"The vote totals speak for themselves. In neither house did the majority of Democrats support NAFTA."Nonsense. The vote totals were mere window dressing. The Democrats controlled *both* the House and Senate as well as the Presidency in 1993. NAFTA wouldn't have even come up for a vote if the Democratic Party hadn't desired it to pass.
Don't lie. No political party will line up 100% against its own sitting president. As the numbers indicate and you pretend not to see nearly all Republicans and some Democrats constitued enough of a majority for it to come up for a vote and to pass. Like Peel on the Corn Laws, Clinton was willing to turn on his own political base in the name of "free trade".
Yes, capitalism is destructive of the old order, but it is a *creative* destruction. Buggy whip makers see their jobs get destroyed by capitalism instead of "protected" by the nanny state, but the new automobile manufacturing jobs soon outnumber the old buggy whip jobs by orders of magnitude, and pay more to boot.
Ah, here we have once again the old free traitor "buggy whip" nonsense. Tell me, what new technology has made electrical engineering obsolete ? What new Ameican industry is being created by free trade ? The Indian body shop ? And given that outsourcing is shifting technology and R&D to India and China is it not more likely that this supposed "new technology" will appear there than here ? What makes this such a salient political issue is that the public clearly sees that NOTHING is being created, just MNC's and their shills looting this country. Your pious faith that America can drain itself of technology and jobs and still magically come out ahead (or I should more accurately say your patter, your line) is seen through by ordinary Americans.
Protecting jobs from their capitalistic destruction will only rob your children of the better paying jobs that *always* replace whatever was destroyed.
Considering that net NO high paying jobs have been created for quite some time now, that is ludicrous. History tells us that free trade has winners and losers on a national level. Britain, for instance, lost because it should have gone protectionist in 1900 in response to the rise of protectionist Germany and the US. It is most emphatically not a win-win proposition.
And while an uneducated India of 1920 *could* fall for such Marxist, protectionist nonsense, the India of today is less likely to be so conned (though they do have some serious protectionist measures still in place)...
It was under "protectionist nonsense" that Hamilton, Jefferson, Lincoln, McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt built America into an industrial superpower. China and India both know that and that is why they have tremendous tariffs. They love "free trade" while it means capital, jobs, and technology moving from America to them. They are pure mercantilist about any flows in the opposite direction. They love "free trade" when it means picking our brains and our pockets. China loves "free trade" when it means steadily turning America into a nation that exports foodstuffs and raw materials and whose high technology advantage will soon be gone. They aren't stupid and they will not allow their business class to sell out the security of their country.
Security ? The entire thrust of modern human civilization has been people demanding that the random and predictable hardships of life (like illness, old age, paying for college, affording a home) be smoothed out. Whether you like that or not is unimportant. Human beings in the real world never viewed themselves as Ayn Rand heroic ubermensch. This is because human beings always place their interests and those of their loved ones ahead of "market efficiency" and what they have ahead of pie in the sky about "new technologies and higher paying jobs" especially when none are visible to the naked eye.
Try abolishing Social Security, Medicare, FHA, unemployment insurance, and the student loan program and see how far you get.
Societies that are destructive of this goal are rejected by their people. The Russian people rejoice at the destruction of the oligarchs and the restoration of order and security under Putin. East Germans have chosen to forget the Berlin Wall, fondly remembering the order and security of the past. The bottom line result of your free trade at all costs nonsense is a shift to the left that will make the New Deal seem practically Randian.
"And given that outsourcing is shifting technology and R&D to India and China is it not more likely that this supposed "new technology" will appear there than here ?"
What has been invented in the last 20 years in either China or India? What do you think that they will ever invent first before the U.S.?
You see, if you are right that real R&D is moving away from the U.S. over to China and India, then China and India should be coming out with revolutionary new products at a feverish clip.
On the other hand, if I am right that only mundane grunt jobs (often mislabeled as "high tech" by people who just don't know any better) are moving to India and China, then all new inventions will continue to come from the U.S. and Japan.
So there's your test. Show me where China and India are doing something more advanced than the U.S., and I'll concede that you are right and that I'm dead wrong. Pretty easy, eh?!
Of course, the reality is that for the next 30 to 60 years this thread will remain void of any such "evidence" from you. Not that you will admit that you are wrong and that you can't find some new Chinese or Indian super-invention...no, it will just be that no such new technology ever gets posted here.
You see, you'll fail the above test, but you'll do so quietly in the end...with a whimper...neither managing to show the "might" of Chinese and Indian R&D nor being honest enough to admit that you've never once had a clue about what you are talking about.
But hey, it is a simple test. Show me the new Chinese and Indian super-tech. Prove me wrong.
I dare you.
I challenge you.
And yes, I'm calling you to the carpet.
"What makes this such a salient political issue is that the public clearly sees that NOTHING is being created, just MNC's and their shills looting this country. Your pious faith that America can drain itself of technology and jobs and still magically come out ahead (or I should more accurately say your patter, your line) is seen through by ordinary Americans."Then you know nothing of politics and people.
Americans, en masse, think of the 1990's as a boom time. NAFTA was ratified by an all Democratic majority House, Senate, and President in 1993, and so by default NAFTA gets lumped into the American mindset as something either neutral or positive.
Now that has got to chap your hide.