Worshipping the Golden CAFTA

Date: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 5:18 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Diane Alden copied my spelling mistake; the McCain staffer that was
quoted was Matt Rimkunas. Rimkunas emphasized that McCain is totally
aware of all the immigration implications of the Chile and Singapore
FTA and thinks that they are a good idea. That's not surprising since
McCain is the proud co-sponsor of H-1B:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/Library/Politicians/McCain.htm

Alden mentioned that CAFTA passed the Senate. It has passed the Senate
Judiciary committee but hasn't been approved yet by the entire Senate.

Following the article are a few letters sent to me by people that
called their Senators.

The "Refugee from The People's Republic of Alta California" sent me
this bumper sticker after I jokingly wrote that someone should make a
bumber sticker that says, "If You Like NAFTA, you'll Luv CAFTA". Enjoy!
http://makeashorterlink.com/?U23661175

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/7/29/180447.shtml

Worshipping the Golden CAFTA

Diane Alden
Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Rob Sanchez is a labor and economic activist and head of Zazona, a
company that keeps track of the decline of American jobs in the
technical and manufacturing fields as well as the travesty that is the
current work visa system. (http://www.zazona.com)
Sanchez points out the extremes in the ideology of one-way free trade
job killers like NAFTA and CAFTA. In addition, he and many others, like
Pete Bennett and Mike Emmons, are experts on the corrupt U.S. visa
system a system being manipulated by transnational corporations, a
travesty in a so-called "free market" economy and nothing but a
corporate subsidy.

CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), of course, is the
recently passed "free trade" bill that will allow Americans or,
rather, transnational profiteers and predators, Wall Street speculators
and our government to use Chile and Singapore to screw with the
American economy and displace more American workers.

Before passage of the next economic train wreck referred to as CAFTA,
Sanchez relates, the following exchange between himself and Republican
Sen. John McCain's office took place.

"Today I spoke to John McCain's staffer, Matt Riqunas. He said:

"McCain will vote for the FTA (Fast Track Authority). He emphasized
that McCain totally understands the immigration implications and thinks
it's necessary to bring in more nonimmigrants into the U.S.A."

Furthermore, Sanchez says, McCain's staffer also insisted that American
workers would be protected. "I explained to him that American workers
aren't protected now and will be even worse off after the FTA is
passed. I explained to him that even the DOL (Department of Labor) says
that companies don't have to give preference to American workers.

"Riqunas immediately quipped back that companies couldn't replace
American workers. He was wrong so I described to him why they could
replace Americans. Detailing the 90-day rule I told him that it only
applies to 1% of the companies that were H-1B dependent. He was in
stunned silence for a very long time so I followed that by telling him
that these FTA agreements have no protections at all in fact they are
like a renegade L-1 visa."

Sanchez relates: "Riqunas lectured me that I just don't understand the
law. We ended the conversation when he told me that McCain feels that
this FTA is good for America."

Sanchez says, "Staffers and the politicians often try snow-jobs like
the one I just described. They often try to argue that Americans are
protected so be prepared and don't let them get away with it. I
strongly recommend that you review the issues at these web pages before
calling them:"

CAFTA passed the Senate, by the way.

The U.S. trade deficit has multiplied by 10 since the 1993 North
American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. Since then, both
the Clinton and Bush administrations have pushed to normalize trade
with China, finalize the agreement with Jordan and promote a new round
of World Trade Organization talks.

Last year Congress narrowly voted to give Bush ''fast track'' authority
to negotiate new trade deals. Now we have the largest trade deficit
with China, at around $120 billion. Our trade deficit overall is
reaching half a trillion dollars.

Additionally, there is more foreign and American investment money
heading for China. This money is funding not only the manufacture of
flip-flops and coffee mugs but also research and development in
critical technologies. Bill Gates is investing $750 million in research
and development in China alone. And yet our pundits wonder where all
the capital funding for U.S. business is.

When China finally gets what it needs in technology, funding and
capital, it will challenge the U.S. in the Far East. It will not
"reform" but instead will do what all superpowers do and increase its
power and control over as much territory as possible.

In 2000, the Chinese foreign minister related that sooner or later
China and the U.S. would be at war. Now that China is working its way
toward a nuclear-powered Navy, that is not an idle boast or threat. Yet
our companies continue to sell out to China in the name of free trade
and a perversion of capitalism antithetical to the best interests of
the U.S.

How to Succeed in Business by Manipulating the System

Apologists for one-way free trade always tell us bills like CAFTA
create more American jobs than they destroy. Thus, they continue to
blow smoke up our skirts. As foreign companies buy out American
companies, sell off lucrative sectors or keep shells in the U.S., they
could care less about American workers or wage levels of American
workers or markets for American goods.

Since NAFTA was signed, exports have increased a little. But
manufacturing jobs have disappeared to the tune of nearly 3 million
jobs. Lest the cheerleaders for one-way free trade snow you with the
idea that more jobs have been created since NAFTA, let me remind you
that the fastest growing job sector has been in retail sales and food
services.

According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor,
that is the way it will be for the foreseeable future. Food services
and retail sales benefits and wages don't come anywhere near what
manufacturing jobs and subsidiary industries provided to the vast
majority of American workers.

What we have to come to terms with as citizens in a free republic is
that the profit motive has no country, no borders and no loyalty to
anyone. Transnationals, by and large, don't either. As one old priest
reminded me not long ago: "You and I both know as human beings and as
believers that money has no morality in itself so that if money is the
dominant factor in the New World Order, it must be leavened by belief
and by religion and by the more beautiful things of human life;
otherwise we will deteriorate into a jungle."

But how do transnational companies get around U.S. immigration, trade
and visa laws? Let's take a look at the case of the Mercedes company in
Alabama.

Alabama is a rural state. Neither the cost of living nor wages have
ever matched those of the Northeast or Midwest. But that wasn't good
enough for Mercedes, who used the visa system to get around paying the
relatively low wages required by skilled labor in Alabama.

Thanks again to the eagle eye of Rob Sanchez for the information
regarding Mercedes and misuse of the U.S. visa system.

The state of Alabama provided Mercedes with $253 million in subsidies
to build its original plant in the mid-1990s. Another $119 million was
proffered for the $600-million expansion. In return, Mercedes promised
jobs for state residents. Some jobs were created, but Mercedes is
bringing in cheap laborers from Poland under the B-1 visa.

Now, these jobs are not for engineers or scarce high-tech people who
have no desire to move to rural Alabama. The misuse of H-1B or L-1
visas by a transnational is typical. The jobs provided to workers, from
Poland this time, are in blue-collar sheet metal and painting. This is
how the scam works:

According to a report in the Birmingham Free Press by Jennifer Dixon,
the Polish workers receive approximately $1,100 a month, which is
deposited in Poland. A foreign entity called Transsystems of Poland
pays their living expenses while they are in the U.S.

The Sheet Metal Workers' Local 73 headquarters in Chicago tells us that
the Polish workers make $5 to $6 per hour, while sheet metal workers in
Alabama would normally receive $20.71 per hour. However, in the South
shops and areas are right-to-work and are not unionized. The going wage
is around $12 to $17 per hour in these places rather than the $21
required by unions for their members.

Dixon reports: "The foreign workers at Mercedes are employed by two
companies Transsystem of Poland and Gregorec Ltd. of Britain. The
businesses were hired by Eisenmann, a German company that is installing
the paint shop. Mercedes is expanding its factory to add a second
assembly line, which requires a second paint shop. The factory will
produce two vehicles: a new M-class SUV and the Mercedes-Benz Grand
Sports Tourer.

"The first Transsystem workers arrived in January, and as many as 37
have come to work at Mercedes ... there are 32 Transsystem and 23
Gregorec workers at the site."

Furthermore, "The Polish workers said they stay either three or six
months, and when they return home, others are brought in to replace
them. They say they travel from job to job, and from country to
country, doing similar work."

In any event, Transystem acts as a bodyshop that subcontracts Polish
workers to Mercedes. Transsystem deposits the money in Poland because
so it wont have to pay taxes or FICA. The Polish B-1 visa holders
are given a "living allowance." Living allowances are tax-free, so the
Polish workers don't pay into our system.

No one is blaming Polish workers. While the number of Polish workers is
under a hundred, that is the number of jobs not available to sheet
metal workers or painters in Alabama. There is no scarcity of such
workers, by the way. They use the H-1B visa, which is supposed to be
for scarce technical skills or scientists to come to this country.

The Mercedes story is not exceptional but rather typical of the entire
importation of cheap labor through outsourcing or misuse of the visa
system. (Check out H-1B: Bombing the Middle Class.)

Nonetheless, the big economic lie boogies on under cover of our
obsession with Bush's 16 words, Kobe Bryant, Scott Peterson or the
latest flap in Hollywood or what inane political "gotcha" games the
Democrats are playing with President Bush these days.

God bless the Poles, who helped the U.S. in Iraq. However, something is
wrong when the U.S. economy is in the tank and U.S. blue-collar workers
are getting canned by the score in manufacturing and skilled trades.

Meanwhile, U.S. engineers and technical workers, many of whom have been
out of work for months and in some cases years, are stunned as we
continue to import foreign workers through L-1 or H-1B visas. A
horrifically convenient way for transnationals and their friends in
government to get around the law. Conservative economist Milton
Friedman describes such visas as nothing but a corporate subsidy.

Congress and various administrations as well as the transnationals are
dancing on the graves of the American economy and our freedoms. They
don't seem to care that manufacturing used to employ blue-collar
workers in jobs that pay more than they receive working for Wal-Mart,
the U.S.'s largest employer. Now technical and service workers find
their wages and options depressed, and that will be the case at least
for a decade.

You can thank the corruption of the establishment, and that includes
both political parties as well as the insanity of electoral politics
and the worship of an ideology, the corporate version of "free trade"
over freedom, security and strength.

Buy America

A few representatives in the U.S. are concerned about the direction of
critical manufacturing, the economy and sectors such as machine tooling
and U.S. manufactures of components for U.S. weapons systems.

The White House and Donald Rumsfeld are fighting a conservative effort
to steer manufacturing in critical areas back to the U.S.

A "Buy America" amendment was passed by the House of Representatives in
May as part of a defense authorization bill, requiring 65 percent of
components in items bought by the Pentagon be made in the U.S.,
compared to 50 percent under current law. It would also require some
components such as machine tools to be 100 percent U.S.-made.

However, the Senate turned aside a similar effort, and the two bills
must be reconciled before being sent to the White House.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who has spearheaded the campaign, feels
"it does not serve our national interest to have our national security
dependent on foreign countries."

Hunter and others cite a delay in obtaining a component from a Swiss
manufacturer for precision-guided munitions during the Iraq war as
evidence that the U.S. needs to be more self-sufficient.

However, according to the New York Times, Rumsfeld said "he will
recommend that President George W. Bush veto the entire $400 billion
2004 Pentagon budget if Hunter does not back down. According to a White
House statement, Hunter's proposals are "burdensome, counterproductive
and have the potential to degrade U.S. military capabilities."

What happens in a situation where our foreign suppliers are destroyed
or our supply lines are cut off or the suppliers are now enemies? I
guess our leaders don't think that far ahead. Planning for future
contingencies doesn't seem to be in their job description.

Corporate Sellout vs. Working for a Living

Phony "free trade" does not benefit the vast majority of American
workers, who do not have a college education and have depended on
manufacturing or skilled labor, carpentry, electricians, and
machinists, to achieve the American dream. The free market has been so
badly manipulated by both corporations and the U.S. government that all
the "kings horses and all the king's men" will never put that Humpty
together again.

The lies they tell you about U.S. economic growth are lies. The U.S.
stock market is NOT the economy and no progress or REAL growth is ever
accomplished by shuffling paper wealth or doing derivatives or Enron
type cooking the books. In fact, all kinds of faux wealth will
disappear along with manufacturing and high tech service jobs if our
leaders don't achieve a greater understanding of what is happening to
the United States, very soon.

The answer from Wall Street ought to scare you. Two different economic
talking heads on two different stock and bond oriented TV shows
maintained that American workers whose wages are depressed because of
outsourcing, globalism or cheap labor visas and immigration, will be
able to make up lost wages and wealth in the stock market. Which
surreal planet in the universe do these people live on? It sends a
chill up my spine.

Most citizens of the U.S. do not support themselves on their
investments. They work for a living. Those who depended on the stock
market for retirement or to pay for their children's education recently
discovered the stock market is a gamble.

In addition, the overwhelming majority of American workers have less
than a college education. They also have little leverage in bargaining
with employers. Most people require a certain degree of job security in
order to achieve a minimal, decent level of living. NAFTA, while
extending protections for investors, explicitly excluded any
protections for working people in the form of labor standards, worker
rights, and the maintenance of social investments. Just ask the former
employees of Enron and Global Crossing about corporate consideration
for employees or concern for the U.S. economy.

Transnationals and government collusion is deconstructing and
destroying the United States and its economic and political well being.
It has gotten worse since the end of the Cold War. During the Cold War
there was a kind of truce as transnationalis depended on the U.S. to
protect its interests and defeat communism and collectivism around the
world.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the wage earner is terrified
about his future. Throwing a tax cut here or there only helps create
more consumer buying frenzy or acts as a stop gap to service individual
debt. Meanwhile, with the passage of CAFTA the U.S. will get more
foreign workers on L-1 or H-1B visas and more cheap goods flooding the
U.S.. We are the dumping ground for the world in a thousand different
ways, from people to 'stuff' and the day of reckoning is going to be a
lulu. Numerous studies including Forester Research and various
universities from Harvard to Vanderbilt to UC at Davis, indicate that
high end service jobs and financial occupations from architecture to
computer engineering to law and stock analysis, are being outsourced or
subjected to cheap labor through immigration and the visa system.

Why is it so hard for our establishment elite to understand that
Americans can not buy their way into prosperity and long term economic
growth? Neither can the vast majority become prosperous by depending on
the stock market as opposed to good wages from a decent job.

As it is, there is no way we can maintain our economic strength by
exporting jobs and technology to China or India or Mexico.

In addition, how many of us are concerned that our national security is
at stake as companies like Boeing, Microsoft, Loral and Hughes, IBM and
the rest of them rush madly to invest or build plant or send billions
in research and development money to countries who are not our friends,
countries like China. China, a country notorious for not living up to
the WTO rules or the trade agreements it has signed. Pirating of
everything from GPS tracking systems to DVDs as well as massive
copyright infringement and manipulating its currency have become a
Chinese art form. Furthermore, where are the free traders as the
Chinese charge a tariff of up to 24 percent for U.S.-made products
while the United States levies only up to 3 percent duty on products
brought in from China. These are not the actions of a free trading
partner or a "friend."

Transnational corporations who aid and abet this behavior should be
treated as a foreign government and required to sign separate economic
treaties with the U.S.. But that will happen when hell freezes over
given the current mindset of the establishment elite.

As reported by journalist Mark Riebling in March of this year: "The
Hughes Electronics Corporation (formerly owned by GM, now owned by
Boeing) acknowledges that a string of Chinese rocket failures in the
1990s ended only after it sold data on guidance systems, telemetry,
aerodynamics, and rocket failures to China. In November 2000, China
promised to not assist other countries in developing ballistic missiles
that could deliver nuclear weapons. But CIA told Congress earlier this
year that China has continued to provide missile related items and/or
assistance to North Korea, Iran, and several other "countries of
proliferation concerns."

Journalist Michael Scherer quotes defense expert Frank Gaffney on
corporate pursuit of the bottom line at the expense of national
security and American jobs: "It is an outrage, if not actually
criminal, when you have companies end-running these sanctions."

The History of Corporate Globalism Is Not a Pretty Picture

In The Splendid Blonde Beast: Money, Law, and Genocide by Christopher
Simpson, published in 1993, the most thoroughly investigated account
yet of the pre-World War II financial dealings between transnational
corporations and the U.S. government's financial relationships are laid
out in exhaustive detail.

According to Simpson, "U.S.- German investment mania gripped the
Roaring 20s financial elite. This mania was rooted in the 1919
Versailles agreements on reparations, which imposed payments of
approximately $30 billion (about $600 billion in 2000 dollars) by the
German government to other European countries over 30 years. By 1922,
attempts to raise the money to pay reparations had driven the German
economy into a deep crisis. For U.S. companies, this was a golden
opportunity."

U.S. corporations and Nazi-era Germany and even post war government and
economic connections are part of a larger pattern. In fact, U.S.
support for dictators like Saddam Hussein has often been the result of
too close connections between large transnational corporations and the
U.S. government and a policy during the Cold War which supported any
dictator if they were friendly to transnational corporations. Support
for the Saudi Royal Family is part of that bigger darker picture of the
United States and parasitic corporate parasitic relationships.

Transnational corporations and the profit motive have no loyalty to any
country. That is a concept that Americans need to recognize as the
interests of transnational big business and U.S. sovereignty and
survival may no longer be one and the same.

An early modern example of that dichotomy is exemplified when in 1943,
Sen. Harry S. Truman's investigating committee exposed a financial
pre-war relationship between American companies Ethyl, Standard Oil,,
General Motors and DuPont on the one hand and the German chemical
company I.G. Farben on the other. Internal company memos described the
relationship as a "full marriage" which was "designed to outlast the
war" no matter which side won. Ethyl had given leaded gasoline
production technology to I.G. in return for patents on synthetic rubber
to G.M. and DuPont. The U.S. companies did little research but
vigorously protected the German synthetic rubber patents. When the war
opened the Japanese cut off supplies of rubber (a critical strategic
material) and synthetic rubber from oil had been blocked. At the time,
British intelligence calls Standard Oil a "hostile and dangerous
element of the enemy." (Stephenson, 1976, Borkin, 1978).

In our own era, various administrations and politicians are pushed into
friendships and special arrangements with China or the Saudis or with
Saddam Hussein who hated our enemy at the time, Iran. Even in the face
of treachery that has led us into a series of wars and disasters such
as 9.11 the tendency to turn a blind eye to all this continues to this
day.

It is past time to ask the question: Is the United States of America
for sale to the highest bidder and are U.S. transnational business
interests more important than maintaining our economic base,
independence, and right to exist as a sovereign nation? Are we selling
our souls under the cover of one way, manipulated "free trade" so that
"investors" can make bucks at the expense of U.S. freedom and
sovereignty and the taxpayer? Do we all sell out so that we can buy
cheap coffee mugs from Wal-Mart or hire cheap labor who work on
critical components to our weapons systems? Do various agencies of the
U.S. government merely pose as functionaries of large corporations
including on occasion our intelligence agencies such as the CIA being
used to gather information for GM, Ford or Boeing.

I suspect it will take complete devotion by the American people to
remind our representatives and both political parties that this country
is not for sale and neither are our sons and daughters pawns in
corporate war games for the benefit of a select few.

Remember that money and profit have no loyalty to any country. That is
a fact and not anti-capitalist class warfare. Small business and medium
business is not the problem here. It is that transnationals no longer
have any loyalty to the United States. But they do have lots of friends
in Congress and in the U.S. government.

As we struggle to recognize the feckless nature of most transnationals,
we are being eviscerated by the left through high taxes, regulations,
unrestricted immigration, identity politics, lack of concern for the
U.S. sovereignty, and radical environmentalism. The left propels us
towards balkanization and collectivism with a corporate twist.

On the other hand, the economic establishment of the left or the right,
whether Bill Gates or Wall Street Journal, understand nothing but the
bottom line and cling to their own perverted ideologies and failed
myths. In other words, they use the mantra of "free trade" to beat up
on anyone who asks questions about whether the manipulated version of
"free trade" is working in the best interests of the United States and
its people.

Our political, social, economic and religious cohesion and our freedom
must be weighed in the light of unpleasant realities and misplaced
devotion to certain ideologies. Neither our freedom, free trade, or the
free market are being well served by those in business, politics or
economics who have no loyalty to this country, to its people, its
survival as an independent nation, or its basic principles as may be
found in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Please contact Diane Alden at alden@newsmax.com or
dianealden7@bellsouth.net.

I just called my Colorado Senators Allard and Campbell and registered
my concern about the "worm" issue. Campbell's office even knew what I
was talking about. They told me this is on the floor of the Senate
right now. I told Campbell's office I didn't understand the secrecy of
the issue. He told me to turn on CSPAN. I did, and guess who is on
TV: BUSH!

Frustrated and angered in Colorado,
Marilyn Waldman

I called Bob Graham's office first (my Florida Senator). The initial
staffer, Lisa, transferred me to the specific staffer involved with
trade agreements, Rori Kramer, but she had "just stepped out" to a
meeting. I was asked if I wished to leave a message and a phone number
so she could call me. I left a message for her to call me, and decided
to go ahead and leave
my opinion about being against it on the "nonimmigrant visa provisions"
alone. I hesitated to leave my opinion since I wanted to hear a formal
stance from her (if she returned my call) without her knowing where I
stand. However, I decided that since I was connected I might as well
leave my opinion at the same time. We'll see if she returns my call.

I also called my other Florida Senator, Bill Nelson. I talked with
staffer Danny, who said Senator Nelson has not yet decided. I told him
I thought time was very short, and asked if he had a timeframe as to
when Senator Nelson might decide; he didn't. I have a partner whose
son has worked as a staffer for a summer job, and most of those rarely
see the people they work for, only collecting "piles" of information to
pass along. Hopefully, we can have a lot more opinions get out to our
Senators and Representatives.

Ron Merrell

Just spoke with the office of Jim Talent, Junior Senator from Missouri.

He's voting *for* FTA for Chile and Singapore, claiming it will
increase exports by $93 million to Singapore and $23 to Chile, and
bring in 163,000 jobs.

I emphasized how many jobs have been lost (including mine) and loss of
national and congressional sovereignty through the agreements.

Jim Talent is very conservative, the question is whether he will be a
"real" conservative or a fake Neo-Conservative. Right now he is going
Neo on this issue. He is up for re-election in four years.

For anyone in Missouri, his staffers on this issue are Jesse Appleton
and Faith Crystal, and they can be reached at 202-224-6154, fax
202-228-1518,
webform email http://talent.senate.gov/contact/index.html
(I was told an email attention to them should get to them).

Tom

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Rob Sanchez is board member of NAEA - www.NAEA.US

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