Posted on 01/06/2008 1:03:48 PM PST by null and void
The morally shameful I-don't-care-about-you-because-I've-got-mine mentality exhibited by Congress and this administration is a national disgrace.
Oh, is it a little harder than that? Why?
God how I despise people who won't take both sides of a deal they shove at others...
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
My grandpa’s buggy whip factory went overseas as well so what. We actually have more manufacturing in the U.S. now than 20 years ago, it is just that we are making different products. Cars instead of textiles etc.
At the end of the day, there's only one way there's going to be any relief for all of us in manufacturing, and that's through Washington, D.C.
Conscience free trade.
It looks like many Republican congressmen are retiring from congress and starting lobbying firms.
They passed free trade agreements. I guess they know the “ministers of the tribunals” and can pay them off. After all the triblunals meet behind closed doors. UnAmerican??????Yeah!!!!!!!!
That was important, and needed to be said.
Thank you for your thoughtful contribution to the discussion...
I admire your courage for posting this, knowing full well that you'll be ripped for your "evil, protectionist, anti-Capitalist drivel".
Face the facts. For some, money is king, and it (and the power it brings) trumps all else.
"At the end of the day, there's only one way there's going to be any relief for all of us in manufacturing, and that's through Washington, D.C."
I read that as Washington made the mess, Washington needs to clean it up, or at a bare minimum, get out of the way.
We agree on that. You don’t need a 10,000 page treaty to accomplish free trade. Just get the heck out of the way. Anyone who thinks NAFTA=Free trade should try to take a bottle of booze across the Canadian border.
Ain't that the truth!
Or as I tell my kids, 'getting rich is easy, provided all you care about is getting rich'...
I picked up “Collapse” a while back but for some reason the book remains unread so far. Perhaps I’ll start it this week. I rather enjoyed Diamond’s other work “Guns, Germs, and Steel.”
Thanks for the thread.
Congress can’t legislate against greed.
They’d all be out of business! (sarcasm)
Looks like rain here. (A bunch of FReepers will be by to rain all sorts of crap down around my head shortly)...
Exactly what it is. From Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum:
The majority of countries in the world (e.g., Mexico) have two classes: the rulers who are very, very rich and the rest of the people who are very, very poor. The United States is different; we built a prosperous society with a well-to-do middle class and the chance for anyone, based on merit and hard work, to better himself and live the American dream.Globalism is the enemy of the middle class. Globalism preaches that the world is flat; that nations should have no borders; that labor, capital, goods and services should flow freely between countries. Globalism's mantras are "free trade" and "abolish protectionism." Globalism forces American workers to compete against people who work in other countries for 30 cents an hour without benefits. Competing with such low wages means the end of the American middle class.
Americans relish competition, as our national fixation on sports contests proves every day. But global trade is not played on a level playing field our opponents don't play by the rules and the umpire (the World Trade Organization) is biased against us.
Middle-class Americans are waking up to how they have been squeezed out of prosperity by the politicians of both parties who were elected with the political donations and other goodies provided by corporations that reap the rewards of cheap labor through insourcing and outsourcing.
“We actually have more manufacturing in the U.S. now than 20 years ago, it is just that we are making different products. Cars instead of textiles etc.”
We’ve got quite a larger popultion too! What do you think of China out manufacturing the USA? Because that’s where we are.
Some of us are tired of subsidizing the ‘cheap’ imports and imported cheap labor due to these ‘free trade’ deals. As Friedman said, they are NOT free trade, they are MANAGED trade. How much do you think it costs the taxpayers for ALL those machines to check containers and ALL those government employees to screen them?
No more SUBSIDIZED free trade.
I'm quite willing to go toe-to-toe with any business competitor anywhere on Earth on a level playing field.
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