Perhaps a prerequisite to entering Congress should be a test on basic economics. It would appear that far too many in Congress (our body of trade regulators) have not begun to understand the very basics of trade. For those aspiring Congressmen, please pick up your copy of Adam Smith and follow along:
“By such maxims as these, however, nations have been taught that their interest consisted in beggaring all their neighbors. Each nation has been made to look with an invidious eye upon the prosperity of all the nations with which it trades, and to consider their gain as its own loss. Commerce, which ought naturally to be, among nations, as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the most fertile source of discord and animosity.”
“By such maxims as these, however, nations have been taught that their interest consisted in beggaring all their neighbors. Each nation has been made to look with an invidious eye upon the prosperity of all the nations with which it trades, and to consider their gain as its own loss. Commerce, which ought naturally to be, among nations, as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the most fertile source of discord and animosity.”
From a web site promoting the virtues of Congressman Kucinich:
11/07 Kucinich Votes To Keep Jobs In The United States
Stands Up For Millions Of Hardworking Americans
Washington, Nov 8 -Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) stood up for American workers today and voted against the United States-Peru Free Trade Agreement in an attempt to keep good-paying jobs in the United States. “The U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement continues the destructive trade policies that spur the exodus of good-paying jobs and undermine the ability of working people to protect their living standards,” Kucinich said.“Our workers in our communities have been hurt by the devastating impact of our flawed trade policies. Since 2001, more than 3 million valuable manufacturing jobs have been lost by U.S. workers due to the unsound NAFTA model for trade, analogous to the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement.“The Bush Administration insists on continuing to implement the same policies that have off-shored jobs and left hard-working Americans in precarious circumstances.“As corporations cut U.S. jobs and relocate in search of lower labor costs, the U.S.-Peru FTA threatens to expand sweatshop labor in Peru and cast doubt on the adequate enforcement of worker protections. In a company already fraught by high poverty levels and a growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, the U.S.-Peru FTA will further exasperate Peru’s difficulties with provisions that ultimately promote privatization and deregulation of basic necessities such as water and electricity.“I cannot and will not support a harmful trade agreement that threatens the livelihood of millions of hard-working Americans.”
Retrieved on February 19, 2009 from http://nafta.kucinich.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=2
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