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For your liberty!
James Eyer
Candidate for U.S. Congress District 9
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Talking Points: Globalization

Situation

  • Globalization is an unstoppable and accelerating phenomenon.
  • The key basis of a market economy is production of a mix of goods and services that meet people's needs (demand). Labor is just one resource used for that production. History has shown that government attempts to optimize employment almost always cause more harm than good.
  • Accelerating technological change is a key driver of globalization and causes a significant portion of global economic shifts and employment changes.
  • The digital revolution is empowering workers in developing countries to utilize knowledge, information, and information technology adeptly.
  • "Protected" economies (shielded from foreign competition)
    • are less competitive in the global marketplace
    • are much more likely to have monopolies
    • have reduced exports and related jobs and income
    • are only putting off the inevitable
  • Competition from globalization keeps prices low: good for consumers whose spending accounts for 2/3 of all economic activity in the U.S. Many examples including: autos, electronics, clothes, prescription drugs and even health care.
  • Globalization brings many jobs into the United States, manufacturing and professional jobs included. Jobs "imported" may be roughly equal to jobs "exported."
  • Most, probably a vast majority of jobs can never be exported. Many require client or customer contact, more educated workers, or modern infrastructures and institutions.
  • Globalization and technological change pose a double threat to unskilled and/or poorly educated workers -- but the answer is not protectionism which merely shifts the "pain" to others and will not change the inevitable.
  • Globalization-driven business relationships and employment expose people in other countries to liberty and reduces the attractiveness of the military option.
  • it is one of the tools of freedom to pull people out of poverty all over the world. Because outsourcing is driven by self-interest, it will make everyone better off, including the U.S.

Solutions

  • Key Priority: provide our workers -- young and old -- with a more modern knowledge base and with the "skill flexibility" that will be needed to prosper in the economy of the future.
  • The federal government should focus on aggressive advocacy of fair and open markets as a key element of our foreign policy.
  • Reduce regulatory and tax burden on businesses -- especially small business, the source of most new jobs.
  • One-year depreciation (for tax purposes) for productivity-enhancing investments.


rev 7/9/04