 70% of manufacturing in the United States.

 

Since launching in January of 2011, TAP has created national awareness campaigns aimed at promoting tolerance, encouraging people to stay physically active, and to purchase products made in America. For more information about TAP America, to volunteer or to make a donation, please visit www.tapamerica.org.