free trade free trade free trade last night congress passed three so-called free trade agreements giving transnational corporations more access to emerging markets and south korea colombia and panama. three new trade deals combined make up the largest free trade agreement passed since nafta the north american free trade agreement passed in one thousand nine hundred three president obama appeared with south korean president lee earlier today to tout their new trade deal. now. i think this trade deal that we just passed between a free trade act shows that we are happy to work with republicans where they are willing to put politics. behind the interest of the american people. and come up with proposals that are actually going to create jobs but create free

trade act we believe will create up to seventy thousand jobs it's a good deal we've got good strong bipartisan support free trade is one of those rare things today that both republicans and democrats can seem to agree on huge bipartisan majorities in both the house and senate pass these free trade agreements pretty trade agreements under the promise that they could boost u.s. exports as in how much stuff we sell to the rest of the world by thirteen billion dollars every year including as many as two hundred eighty thousand new jobs but these are the same sort of promises that were made by three traders back in one nine hundred ninety three during the nafta debate promises that free trade would create all these new jobs for americans. but as we know today that didn't happen instead as the economic policy institute points out since nafta went into effect the only thing our country got are massive trade deficits with mexico and massive

job losses as this chart shows a small trade surplus with mexico in one thousand nine hundred three before nafta has now turned into a massive ninety seven point two billion dollar trade deficit today that's because our media factories can't compete with all the cheap goods coming across the border and because of this enormous trade deficit more and more factories have been forced to close up shop as this chart shows the part of the country hardest hit by nafta was the rust belt michigan indiana ohio illinois pennsylvania the heart of america's manufacturing sector so well these new these new free trade deals passed last night that are policymakers seem so fond of really be all that good for the country joining me now is max wolff economist at the new school university graduate program and their national affairs and blogger with housing and post max max welcome. so having me so thanks for being here so off the bat president obama

and the chamber of commerce say these free trade agreements will create hundreds of thousands of jobs but the economic policy institute says that they will increase to actually increase the trade deficit by sixteen billion dollars and lead to two hundred fourteen thousand jobs being lost so who's right are we seeing the same false promises we saw with nafta. i think if we take a step back probably the bigger piece of news on this is this is largely unlikely to make a major national big move plus or minus for the united states there are specific industries and specific parts of the country or manufacturers many of whom work quite hard to see this legislation finally when it's slow and painful way through congress who might be benefited and who might be hurt but in the bigger picture of an economy with one hundred fifty five million people in the labor force with a large structural trade deficit that's been in place for twenty five years and

none of nothing in any of these agreements is likely to massively move the needle in terms of job loss job creation or anything about the us macro economy at all that probably will be powerfully beneficial to some agricultural exports possibly somewhat to the auto industry visit the south korea and generally speaking this is more of a symbolic victory of democrats and republicans working together and a little bit of an attempt maybe a day late and dollar short to recant all the free trade momentum that had defined u.s. international economic policy engagement really from the late one nine hundred seventy s. through about two thousand and one where u.s. policy switched off to a kind of monomaniacal focus on international and national security issues related to the war on terrorism so to put this in today's terms are you saying that the free trade agreements will. more benefit the one percent over the ninety nine percent. probably i mean it depends a little bit of how it works it might be relatively more positive for shareholders

and some large agribusiness and some automotive industries as well some workers who will get employed in the export industry remember too that winners and losers in these things are really drawn from the same groups so the investor class which might be able to get a higher return on their investments and some of the companies that get new export markets might be benefited on the other hand some individuals who work in companies or sectors that compete with export products coming out of colombia or panama or south korea might be disadvantaged on the other side of the international labor arbitrage the ability of american companies to employ people around the world has been highly consistent with a general reduction in total employment and benefits and wages and retirement allowances for u.s. workers over the last thirty years and while this deal does not look like it will change national average is it's likely to be in that direction that we would see the overall needle move however slight the move might be well i mean as you say i guess i just best case scenario would be that things stay roughly the same it

doesn't it doesn't get worse by these trade deals like like nafta did but it seems like every time we get in a trade deal with another country they seem to benefit i mean south korea is is doing great what what are these countries doing to protect their labor force to protect their industries that we aren't doing every time we sign on to these free trade deals. so it's an excellent question but i would urge you and your many viewers not to think of it just in terms of countries they're interested vantages and disadvantaged help them hurt and all the countries involved what other countries have been relatively good at i think it would be worth mentioning that neither condom or nor colombia has a real great history of protecting their workers so we might want to be a little bit careful there but especially colombia which has one of the worst records of violence against trade unions of any country in the world quite sadly but that notwithstanding basically countries that have institutionalized protections retraining and a way to quit people so they can move into other export industries or domestic

industries if they're displaced do better from trade and here here probably the gold standard example might be the germans who put workers on the boards of directors they have run away shop laws there needs to be retraining and so people don't simply get dropped or ground up by the evolution of the global economy which is a hard thing to stop they get retrained and repositioned so they can continue to have pride dignity a family way to contribute to their country's economy it's our country's balance of trade and if they're no longer needed or competitive in industry as a there is a position and a whole system to transition them to area b. where they and the society are benefited by their continued success yeah that's a great point max and some really good insights thanks thanks for coming on the show tonight. thank you my pleasure thanks president obama is desperately trying to create jobs and republicans are desperately trying to stop him in fact since the president got his watered down stimulus bill through congress in two thousand and

nine republicans have successfully blocked every single piece of economic stimulation thereafter including most recently the senate republicans filibustering the american jobs act on tuesday so now we have these three so-called free trade agreements that will soon go into effect and if the president thinks these free trade deals will be the solutions to our economic problems and sadly he's mistaken here's what tom had to say recently on why free trade will not help our economy. there's something seriously wrong with our economy and federal reserve chairman ben bernanke he acknowledged as much yesterday in cleveland. this unemployment situation we have the job situation is really a national crisis. we've had now you know close to ten percent unemployment now for in oh a number of years and of the people who are unemployed about forty five percent

have been unemployed for six months or more this is on her that this is never happened in the post-war period in the united states and they went on to ask congress to get to work helping the unemployed but what ben bernanke he and speaker john boehner and even president obama just don't seem to get is that our economy will never improve and so we end our insane so called free trade policies that's one of the stimulus package that's better than doing nothing won't do nearly enough to get our economy back on track take for example president obama's two thousand and nine stimulus package did inject billions of dollars into the hands of working people and small businesses the problem is that the stimulus didn't work in the classical keynesian way the way that it did work back in the one nine hundred thirty s. . back in the thirty's when the government paid workers to plant trees or build dams for the c.c.c. or the t.v. a those workers would then spend that money in local stores to buy clothes manufactured by americans in american factories by american workers who then took

that money as pay and bought more american made stuff in stores making so in things made by americans the money kept circulating from hand to hand from business to business for years all the while staying right here in the united states so a dollar a stimulus back then could over many years produce many many dollars of stimulation of the economy but with the obama stimulus since so many of our factories have been packed up and shipped off to mexico china vietnam and dozens of other low wage countries over the past two decades because of so-called free trade the money american spent buying things is not going back into american businesses anymore so it ends up stimulating the economy of those other countries instead of ours and even once spent here for products ostensibly made here the profits often end up offshore because of so-called free trade for example if people went out and bought

a new cd and ninety seven percent of that money went offshore if they went to a movie seventy five percent of that money went offshore or if they just wanted to relax and take their mind off economic troubles by purchasing a bottle of wine in a good book in that case sixty four percent of the money spent purchasing the wine went offshore and sixty three percent of the money in the book when i bought it was in the profit center and anything anybody bought that was made of rubber fifty three percent of that money went outside the u.s. . the simple fact is since our nation got cod and our sovereignty over the trans national corporations under the guise of free trade we no longer make computers or t.v.'s or clothes or power tools or toys or pretty much anything in the us anymore except military hardware junk food and burgers so unless you are using your stimulus money to buy a cruise missile or lunch at a seven eleven then more than likely that money was just going to go to a foreign business to pay taxes to foreign governments and employ foreign workers

who then go out my foreign things all the while the c.e.o.'s of what used to be american corporations but are now transnational giants are making more and more money and slipping americans and hiring workers in bangladesh for a tenth of the price where by the way they can also pollute pollute all they want our economy used to be focused on empowering american industries and empowering american workers but now the focus is on paying them less and less to compete with former labor as sir james goldsmith one of the richest men in the world at the time noted in his book the trap and the great days of the usa the henry ford stated that he wanted to pay high wages to his employees so that they could become his customers and buy as cars today we're proud of the fact that we paid low wages we have forgotten that the economy is a tool to serve the needs of society and not the reverse the ultimate purpose of the economy is to create prosperity and stability. and that purpose is best served

through government policies like tariffs and the support of labor unions to protect american industries and make sure americans have good wages and good benefits as i talk about my book on equal protection when our government is hijacked by corporate people so-called people with huge armies of lobbyists and the purpose of an economy shifts to serving the needs of the corporations and it no longer serves actual human people were free trade does is peel away government protections of national industries and thus let go of global billionaires and transnational corporations dive in to feast on the goods and that's where we are today with our economy being devoured by transnational corporations who have no allegiance whatsoever to america but instead only to profits to cold hard cash and that's it and so are lawmakers most of whom have either been bought off or drank the free trade kool-aid realize this fact that no stimulus will ever truly help our economy and therefore our

economy will never improve over the long term every stimulus effort will last only a few weeks or months the few weeks or months it takes for somebody to take the wages from the stimulus job into a walmart and buy something made overseas poof goes the money poof goes the stimulus we need to wake up and get so-called free trade before it's too late. after the break tom's your take might it plus a deal you take on why the occupy wall street movement will be ultimately successful. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through it if you may who can you trust no one who sees you view with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism and school fascism when nobody dares to ask we do you are t.

question more. for. your take my take is the segment of the show when we give you the opportunity to have your questions comments criticisms and opinions heard here on the big picture a monday night's daily take i argued that we shouldn't be honoring christopher columbus with a national holiday because his legacy is one of rape and murder and shame. today is

columbus day which means americans get the day off work to commemorate christopher columbus was discovering the so-called new world even though it had already been discovered and was settled for tens of thousands of years before columbus showed up but what we're really celebrating today is happy genocide day the day when christopher columbus began to wipe out an entire indigenous population in a way that would even make whole pot watch and so they oddly we celebrate this man . and thus we perpetuate the cycle of slaughter and destruction from what the celts did three thousand years ago to aboriginal europeans to rome what the romans did two thousand years ago to the few tribes left in europe to what your early european settlers did to the native americans to what our military did to filipinos at the turn of the twentieth century to the covert cia operations they had dictators in africa and south america free reign for mass murder to what our ongoing wars in the

middle east are doing today to millions have been maimed displaced and killed tragically we've truly become a nation that columbus birth we don't just celebrate columbus today we celebrate a history of brutality which is why it's all the more important that we all collectively say no to war and wind down our worldwide military empire if we adopt the values of the people columbus conquered and destroyed peace trust in the gallatin ism you know there may still be hope for america well the topic really quiet your attention especially in the town marvin facebook page where many of you posted that you agreed to be on the issue john wrote although i admit the day off is nice for when my workload is one hundred fifty percent of what it's supposed to be wonder if that's one reason why the unemployment rate is so high allah deserves a holiday as a memorial to the victims not as a commemoration of the tyrant. and john patrick posted right on tom columbus was

a driven self interested tyrant is men like him almost as little as the people he and slaved and often exterminated no hero at all and not the discoverer of america as we know life at life erickson was here hundreds of years before him and left the archaeological evidence to conclusively prove it and we heard from barbara who said i've been boycotting the celebration of columbus day because columbus did not discover america he started it at the destruction and jim very accurately observed that unfortunately this type of thinking continued through all of us history at the indigenous are perceived as primitive i think the europeans could outmatch them on being truly savage corporations carry this on and if they have their way the entire earth will be left in constant war and pain to feed their greed we seem to want to ignore the wisdom of those who were here first at our own peril. of course not all of you are on board with my criticism of columbus and the idea of honoring him or not the national holiday tom post on the blog tom hartman dot com he wrote come on

you're engaging in hyperbole columbus a psychopath who set out to rape slaughter and slaves that's one way of the blame on one individual for a whole culture in fact many of the natives that died because of the inability of their immune systems to cope with european diseases this type of overstatement is exactly what us liberals complain about conservative commentators doing and not seen the whole picture and taking things out of context. while it's true that many of the native americans died because they lack the immune system to cope with the diseases brought about columbus and screw principally the flu this does not change the reality of the many atrocities carried out by columbus and the men under his command in fact columbus bragged about selling women and children as slaves and under columbus's orders life for the thai you know the natives of this island were columbus landed in fourteen ninety two became so miserable that they literally resorted to mass suicide as the spanish missionary pedro cordoba noted in fifteen

seventeen twenty five years after columbus arrived as a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured indians choose and have chosen suicide occasionally one hundred have committed mass suicide the women exhausted by labor have shunned conception and childbirth many when pregnant have taken something to abort and others have aborted others have deliver after delivery have killed their children with their own hands so as not to leave them in such a process of slavery. so i would argue that my observations about columbus are not an overstatement by any means but we'll give the last word on the subject to jim turk i was started by radio show was inspired by an essay that i wrote on this topic which was the promise of last night's earth mondays daily to write a song about columbus day take a look. to second month be for the two hundred. we celebrate. obeyed. the editor in chief.

it's a name to move in so. to the answer to that. one you know somebody down. to watch him cry. so good. we've all heard. it all. good good story. see her very strong. pretty soon. as to why. it's time we start remembering you or your problems when you played. them for my take your takes and i feel like your comments and questions heard on this segment of the picture listen up. we want to know your take send us your

comments by visiting the thom hartmann facebook page at twitter at underscore apartment or in the chat room on the message board is from the blog at thom hartmann dot com you can also leave a message on our way in line at by three sixty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on the air. i want you to take a look at this chart from kevin drum over at mother jones magazine it's based on data from the new york state comptroller's office and it really explains why people are on the street new york city today these are the average salaries of new york city workers the blue here is people on wall street the red here is everybody else and as you can see in one thousand nine hundred one people on wall street made eighty five thousand everybody else made forty three thousand so it's you know roughly twice twice as much but then something happened as you see every five years since then this massive inequality growing between the two groups here so that in

two thousand and six wall street making three hundred sixty one thousand everybody else making sixty six thousand that's a three hundred thirty percent increase for wall street and i'm not at sixty five percent increase for everybody else so two times to five times something happened policy makers did something there but the thing about this is people who put in place these policies the people who gave bankers a more privileged place in our economy the people who gave the massive tax cuts thirty years ago are getting old today and a new generation is stepping in realizing it's their turn to shape this country to chart a new direction from sol this generational transformation under way a few weeks back when this whole thing started and it's tonight's halley take.

i have a message for the young people protesting in manhattan it's really simple time is on your side and the same thing can't be said about n.y.p.d. officers like tony belonga who are trying to silence you with pepper spray the same can't be said about the corporate media executives who are trying to ignore your message and the same can be said about the wall street bankers and i jacked our economy or the bought off politicians and let them get away with it all of these people belong to those in power today but who will certainly not be in power tomorrow especially if you stay camped out in or manhattan and in chicago and los angeles and boston and seattle and phoenix and washington d.c. and work ever this movement goes next we're not just seen class warfare in this nation today we're seeing the workfare of old reagan esque ideas against

a reinvigoration of the ideals of the original young america of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness of a concern for the general welfare of the quote the declaration of the constitution just one of the tea party protests over the last couple of years and compare them with the movement that you folks have created on wall street and elsewhere around the nation on the one side you have billionaires on wall street who are desperate to stay in power and have their voices amplified by corporate media moguls like fox so-called news who have one primary agenda regardless of party that agenda to keep it franklin roosevelt called the economic royalists my generation called the establishment and your generation calls the one percenters in power. and on your side you have young people who came from all across america on their own dime to live on the streets sleep in sleeping bags get beaten by the police and stand up for the other ninety nine percent of us you don't need

a corporate blow horn you don't need anyone because you're on the right side of history and cause and they're on the warm side you're on the side that gandhi was on the side that martin luther king was on the side that will eventually write tomorrow's history books this isn't the first time there's been conflict in the streets of america it happened in the one nine hundred sixty s. too i was there i was beaten by cops i was gassed out on the streets of thousands of other kids when you something was wrong with this country and that something needed to change and we fought the suits and we ended the vietnam war and we brought about the at least the beginning of civil rights and women's rights and in the one nine hundred sixty s. we cut poverty in half in this country but ultimately the old forces of royalty and power and money were relentless and kept pushing forward creating think tanks and media and guy and politicians left and right putting their shills on radio stations in every city in america and then creating their own cable t.v.

network they even created alec the american way legislative exchange council or corporations write laws so the bought off republican pot lawmakers can introduce those laws in a state legislatures and so as jefferson predicted so long ago the cycles of time have rolled around and again we are confronted by the struggle between the powerful selfish few and the many who simply want freedom and it good life. reagan's cotta revolution is alive and well and you are fighting against it today learn this lesson because you will win this struggle if you stay united and stay committed it's not going to be easy the powers that be will not just relinquish their stranglehold on power they have the money they have the power and they often like to brag even having guns but the one thing they don't have that you do is a truly righteous cause as god told his peaceful revolutionaries when he confronted

an entrenched colonial power with no moral authority and hell bent on ignoring the sands of time first they ignore you then they ridicule you then they attack you then you win. keep it up and you will win that's the big. and that's the big picture for more information on the stories we covered visit our website at tom hartman dot com free speech org and r.t. dot com also check out our two you tube channels there are links to tom hartman dot com and this entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes we have a free thom hartmann i phone and i pad up at the out store you can send feedback at twitter at home underscore harmon dot com at facebook dot com our partners underscore hartman and on our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at thom hartmann dot com and in case you are wondering why tom isn't here tonight make sure to tune into real time with bill maher on h.b.o.

friday night at ten pm eastern time when tom will be featured on the desk and don't forget as tom always says democracy begins with you get out there get active you're it.