U.S. Furniture Makers to Seek Protection From China Imports

Wall Street Journal ^ | 7/15/03 | Dan Morse

[Texas_Dawg]

A group of American makers of wood bedroom furniture is preparing to seek protection from the U.S. government to stem a surge of imports from China that the companies say has ravaged their industry.

John Bassett, president and chief executive of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co., Galax, Va., and a spokesman for the group of 14 furniture makers, said the American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade intends to file an antidumping petition this fall with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission.

[harpseal]

(But I sure as heck won't be asking other Americans via the federal government to insure me from losing my current job.)

Thats becuse there will not be any other Americans left to ask. see Martin Niemoller's famous quote.

[Texas_Dawg]

A couple years from now, when the economy is rolling along just fine and unemployment is back around 4%, what will you complain about then?

[jpsb]

A little fishing village on Galveston Bay.

[Texas_Dawg]

Do you ever vote for Democrats?

[jpsb]

I have once or twice at the state/county level. Never at the federal level.

[EagleMamaMT]

Isn't it wonderful how all you "free traitors" screech "communist" and "liberal" or "Democrat" at any REPUBLICAN who dares to disagree with CLINTON's "free" trade policies. Now, if that's the best you can do, go back to DU and come up with some better namecalling.

BTW, what's up with all the elitist snobby Republicans on this board who believes that ALL working-class people vote Democrat. That will be a real eye opener to other people like myself (medical transcriptionist) and my husband (a NONUNION crane operator) who have voted REPUBLICAN for almost the last 20 years. Since you, and others of your ilk, hate working-class people so much, maybe we should sit out the 2004 election so you can find out just HOW MANY of us working-class Republicans there are. We helped elect GWB and the Republican Congress just the same as you big-shots did. Last I looked, my vote counts the same as yours does, too.

[oceanview]

That's how the statistics lie. When Oracle sends 6000 workers to India (remember, this is not to say they create 6000 jobs in India, they send 6000 US jobs there) and Walmart hires 6000 in the US, the figures the labor dept reports zero out. But we all know the underlying reality of sending 6000 jobs at $60-100K to India, and hiring 6000 who make $30K is. Again, the division of the US into two socio-economic tiers is not desireable, we want middle class private sector wage earners in this country.

[Texas_Dawg]

Is hating rich people any different than rich people hating poor people?

[harpseal]

First let me say I hope Unemployment is at 4% in a year or two. everyone is saying the turn around is coming but they have been saying that for a couple of years now. If that comes then I will probably be complaining about the Socialist Democrats like Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton, diane Fienstein and others trying to get rid of the protective tariffs we have on China since it is only by fixing the structural problems within our economy that employment will get back to 4% or lower.

At lower than 4% I will state that we as a nation should probably consider bringing in guest workers again.

[harpseal]

Is hating rich people any different than rich people hating poor people?

I do not think Eagle mama hates anyone except those she sees inflicting damage on our nation. Even then hate may be too strong a word.

[Jim Cane]

(But I sure as heck won't be asking other Americans via the federal government to insure me from losing my current job.)

Just so long as your company uses neither H1Bs, OPIC or military assets to protect it's offshore factories, then it's a deal.

[EagleMamaMT]

No, and I DON'T hate rich people, so don't even start trying to say that I do. Personally, I've seen a lot more snide comments and remarks directed toward poor and working-class people on this board than vice versa. And, once again, you seem to be another person under the impression that only the rich vote Republican.

BTW, I thought the Republican Party was trying to explode that stereotype? Why are you helping to keep it alive? There are plenty of us working-class folks who pull the lever for the Republicans, too, though of late the Republican Party seems to be forgetting that little fact.

[oceanview]

Rich people are great, but it depends how they got their money. Some child of an upper class family who graduates with an MBA from an Ivy League school and then takes a job at a US company and creates nothing of value, but gets big bonuses by offshoring the jobs of a bunch of employees, what value does that person add to our society? That is not the type of capitalism this country was built on.

[EagleMamaMT]

Thank you, harpseal, for those kind words. I try not to hate ANYONE but I do hate what is happening to America on a lot of different fronts. And I'm aghast that people are so blind to the future.

[harpseal]

Yes people often find it very difficult to grasp the concept that is the United States of America. I go back to Benedict Arnold the hero of the battle of Quebec and a hero at Saratoga who sold out his nation for money. This does happen unfortunately more than we would like. I can not imagine a history teacher who is unaware of the role of tariffs in this nation. I really do believe that some of these people just read one book on economics and thought it was the Gospel. Milton Friedman has some valuable ideas but he is not the holder of divine economic wisdom and his research is often flawed.

You have made sense and not started in on the name calling.

[epow]

If that sector of America is hammered away by offshoring of jobs, its over. Your flippant attitude does nothing to address the real issue here.

You are exactly right. The currently developing economic situation is tailormade for a Hillary Clinton type demagogue. When tens of millions of formerly well paid workers find themselves either unemployed or underemployed at a burger-flipping type job, which is the situation that is now rapidly developing, the wrath of those voters will be turned on the Republicans who they see as the party of the elitist, arrogant, uncaring rich. IOWs, people like TD and Protagoras.

People like TD who believe their job or business can survive a Clintonian socialistic revolution intact are in for a serious lesson in reality in the coming years. Americans have become accustomed to a certain standard of living, and when that standard is lowered to the level of immigant Mexican day laborers by what they rightly or wrongly believe is government catering to big business and the rich, there will be a revolution, either political or otherwise, that will shake this nation to it's foundations. It probably won't be in '04, maybe not even '08, but at the rate jobs are being exported it will almost certainly come in 2012. And the far-left Democrat demagogues are rubbing their hands in glee waiting for the axe to fall.

That is exactly what happened in the 1930s when the Democratic party's creeping socialism was first introduced to a public which embraced it with great enthusiasm. Next time around the socialization will be complete and permanent, and TD will have no one but himself to blame. Enjoy your cheap Chinese furniture now TD, you may be burning it in an oil drum in a few years to keep your hands warm.

In the meantime, I would love to see TD and Protagoras try to explain to a laid off factory worker with three kids and an unemployed wife why it's good economic policy to send his former $25 per hour heavy industry job to an enemy nation like China while he's learning to flip burgers at minimum wage on the late shift at Wendy's. All the complexities of free trade theory won't make an impression on that worker, but his vote will carry as much weight as any free trading big shot.

Personally I am not convinced that free trade is the end-all and be-all of economic health and strength. But whether it is or not, the fall out from the inevitable economic shock to the nation's working class voters of near-total de-industrialization will likely be the final push that sends the US over the edge into outright, undisguised socialism.

(BTW, I'm not an "antifreetradelaborunionthug", as Protagoras is so quick to call anyone who disagrees with his free-trade religious theories. I worked first in civil engineering, then in sales and mid-level management with a large industrial corporation for most of my working life. And I retired early without ever spending a single day as a "union thug")

[TopDog2]

Milton Friedman has some valuable ideas but he is not the holder of divine economic wisdom and his research is often flawed.

Indeed. It is rare to find two economists that agree on anything. Part of the reason is that secondary effects are hard to predict. The other part of the reason is that most economic theories are just that. Theories.

[oceanview]

good post.

[dark_lord]

(1) "Texas Dawg" follows a pattern I have noticed in a few other posters. Makes personal remarks, refuses to engage in debate, and responds with one liners. Useless to try discussion, because you can't get one. Sometimes I wonder if one of the moderators just creates some signons to make inflammatory posts to get the site activity up.

(2) If we don't have sufficient tax dollars coming from our own citizens, we won't be able to support our own military. This is a military defense issue, not just a simple economics issue.

(3) As has been posted before, tariffs are a legitimate means of government income and economic defense and are specifically cited in our Constitution.

[harpseal]

By the way I also am not a free trade or union thug I have made a good living in Software engineering and still continue to do so fixing the crap that comes in from H1b and overseas outsource programmers who can not write serious code.

That said I realize my future and the future of any children out there is tied to maintaining a strong economic base here in the USA. i have tried to adress pecific issues among the OPIC and tariffs and by adressing these specific issues I have been called names.