[chainsaw]

One recent example might be the closing of a Maytag Corp. refrigerator factory in Galesburg...and a plant to be built in Reynosa, Mexico

Thjank You NAFTA

[palmer]

Maytag sells for 10X trailing earnings, it seems that people don't invest in companies like this anymore.

[Ed_in_NJ]

So when are all those great benefits of Globalization going to kick in?

[mr.pink]

Five or six years ago, people losing jobs like these would have been told to "suck it up and modernize"... and learn computer skills.

[Piquaboy]

Bringing in more immigrants, raising taxes, and sending jobs to Mexico and China will surely bring in more jobs. Our Guvner of Iowa (former rocket scientist) Vilesack thought this formula could not fail.

[Marak]

In a related development, Claude Schlimmer, a member of the Board of Directors of Maytag, announced that the board was investigating the potential of a Mexican CEO for Maytag.

"While we prefer to have an American run the company," said Schlimmer, "we must maximize shareholder returns. CEO Ralph Hake costs us $1.8 million a year in direct compensation. We believe our search in Mexico might allow us to find comparable leadership for $63,000."

[crz]

Answer? The employees get together and start their own appliance building business-build the best washer and dryers at a lower price than anyone else can.

[verity]

Sir: you are poaching on Willie Green's territory.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

Much of the work will be transferred to an existing plant in Iowa and a plant to be built in Reynosa, Mexico, which will employ 500 people. The average worker at Galesburg makes $15.14 an hour, while workers at Reynosa plants make as little as 58 cents an hour.

America is on a downward spiral of standard of living. It is inevitable. More unemployed American workers chasing fewer jobs and competing against slave wages worldwide mean we are going to descend to wage levels of third-world countries.

It won't matter how cheaply we can buy a house, car or household goods. We simply won't earn enough to make the payments. That is exactly the fate of the 58-cent-an-hour Mexican worker. We will share that fate.

Competing against the labor costs in countries where people pee in the streets, live in cardboard boxes and have no government regulation of labor or safety means WE are probably headed toward similar poverty.

[niteowl77]

''The key is how do we think about a rural future in which we go beyond the basic industrial plants and think about more knowledge-based industries and move up the technology ladder.

And so far, the Iowa "experts" can't find the key with both hands and a flashlight. Meanwhile, you still can't afford to operate a manufacturing plant in Iowa, but someone can sure as hell find ways to afford erecting government buildings and ever more impressive tourist traps. Taxes, taxes, taxes. "Our entitlements we prize, and our taxes we will maintain."

Tom Vilsack has managed to do what even Tom Harkin couldn't: he makes me want to leave the state I was born and raised in. There isn't any hope left here... there is nothing left but people of my parents' age waiting to go in peace, people my son's age waiting to get the hell out, and everyone in between watching a state turn into a flat Appalachia run by urban 'rat machines and the NEA.

As long as the educational system is OK, we're OK. And don't you dare believe otherwise.

[Doohickey]

The average worker at Galesburg makes $15.14 an hour, while workers at Reynosa plants make as little as 58 cents an hour.

In the interest of making a fair comparison, why can't the author provide the average wage at both sites instead of resorting to hyperbole?

[spunkets]

bump

[mrb1960]

You see!!!!!!!!!! People think I belly-ache for no good reason. Yet another example of GATT and NAFTA at work. The great sucking sound is getting even louder. As much as I didn't like Ross Perot as president he was right! Withdraw from GATT and NAFTA before all our jobs leave the country and we become "the served" instead of "the server!"

[virgil]

As I recall Maytag got big state tax breaks in the past for staying in Galesburg. What taxes Maytag did pay for this year to the county, the county has to pay them back. Maytag won't write it off. NAFTA has allowed industries more flexibility in playing the game. Workers, union or non-union are consumers and if they don't feel secure, they are not going to take on debt or spend a lot of money. As for cheaper products,the production costs in Mexico may be lower,but the company could still just pocket the savings and keep prices where they are or even raise them. And its probably what they will do. Going from from $15.00/hr to .58/hr is a big decrease in labor and I doubt us consumers will see that savings. The money will probably go to pay-off Mexican politcal bosses.

[Bill Davis FR]

corporations follow cheap labor...one of the laws of capitalism

[gcruse]

Wasn't there talk at one time of letting the midwest go back to prairie? Some days, that seems an excellent idea.

[Newbomb Turk]

MAYTAG quality has really dropped in the last 6 years. They are selling a lot of appliances because for 30 years they were sturdy and had excellant reliability and quality. Now in the repair trades magazine and consumer reports they are in the most repaired group.

But the sheeple just keep on buying.

People really get upset when they break while still under warranty but I just tell them they should have bought whirlpool.

[TomHarkinIsNotFromIowa]

These foreign workers can build it cheaper. But how many are they going to buy? They need unions. They need taxes. We need to export what we have been producing the best. Liberalism.