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Untold stories in Global Economic Arena
I
started my advocacy for human dignity in the work day, fair- trade ( real world trade ) and restoring the Free Enterprise
system in 1992 after finding out -
The U.S. Federal Government sponsored the moving of factories outside the USA starting
in 1956. It was a temporary program but it never ended. After NAFTA was passed in 1994, more than 4,000 U.S. factories
had been moved to Mexico alone. The globalization of money started in 1956 too after the Suez Canal crisis exposed a
financial crisis worldwide. These two events triggered so called Free Trade that is not really trade at all and Globalization
where the value of workers and labor was directly attacked.
Big money found a way to transfer the values of workers
and labor to fill the voids of bad investments and worldwide loans.
It was you and your job they deflated to inflate
the value of their investments.
( We go into these issues deeper at Ray Tapajna Chronicles
online since 1998 at http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews/ and http://tapsearch.com/flatworld/ with links to other related sites for more than ten years. These sites still relate to our present time
as if they were written yesterday. )
The term Free Trade is a flagrant misuse of what trade is really all about.
Trade is about trading goods and services and not moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper labor costs.
If this is trade than you can relate it to the slave trade where human beings were traded as if they were commodities. The
news channels never make this vital distinction when they use the term.
The unemployment reporting is also a flagrant
misrepresentation of employment. Somewhere along the line, the definitions for employment changed and do not compare with
past reporting from the 1940s through the 1970s when primarily, only full time jobs with benefits were counted. The
term underemployment came later and it was used for awhile as an indication of workers not being able to find full time work
or living wage jobs.
During the Clinton era, even workers making only a $100 a month were reported as employed
and the term underemployment lost its meaning. Also somewhere along the line, the primary collection of data was a phone
polling process where only a few thousands homes were called. If the person responding to the call said they did not look
for a job in the previous month, they were considered employed. If an unemployed person went back home to the family
farm to live and help out on the farm while looking for a job, they were considered employed.
As to how many workers are missing in action from any kind of reporting
is an unknown but we know there must be millions. A few years ago, the Bureau of Unemployment finally admitted there were
more than 4 million workers who gave up looking for work, but still they were not counted as unemployed. We all should know
just my observing our surroundings, there are many more than 4 million workers who have lost hope. The most significant
statistics that proves this is the number of workers who do not qualify for unemployment insurance.
Only
about 38 percent of all workers in the USA qualify for unemployment insurance. This means that 62 percent are living in limbo
in some no man land of statistics.
From time to time there are debates in Congress about extending unemployment
payments whose benefits have run out, but nothing is never mentioned about the workers who never were able to qualify for
the insurance because they did not make enough money at one job or did not work long enough at any job to qualify. We
all know an underground labor market is growing too but many of these workers still would not qualify for unemployment insurance.
What is important is the fact that the major news channels and our political leaders never talk about those who do not qualify.
These workers remain in the lost land of statistics.
Most likely there are more unemployed workers
today than there was during the Great Depression. The only difference is that we now have social security and private and
public support for many in need. And many who work at places like Walmart and in fast foods, require government help
in order to survive. We have taken tariffs off goods and services and put them on workers. Sadly many families who have
someone working most of the time are even homeless.
Free Traders's biggest lie is about tariffs and protectionism causing
the Great Depression.
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