Posted on 12/19/2010 6:38:36 PM PST by 1rudeboy
The country's largest manufacturer of sleeping bags says new competition from Bangladesh could force it out of business if the U.S. does not level the playing field.
Exxel Outdoors Inc., which employs nearly 70 workers in its Alabama factory and makes about 2 million sleeping bags per year, has been pressing the Obama administration to lift an exemption that lets Bangladesh import sleeping bags into the country without paying a 9 percent tariff.
"You can't leave an American manufacturer at a competitive disadvantage with a foreign worker," Harry Kazazian, chief executive of the company, told FoxNews.com.
But that's apparently what the Obama administration has done, turning down the company's request in an initial ruling and forcing Exxel to submit another request.
The office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which is reviewing Exxel's request, told FoxNews.com that its review will conclude in the spring and that President Obama would have to sign off on any changes to the list of duty-free products – changes that would go into effect before July 1.
"We take Exxel's concerns seriously," the office said in a statement.
Exxel is also seeking help from Congress.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has tried to slap a tariff on Bangladesh sleeping bags but he has been unable to sway his fellow lawmakers to change the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences, or GSP, which determines which products third-world countries can import duty free.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Wait a minute. Weren't we discussing government spending just a minute ago?
You have to look at earnings by income group. Those grand total, nationwide average per capita figures some love so much are meaningless. Few still deny that the earnings at the lower pay scales in the US have been stagnant and declining. People in the lower income groups are the ones who more and more qualify for various government low wage subsidies, which are becoming a much greater part of our federal and state budgets.
If you can answer these two questions, then you too can understand the difference between trade and budget deficits.
the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences, or GSP, which determines which products third-world countries can import duty free.What kind of two-faced progressive dimwit could come out and call that "free trade" with a straight face?...Never mind, I see what kind.
'Course not, though in actuality they are the face of modern American manufacturing, small, efficient, non-union, Red state based.
Going forward, the biggest problem with trade is that it has to be regulated by the Federal government with all of the usual attending incompetence and cronyisms.
More irrelevant nonsense you pretend free-trade apologists throw out in a knee-jerk fashion whether or not it relates to anything that has actually been said.
High taxes aren’t the answer, but sane trade policies that don’t open US markets wide to nations that have no intention of ever opening their markets to the US except just enough to quiet any complaints (and that doesn’t take much). Let it sink in: many nations have NO intention of ever opening their markets to the US to the extent ours are open to them. They will play the US for a sucker as long as they can, and still will never really open their markets no matter what we do. They put their nations first.
By way of example, let's say you have one income group at $5K-$10K, and another at $10K-$15K. If you start with ten individuals in the lower bracket, and they all move into the higher bracket, but are replaced by ten (or more) in the lower bracket (let's call them illegal aliens, or something), then the numbers show that the ranks of the poor are increasing (or that they're getting poorer).
Extreme example, but you should get the point. The Dems demagogue it all the time.
LOL! are you really that dense?
Hilarious isn't it?
These are the same types of folks who like the government, thought bringing in 30 million illegal low wage laborers into the U.S., while exporting 100,000 American companies and businesses to countries like Communist China, was good for America...
10 years later, America is on it's knees, it's standard of living is circling the drain, and they've sank the next 20 generations of our off-spring, 14 trillion into debt...
Shazam!
He said he shut a unionized plant in Mexico in 2000 despite low labor costs, because union rules hampered productivity, and moved the work to a nonunion plant in Alabama. Mr. Kazazian, who also has a nonunion plant in China, said the bill "would be like putting the brakes" on his plans and profit.I blame NAFTA.
The request will be denied because he was on Fox.
The greatest threat to the Republic is out-of-control government spending. The second greatest threat to the Republic are those citizens who think buying bananas from Costa Rica has anything to do with government spending.
We manufacture more than any nation on Earth. I blame our poor education system.
The net result is identical and the practice is also identical.
No. If you squeeze apples or oranges, you get juice. But apples and oranges are fundamentally different. And words mean things.
Yes they do, but unfortunately, we are talking about actions and the fact that net-net the same result is had.
Crony Capitalism enriches one at the expense of another.
Likewise, attempting to "lift up" a poor country is just another form of welfare - someone pays and in this case, a foreign firm is enriched at the expense of a domestic firm.
Government is picking winners and losers in both examples. Government is lobbied to pick the winners and losers in both examples.
In practice, they are identical. The results are the same. The way the decisions come about is the same. The only difference is the thought process behind it.
Using your example, its squeezing Gala Apples or Red Delicious. You get Apple Juice either way.
If 2., you need to establish that some capitalists in Bangladesh "encouraged" some in the U.S. Congress to pass a law (or whatever) to favor their businesses. Again, maybe the Bangladeshis have a powerful K Street lobbying firm, but I'd like to see some evidence of it.
And 80 percent of what's left of those manufacturing jobs are now held by low wage illegal aliens....
100,000 American businesses were sent to low wage countries like Communist China, leaving tens of hundreds of thousands of Americans without jobs, while at the same time, the U.S. Government intentionally flooded the U.S. with upwards of 30 million low wage illegal aliens.
NAFTA, globalism, free trade, and ever growing corrupt government has left the American middle class decimated, their economy and standard in steady decline, 25 million without jobs, sinking the next 20 generations into 14 trillion in debt..
Boy, this has all worked out wonderfully, huh Todd?
If we build a wall and deport them, Americans can have all the manufacturing jobs again. If we cut the corporate tax in half, we'd get even more of those jobs back. Sound like a plan?
Well, Exxell did close that plant in Mexico and move it to Alabama, so those Mexicans probably ended up here, but I don't think that's what you meant. As far as the rest of your talking points, I blame public education (and the lib media).
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