Web Letters | The Nation

From Mass Prosperity to Severe Recession in Fifty Years

Jobs make all the difference

I don’t think there is any doubt among Democrats and some Republicans that the New Deal worked. Wall Street was regulated, and Americans had high enough wages to supported 70 percent of the economy. It wasn’t broken, and it didn’t need to be fixed!

Has Neoliberalism and “free trade” worked for the average wage-earner? The collapse of one country’s economy, no matter how small, can effect the globalized economy. It is a shiny new penny, but it doesn’t work!

The one essential item that was not mentioned in this article was trade barriers. NAFTA, along with other “free trade” agreements, started the flight of industries and jobs overseas. Those jobs supported 70 percent of the American economy. No jobs, no American market!

There will be no place to hide with a deepening depression. The emerging markets have bet heavily on trade to support their economies. China is building new ports at home and abroad to “service” the world’s economy. The jobs that supported 70 percent of the American economy are gone. Who is going to buy those cheap goods, and what is going to happen to the cheap labor that produces those goods? The irony is that if China had concentrated on internal development behind trade barriers, their economy would surpass any trade ventures overseas.