Free Trade Protectionism

When I drive by the Exon Mobile station and I see Gas is still hovering just under $4.00 a gallon I have to wonder if all this Free Trade is really so free. I feel it at the pump and in the grocery store. It would seem the war on the middle east wasn't paid for because of Bush Tax Cuts. The price is being paid for by a series of successive flat taxes across the commodities sectors driving both grocery and gas prices up. I remember not too long ago in the past when gasoline was $.98 a gallon. I use to have to drive to Georgia to get it that cheap but I still could. Filling up the car use to cost a small fraction of your salary and you barely noticed it. Now it is almost a $100 to fill your car. I also have other questions about the the plausibility of there truly being an oil crisis for which there is such a high demand for oil to the pre ported price of $4.00 a gallon but instead believe it to be it to be a successive flat taxation on America's poorest individuals. It isn't like Oprah feels the pinch at the pump. If this theory of a successive flat taxation on gasoline is correct then why is Free Tradecalled Free when in fact it serves to enslave the very people it is suppose to support?

Everyone in the world is America's friend and ally and yet we have to pay such a high price at the pump. It makes me wonder what kind of friendships and Allys we have? Is really such a bad thing or is it a natural end to a very vicious cycle?

Who really benefits from free trade? Is it Russia, India, China, Middle East, Britain? Who are the beneficiaries of all the "Free" when so many are just struggling to put gas in the car, to search for jobs, and to put food on the dinner table? Is it Hollywood?

If Iraq is stable then why is gasoline so expensive? It doesn't make sense does it?

I hate to ask so much of my readers but there is the real inflation you feel everyday and then the absence of any real substantive answer. Did we bounce out of a depression and into an inflationary recession again? How is that any kind of recovery for the "General Wealthfare" of the People of the United States of America? I want to be equally critical of all administrations. How much influence does Middle Eastern Oil have in our Federal Government?

When I was a child I was taught to sail and as a sailor I had to know how long things stayed fresh without refrigeration. An example would be a hard boiled egg is good for a month at room temperature. I must report I never ate a month old egg. A lemon lasts quite a long time as well. But when I purchase lemons now they are rotten within days and this is Florida and we grow citrus. Nothing is fresh anymore and nothing is home grown at least from a dietary standard anymore. We have always conducted trade with South America and I like South America but it would seem all the produce I buy is from Chile. Why don't we have produce from America which would most certainly be less expensive than shipping it from South America? Since I can't buy anything fresh why are all these migrant workers here without papers and visa, illegally to "do the back breaking work I refuse to do?" according to both administrations. How can you support migrant workers when in fact we don't have farms here anymore? Cheap labor but at a horrific social/economical toll on America Society and what was a positive relationship between the Americas has become tense. It is as if all the think tankers in DC just want to use every drop of oil left and I don't buy that oil is running out. I think that is another scare tactic to raise the price of oil which Hollywood should be ashamed.

I really can't report to you who is responsible for this mess and I think we are long past the finger pointing game and we must move on to more reasonable answers. So let us begin.

First and foremost is the theory of less consumption. Every last Migrant has to stop consuming native resources including but not limited to education, emergency services, health care, welfare. Again I am pro-migration but the cost off illegal immigrants far exceeds the cost of all the social programs combined. We are an immigrant nation but we must face the reality we just can't continue to pay for cheap labor business which no longer exist like farmers unless everyone benefits. Paying for cheap/illegal labor makes American labor more expensive and pushes the social economic costs on to the citizens of the coutnry. Disspell the myth of cheap labor as it harms everyone. There is no other country in the world that gives its riches away to illegal migrants. Legal work visas are worth the wait and a regard for the citizens well being of the country you wish to work in goes a long way to succession in that country as your children will be citizens of the country which you sought a legal work permit.

Second, we can readily and easily run our cars on compressed propane. It is done in Sweden and it is also done in Australia. As a country we have more than enough natural gas to last for the next 100 years. Propane burns clean and is therefore green. Although I haven't heard reports I suspect Vermont is using Methane. The smell isn't so nice but I bet they aren't suffering like the rest of us.

And if compressed propane tanks offend your delicate sensibilities, Mount McKinley is always open as a third suggestion. Mount McKinley, in Alaska, is rich with Oil and it is the USA..

Fourth, I'd suggest you have a heart to heart with everyone who claims to represent you. You need the face time and Washington DC needs to be put on notice that we are exceptionally tired of being taxed to death in the name of Free Trade. Because Free Trade is driving inflation and we need some protectionism from the global economy. It is ridiculous we should even be forced to be bothered with what happens on the other side of the globe while our brethren are unemployed, jobless, homeless and enslaved. Or to have to fight for resource of your native country with someone that doesn't have a legal status within that same country or a reverence for the people who are followed the laws.

I can only think of a time when things were so dire and bleak in American History and that is when President Taft was in office and there was a picture of three or four very skinny men sitting in his gigantic bath tube. We fought World war I and World War II after that and I believe those to be trade wars. Actually I consider WWI and WWII to be the same trade war but just a continuation. So I understand the reluctance for protectionism and yet it is our only salvation.

There could be an argument that the government is forcing prices to stay high so we don't fall into a deflationary recession but the government can't suspend gravity for very much longer. The natural course of an economical cycle has to be fully played out before any recovery can actually take place. What is so bad about protectionism when it helps keep you employed, able to get to work and put groceries on the table? When did protectionism become such a bad word?

I think in these times of great strife we need to ask the really hard questions of ourselves and of our government. If we, as a country, can't ask the hard questions then doesn't that make us even more vulnerable than we are. I don't know but when we have a country in distress and parents worried about putting food on the table for their children, having a home and being employed, I find the argument that Free Trade is great for our country implausible because it sacrifices the "The General Welfare" clause of the constitution for which this country was founded.

Bring back the Constitution, bring on protectism and end free trade now.

I would like to say in closing, I only rent ideas and I am not radical to any of this and there were no migrants hurt or exploited during this practice. Ask the Dusk Bowl how well Free Trade is working and I believe you will agree it is time for a coordinated strategical withdrawal from failing US policies towards "General Welfare" issues and protectionism is a euphemism for isolationism which worked quite well for us before WWII.

I initially wrote this article in 2011 and I can tell you it did not receive rave reviews. It was ahead of its' time as many things I write. Gas prices have no come down and Americans along with the rest of the world is worse off.

What I did not explain fully is once we start sanctioning trade it is a prelude to war. It will not just be a small war either but a massive world war. I recently spoke with a friend from anothercountry who is quite wise and he explained that America is collapsing as an empire. Funny, I thought that has been the state of the union since my existence. Historically these world trade agreements always lead to world wars. It is inevitable. People, by nature, are just too greedy. Our leaders are worse. I have never seen such a corrupt government in my entire life and I lived through the Nixon years. The only message we can send to Congress is they are out if a job as long as they work on behalf of international conglomerates and not the American People.

We are closer now to world war then we have been under any other President in the last thirty years. War by definition is when old men send young men/women to die for their profit.

Again I reiterate, I wrote this article seven years ago and now all of these questions are being debated. It is interesting to see the survey responses back then. They are very different from what citizens think today.