I am Teamster. I was once a Foreman (my boss, old Joe was in Patton's 3rd Army). My idol was Eric Hoffer. But unlike most workers, I read a lot (so did Hoffer). I wasn't satisfied with being a blue-collar nitwit. Also, I remember history pretty damn good. Here is my take.

Richard Nixon, essentially, dumped the mixed economy for the so-called "free market" being under the spell to deregulate based on such untested theories as those of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, and Milton Friedman (disaster capitalism).

It was also Richard Nixon who put the U.S. economy on the course of free-trade which is just a highfalutin term for "labor arbitraging" in which American corporations go in search of cheap labor overseas (remember Nixon's China visit?). This has led appreciably to huge trade deficits and our National Debt. Unlike the last Republican before him, Nixon did not protect American manufacturing.

If you look at economic charts beginning in 1973 there is clear evidence that the American economy began to decline under Nixon with his introduction of so-called free markets and free-trade. In fact, the American economy has never recovered!

The obvious solution to the problem facing us is to return to the highly regulated "mixed economy" which served us well before the Nixon era. Bluntly, we need to throw the rationalizations for free markets and free trade in the dust bin of failed economic theories along with Adam Smith's notion of wealth based on surplus output (supply side). What is happening now is our wake up call. The American people know that what we need are real jobs (manufacturing) and real wages (not credit cards).

One last comment. When you start hearing words like "protectionism", "tariff", "mixed economy", "regulation", you can start to smile and feel good about our future.

Those of us that saw precisely what you saw have been buried by the Religious Right that was created by the Reagen regime to carry on the war against the middle class by preempting the people that didn't read. The elimination of the fairness doctrine requirement for the federally licensed media and the consolidation of ownership of the media created a form of mass propaganda led by Russ Limbaugh and his ilk. The result has been a voting bloc that supported the interests of the upper 5% in the name of God. Those of us that had bothered to read history and recognized what was being done to us, were accused of class warfare. In the meantime, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the infrastructure crumbled. It will take a while to fix.

jeepster. This is strange to me as I worked with the Reagans back in 1964 and again when he ran for Governor. He had no religious tenets in any of his speeches and he seldom went to Church at all. He had a press conference when he was the first Governor to sign the Roe v Wade decision and many of us were in Sacramento for that conference. When he ran for President he made no motion to ban abortions because he was obviously pro choice.

After his reelection and a visit from Robertson and Falwell he began to see their point of view. Both Robertson and Falwell hated V.P. Bush as he was also pro choice. When the RNC approved of Bush running for President, Reagan was very ill, more than most people realized. Somehow the religious right got into the RNC and tried like furry to talk Bush 41 into banning abortions. It didn't work at Bush was not reelected.

Bush 43 bought the religious right by promising handouts and the bible belt put him in office. Even in retirement, Reagan was devastated with this action.

Reagan has been quoted as being pro-life and I guess the pressure from Robertson and Falwell was responsible. I knew him as a freedom-loving pro choice patriotic man.

That was a long time ago but I still remember Reagan as a decent but ill man. He is dead now and should be put to rest with negative comments. When I first met him, he was a Democrat and his very conservative first wife was furious with his political opinions. He changed and believe me, he changed! Just in time for Goldwater campaign. He worked for Geo. Murphy for the Senate and became the spokesman for Conservative Republicans.

Malcolm

Globalization is just another fancy term for the older term, free-trade. Both can be defined from a day to day practical level as the process of outsourcing high paying jobs to third world countries so corporations like IBM can make a huge profit. The other term for this is "labor arbitraging". Instead of paying a guy in the U.S. 20 dollars an hour to make electro-widgets, IBM can pay a guy in China 2 bucks and pocket 18 dollars. Bottom line, this means huge profits for corporations--but nothing for the average American who used to work in a steel mill.

From the national perspective, globalization is highly destructive. It turns a nation of productive workers into a nation of consumers living off of credit and expecting credit to be extended. As a result of globalization, the U.S. has also become a debtor nation of huge proportions. This is also reflected in the trade deficit.

So what happens when the American consumer finally runs out of credit? And what happens when even their pizza delivery job is dumped? Remember, America is now a gutted-out nation that doesn't manufacture much anymore. So what happens?

Whoops! The geniuses of globalization never thunk of that. They are too busy getting massages and manicures. Their egos won't hear of the idea that globally, each nation should first work towards feasible self-sufficiency in terms of agriculture and manufacturing so that the people of that nation have high quality productive jobs. In other words, if nations can produce their own goods and services, what is the purpose of globalization (i.e., free-trade)? It only seems to benefit corporations!

And aye, there is the source of the problem: it really boils down to corporations v. nations. In the example of the nation called, The United States of America, we sacrificed our great nation so that corporations like IBM and GE could live high off the hog by labor arbitraging (i.e., outsourcing) while "We the People" were forced to live off of credit cards.

Come on folks, doesn't globalization really mean "corporatism" in which corporations rule the world? They are the only ones benefitting right now not America. Time to change that.