The same thing that happened 100 years ago.
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snpim3.htm The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire, 1911
"On Saturday March 25, 1911 disaster struck. As the women approached the end of their workday, a small fire started in the cutting room on the eighth floor. It was 4:30 in the afternoon. Within minutes, flames fueled by loose cloth lying in innumerable piles engulfed the area and spread to the floors above. Panic spread with the flames and smoke. The women madly dashed to the exits only to find them locked. They furiously pounded on the doors to no avail. The one fire escape at the rear of the building collapsed, killing many and cutting off that route of escape. Some attempted to slide down the elevator cables only to lose their grip and fall to their deaths. Others, their clothes afire, jumped in groups from the top of the building or from open windows on the lower floors.
"Firefighters arrived quickly but found their way to the building hindered by bodies lying in the street. Their ladders reached only to the sixth floor and their safety nets broke as they tried to catch groups of women jumping from the flaming building."
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snpim3.htm The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist sweatshop fire
http://in-humanity.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/TriangleShirtwaist.jpg Bodies of victims litter the street March 25, 1911
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vus4b8FRTKM&feature=fvw The Triangle Fire
By forcing U.S. workers to compete directly with foreign sweatshop workers, they are inevitably forcing U.S. workers back into the sweatshops here in the USA.
The wealthy always want sweatshops. They have them in the developing nations today. They had them 100 years ago in the USA.
The purpose of free trade is to flood the labor market and BUST THE UNIONS.
Free trade will inevitably create the same circumstances again that led to the unions. The unions will rise in power again if we continue free trade.
The deplorable conditions in the sweatshops is the reason why we have unions today. Why do the wealthy want to go through that again?
Is this clear proof that our government destroyed an industry by choice?
In the February 2011 issue of Smithsonian magazine, on page 56 it says:
"To limit coca farming and expand job opportunities in Colombia, the U.S. government in 1991 suspended import duties on Colombian flowers. The results were dramatic, though disastrous for U.S. growers. In 1971, the United States produced 1.2 billion blooms... and imported only 100 million. By 2003, the trade balance had reversed; the United States imported two billion major blooms and grew only 200 million."
On page 64 it says:
"...a flower worker...told me about her life. She began laboring on flower farms when she was 15...."
So, how did that work out for us? Did it significantly decrease the flow of illegal drugs into the USA? But it sure did an effective job of shutting down most of the flower growing industry in the USA.
Now Obama says U.S. workers need to be more competitive. Exactly how competitive do U.S. workers have to be, to be able to compete with child labor working in third world sweatshops?
There seems to be no easy solution. And yet, WE HAD THE SOLUTION up to 1991. It was working. The government CHOSE to cause this problem.
How long will Obama pretend not to know about the obvious solution, which points the way to the solution for the other industries that are losing jobs to free trade?
For those who would take this opportunity to bash Bush, keep in mind that the Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress in 1991. And what have Obama or the Democrats done in the past two years to reverse this devastating policy?
How long can we afford to keep throwing away jobs like this?
BTW, to dispel any illusions about how prosperous China has become:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101117/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_inflation China to subsidize food after price spike
"China's government announced food subsidies for poor families Wednesday as it tries to cool a double-digit surge in prices that communist leaders worry might stir unrest.
"The Cabinet promised to ease shortages of vegetables and grain that helped push up food prices by more than 10 percent in October. It promised more supplies of diesel to end fuel shortages that have disrupted trucking and industry."