Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
I don't want to sound naive, but I think politics is becoming increasingly nasty.
Seems like every election cycle, things get a little more curt, a little more pointed, a little more negative.
W versus Kerry is going to be a political bloodbath. The election is eight months away and the bloodletting already has begun.
That's why I kind of like that John Edwards guy. Even though I disagreed with some of his ideas, I admired him for the way he campaigned - positively.
Apparently, the Democrat primary voters didn't admire him for that because he's out of the race now.
But, you know, I really wish more politicians conducted themselves like that guy.
Even though he was a senator - the nation's most elite millionaire club - he just seemed down to earth to me.
More genuine.
That was refreshing because politicians on both sides of the aisle have become disingenuous.
Just listen to Kerry talk about the exportation of jobs.
I heard him hurling invectives, talking about the "Benedict Arnold CEOs who send jobs overseas."
Well, Kerry doesn't have to look too far to find one of those "Benedict Arnold CEOs."
You see, Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz, of ketchup fame.
Kerry married Heinz in 1995. Her previous husband, Sen John Heinz, a Republican from Pennsylvania, died in a plane crash in 1991, leaving behind no small fortune to his widow.
Yes, ketchup has been very, very good to Teresa Heinz. She is reportedly worth around $700 million.
So when Kerry says W's tax breaks go "only to the most fortunate among us," there is special meaning in that word "us" for him.
Now, according to the H.J. Heinz company profile, the company operates 79 factories worldwide.
Twenty-two of them are in the U.S. I'll call the others the Heinz 57 of outsourcing.
Yes, H.J. Heinz and its Benedict Arnold CEOs have outsourced enough jobs to operate 57 factories in places like Thailand, China, Korea, Indonesia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Costa Rica, etc.
OK, can you see what's going on here? I hear what John Kerry is saying, but I can't believe he really means it.
Does he really think the CEO of his wife's family's company is like Benedict Arnold?
No, he doesn't.
So why does he say it? Political expediency.
At least I hope it's political expediency.
Because if the converse is true, and he really does think CEOs who outsource are Benedict Arnold, he doesn't understand how trade works.
And I don't think we need a president who doesn't understand how trade works.
Simple equation: Free trade, good; restricted trade, bad.
This is something on which Bill Clinton and I can agree.
While there is no question that trade and outsourcing can cause pain to some workers, lack of trade causes far more.
If manufacturers didn't look around the world for the best labor at the best price, stuff in this country would cost more.
American companies would have less capital to reinvest and there would be fewer domestic jobs.
We hear a lot about outsourcing to India these days. One might say that workers in India are stealing U.S. jobs. But one also must concede that an Indian worker with a job helps lift that country out of poverty and put it in a position to buy more U.S. goods and services - which it currently is doing.
And what if the U.S. became protectionist? What if we enacted a policy of pulling jobs and factories out of foreign countries?
Wouldn't foreign countries do the same? There are Honda, Isuzu and BMW factories in the U.S., you know. Thousands of American jobs would be lost.
I think Adam Smith got it right in 1776 when he said, "It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy."
And I think Alan Greenspan got it right this week.
"As history clearly shows, our economy is best served by full and vigorous engagement in the global economy."
Then, talking about protectionist measures being bandied about by Kerry and others, "These alleged cures could make make matters worse rather than better. They would do little to create jobs and if foreigners were to retaliate, we would surely lose jobs."
Also consider a study by the McKinsey Global Institute that shows of the $1.45 of value created from offshoring $1 of U.S. labor cost, "the U.S. captures $1.12," the foreign country 33 cents. McKinsey also notes that even during 1999, at the height of the technology boom years, 1.15 million Americans lost their jobs through layoffs.
And how many jobs are being outsourced, anyway?
There's an outfit called Forrester Research. They say it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 jobs. That's out of a U.S. labor market of 140 million jobs.
It's really bizarre that all this uproar about jobs and outsourcing comes amid a falling unemployment rate of 5.4 percent, which is actually lower than the average during the 1990s. Growth is brisk. Consumer confidence is up. Inflation and interest rates are low. Home ownership is at record levels. Auto sales are strong. Manufacturing indices are at the highest levels since 1983.
Yet to hear Kerry and other Democrats talk, there is only one economic indicator - jobs. And they keep preaching gloom and doom for the U.S. economy.
More than a few economists are concerned that if enough people listen to the Chicken Little rantings of the Demos in this campaign, it could actually start to affect consumer confidence, stall the recovery and drag down the economy.
How sad that a bad economy is a good thing for Kerry. A bad economy going into the election would be just the ticket for him.
I sure hope Democrat strategists haven't thought of this.
