Quoted: Well, I for one, am glad I know that our trade negotiators for the last 30 years, have been Good Solid americans, with good old american names, and ties going back generations... If I didn't know that, I'd be led to the conclusion, that our manufacturing industry has been destroyed on purpose...

No, that could never happen here. This is Amerika, afterall.

 I personally don't like all the products made in China, Taiwan, or any other 3rd world countries, but I also don't worry much about what will transpire as far as the domination of 3rd world markets (and maybe I'm totally wrong about it).
 Why?

 Simply because our govt decides whom we like to deal with, whatever benefit USA and our economy.  
 Our wealth is what other countries like to work with.  They want our $$$$$.
 Do we, as USA, need China or vice versa?
 Do we, as USA, need Taiwan or vice versa?
 Do we, as USA, need other 3rd world countries or vice versa?

 An example:  If we, as in USA, decide to boycott China's goods completely tomorrow, whose economy would go down the tube so fast that it's not going to be funny?
 

Quoted: Steyr, you're way too negative for me dude. I have better things to worry about than China making cheap shit that gets tossed after a few months. Good luck on your quest for a perfect and utopian system. By the way, what exactly do you do for a living? Is it gun related?

He does group buys

Most (if not all) of you don't seem to know what a 3rd world nation is.  

China and Taiwain are NOT 3rd world nations.  Third world nations have no (or very little) infrastructure --railways, highways, paved roads, electricity service, sewage treatment plants, indoor plumbing, clean running water, modern shipping ports, airports, phone lines, cell towers, hospitals, internet service, etc.  

Third world nations are: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad (Hell, most of Africa) Large parts of Central Asia (the Many Stan nations), and South Asia (i.e. Bangladesh) and parts of Southeast Asia (Burma, Laos, North Korea)

To say that third world nations are going to steal jobs from the USA is ASSININE.  It would take Trillions of dollars to get third world nations just up to decent living standards and an adequate infrastructure, let alone competing economically with the world's largest economy (the USA).

Yes, there are rural areas of China that are 3rd world-like but the cities are modern with excellent infrastructure (not to mention that they have a large modern financial center like Hong Kong).

Just to add, since it doesn't seem you know much about China, the same economic forces that affect the US also affect China.  The Chinese that are doing well (which is millions of them, remember there are a billion people in China) are buying foreign goods by the mega billions.  It is not a one way street.  For example, US farmers and cattle ranchers are doing VERY well this year because the Chinese have doubled their average caloric intake, so prices for farm products are at multi-year highs (beef, pork, soybeans) and they have recently ordered mega billions of Boeing jets.  Go to China today, and you will see well dressed, well fed people who like foreign cars and jabber on their cell phones (jobs for Motorola in Schaumburg Illinois).  Foreign goods are a status symbol in China, much as here.

Remember also, when comparing the 1950's to the present year, one must consider the diminished purchasing power of the dollar due to inflation.  Also, you should consider the taxes owed by a man in 1953 (say) versus today.  The tax burden is FAR greater today when considering ALL the taxes that we pay today ( Federal income, FICA-medicare and Social Security, state income taxes, sales taxes, sin taxes, real estate taxes).  So even though we make more, we keep much less.  If I recall correctly from one of my economics books, a man who made 5,000 dollars in 1953 paid a TOTAL of about 500 dollars in taxes.  For comparison, a Corvette cost about 2,800 dollars in 1955.

One other thing, many things have gotten MUCH cheaper when adjusted for inflation (or even when you don't adjust for inflation) than they used to be.  For example,  the Model-T by Ford when it came out used to cost the average working man 18 months worth of wages.  An average car today costs about six months worth of wages.  Not only does a modern car cost much less--it has much more. Windshield wipers, power steering, power locks, power seats, A/C, radio, CD player, collapsible steering column, disc brakes with ABS, Airbags, safety glass, seatbelts, 200 more horsepower, better gas mileage etc.  So not only is the modern car cheaper, there is far more value added to it (that's capitalism-compare General Motors to the Soviet Union's Lada).

Quoted: To say that third world nations are going to steal jobs from the USA is ASSININE.  It would take Trillions of dollars to get third world nations just up to decent living standards and an adequate infrastructure, let alone competing economically with the world's largest economy (the USA).

I noticed you omitted India, which is by all definition a 3rd world nation yet is getting thousands of our jobs via outsourcing.

BTW, the China of the 1970's is nothing like the China of today. How do you think they got that way? I have a hard time believing the infrastructure was in place. In fact, the reality is they created the infrastructure as they went along, one foreign investment at a time.

Damn, I think we need to pat all of ourselves on the back for having one of the best threads I've read in a while. The biggie here is, it didn't break down into a name calling bout as some seem to do so fast. Hell, I bet some of us evn learned a bit about how the economy works.

Thanks again Steyr for starting this.

I didn't read this whole thing yet, but I have a question to ask.  Dave seems really down on his luck.  Anyone got an address for me so I can send Dave a couple of bucks?

Steyr, I am glad that you know what a second world nation is (communist nations).  China was second world, but I would call it first world today.  I would agree that Haiti, et al, are shitholes.

You make interesting and possibly valid points, but predicting the future-when it comes to economics-is very difficult.  Chaos theory seems more relevant.  As China increases it's economic wealth changes will occur that cannot be foreseen (IMO).  How will the government react?  Will the governmment become more democratric?  Authoritarian?  How will the booming Chinese middle class react?  Will Chinese workers rebel?  Could they Unionize?

Remember our US history?  Workers used to be paid pennies at the beginning of the industrial revolution in the USA.  These workers rioted, organized, etc. and things changed.  You seem WAY too confident in your analysis.  There are literally hundreds of variables to consider from a hundred nations.  Inflation?  Deflation? Currency valuations?  Interest rates? Wages?  Tariffs?  Trade deals? Government interference? Education?  Culture? Farmers?  Unions? Tax policy? Socialism versus Capitalism?

The thing that will keep the USA ahead is intellectual superiority.  So I believe education is the most important thing.  The more we know, the better off we are.  You do not consider the millions of jobs that will be created in the USA in new technologies.  What will come with nanotech?  Biotech?  Artificial intelligence?  Plasma drive engines?  Cold Fusion?  Medical Science?  Alternative energy?  Genetic Research?  (How about designer babies?-you can pick the height, hair color, sex, eye color, etc.  It's a real possibility)

I see the creation of millions of jobs that do not exist in the present day.

You are too static in your analysis, for you do not account for future change.  Even though we do not know specifically what will change, we do know that it will occur nonetheless.  Your thinking is too pessimistic.  Isn't it possible that we will need robot assembly plants that require educated workers that are not to be found elsewhere?   The world of 2053 will be different, and there is a good chance that it will be far better than today's world.  Think of it, no cancer (no disease!) and we all live to 120 (I hope).

If I were to have kids tomorrow, I would make sure they were interested in Science (biology, chemistry, physics, genetics etc.) and Technology, for that is the future.

Who said it?

Good evening, Rodney Wagner and distinguished guests. This is an extraordinary event, an historic occasion made possible by the hard work of thousands of people over many years. It is a celebration of a dream, shared by my father and all of us here tonight, of a world more just, more safe, and more rewarding than the one we inhabit now.

As the son of the Population Council’s founder and first president, this is a moment of unsurpassed personal pride. I cannot imagine a greater honor than speaking before you on this occasion. I cannot imagine anything that would have pleased my father more than to see how many people have gathered to celebrate the Population Council, and to know how much progress you have made toward making his dream real. I know he would also share my own pride in having his grandchildren–my children, Valerie and Charles–with us tonight.

Here in the United Nations, 35 years ago, Secretary General U Thant released a World Leaders Statement, prepared by XXXXXXXXXXX, that elegantly captured the ideals behind the Population Council then, and its influence and relevance today.

It read in part: “We believe that the population problem must be recognized as a principal element in long-range national planning if governments are to achieve their economic goals and fulfill the aspirations of their people .... that the opportunity to decide the number and spacing of children is a basic human right .... that lasting and meaningful peace will depend to a considerable measure on how the challenges of population growth are met .... that the objective of family planning is the enrichment of human life....”

As you know, that statement marked a turning point in the population movement. Ultimately signed by 30 heads of state–including Lyndon Johnson, Indira Gandhi, and Gamel Abdul Nasser–it was an important symbolic milestone reached only through extraordinary effort.

My father twisted arms at the White House. He personally wrote 52 heads of state, and followed up with phone calls and visits to ambassadors in Washington and many leaders themselves in his travels around the world. He agreed to accept an honorary degree at the University of Cali, as a condition for meeting with Colombian President Carlos Lleras Restropo, and was tear gassed during a demonstration. He even lobbied Pope Paul VI. Colombia signed. The Vatican didn’t.

My father wanted nothing less than to change the world, and he devoted his life and his fortune to doing so, through the Rockefeller Foundation and through individual efforts like the Asia Society, the Japan Society, International House, and Lincoln Center. But the Population Council, with its fight to help people choose their families and control their destinies, was my father’s greatest passion.

Along with a handful of population pioneers, my father understood that accelerating population growth was a threat to the world he was working to create – a world in which every individual had a chance “to lead a life of satisfaction and purpose, to achieve in life more than mere survival.”

In making the connection between population and poverty as early as the 1930's, he was very much a visionary. And now, in the 21st century, when the global poverty the Population Council attacked is a source not only of moral outrage, but of crime and terror, his vision seems even more penetrating.

The Population Council was attacking the roots of poverty a full generation before American policymakers – focused on more immediate Cold War issues – began to pay attention to the ways in which they could directly affect, and forever alter, American lives.

It is ironic that the Population Council became my father’s great individual achievement in part because its mission – population control – was considered too hot to handle by the Rockefeller Foundation, and, for that matter, by most other major American institutions.

Today, in a world where goods and services, immigrants, workers, pollution, crime, and terror move from nation to nation irrespective of borders, poverty is also a direct, physical threat to the American people.

Here in New York, where an agonizing gap in the skyline has replaced the towers that symbolized America to the rest of the world, no one needs a reminder that poverty, powerlessness, and anger have replaced Soviet expansion as the primary threat to our personal safety and our national security.

Children growing up today will learn about communism not from newspapers, but from history books. Today, we are threatened not by Soviet troops but by terrorists nurtured in the slums of Cairo or Mazar-e-Sharif. We spend billions to staunch the flow of crack and cocaine, a flow that begins with rural peasants struggling to feed families on tiny plots of land and travels through gangs based in Latin America’s shanty towns and maquiladoras, before reaching the United States, our streets, and our children. And we watch in horror as sub-Saharan Africa, the only region not benefiting from dramatic birthrate declines, lurches from war to genocide to famine and back. How long until they turn their rage on America, rather than one another?

Four-fifths of the world’s six billion people live in developing nations. Three billion live on less than $2 a day. One in five human beings lives in absolute poverty – earning less in a month than it costs to park your car overnight in Manhattan.

At the same time, a global communications web beams images of American affluence and ostentation to every corner of the globe. The sharp contrast between slow or even negative growth for billions and the accelerating affluence of America and the industrialized world makes the United States even more attractive–and, for some, more abhorrent–than ever.

They pay attention to us. But we don’t pay attention to them.

Insulated as we are from the world’s worst pockets of poverty, or focused on poverty here at home, it is terribly easy for Americans to put the problem out of our minds.

You can see our indifference in our students, who can barely find places like Somalia or Iraq on a map, much less speak languages like Farsi, or even French.

You can see our self-absorption in our voters, who consistently rank foreign policy the least of their concerns.

And, too often, you can see our myopia in our leaders, who can find a trillion dollars for a millionaire’s tax cut but can’t fund a realistic foreign aid effort. America contributes less of its wealth to foreign aid than any developed nation in the world. Only 50% of our Congress possess passports!

There is no justification for the outrages committed on September 11th. But there is no denying the connection between poverty and indifference, and the urge to lash out.

The Vice President recently called another suicide strike against the U.S. “inevitable.” If we do not act to alleviate the conditions that breed and support terror, that statement will be true for decades to come.

Individual terrorists are often from the middle and the educated classes. But it is indisputable that the societies from which they arise are crushed by poverty and bereft of hope. To paraphrase Chairman Mao, terrorists swim in and live off a sea of frustration and anger. By eliminating the environment that gives them life—by improving the lives of the people who hide and support terrorists, and by starting to eliminate the conditions that feed their outrage—we can begin to stop terrorism at its source.

We all understand that American military technology can overwhelm any battlefield foe, and I support its use against people who kill Americans and attempt to destroy our nation.

But we need to learn that we cannot end the threat of crime and terror until we bring the same creativity and commitment to achieving a human triumph as we do to winning a military victory.

It’s time for us to engage the rest of the world, as human beings.

That means a foreign aid budget that reflects the magnitude of the poverty we face, based on need and effectiveness.

That means an education system that teaches languages, geography, world history, and geopolitics—to kindergarteners and to graduate students.

That means a U.S. diplomatic strategy based on cooperation and multilateral action, rather than impulse and naiveté.

It means a commitment to public service as educators, volunteers, elected officials, and career activists.

And it means a global commitment to family planning and to population services.

I know that there will never be enough support flowing from the West to less developed nations to educate every child, support every entrepreneur, empower every individual.

But family planning can help to close the gap. Large government projects are important: like power generation, new schools, and drinkable water. But when people can control the size of their families, they have a far greater ability to pull themselves up on their own.

A smaller family may mean that a child is sent to a secular school rather than to work or to a fundamentalist madrossa that turns out jihadists by the score. It may mean a cow, or a small plot of land. It may free a woman to contribute to the family income. Or it may save her life—every 60 seconds, a woman dies from the effects of pregnancy or childbirth. It may mean purchase of a loom or a taxi or a kiln, and the beginning of what we now call “microenterprise,” the first steps toward economic independence.

The distance between hope and hopelessness can be so short and so easily spanned—by a one-room school, by an irrigation canal, or by an IUD. But it is a distance that is almost immeasurable: the difference between energy, progress, and love, on the one hand, and resignation, stagnation, and hate, on the other.

Our technology didn’t save us on September 11th, and it cannot deliver a final victory now. We must engage as humans, and find solutions based on people—on ourselves and on those whom we wish to help.

In this, the Population Council, and my father, have shown us the way. Not because population services in themselves are a cure for poverty. But because you resolved the same intellectual challenge as an organization that we now face as a nation.

Fifty years ago, my father founded the Council in a world just beginning to understand the science of population growth and the biology and sociology behind it. Birth control was in its infancy. And the world’s political and intellectual leaders had not yet generally grasped the importance of your efforts to realizing their own dreams for their people and their nations.

You changed that. You studied demographics, designed birth control, and built an intellectual consensus. It was critical, demonstrable progress. But it was only half the solution.

Someone recently told me that they thought an amazing thing about my father was that he grew more open and more flexible as he grew older. I think the same is true of this organization.

Because, rather than bind yourselves to an established approach – vitally important, but with declining marginal utility – you began to look beyond the science until you discovered people. Guided in part by my father, the Population Council learned that empowering women, supporting families, educating individuals about their lives and their potential were important, too.

And by marrying science and humanity, your influence and effectiveness reached the peak on which you sit today – the movement leader, active in 70 nations, and respected in political, scientific, and academic circles around the world.

If America can understand the connection between poverty and violence as well as the Population Council understands the relationship between education and overpopulation;

If we remember that people with hope will live their lives in peace, and people with economic power live in ways that benefit us all;

If we fight the war on terror by engaging in a global war on poverty, and follow your example by using politics and technology as a means while understanding that opportunity and enrichment for human beings is the only legitimate end;

Then perhaps we can find peace for America, and create a world of opportunity that, as my father wrote, “frees man to achieve his individual dignity and his full potential.”

On behalf of my father’s memory, myself, and all of us who share a dream of a world in which our families are safe and every person has hope, thank you.

Thank you for everything you have taught us over the last 50 years; thank you for the vitally important studies and field work going on right now; and thank you for the hope you will continue to bring to people around the world for many years to come.

mattja,

It wasn't my intention to list every third world nation (or should I say "developing nation" which is the politically correct phrase).  By the way, there is a recent movement to bring jobs back from India to the USA, due to cost (it wasn't as cheap as they thought) privacy (medical info blackmail) and the fact that US people couldn't understand some of the Hindu folks.

If you want a list: www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world.htm

Quoted: Steyr, you're way too negative for me dude. I have better things to worry about than China making cheap shit that gets tossed after a few months. Good luck on your quest for a perfect and utopian system. By the way, what exactly do you do for a living? Is it gun related?

Your new here, aren't you ?!?

I know, "it will never happen here".

home.iae.nl/users/lightnet/world/worldgovernmentview.htm


On January 30, 1976, 32 U.S. Senators and 92 U.S. Representatives in Washington, D.C. signed a "Declaration of Interdependence." "Two centuries ago our forefathers brought forth a new nation; now we must join with others to bring forth a new world order."

Most people have been too busy enjoying the good-life to recognize that their rights are being lost. The goal of the new world order is for the large corporations and the wealthy to totally control the world's population, resources, communications, finances, trade, and labor. To reach these goals requires the destruction of the nation-state, sovereignty, patriotism, nationalism, property rights, and the family unit.Make no mistake that this is not a well orchestrated plot to destroy America. Time is short, and the people are asleep.

"We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promise of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries." - David Rockefeller, at a 1991 Bilderberger meeting.

"Nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all." - Strobe Talbott, former Deputy Secretary of State and Bill Clinton's Oxford roommate, in Time, July 1992.

"This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward the goal of one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept." Zbigniew Brzezinki, National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter

"In is the sacred principles enshrined in the United Nations charter to which the American people will henceforth pledge their allegiance." President George Bush addressing the General Assembly of the U.N., February 1, 1992

"This program is the fixed, determined and approved policy of the government of the United States." Senator Joseph S. Clark speaking on the floor of the Senate, March 1, 1962, about PL 87 297, which calls for the disbanding of all armed forces, and the prohibition of their re-establishment in any form whatsoever

"The New World Order is a world that has a supernational authority to regulate world commerce and industry; an international organization that would control the production and consumption of oil; an international currency that would replace the dollar; a World Development Fund that would make funds available to free and communist nations alike; and an international police force to enforce the edicts of the New World Order." Willy Brandt, Former West German Chancellor and former chairman of the Fifth Socialist International, Chairman of the Brandt Commission in the late 1980's

"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order." David Rockefeller

"But this present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for long. Already there are powerful forces at work that threaten to destroy all of our hopes and efforts to erect an enduring structure of global interdependence." David Rockefeller, speaking at the Business Council for the United Nations, September 14, 1994

"A colossal event is upon us, the birth of a New World Order." Brent Scowcroft, George Bush's National Security Advisor, on the eve of the Gulf War

"The Persian Gulf crisis is a rare opportunity to forge new bonds with old enemies (the Soviet Union). Out of these troubled times a New World Order can merge under a United Nations that performs as envisioned by its founders." George Bush, September 11, 1990

"The world can therefore seize the opportunity (the Persian Gulf crisis) to fulfill the long-held promise of a New World Order where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind." George Bush, in his State of the Union Address, January 29, 1991

"Human beings, as species, have no more value than slugs." John Davis,
editor of Earth First Journal


www.jerryesmith.com/li/index.php?cat=gHealthEnv

ar10er, I don't buy any of that "New World Order" stuff, it's just too "conspiracy theory"
minded for me.

You probably aren't going to find alot of people here who want to increase the foreign-aid budget (they'll say "screw 'em"),  but I for one support it for the reasons you quote  (peace and population control for poor nations), and also for humanitarion reasons.

Don't forget that the biggest recipient of US foreign aid (and blood) this year is Iraq.

The best possible outcome of our foreign aid to Iraq is a free, democratic and prosperous Arab nation that would be a catalyst for democracy, economic growth and peace in the region (I hope!).

P.S. Off topic. It is odd to see negative population growth in wealthy countries like Germany and Japan versus booming populations in India and Malaysia.   Germany and Japan will be adversely affected because they need workers (i.e income taxes) to pay for the needs of their aging populations (health care and retirement), so their only option is to allow mass immigration or dramatically raise taxes.

"We've got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of
global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic policy and environmental policy." Timothy Wirth, former U.S.
Senator (D-Colo.), presently with the United Nations


www.nationalcenter.org/dos7130.htm

ThunderStick,

I have been trying to find a quote by J. Rockefeller. He said in a news conference, "Americans need to learn to live with less." They do not want to bring the rest of the world up to out living standards, they want to pull us down to 2nd or 3rd world standards.

I have not been able to find it, so I have been throwing other trash out there.

Lower prices can come from higher productivity!

My company makes meters, with new technology, our cost of goods goes down, our prices stay the the same and our wages and profits go up.

SS109,  Good one, I forgot about that!

Lower prices don't they equal, in essence, higher wages?

It would be interesting to see what percentage of their wages on life's necessities.

I am guessing currently we are spending more on luxuries, entertainment, and dining out than on the necessities than ever before.

It is easy to claim the sky is falling, but I think Americans are better off than ever before.
(Except maybe too fat because food is cheap and plentiful)

I guess I don't see the direness you see. I work in manufacturing. Foregn car companies continue to set up plants here.

Sure Wal-Mart screws their workers, but they are entry level jobs and should just be used as a platform to get a better job or for some extra money & purpose for senior citizens.

People still do frequent high priced clothes shops, jewelry stores, and pay way too much for luxury cars.

Personally a lot of the manufacturing jobs were shit jobs and lost to productivity gains. I prefer Chinese coal miners dying instead of American ones.