Editor:
I was born in 1943 and graduated from high school 50 years ago. I receive Social Security and I own my own small business. The recent recession/depression has not really adversely impacted me. I am, however, very concerned with the political and economic well being of your country.
I grew up in a small town in West Central Missouri. There was an International Shoe Company plant and a Dunhill shirt factory in my hometown when I graduated from high school. Life was good in my hometown but opportunities were limited. So, I left and went out into the world to seek my fortune. I joined the Air Force. The Vietnam “conflict” had not yet started but we had the Cold War. The United States was the Big Dog in the manufacturing world. Europe was rebuilding. Everyone laughed at the stuff the Japanese made.
After the military, I enrolled in college. I majored in Economics, a worthless degree. That is why I went to law school. I studied the concept of free trade as part of my major. Free trade advocates assert that there should be no trade barriers to the importation of goods and, in a perfect free trade world, goods are made by those who are best at making them and everyone benefits by enjoying the lowest possible cost for goods.
I was pretty conservative back then. I went to hear Marvin Kalb speak on campus. He was an expert on Russian China relations. I asked him about our Government’s position on China. We hardly had anything to do with China back then. They were our enemy. Kalb said that our relationship with China would eventually change and, if the Chinese people were ever allowed to engage in manufacturing and commerce in the free market, they would be a force to be reckoned with. He was right. China is now a capitalist country and an economic super power. It will surely eventually surpass the United States in GNP. It has a middle class that is bigger than the entire population of the US and its purchasing power is growing and ours is not.
The shoe and shirt factories are gone from my hometown. The shirts that I wear are made in China. My blue jeans were made in Mexico. Nothing that I regularly wear is made in the United States. Two years ago, I bought a lightweight winter coat at the Wal-Mart in Lamar, for $7. It was made in China, shipped half way around the world, and sold for less than it could have been made in Lamar.
The United States is still the largest economy in the world, but it clearly will not be for long. Workers in China, India and other developing countries work for less per hour without any benefits than our workers. Without tariffs to adjust for wage and hour benefits and differentials, the only variable in the cost of the goods that we buy is the cost of transportation.
It is clear that the way of life that I have enjoyed over the last decades is going away and it will probably never come back. An article in the most recent edition of Forbes magazine opined that “prices and wages” must fall for the economy to recover. Stated another way, our standard of living is in decline and eventually wil be more like China, et al.
The only way the manufacturing will ever come back is if it is less expensive to make stuff in the United States. Until such time as our trade policies are adjusted to take factors other than price into consideration, the jobs will continue to flow out of the United States.
The question is: “Will the United States still be a great country if it does not make anything?” I think that I know the answer and I think that you do also. Children being born in the U.S. today are not going to live as well as I have lived. Pure free trade will turn the United States into a third world country in the long term. We have neither free nor fair trade.
There is nothing that I can do about it, the well being of our country, but speak up and vote. If you agree, please speak up and please vote.
Kent Morlan
