Thom Hartmann: Greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers in peace, freedom and the American way. Thom Hartmann here with you. And boy a lot going on.

I’ve got a, well, President Obama is in India, I want to tell you about that. There’s an amazing piece in today’s Financial Times about how corporate America is not just happy that the Republicans won, they’re dancing in the streets. They are popping champagne corks, now this is my language, not theirs, I’ll tell you about that.

Our, my new book, “Rebooting the American Dream.” And I’m going to mention this frequently because this, you know, I’ve written a lot of books. I’ve written probably 35 books in my life and I have 21, I think right now, in print. And some are really, really great books that I’m really you know proud of. And there were a few, frankly a couple of the ADD books where my publisher said hey can you get us another book because the last one is selling really well and so I kind of banged out a book. But it’s been, and I learned from that experience because not only where they not that great but they didn’t sell that well either. So I just decided if I’m going to do a book I’m going to do a book well.

And this new book, “Rebooting the American Dream,” and the, I had it here in front of me just a moment ago, here it is. The subtitle is “11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country.” I had this conversation, it’s actually for the publisher, Barrett Coller, it was their number one selling e-book last week or last month or whenever the last report came out. It’s doing very well for them. It’s selling very well in bookstores all across the country. And in fact we did a book signing in Denver and it hit the Denver Post I think it is, or the best selling list. But I went to the publisher and I said this book has, you know it’s got 11 steps, 11 things that we can do to change America. It’s basically a legislative list.

We are delivering this week a copy of this book, a free copy of this book, to every member of the United States Senate. But I wanted to go beyond that. I wanted to deliver this book for free on the internet. Now my publisher was like you don’t give away a book. I mean you know self-published authors who can’t sell a book in a bookstore give away books, but your book is in the front of you know Barnes and Noble, it’s doing well. And I said let’s spread it out. There’s 12 chapters in this book. Let’s do one chapter a month and let’s do it on one unique website. We worked out a deal with TruthOut.org. They’re not paying anything for it, we’re not paying them. It’s just, we’re all giving this book away. Chapter at a time. Because I think it’s that important. So if you’d like to read, today they just put up the introduction, the first chapter will be next week. But the introduction summarizes the entire book. So if you want to read the introduction, go over to TruthOut.org right now and for free, this is like our public library, right? We’re creating a public library online.

Okay. Today’s paper. A couple of things here. Canada, this from the front page of today’s Financial Times. “Canada Plans Foreign Investing Curbs.” Canada is saying, you probably didn’t catch the news if you weren’t, if you’re not a real you know business wonk or economics wonk. But, or you’re not Canadian. This was a big deal to the Canadians. Last week an Australian company tried to buy the biggest potash mine in Canada. Now potash is important stuff because it’s the core material for fertilizer. And this Australian company wanted to come in and they were offering good money. And had it been the American government there is no doubt in my mind they would have said cool, no problem. I mean you know our biggest, most of our biggest mines in the United States, more than 60% of our mining industry is foreign owned here in the United States.

But the Canadians said no. We’re not going to do it. We’re not going to sell our mines to the Australians. Because it’s important to keep that resource here, it’s important to keep the jobs here, if the value of potash goes up over time we want the profit here. BHP, the company that was trying to buy it, or, yeah BHP Billiton is the name of the company. They were betting that the price of potash would go up over time and you know and so anyhow, here’s Canada. And in the face of that, Canada is now looking at anybody who wants to buy pieces of Canada and saying eh.

Here’s the story by Bernard Simon in Toronto. “Canada plans to tighten it’s foreign investment law with a view to forcing greater transparency and accountability from investors in the wake of the political storm over BHP Billiton’s bid for potash corp.” They ruled that the sale did not produce a net benefit for the country. Now it would have been very good for the stock holders of the potash company, it would have been very good for, you know there’s a lot of billionaires, a lot of millionaires, a lot of investors would have made out really, really well. But Canada said, “This isn’t good for Canada.”

In particular, they’re quoting here, the prime, they’re quoting the Tony Clement, the minister of industry. The equivalent of the commerce secretary in the United States. He said, “In particular,” he said, “The government would seek to compel foreign investors to make public their undertakings on jobs, local processing, technology transfers, competition and other commitments typically made to meet the net benefit test.” In other words, you’re not going to learn how to do our stuff, you’re not going to take our technology, you’re not going to take our jobs, we’re not going to let it happen.

The Financial Times story goes on, “In the first case of its kind the government has taken US steel to court.” Now why would the Canadians take US steel to court? Because US steel bought a Canadian steel maker, Ontario Steelworks and they said that when they bought this company they were going to create more Canadian jobs and then they didn’t. And so the government is seriously looking at this and they may say you know US Steel, you have to sell that company back to us. But that’s just the beginning of it.

President Obama is in India right now. Now here’s, now that’s how smart the Canadians are. Here’s how insane the Americans are. This from the Washington Post yesterday. President Obama says, “I am here because I believe that in our interconnected world, increased commerce between the United States and India can be a win-win proposition for both nations.” He was talking to the US Indian Business Council. He says that he’s going to go over there and he’s going to sell American goods because there’s such a large Indian middle class now, consumer class. So he’s going to go over and sell stuff to them, right? It sounds good. It’s true.

I mean we’ve sent all these jobs over there, these engineering jobs, I’m going to tell you about that after the break. We’ve sent, you know, the former president of General Electric, Jack Welch, brags in his autobiography and on his website about how he invented the whole idea of American companies having their back office work done, their accounting work done, their call center work done in India. Because you can pay people a dollar an hour that you have to pay $18 an hour here in the United States or $10 or $12 an hour, whatever it may be, depending on where you are.

So Obama goes over there and he says we’ve got stuff to sell you, you’ve got this great big huge middle class. And they go oh great, do you make jeans anymore? Uh no. Do you make knives and forks anymore? Uh no. Do you make, how about clothing, do you make shirts anymore? No. We don’t make that in then United States. Do you make TVs? No. well what do you make? Obama says, well we make military hardware. And they say great, we’ll take a bunch of it. And in fact, to underscore the point, Obama indicated in his speech a set of newly consummated export contracts for what? The sale of military transport aircrafts, civilian airplanes, mining equipment and jet engines worth 10 billion dollars and supporting 54 thousand jobs in the United States. That’s all we make anymore. This is sane policy? And it gets worse. I’ve got to tell you about Honeywell.

**Commercials & cheesy news**

Thom Hartmann: Okay we’re talking about President Bush is in India. And David Cote, the chairman and chief executive of Honeywell decided to weigh in on the issue. Actually hold that thought for a moment.

Let me just share with you the first paragraph from Emily Wax’s column in the Sunday Washington Post. Dateline Bangalore India, she’s there on the trip with the President. “In the futuristic lab on a leafy information technology campus an inventor showed off a power strip that calculates a household’s carbon emissions for the environmentally conscious US market. In a research center nearby, rocket scientists worked on designs for lighter, more aerodynamic wings for Boeing fighter jets. The engineers at Infosys Technology, India’s second largest technology company, are on the cutting edge of the country’s 60 billion dollar IT industry.” That’s as in B, billion with a B. She quotes, who is she quoting here. Hartha Iengar, head of the research for Gartner India, a US based global IT research organization. “The center of gravity has shifted with cars moving to Japan, low cost manufacturing moving to China and knowledge intensive work coming to India.” Yeah.

Which brings us back to Honeywell. What I thought used to be an American company. David Cote, chairman and chief executive of Honeywell, said, “The American public’s perception that companies send jobs overseas only to take advantage of labor costs is misplaced.” The reason he operates in India? He’s got 11 thousand employees in India, Honeywell does. He says it’s because “superior engineering” is done in India. The CEO of Honeywell says he’s got to have 11 thousand people working in India for the US market, among others, because their engineering is superior to ours. This is pretty strange.

The article in the Washington Post, “India’s outsourcing industry was shaken last year when Obama said he wanted to change a tax code that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore India than if you create one in Buffalo, New York.” Well that’s how it is right now. If you, if Honeywell sends its jobs to India they pay lower taxes than if they do it in the United States. Plus they pay lower wages. So what’s his response? “The US is pushing India to allow American universities to set up in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities.” Right. Harvard University, Mumbai campus. So they don’t even have to come here and pay tuition. You get the feeling we’re becoming a third world country? Or that we already are?

Arianna Huffington’s presciently titled book. 19 iconic products they don’t make here anymore in America. CNN, Pontiac, Miller, Coors, Budweiser. Well they may make some of that stuff, but it’s all owned by foreign companies. There’s stuff that they don’t actually make here anymore. Rawlings baseballs. St. Louis shop founded in 1887 by George and Alfred Rawlings. We now make the baseballs in Costa Rica.

Gerber baby food. 80% of the baby food market in the United States, Gerber was bought out by, it was originally the Fremont Canning Company, and I have family and friends who used to work at Gerber in Fremont. My father is from Newaygo which is just you know down the road, Michigan, central Michigan, it’s up near Grand Rapids. In 1994 they were bought out by Novartis, Swiss pharmaceutical company. And in 2007 bought by Nestle. And ever since ’94 when they merged with Novartis, all the Gerber products are manufactured overseas. None of that baby food that you buy in the store is made here in the United States if it says Gerber on it. None if, zero.

Etch-a-Sketch. The company was called Ohio Art, because they made them in a little town of 8000 people, Bryan, Ohio, until 2000. Now they make them in Shenzhen China. Mattel toys, last manufacture date in the United States, 2002. As of August 2007, 65% of their products are made in China. Minivans, we don’t make any minivans in the United States, they’re made in Canada, we import the Chassis. Vending machines. The last vending machine made in the United States, 2003. Levi Jeans, 2003, last time they were made. 150 years in the United States. Red, Radio Flyer’s red wagon. You know the little red wagon? Last time they were made in the United States, 2004, they’re now made in China. Televisions, the last US manufactured television was October 2004. Cell phones. The last cell phone made in the United States, 2007.

Railroads, now I mean really railroads, from U69 guard bars to LV braces and weld kits to magnesium turn out casings, railroads. The last time we made a railroad in the United States, 2008. Dell computers, they stopped making in January 2010. Closed the North Carolina factory. Canned sardines, Pontiac cars, forks, knives and spoons. The last time we made tableware in the United States, cutlery, June of 2010. Incandescent light bulbs, we don’t make light bulbs here, we don’t’ make anything here anymore. Except military hardware. We’ve got lots of that.

**Commercials**

Thom Hartmann: Yep, get out there, get active. I didn’t make, I didn’t mean to end that last segment just entirely as a plug to get over to the website. And it certainly is not a commercial plug, because we are giving away. Every single chapter of the book, every single word in the book, of my new boo, “Rebooting the American Dream,” is going to over the next 12 weeks is going to be up on the TruthOut.org site. And stay there forever. It’s like a lending library.

Now you know frankly the be that my publisher is making is that people will read a couple of chapters and go this is so cool I’ve got to go out and buy five copies as Christmas presents and give them away to people. But you know from my point of view, I want the ideas out there. And the introduction actually contains Alexander Hamilton’s 11 point plan for building American manufactures from 1791 which is very hard to find in any kind of coherent form. Either you get the whole thing, which is you know unfortunately because he was having this huge debate with Thomas Jefferson at the time, the first you know thousand words of it are his debate with Jefferson. Which doesn’t make any sense to a modern reader. And or you get little sliced and diced pieces of it by right wing think tanks.

So I laid the thing out, it’s right there, it’s all over at TruthOut.org right now. And the consequences, and the first chapter in the introduction the set up for the first chapter is there. The first chapter is about trade policy. And let me just, our phone lines are slammed, I’ll be picking up your calls in just a second. But just a couple more just to make the point.

Again, this is Sunday’s Washington Post, and I’m sure you can find this online over at WashingtonPost.com. This is the article by Emily Wax. “Outsourcing US jobs, a source of tension on Obama’s India trip.” Gee, you think? She’s quoting Subash Dard, executive counsel member of Infosys in Bangalore. Infosys is the largest Indian IT company, it’s a 60 billion dollar industry in the United States. He says, “The fact is for generations and generations the US was at a competitive advantage.” True. We were. Not anymore. Now they say “Some Indian IT leaders estimate that 350 thousand American jobs have moved to India over the past ten years,” past decade. “But American outsourcing experts say that number is much higher.” May be much higher. “Outsourcing experts and advocates for American workers say that while outsourcing helps corporate America, American engineers and computer programmers see few benefits.” Do you get it? It’s all about the corporations getting rich, and their CEOs getting rich and their wealthy investor stock holders who pay a maximum 15% income tax on dividends gain, on dividends income getting rich, the people who sit on their butts around the pool waiting for the dividend checks to come in the mail getting rich. And the average American worker getting screwed. That’s what it’s all about. And it’s going to get worse.

Today’s Financial Times, page 6, after the midterms what is the Republican agenda going to be? Gee, let’s figure it out. Stephanie Kirshengostner, I’m not sure how she says it, it’s a fine German name. In any case, she wrote this piece. She said, it opens, this is how it opens. “It must have sounded like music to their ears. Barack Obama acknowledged at his first press conference,” you know, blah de blah de blah, he says you know basically I got kicked around. He says, “I’ve got to take responsibility in terms of making sure that I make it clear to the business community that the most important thing we can do is boost and encourage our business sector.”

In other words, Obama apparently got the take home message screw the workers, it’s about the big corporations and the rich guys. And that really was the message because they’re the ones who bought the election. Citizens United, billions of dollars. This was a four billion dollar election. You’re not going to hear a peep about that in most of the corporate media, particularly the television media, because that’s almost where all of the dollars went. So what are the Republicans up to? Communications, and I’m, this is from the Financial Times. This is not, I am not opinionating this. I will just share with you the words of a reporter from a business publication, an international business publication.

She talks about how Wall Street financial regulation, says it’s basically dead. In fact the Republican victory is going to “lead to less regulation, taxation, and government oversight. The political shift will radically alter the legislative agenda. How? Communications. The Republican victory,” I’m quoting. “The Republican victory is good news for AT&T.” Oh jeez. In other words, I still won’t be able to make phone calls on my iPhone without having them drop every 30 seconds. Well not every 30 seconds, but they typically drop after two or three minutes.

“Whatever slim hope Internet companies had that Congress might pass so called net neutrality legislation,” ha! “has been reduced with the demise of the democratic majority.” In the Financial Times I’m reading this. “Republicans in the house energy and commerce committee will not have oversight over the FCC and will put pressure on the media regulator to abandon plans to set new rules for broadband companies.” In other words, your Internet provider can now jack up your rates and do anything they damn well please to you and you won’t have any competition you can go to because we don’t enforce anti-competition laws in this country anymore, you’re stuck.

“In fact,” back to the Financial Times, “instead some Republican law makers have signaled a readiness to take on the hot button issue of privacy.” Oh jeez. Joe Barton who is vying to become chairman of the energy and commerce commission said in a letter to Facebook he’s ready to put privacy policy ‘in the cross hairs of the next congress.’”

”Healthcare,” well you already know, we’re going to roll back Obama-care. “Energy. The prospect of congress passing a cap in trade bill were dead. The new Republican minority will now try to reign in efforts by the EPA to regulate carbon emissions. Defense. Plan on seeing more military defense. Food and agriculture.” This is one that just blew my mind. This will be the last thing I share with you. Poor Louise, she’s out there screaming at me, pick up the calls. I will, just a minute. Food/Agriculture. “The shift in congressional power could,” I’m quoting from the Financial Times. “The shift in congressional power could diminish the chances of a food safety bill ever being passed. One food industry lobbyist said the new Republican majority could also put pressure on the FDA to stop increasing it’s budget for food safety inspections.” So already we’ve got a couple thousand people a year who die in this country, because their food is poisoned or contaminated. Watch for more dead kids. Aren’t Republican legislatures wonderful things?

Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.