St. Louis CofCC Blog

I was watching the “Jaco Report” on Channel 2 this morning, and Charles Jaco headed a panel of important local business leaders and Mayor Slay, to talk about the economic downturn in the metro area, symbolized by what will probably be a successful takeover of A-B by InBev.

First off, Jaco himself said that one of the big problems in the region is the “black hole of the public education system” in certain parts of the metro area.  I suppose Jaco hasn’t yet read this story, but he will soon be getting a visit from the civil rights alphabet gang nonetheless, especially since he used “black hole” in an implied racial sense.

One of the panelists admitted that most people laid off from well-paid “working class” employment almost never find other work in the spirit of “re-training.”  He also admitted that employers are loath to hire such people, because they’re afraid that they’re going from a $50G job to a $20G job, and the severe reduction in pay will make them constantly frustrated and unable to do their new job.  Even if they are hired, the panel admitted, the pay isn’t as much, plus those that look for new work but give up after awhile drop out of the official unemployment stats.  Therefore, these kinds of mass layoffs at Chrysler or A-B don’t affect the unemployment stats very much, which conceals the extent of the near-depression that we’re in.

However, these panelists have not yet “gotten it.”  Jaco asked a question — To paraphrase, that Lou Dobbs and all his protectionist Indians are just over the fort wall, ready to storm into the protected palace of free trade and the global economy;  What do we do to con the masses into thinking free trade is good?  One of the panelists said that free trade means that they don’t have any restrictions in buying our goods.

What goods?  The only stuff they’re buying from us is raw materials to build up their manufacturing base, and food.  As such, the United States of America is becoming nothing more than a colony that one imperialist or another gets basic materials from.  The last time we were in this fix, Thomas Jefferson was working on his ninth draft of something that started with, “When in the course of human events…”

And to the notion that free trade is wonderful?  Mayor Slay agreed.  What a clueless schmuck.