When Americans No Longer Own America

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Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:58:47 -0800 (PST)

" When Americans No Longer Own America "

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published on Monday, February 27, 2006 by

CommonDreams.org

 

 

When Americans No Longer Own America

by Thom Hartmann

 

The Dubai Ports World deal is waking Americans up to a

painful reality: So-called " conservatives " and " flat

world " globalists have bankrupted our nation for their

own bag of silver, and in the process are selling off

America.

 

Through a combination of the " Fast Track " authority

pushed for by Reagan and GHW Bush, sweetheart trade

deals involving " most favored nation status " for

dictatorships like China, and Clinton pushing us into

NAFTA and the WTO (via GATT), we've abandoned the

principles of tariff-based trade that built American

industry and kept us strong for over 200 years.

The old concept was that if there was a dollar's worth

of labor in a pair of shoes made in the USA, and

somebody wanted to import shoes from China where there

may only be ten cents worth of labor in those shoes,

we'd level the playing field for labor by putting a

90-cent import tariff on each pair of shoes. Companies

could choose to make their products here or overseas,

but the ultimate cost of labor would be the same.

Then came the flat-worlders, led by misguided true

believers and promoted by multinational corporations.

Do away with those tariffs, they said, because they

" restrain trade. " Let everything in, and tax nothing.

The result has been an explosion of cheap goods coming

into our nation, and the loss of millions of good

manufacturing jobs and thousands of manufacturing

companies. Entire industry sectors have been wiped

out.

 

These policies have kneecapped the American middle

class. Our nation's largest employer has gone from

being the unionized General Motors to the

poverty-wages Wal-Mart. Americans have gone from

having a net savings rate around 10 percent in the

1970s to a minus .5 percent in 2005 - meaning that

they're going into debt or selling off their assets

just to maintain their lifestyle.

 

At the same time, federal policy has been to do the

same thing at a national level. Because our so-called

" free trade " policies have left us with an over $700

billion annual trade deficit, other countries are

sitting on huge piles of the dollars we gave them to

buy their stuff (via Wal-Mart and other " low cost "

retailers). But we no longer manufacture anything they

want to buy with those dollars.

 

So instead of buying our manufactured goods, they are

doing what we used to do with Third World nations -

they are buying us, the USA, chunk by chunk. In

particular, they want to buy things in America that

will continue to produce profits, and then to take

those profits overseas where they're invested to make

other nations strong. The " things " they're buying are,

by and large, corporations, utilities, and natural

resources.

 

Back in the pre-Reagan days, American companies made

profits that were distributed among Americans. They

used their profits to build more factories, or

diversify into other businesses. The profits stayed in

America.

 

Today, foreigners awash with our consumer dollars are

on a two-decades-long buying spree. The UK's BP bought

Amoco for $48 billion - now Amoco's profits go to

England. Deutsche Telekom bought VoiceStream Wireless,

so their profits go to Germany, which is where most of

the profits from Random House, Allied Signal,

Chrysler, Doubleday, Cyprus Amax's US Coal Mining

Operations, GTE/Sylvania, and Westinghouse's Power

Generation profits go as well. Ralston Purina's

profits go to Switzerland, along with Gerber's;

TransAmerica's profits go to The Netherlands, while

John Hancock Insurance's profits go to Canada. Even

American Bankers Insurance Group is owned now by

Fortis AG in Belgium.

 

Foreign companies are buying up our water systems, our

power generating systems, our mines, and our few

remaining factories. All because " flat world "

so-called " free trade " policies have turned us from a

nation of wealthy producers into a nation of indebted

consumers, leaving the world awash in dollars that are

most easily used to buy off big chunks of America. As

www.economyincrisis.com notes, US Government

statistics indicate the following percentages of

foreign ownership of American industry:

 

· Sound recording industries - 97%

· Commodity contracts dealing and brokerage - 79%

· Motion picture and sound recording industries - 75%

· Metal ore mining - 65%

· Motion picture and video industries - 64%

· Wineries and distilleries - 64%

· Database, directory, and other publishers - 63%

· Book publishers - 63%

· Cement, concrete, lime, and gypsum product - 62%

· Engine, turbine and power transmission equipment -

57%

· Rubber product - 53%

· Nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing - 53%

· Plastics and rubber products manufacturing - 52%

· Plastics product - 51%

· Other insurance related activities - 51%

· Boiler, tank, and shipping container - 50%

· Glass and glass product - 48%

· Coal mining - 48%

· Sugar and confectionery product - 48%

· Nonmetallic mineral mining and quarrying - 47%

· Advertising and related services - 41%

· Pharmaceutical and medicine - 40%

· Clay, refractory, and other nonmetallic mineral

products - 40%

· Securities brokerage - 38%

· Other general purpose machinery - 37%

· Audio and video equipment mfg and reproducing

magnetic and optical media - 36%

· Support activities for mining - 36%

· Soap, cleaning compound, and toilet preparation -

32%

· Chemical manufacturing - 30%

· Industrial machinery - 30%

· Securities, commodity contracts, and other financial

investments and related activities - 30%

· Other food - 29%

· Motor vehicles and parts - 29%

· Machinery manufacturing - 28%

· Other electrical equipment and component - 28%

· Securities and commodity exchanges and other

financial investment activities - 27%

· Architectural, engineering, and related services -

26%

· Credit card issuing and other consumer credit - 26%

· Petroleum refineries (including integrated) - 25%

· Navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control

instruments - 25%

· Petroleum and coal products manufacturing - 25%

· Transportation equipment manufacturing - 25%

· Commercial and service industry machinery - 25%

· Basic chemical - 24%

· Investment banking and securities dealing - 24%

· Semiconductor and other electronic component - 23%

· Paint, coating, and adhesive - 22%

· Printing and related support activities - 21%

· Chemical product and preparation - 20%

· Iron, steel mills, and steel products - 20%

· Agriculture, construction, and mining machinery -

20%

· Publishing industries - 20%

· Medical equipment and supplies - 20%

 

Thus it shouldn't surprise us that the cons have sold

off our ports as well, and will defend it to the

bitter end. They truly believe that a " New World

Order " with multinational corporations in charge

instead of sovereign governments will be the answer to

the problem of world instability. And therefore they

must do away with quaint things like unions, a healthy

middle class, and, ultimately, democracy.

 

The " security " implications of turning our ports over

to the UAE are just the latest nail in what the cons

hope will be the coffin of American democracy and the

American middle class. Today's conservatives believe

in rule by inherited wealth and an internationalist

corporate elite, and things like a politically aroused

citizenry and a healthy democracy are pesky

distractions.

 

Everything today is driven by profits for

multinationals, supported by the lawmaking power of

the WTO. Thus, parts for our missiles are now made in

China, a country that last year threatened us with

nuclear weapons. Our oil comes from a country that

birthed a Wahabist movement that ultimately led to 14

Saudi citizens flying jetliners into the World Trade

buildings and the Pentagon. Germans now own the

Chrysler auto assembly lines that turned out tanks to

use against Germany in WWII. And the price of labor in

America is being held down by over ten million illegal

workers, a situation that was impossible twenty-five

years ago when unions were the first bulwark against

dilution of the American labor force.

 

When Thomas Jefferson wrote of King George III in the

Declaration of Independence, " He has combined with

others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our

constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving

his assent to their acts of pretended legislation… " he

just as easily could have been writing of the World

Trade Organization, which now has the legal authority

to force the United States to overturn laws passed at

both local, state, and federal levels with dictates

devised by tribunals made up of representatives of

multinational corporations. If Dubai loses in the

American Congress, their next stop will almost

certainly be the WTO.

 

As Simon Romero and Heather Timmons noted in The New

York Times on 24 February 2006, " the international

shipping business has evolved in recent years to

include many more containers with consumer goods, in

addition to old-fashioned bulk commodities, and that

has helped lift profit margins to 30 percent, from the

single digits. These smartly managed foreign operators

now manage about 80 percent of port terminals in the

United States. "

 

And those 30 percent profits from American port

operations now going to Great Britain will probably

soon go to the United Arab Emirates, a nation with

tight interconnections to both the Bush administration

and the Bush family.

 

Ultimately, it's not about security -- it's about

money. In the multinational corporatocracy's " flat

world, " money trumps the national good, community

concerns, labor interests, and the environment. NAFTA,

CAFTA, and WTO tribunals can - and regularly do -

strike down local and national laws. Thomas Paine's

" Rights of Man " are replaced by Antonin Scalia's

" Rights of Corporate Persons. "

 

Profits even trump the desire for good enough port

security to avoid disasters that may lead to war.

After all, as Judith Miller wrote in The New York

Times on January 30, 1991, quoting a local in Saudi

Arabia: " War is good for business. "

 

Thom Hartmann is a Project Censored Award-winning

best-selling author of over a dozen books and the host

of a nationally syndicated noon-3pm ET daily

progressive talk show syndicated by Air America Radio.

www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are " What

Would Jefferson Do? " and Ultimate Sacrifice.