Blue collar voters: Trade is killing us (Wisconsin mentioned)

McClatchy DC ^ | April 2, 2016 | By David Goldstein

[cba123]

Maurice King worked for Joerns Healthcare, a medical furniture manufacturer, for nearly 43 years. Until suddenly one day, he didn’t.

Joerns shuttered its plant in Stevens Point, Wis., in 2012 after years of gradually outsourcing work to China. It cut loose 175 workers. Now the 62-year-old former local steelworkers union president works a 2-11 p.m. shift at a fan factory.

No more local fish fries on Friday nights with his wife, or his side job for 25 years as town chairman in Dewey, population 975. He hasn’t yet earned a week of vacation. As for retirement? That’s been pushed back.

"You had the job, you figured you were planning out how things were going to go," King said. "Now you've got to back up and rethink."

Establishment voices of economists, government and business officials argue that trade deals are critical in a global economy, and great for America. But critics such as organized labor call them "death warrants."

And in blue collar communities in Wisconsin and across the industrial Midwest, that economic angst, coupled with some sense of betrayal, helps explain the roiling politics of 2016.

Wisconsin has lost more than more than 68,000 manufacturing jobs since the mid-1990s and the first of several controversial trade pacts with Mexico, China and others took hold.

Wisconsin votes Tuesday. But soon after come other industrial states, including Pennsylvania. And all could be battlegrounds this fall in the general election.

And a lot will look like Milwaukee, once known as "the machine shop to the world," now grappling with a new economy.

Wisconsin has lost more than more than 68,000 manufacturing jobs since the mid-1990s and the first of several controversial trade pacts with Mexico, China and others took hold.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article69551672.html#storylink=cpy

[cba123]

I completely agree, our companies have sold out our country.

Trump is the only one, saying that, and THAT (in my opinion) is why he is catching so much flack.

Every person, in both parties, is enabling this massive sell-out of America.

Everyone.

[cba123]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article69551672.html

[central_va]

I’m sure at 62 he can retrain as a Neurosurgeon.

[VitacoreVision]

How the Free Trade Agenda Is Knocking Down America
-- The New American (PDF) Special Report
http://www.thenewamerican.com/files/TNA2917.pdf

The Special Report includes the following articles:

- The "Free Trade" Agenda Threatens Our Rights
- Global Merger: Piece by Piece
- The EU: Regionalization Trumps Sovereignty
- Trade Promises... and Trade Reality
- North American Union: From NAFTA to the NAU
- Fast-track: Enabler of the "Free Trade" Agenda
- Regional Scheme for the Pacific Rim
- EU/U.S. -- Transatlantic Convergence

[EQAndyBuzz]

“I’m sure at 62 he can retrain as a Neurosurgeon”

Or a soft serve ice cream maker.

[canuck_conservative]

“B-b-b-but we need these trade deals! Trade deals make every country better!”

- the Elites

(... we can all see how Mexico and China are benefitting with record employment and busy industry, but what about Canada and the US where workers are losing their jobs? How the hell are we benefitting from this one-sided crap??)

[central_va]

We need to start setting up Soylent Green™ factories. Why haven’t we done that yet?

[Ouch]

I Wonder if the oppressive union and it’s demand for high wages had anything to do with it.

[cba123]

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

Click this link, and look at our lop-sided trade balance with China last year.

ANOTHER new all time record trade deficit. And even worse, America actually sold LESS to China last year, than the year before.

Someone has to stand up for America again.

Both parties have sold out. Everyone is sold out.

[Aria]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXnAO3MFLB8

[Rashputin]

Funny thing about those oppressive unions, it's the same sorry management that gives unions benefit programs they know they have no intention of every paying out and "huge wages" they know will be used to justify moving overseas that end up rolling in cash for moving overseas and shafting the benefits programs and pension programs.

Unions have been and can be a problem but the management is still the management and no one seems to consider the fact that management loves having the excuse of unions as well as the means to make the union into an excuse.

[Tupelo]

In the 60s, it was;

FREE LOVE & NICKEL BEER

Free love got us the welfare state and syphilis
Never did get that nickel beer.

In the 90s it was;

FREE TRADE AND NICKEL BEER

Free trade got us a larger welfare state and cheaply made products.
We are still waiting for the nickel beer.

[cba123]

Wow. Thanks.

[Wolfie]

It’s working great for the top 1%. And that is all that matters.

[Dr. Ursus]

White,brown, black,vegan- please check one!

[spintreebob]

Medical furniture is an expanding buisness due to expanding Medicaid and other government healthcare spending.

So what do FReepers think if a law were passed that all government spending on healthcare must be for both services, products and servicers made in the USA?

That is rank protectionism. Drugs would have to be from the USA. Wheel chairs, crutches and medical equipment from the USA. Hospital gowns and linen from the USA.

And also employees...All healthcare employees would have to be from the USA... for patients covered by government money.

Let’s discuss it.

[MuttTheHoople]

Planned Parenthood has been doing that for years.

[GilGil]

Maybe that is why independents are revolting.

[Jim from C-Town]

They relentlessly backed the likes of Hillary and Bill Clinton who aggressively shopped their jobs to the highest bidder (IE donor) from China and Mexico.

Remember it was Bill Clinton who conferred ‘Most Favored Nations Status’ on a brutal Communist Regime in China and paved the way and signed the lopsided NAFTA.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

As long as you are ready to raise taxes enough to cover the increased costs that hospitals and doctors will incur, by all means put it on the table for discussion.