Posted on 07/03/2005 6:00:20 PM PDT by Coleus
When the North American Free Trade Agreement was being debated in 1993, the rhetoric from both the U.S. and Mexican governments was similarly emphatic.
NAFTA would help deter migration by creating new jobs and prosperity in Mexico, they said.
Several years later, NAFTA appears to have done just the opposite. While many Mexicans appreciate the elevated diplomatic status it has conferred upon their country, the trade pact has driven large numbers of farmers, small-business owners and laborers out of work. These people are left with few options but to seek a better life in the United States.
NAFTA has helped part of the Mexican economy -- large industry, agribusiness and the average consumer -- by accelerating capital investment, boosting trade and lowering prices. Industrial productivity has increased, Internet use is becoming more common and store shelves are packed with the latest consumer goods from all over the world.
However, although the Mexican government does not keep reliable statistics on unemployment, experts say the jobs created by NAFTA are not as numerous as the jobs eliminated.
FARMING WOES In Tlacuitapa, farming has never looked worse, and local farmers blame foreign trade.
As part of NAFTA, corn and dairy tariffs were cut, bringing floods of cheaper U.S. corn. Tlacuitapa farmers, whose two main products are corn and milk, found the prices offered by local distributors slashed to the bone.
The region, where farm machines are few, the land is rocky and rainfall is erratic, simply could not compete with the mechanized, nature-blessed bounty of U.S. agriculture. Those who had the misfortune to live in the Tlacuitapa region -- and in many other regions throughout Mexico -- had no way of making a decent living.
At around the same time that NAFTA took effect, the Mexican government eliminated farm subsidy payments,
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Damn
took the oath
Damn
took the oath
Thanks for letting A. Pole know that my assessment of you was accurate. He thought that I was a monarchist simply because I recognized where you were coming from.
Do you think he will apologize for calling me names? I doubt it.
As opposed to you guys trying to use one quote, with no context, to paint free trade advocates as traitors - while conveniently ignoring all his other statements? Your tap dancing doesn't fool anyone. You don't know anything about how Thomas Jefferson would have reacted to today's world or how he would council us on dealing with the problems we face. It is clear however, that his numerous quotes in favor of freer trade make it obvious he would be disgusted by your pitiful attempt to paint those who happen to disagree with you as something less than patriotic.
He would have known that IT workers from a nation with starving people could be desperate enough to underbid American workers
This seems to be a reoccurring theme with you that America cannot compete with countries who use starving or subsidized workers.
You never answered my question about how our economy can remain the envy of the world when we are competing against this kind of labor. One reason is our superior productivity. Americans are the most productive workers in the world and that productivity translates into higher wages.
You can learn more here and here.
Circumstances have changed
Yeah, we wouldn't want too much trade now, would we? So, was Jefferson also wrong with that quote of his you used so selectively and conveniently?
While you're educating us about how greed can be controlled maybe you could also explain how increased trade is bad.
Yet we hear over and over again that if people can't afford to provide adequately for their children, they shouldn't have them.
Societies wich put affluence before children cannot reproduce themselves and have to be replaced by people from outside.
That's true.
Circumstances have changed
Would that apply to the Constitution too? Actually, Jefferson thought it should.
Don't be so kind to yourself. I didn't start suggesting that you might be a traitor until I realized that you couldn't differentiate China from other countries.
In 1938, it would have been very reasonable to call "free trade" advocates who sought to bolster trade with Nazi Germany "traitors." If you can't see the difference between trading with truly free countries and trading with our arch enemies, well guess what: you're not with us, you're against us.
Name one Bush lie, and prove that he knew the truth to be otherwise when he presented it to the American people.
And tell me why should we have left Iraq to its own devices after we told the world that we wouldn't tolerate states that harbored or supported terrorism right after 9/11?
The proper question to ask is why we haven't done more in the region and with respect to the DPRK so far.
In any case, stick to the topic. All you're doing is giving these fair weather, "free trade at any cost" patriots an excuse to criticize your closed border and protectionist stances.
OK friend. Ver sorry I misunderstood you.
As to the old jalopy pic, the free traders will not stop until we are all driving around in old cars looking for work.
Free Trade Will Be the Dust Bowl of Our Time.
When Jefferson said,
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."--
He was remarking on human nature.
And unlike trade, human nature is little changed by time.
I'm optimistic. The little guy on the street knows that jobs are moving offshore. The party line has been free trade, in part because it helped among free countries during the Cold War.
Elections will be the little guy's means of expressing his frustration. It seems the conservatives ought to realize that leadership -- meaning a change of course -- is going to be required for them to stay in power. I hope they do in time.
The polls indicate a downturn in the current administration's popularity, but none of the MSM -- including FOX news -- is willing to admit that it isn't Iraq that's causing the frustration, it's trade. If Americans are frustrated over Iraq, it's because the war is being fought too gently, exposing our troops to excessive danger when a heavier hand might secure peace at less risk to them.
Once almost everything is being done overseas, what will America produce to sell them?
Do not kid yourselves that America will be better at producing ideas. The Third World can learn to be just as creative--or do any of you believe their races are not as genetically intelligent as ours?.
The only hope we would have would be that as the Third World gets richer and richer from stealing America's business, that the Third World will become just as an expensive place to live as America, making Third World Workers more expensive to hire.
In the end, we will probably have a world where our cost of living will fall and that of the Third World rise, until both costs equalize, and the cost of labor across the world will be about the same..
But by then, we will have lost all industries except for such things as garbage collection.
What then?
For a few decades of cheap products we dismantle America's industries, while in the end it would cost no more to make most everything here anyway.
What's more, by helping the Third World industrialize, we create more competition for resources like building materials and energy, thereby driving up the price of materials.
The industrialization of the Third World will also add hugely to pollution, which eventually will lead to laws and treaties restricting everyone's freedom to use what they buy and to simply throw it away when it's no longer needed.
The higher cost of materials may actually offset to a great degree the lower price of cheap imports.
Our free republic, best example of capitalism's success, is only possible because of the ethical and cultural values we have here. Those are very slow to develop elsewhere. They are universally supreme values, but others may not adopt them at the same pace they industrialize and commercialize. The competition we'll face from overseas will involve slave labor, graft, and environmental havoc. Rules we follow here quite naturally will be flouted overseas. Globalists claim we should compete, though.
You must not be reading the same FReeper posts that I am! ;o)
What names?
Until last decade or two Americans did not have to compete with Indian and Chinese workers. The tariffs were in place. USA became economical power under protection of tariffs.
The key reason for Civil War was to preserve tariffs. Slave free traders did not like them.
You never answered my question about how our economy can remain the envy of the world when we are competing against this kind of labor.
It takes time to squander what was accumulated over two centuries. But the bill will come.
That's just silly. Your the exact same as a liberal who claims that wealth is a zero sum game. If others are more innovative, the U.S. benefits too, just like the reverse is true. Furthermore, do you really think that rich people should not trade with poor people because it will increase poor peoples wealth so that there is more competition for resources and impoverish the wealthy? These are extremely simple concepts and your side is unable or unwilling to apply them to international trade. Do you also think trade between the various states has the same effect as you purport international trade does? Do you really think Alabama and California should cease all trade for fear Alabama will drag California down?
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