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December 21, 2010
Congrats on finishing the semester...
and feel free to use the comments to this post as a place to reflect (and/or bitch and moan) about the experience of your first semester at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
I urge you to take some time to relax, and to completely put out of you mind your exam performance and the classes you face in the spring. But I also urge you to use this "down time" to start thinking seriously and dynamically about just what kind of lawyer you might want to be and how you would like to make the best use of the rest of your time at Moritz.
December 21, 2010 in Advice | Permalink
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Soooooooo glad torts is done. It was the toughest and most confusing class that we had this semester, in my opinion. Glad it's over!
This first semester was amazing, and I'm thankful every day to be in law school and not out in the real world. I have met some great people and am learning a lot of interesting stuff ("But not too much!.....")
Have a great break, and I'll see you all next semester!
Posted by: Keith Edwards | Dec 21, 2010 3:51:18 PM
Completely unrelated to anything law school...
I am hoping that one of you really smart people can either correct my misunderstandings or offer another point of view that I have not taken into account. I try to argue with my little sister, who is one of the most liberal people I have ever met, and even she can't disagree with me on this topic. So here goes...
My understanding of our current economic crises and the future collapse of our republic can be traced back to 1994. From 1787 through 1993, the U.S. charged import tariffs on products manufactured outside of our borders and then shipped into the country. A company who wanted to build something and then sell it in the U.S. was forced to do a cost-benefit analysis to determine where to build their factories. They could build their factories in the U.S. and pay higher wages and benefits to their employees, or they could build their factories outside the U.S., pay lower wages, and then pay the import tariff to import their product. If the import tariffs were higher than the wage difference between the U.S. and the foreign workers, then the company would have an incentive to build their factories in the U.S. Simple.
In the early 1990's, George Bush and some of the larger manufacturing companies in the U.S. put together a plan which was inspired by Satan himself. I imagine that they met at the Wal Mart Corporate Headquarters and included Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, and Art Modell in helping them formulate this plan to destroy America. ;) The central thrust of this plan was that we should consider all of North America as one country for the purposes of trade. Therefore, we should no longer charge import tariffs for goods imported from Canada and Mexico. Even though Bush was not able to pass this new treaty during his administration, Bill Clinton was able to pass it. He came forward and argued that our neighbors to the south were one of the poorest countries in the world and we were rolling in money. Couldn't we feel their pain? Shouldn't we help them out and be a good world citizen?
So on January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect and this signaled the beginning of the end. U.S. companies began to close their factories and reopen them in Mexico. Then, they would ship their products back to the U.S. and sell them for the same price. The savings in labor cost allowed these companies to realize record profits...the "big three" U.S. auto-makers made BILLIONS. Over the next 15 years, our economy began a slow spiral downward as one-by-one factories closed and we lost good manufacturing jobs. Clinton bragged about the 200,000 new jobs that were created during his administration, but the economists pointed out that almost all of those were unskilled positions such as restaurant work. People were losing factory jobs that paid them $30/hour and going to work at McDonalds for minimum wage. We soon had a fight to raise the minimum wage, because people were now forced to live off of this wage.
As American families slowly depleted their savings and then took on debt to stay afloat, the politicians preached that we needed to learn skills to survive in the new world economy. Displaced factory workers were told to go back to school because education was the key to new high-tech jobs. I guess we were supposed to believe that 90% of Americans could become computer programmers while our nation manufactured nothing. Hmmmmmm...... As Americans began to rely on credit to get them through until some new, mythical job came along, the banks began to extend credit at a record pace. Once those unemployed or underemployed Americans could no longer afford to pay those credit card bills or loan payments, the banks suddenly found themselves in a bad situation. They had loaned too much money and were not having it paid back to them. Of course they also needed a bailout with taxpayer dollars. Thanks again, NAFTA!
Ironically, the companies who were largely responsible for creating this crisis (Ford, Chevy, GM) began to notice that the long-term effects of moving their factories to Mexico was that the U.S. population would go broke and no longer be able to afford to buy their cars. Therefore, as our personal debt rose and our income stayed low, Americans began to keep their cars longer and only buy cheap (e.g. Kia) or long-lasting (e.g. Honda) cars. As the collapse began to accelerate around 2007-2010, the big three began to lose money. No one was buying their cars. So what did we do? We gave them $19 BILLION in tax dollars so that they could remain profitable!!!! WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
During the 2008 presidential race McCain, Clinton, and Obama all promised to repeal NAFTA once elected. The most vociferous and unequivocal of the three was Obama. Even though I disagreed with most of his political views, I felt that the repeal of NAFTA was the only chance we had to recover from our current freefall. I encouraged everyone who would listen to vote for Obama hoping that he would at least keep this one promise. Since being elected, I have not heard the word NAFTA come out of his mouth even once. I e-mailed his administration about it, but they will not reply; so much for "transparent government". I did see him approve the $19 billion bail-out of the auto companies. And now, he is pushing forward NAFTA 2.0 which would extend our "free trade" to Pacific rim nations. Down the line, this will include Indonesia, Taiwan, etc. This would be great news for Nike: they can make their shoes in sweatshops, sell them for hundreds of dollars per pair in the U.S., and the money they save in import tariffs can go right into their profit margin! Yay! *sarcasm off*
I'll end by discussing this "Buy American" nonsense that we've been discussing on Facebook. Buy American is an advertising campaign put together by the big three to guilt trip Americans into spending our money on their inferior products. Instead of investing in better engineering and design in order to keep pace with Honda and Toyota, the big three claimed that they were at a disadvantage in the marketplace because they pay their workers so much. Therefore, they could not devote the resources to engineering that Honda could and still sell their cars at a competitive price. (In fact, this was a big part of their argument in support of NAFTA.) What they fail to point out is that the Hondas, Toyotas, Kias, etc. are all built in America by American workers. To suggest that it is somehow patriotic to buy a car from a company that scuttled the U.S. economy for its own gain is ludicrous. I will never buy an "American" car as long as I live, and I would love to hear anyone who can justify doing so.
Posted by: Keith Edwards | Dec 23, 2010 9:21:57 AM
Great articles. I give you alot of credit for going to law school. Takes alot of work, time and money but in the end you will benefit. That's something I wanted to do many years ago but wasn't able to. Congrats!
Posted by: Self Defense Spray | Apr 30, 2011 8:05:35 AM
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Posted by: Shahzad | Dec 28, 2011 11:52:26 PM
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