Paging Dave Stratman

[oddlots]

The recently released Fed transcripts would seem to support your case:

"A recent article in the Wall Street Journal showed that most of the people who lost jobs in this most recent recession found new ones at lower pay. Over a third of these people had to take pay cuts of at least 20%. Pay cuts. We haven’t real sustained pay cuts across a large swath of Americans since the 1930s.
But this isn’t just a tragedy; it is in fact a conspiracy. The people in charge aren’t just failing to prevent this from happening. They want it to happen. You see, pay cuts for workers mean that prices as a whole in the economy don’t rise. There’s less inflation, which means that banks and creditors make more money.
What do I mean by a conspiracy? Well, you can read all about it. It’s right in the transcripts of the Dec. 2005 Federal Open Market Committee, which is the committee of central bankers that run America (more on that below). In that meeting, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher is complaining about the enormous quantity of Chinese goods flowing into America. He points out that this is creating ‘disinflation’, ie. lowering prices and wages for Americans.
Only, he isn’t complaining that there are too many Chinese imports, he is frustrated there aren’t enough imports. Even though China has built special export-only ports to ship goods out of China, he says, the ports at “Long Beach and Northwest” can’t absorb what China wants to sell us, because of work rules (ie. unions). This is a huge problem, Fisher continues, because it is blocking his CEO contacts from outsourcing as much work abroad as quickly as possible. They cannot “exploit China” fast enough."

http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/01/...inese-workers/


Snip...


"As late as 2005, Richard Fisher was celebrating this trend. In that same meeting where he complained about too few Chinese goods coming into the US, he bragged about the weakness of one of the most significant employers in the United States: “My most delicious irony is the fact that similarly dated Vietnamese debt now trades on a price basis richer, and on a yield basis lower, than that of Ford Motor Company. [Laughter]”


Errrr... it would seem you are onto something...

[Dave Stratman]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

The recently released Fed transcripts would seem to support your case:

"A recent article in the Wall Street Journal showed that most of the people who lost jobs in this most recent recession found new ones at lower pay. Over a third of these people had to take pay cuts of at least 20%. Pay cuts. We haven’t real sustained pay cuts across a large swath of Americans since the 1930s.

But this isn’t just a tragedy; it is in fact a conspiracy. The people in charge aren’t just failing to prevent this from happening. They want it to happen. You see, pay cuts for workers mean that prices as a whole in the economy don’t rise. There’s less inflation, which means that banks and creditors make more money.

What do I mean by a conspiracy? Well, you can read all about it. It’s right in the transcripts of the Dec. 2005 Federal Open Market Committee, which is the committee of central bankers that run America (more on that below). In that meeting, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher is complaining about the enormous quantity of Chinese goods flowing into America. He points out that this is creating ‘disinflation’, ie. lowering prices and wages for Americans.

Only, he isn’t complaining that there are too many Chinese imports, he is frustrated there aren’t enough imports. Even though China has built special export-only ports to ship goods out of China, he says, the ports at “Long Beach and Northwest” can’t absorb what China wants to sell us, because of work rules (ie. unions). This is a huge problem, Fisher continues, because it is blocking his CEO contacts from outsourcing as much work abroad as quickly as possible. They cannot “exploit China” fast enough."

http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/01/...inese-workers/


Snip...


"As late as 2005, Richard Fisher was celebrating this trend. In that same meeting where he complained about too few Chinese goods coming into the US, he bragged about the weakness of one of the most significant employers in the United States: “My most delicious irony is the fact that similarly dated Vietnamese debt now trades on a price basis richer, and on a yield basis lower, than that of Ford Motor Company. [Laughter]”


Errrr... it would seem you are onto something...

Hi, oddlots--

Thanks so much for posting this fascinating look inside the FOMC. It's always nice to be presented with a smoking gun when one is being accused of touting mere "conspiracy theory."

This is really a terrific and revealing article, but I think Ratigan's headline/analysis is mistaken when he asserts that the Fed is working for Chinese workers. The Fed is working for US and international capital, not for workers anywhere. Ratigan's analysis here analysis falls right into capital's game of pitting worker against worker.

It also fails to take the larger picture into account, that:

1) A very large percent of Chinese exports (last time I looked the figure was 65%, but that may well have changed) are from US companies located in China. (Come to think of it, I guess that is his point.)

2) The vast numbers of migratory workers who flooded Chinese cities in the past two decades are the result of the CCP "breaking the iron rice bowl"--that is, destroying the social safety net that protected small farmers and employees of state-run factories that were shutting down--beginning in the 1980s. (The World Trade Organization made "breaking the iron rice bowl" a condition of China's membership in 2001.) Tens of millions of small farmers and unemployed workers, driven by hunger, left their land and villages and became available as cheap labor for international capital.

For capitalism to work, it constantly needs fresh supplies of desperately poor people. This is one of the reasons that the US flooded Mexico with cheap corn through NAFTA: it drove millions of Mexican subsistence farmers off the land, who then migrated North to become very cheap and very exploitable (because of their illegal status) workers, and became a focus for popular anger (so much easier to blame poor immigrants rather than the oligarchs who created them).

National borders are the boundaries within which highly mobile international capital exploits workers and encourages competition among workers of different nationalities. Workers of course cannot win the competition game, which becomes a race to the bottom: who will work the cheapest.

The only appropriate response of workers is international solidarity. There is a long history of international solidarity among workers, though language differences and distance, not to mention the lack of organizations prepared to forge these ties, will present great obstacles to meaningful solidarity between Chinese and US workers.

But the working people of China and the US have the same class enemies--often even the same employers--and, I think, the same desire for secure lives for their families and, beyond that, for a meaningful role in the shape and direction of their work and their society. These are not available to either Chinese or American workers in the present system.

Once again, oddlots, thanks very much for posting this.

[bill]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

For capitalism to work, it constantly needs fresh supplies of desperately poor people.
National borders are the boundaries within which highly mobile international capital exploits workers.

A typical example and more to come.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnal...ay-Secrets.htm

Posted 01/19/2011 06:52 PM ET

Technology Transfer: During the visit of China's president, and as China's new stealth fighter takes to the sky, America's top jet engine manufacturer agrees to provide Beijing with state-of-the-art aircraft technology.
The aircraft industry remains one of America's strongest manufacturing sectors, providing needed jobs and industrial sales. Already buffeted by the heavily subsidized European Airbus, it may also face stiffer competition one day from a Chinese behemoth buying what American technology it cannot steal.
General Electric plans this week to sign a joint-venture agreement under which it will share its most sophisticated airplane electronics, including technology from Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, with state-owned Aviation Industry Corp. of China, or Avic.
The agreement will supply the Chinese Comac C919, which is challenging Boeing and Airbus in the market for single-aisle jets with more than 100 seats. The C919, expected to carry up to 200 passengers, is intended to compete with Boeing's 737 and the Airbus 3200.
Analysts don't expect many sales outside of China. But the deal provides the base for a Chinese commercial aircraft industry expected to eventually challenge Western giants. China has surprised many in its ability to compete with the West in many areas.
Avionics are electronics that control an aircraft's basic in-flight operations. The risk is that in exchange for short-term sales, however significant, GE is providing a future industrial competitor with technology that also has military applications.
China recently rolled out its version of our fifth-generation F-22 Raptor fighter. Critics have said the Chinese J-20 will be in need of better avionics and more powerful jet engines to fulfill its ominous potential.
The GE deal supposedly forbids transfer of any technology to military applications. The joint venture to be headquartered in Shanghai will occupy separate offices from Avic's military division, and the computer systems involved are said to be incapable of transferring data to that division. Anyone working on the project is barred for two years from working on Avic's military projects.
Yet China's disrespect for intellectual property rights is legendary. So is its ability to hack into and retrieve information from computer systems worldwide. Paul Kurtz, who served on the National Security Council in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, recently spoke before the first open hearing on cybersecurity held by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Kurtz put industry's annual loss of intellectual property due to hackers at more than $200 billion annually. "American industry and government are spending billions of dollars to develop new products and technology that are being stolen at little or no cost by our adversaries," Kurtz said. "Nothing is off-limits — pharmaceuticals, biotech, IT, engine design ... weapons design."

[don]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

A major aspect of our New World Order is the outsourcing of the means of production to the areas of cheap labor. From the Industrial Revolution until WW2 countries not only sheltered their industries with tariffs but defended them militarily. Only under the umbrella of global empire could the means of production be shipped abroad.

Pitting foreign cheaper labor against more organized domestic labor would always work for capital. With industrialized countries liable to engage in redistribution of wealth and power wars with each other, this grand tactic of capital was held in check. WW1 and 2 wiped clean the industrial capacity of all but the US, which significantly grew during the conflicts.

The confidence level of military dominance can be measured by the degree of critical production outsourcing.

[Dave Stratman]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

Here are examples of that desperation. I googled "hideous working conditions in China" and turned up 73,600 responses. Here's a fairly typical article: http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/sinobytes...tm?id=63018880

[Dave Stratman]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

A major aspect of our New World Order is the outsourcing of the means of production to the areas of cheap labor. From the Industrial Revolution until WW2 countries not only sheltered their industries with tariffs but defended them militarily. Only under the umbrella of global empire could the means of production be shipped abroad.

Pitting foreign cheaper labor against more organized domestic labor would always work for capital. With industrialized countries liable to engage in redistribution of wealth and power wars with each other, this grand tactic of capital was held in check. WW1 and 2 wiped clean the industrial capacity of all but the US, which significantly grew during the conflicts.

The confidence level of military dominance can be measured by the degree of critical production outsourcing.

Very good points, Don. Pre-WWI and II, colonialized countries were used as sources of raw materials and as markets for finished goods from the "home country" rather than cheap labor. India, for example, had a fluorishing hand-loom textile and other industries in the 18th century. In the early 19th century the British flooded India with cheap, machine-produced textile products, wiping out India's industry and expanding the British market. Many Indian farmers were then induced to grow poppies to supply opium for the China trade.

[bill]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

Foxconn moves inland for cheap labor.
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...82871#poststop

China coastal area will transition to high tech industrial production.

[Dave Stratman]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

Foxconn moves inland for cheap labor.
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...82871#poststop

China coastal area will transition to high tech industrial production.

Interesting. I had missed that.

[Jay]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

Here are examples of that desperation. I googled "hideous working conditions in China" and turned up 73,600 responses. Here's a fairly typical article: http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/sinobytes...tm?id=63018880

[Dave Stratman]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

My God!

[flintlock]

Re: Paging Dave Stratman

A major aspect of our New World Order is the outsourcing of the means of production to the areas of cheap labor. From the Industrial Revolution until WW2 countries not only sheltered their industries with tariffs but defended them militarily. Only under the umbrella of global empire could the means of production be shipped abroad.

Pitting foreign cheaper labor against more organized domestic labor would always work for capital. With industrialized countries liable to engage in redistribution of wealth and power wars with each other, this grand tactic of capital was held in check. WW1 and 2 wiped clean the industrial capacity of all but the US, which significantly grew during the conflicts.

The confidence level of military dominance can be measured by the degree of critical production outsourcing.

Please insert Metalman's "applause" video clip here.