Charity
Begins Overseas
There’s an old saying, "Give a man a fish and he’ll
be hungry the next day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll be fed for a
lifetime."
The problem arises with cultures that are too poor to afford
the barest of hooks.
How can you balance the needs of a truly starving populace
in the Philippines or Haiti with the legitimate concerns of an American
workforce, being downsized daily by faithless factory owners flirting with a
foreign financial fling.
You can’t blame people who rummage through garbage dumps
for scraps of food. They’re willing to take a job paying 20 or 30 cents an
hour just for the chance at a better life. You can’t blame union leaders
who fear the loss of thousands of minimum wage or better paying jobs in
America. It’s more popular to blame the factory owners for their
fickleness. But now that we’re well into the process of dismantling our
manufacturing base, that may not be fair, either.
Factory owners who pulled up stakes and left America were
able to cut their overhead dramatically. When free trade laws let them
import their products back into our country, duty-free, domestic competitors
who still had to pay full ticket for labor and other major expenses simply
could not compete.
Like Fruit of the Loom underwear, they were left with one of
two choices, shutter and sell their U.S. plants and cut their bottom line
(no pun intended) or close up shop for good.
Thousands of firms like Fruit of the Loom have decided to
pull up stakes and move.
Our hearts go out to the poorest of the poor overseas. We
heard a story last weekend that showed the complexity of the problem. A
wealthy American lady had donated a large sum of cash to build a factory in
the Caribbean so the locals could manufacture clothing and sell it in the
United States. But when it was disclosed that the factory in Haiti was not
paying its employees the American minimum wage (which would have allowed
every worker there to live like a king) massive pressure was brought against
this woman to shut down the factory, which she eventually had to do. So, a
lot of poor people went back to their traditional national pastime of doing
nothing and the island economy stagnated again.
It seems to us that the best way to lift the living standard
for the people of the world is to impose strict and high protective trade
barriers, tariffs that would prevent overseas manufacturers from gaining an
unfair advantage. The fees could be adjusted so that companies paying higher
production costs overseas would pay lower import duties. That would allow
foreign workers to raise their standards of living while offering U.S.
companies no economic incentive to abandon any more local factories.
We might even see some manufacturers bringing their plants
back to America and restoring jobs here to people who need them.
Meanwhile, we can assist developing countries to make the
most of their unique assets, things that cannot be produced or duplicated in
this country. If a region offers beautiful beaches, littered with old sunken
hulks, inner tubes and unsightly shacks, then let local church teams or
service groups toss out the flotsam and jetsam. Hunt down out of town
investment capital and build some vacation resorts, cooperative efforts with
local business leaders. Bring in the tourists and U.S. dollars. But keep a
large percentage of the cash circulating among the local population.
Reinvest the profits by loaning out cash to build new restaurants and shops
and watch the economy mushroom.
There ARE legitimate ways to build national economies
without building a world economy. This is a critical and central point.
World leaders with marionette strings leading to the real
powers behind the curtain are advocating free trade, common currencies and
fiat money as the pedestal for this leg of the New World Order. They intend
to use guilt complexes and genuine human compassion to prompt citizens of
America to abandon the principles and policies that have made our nation the
most successful, affluent and blessed society in the history of the world.
And the bottom line? It’s all about power.
If, for once, it appears I’m supporting a strong federal
government and action that appears to countermand my generally libertarian
instincts, it is only my fear of a stronger world government that leads me
in this direction. Individual American states are too weak to act and cannot
by law conduct their own foreign policy. Nation states are getting weaker by
the day, especially when compared to the totally worthless United Nations.
I am not convinced we can beat the world traders at their
own game. As they say, it’s awfully hard to con a con. So, all we can do
is attempt to change the rules of this game…and pray.