THE TRUTH ABOUT NAFTA
EC-Few are aware that NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) has rendered us uncompetitive in the world, has destroyed our industrial base, caused us to outsource most of our production, and killed most of our manufacturing jobs.For political reasons, Clinton, Obama, and McCain have not discussed this true picture.
Imagine if Congress enacted a special law only for the state of Michigan that:
Dropped the minimum wage to $.50/Hour
Exempted employers from child labor laws
Expanded the work week
Reduced health and work place safety laws
Banned unions
Allowed Michigan exporters full, duty-free access to Ohio and the rest of the states
March 25th, 2008 at 7:11 am
The truth about NAFTA — “banned unions”
Show me where unions are “banned” in NAFTA.
Give it up John. Unions caused loss of jobs, not NAFTA.
March 25th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
NAFTA is a CFR policy and even they admit it failed. SPP was suppose to be a super NAFTA. But it is another CFR scam. As long as brain dead republicans and democrats repeat the silly mantras of the CFR they will keep making money and America will keep losing jobs to Mexico and overseas. Free Trade is the lie of the rich elite on Wall Street. It is a socialist idea not American.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
A good source for the details of NAFTA failures.
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=715
A good article showing that NAFTA is one of the causes of the increase in illegal immigration which takes American jobs as well.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0422-28.htm
The CFR itself on NAFTA. Robert Pastor is a leading proponent of the creation of the NAU.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/8173/north_american_community_approach_to_security.html
“NAFTA was merely the first draft of an economic constitution for North America. It was a deliberately lean document, intended only to dismantle barriers to trade and investment. Its architects planned neither for its success nor for the crises that would confront it.” Robert Pastor
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040101faessay83112/robert-a-pastor/north-america-s-second-decade.html
And last but not least CFR economic policy makers admitting that NAFTA and globalization have made the rich richer and the rest of us poorer.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701faessay86403/kenneth-f-scheve-matthew-j-slaughter/a-new-deal-for-globalization.html
March 25th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Since McCain, Clinton, and Obama are all CFR members I have to assume they all support this socialist policy of income redistribution.
“Summary: Globalization has brought huge overall benefits, but earnings for most U.S. workers — even those with college degrees — have been falling recently; inequality is greater now than at any other time in the last 70 years. Whatever the cause, the result has been a surge in protectionism. To save globalization, policymakers must spread its gains more widely. The best way to do that is by redistributing income.”
Kenneth F. Scheve is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Matthew J. Slaughter is Professor of Economics at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Business and Globalization at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2005 to 2007.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Few are aware that protectionism (increased barriers to the flow of goods across national borders) directly threatens the livelihoods of only the poorer members of the world community. Those who work in foreign factories are not rich, nor are the customers buying their products at Wal-Mart, Target and other stores.
Even fewer are aware that American manufacturing began its terminal decline one bright day back in March 1943, a decline that saw the share of American employment in manufacturing fall from 44.1% to barely 16% last year.
The pace was sporadic at first, and masked by the soaring increase in jobs in the service sector. But, with just a single exception (1984), the grand national economic restructuring has succeeded in reducing dependence on factory jobs in each and every one of the past 30 years.
Clearly, NAFTA, China and the other hogwash has absolutely nothing at all to do with this simple reality.
For political reasons, Clinton, Obama, and McCain have not discussed this true picture.
It is far easier to make up fairy tales about how trade “hurts” real American families, while ignoring the lower prices they can afford. Imagine if Congress actually had to admit that trade was good!
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Interesting choice of sources.
“Economyincrisis.org” doesn’t tell anything about itself on the website, except for its political slant. Digging into the background revels a bit more (this took me all of 20 minutes)—
Main backer Thomas L. Heffner of Duke Realty Corp has a nice string of political campaign donations to Richard Lugar, Bush-Cheney ‘04 and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, Inc’s Political Action Committee (http://tinyurl.com/3bh57k).
Duke is “the largest publicly-traded office and industrial real estate company in the United States” (http://tinyurl.com/2zwqnq), so at least we know he has the little guy’s interest at heart.
Now, it is possible that this guy just has the same name as the owner of the website ranting about the declining value of factory space, and that Duke Realty’s massive holdings of Mid-Western and Texas industrial land has absolutely nothing to do with the whacko isolationist views of economyincrisis.org.
It is also entirely possible that little green men will be shortly landing in an area near you.
March 26th, 2008 at 6:01 am
David
Is that a joke? In all due respect any rational person would look toward lending and Iraq via the current real-estate problem not NAFTA.
You could argue NAFTA hurting wages and jobs did not help, but they were against NAFTA.
I am lost by your post.
March 26th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Think it through: if someone believes that trade hurts American manufacturing (not my view, as you know), and owns vast acrage of industrial land, wouldn’t it make sense for that person to shout protectionist slogans?