judd's blog

Vice President Biden told a global banking conference the Obama administration is dedicated to building a "new world order" - and the TransPacific Partnership is how they plan do it.

A major Washington, D.C.-based think tank can't understand why environmentalists would oppose more liberalized trade of green technology. It conveniently forgets how the Chinese have illegally dumped solar panels on the U.S. market, putting the nation's manufacturers in peril over the past few years.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is hardly a household name but a free trade deal encompassing the region is likely to hit most of American families hard, especially those of the middle class. Just how bad is the question. Bad enough -- and not the Michael Jackson kind of bad.

Currency manipulation isn't like firecrakers. It wasn't invented by the Chinese to gain advantage over its global competitors. Even the trade partners the U.S. is on fairly good terms with are tempted to use the strategy to make their goods and services more attractive on the world market by artificially depressing their value through delfated currency.

Remember Ross Perot's grand predictions back in the 1992 presidential campaign that the North American Free Trade Treaty would create a "giant sucking sound" of jobs from the United States? He was at least half right about increasing economic globalization. Not only did America lose jobs, it also lost federally taxable corporate profits.

Ever wondered how China learned how to hack? Take a hard look at U.S.-based high-tech companies who sold America's soul to do business in the communist nation. In the interest of smoothing U.S.-China relations, our own corporations gave the dragon the passwords to the nation's computer system as part of a deal with the devil.

The People's Republic of Hackers is hacked over Uncle Sam trying to restrict the communist nation's technology imports out of fear the dragon is spying on the U.S. government. But we've got three words for their whining: Get over it, hackers. Good job, Congress and White House. You've actually accomplished something. 

Increasing industrial energy efficiency coupled with boosting clean energy technologies is exactly how the Department of Energy is trying to help U.S. manufacturing. Is it a goal worth pursuing? Yes. Is it realistic? Let us hope so. The last thing we need is losing out to China on yet another front.

What's better than a band of traveling gypsies or the circus coming to town? A mobile pop-up marketplace devoted solely to Made-in-the-USA goods wending its way around the country to drive home the importance of supporting U.S.-crafted fashion. Its next stop? Los Angeles in early April. Be there if you care.

There are a myriad ways to get political beliefs across -- from writing your local congressional representative to joining a protest movement in support of an issue near and dear to your heart. For a New Hampshire couple, it's opening a retail store devoted solely to products made in America.