Posted on 08/25/2003 2:05:47 PM PDT by snopercod
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- This year's highly publicized job losses in North Carolina manufacturing, including the Pillowtex bankruptcy, could mean trouble next year for President Bush in a region that was a stronghold in 2000.
Bush won more than 56 percent of the vote in both North Carolina and South Carolina in 2000. But his strong support of free trade has turned some against him in the South, where U.S. trade policies are blamed for the loss of jobs in textiles and other manufacturing sectors.
Andy Warlick, chief executive officer of Parkdale Mills in Gaston County, said he doubts he will repeat his 2000 vote for Bush next year.
"He made a lot of promises and he hasn't delivered on any of them," Warlick said. "I've had some firsthand experience of him sending down trade and commerce officials, but they're just photo ops. It's empty rhetoric."
Fred Reese, the president of Western N.C. Industries, an employers' association, said executives are beginning to raise their voices against Bush and are planning education and voter drives.
"We're seeing a new dynamic where the executives and employees are both beginning to see a real threat to their interests. You're going to see people who traditionally voted Republican switch over," Reese predicted.
The hard feelings were on display days after Pillowtex's July 30 bankruptcy filing, when Republican U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes walked into a Kannapolis auditorium to meet with former workers.
"Thanks for sending the jobs overseas, Robin!" shouted Brenda Miller, a longtime worker at the textile giant's Salisbury plant.
In December 2001 Hayes -- who is an heir to the Cannon family textile fortune -- cast the tie-breaking vote to give Bush the authority to negotiate "fast-track" trade agreements, trade treaties that Congress must vote up or down with no amendments.
At the time, Hayes said he won promises from the Bush administration that it would more strictly enforce existing trade agreements and pressure foreign countries to open their markets to U.S. textiles.
"Are we pleased with the way they responded? Absolutely," Hayes said. "Are we satisfied with where we are? Absolutely not."
Jobs in many industries have fled overseas since 1993, when Congress passed the Clinton-backed North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. About half the textile and apparel jobs that existed in 1994 are gone.
Since Bush took office in January 2001, it is estimated North Carolina and South Carolina have lost more than 180,000 manufacturing jobs.
And even more textile jobs could be out the door once quotas on Chinese imports expire at the end of next year.
Republican U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger voted for NAFTA and fast-track, and has seen his 10th District lose nearly 40,000 jobs, primarily in the textile and furniture industries.
"Certainly, there's a political cost to any controversial vote no matter which side you take," he said. "People are casting stones, but we're trying to pick them up and build something."
Democratic U.S. Sen. John Edwards voted against fast-track in 2002 after voting for an earlier version. In 2000 he voted for permanent normal trade relations with China.
Recently, though, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Edwards has attacked Bush's trade policies and called for fairer trade measures.
Robert Neal, vice president of the local chapter of the Pillowtex workers' union, said Hayes has worked to try to ease the impact of job losses in his district.
"Though he (Hayes) voted for fast-track, he is really concerned about the workers and their conditions in the state of North Carolina," Neal said.
Not everyone feels that way.
Reese is organizing 1,500 manufacturing companies across North Carolina in an effort to leverage what he calls a new voting bloc.
In South Carolina, voter drives are planned for the first time at Milliken & Co., which has about 30 plants in the state. Mount Vernon Mills of Greenville, S.C., is forming a political action committee.
The company's president Roger Chastain, a one-time Bush voter, doesn't expect to support the president or Jim DeMint, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Ernest Hollings.
"We're basically liquidating our whole middle class, polarizing people on the two extremes, have and have-nots," Chastain said of the manufacturing job losses. "We'll be a Third World country."
Hmmmm. Needs a little more work...
Adapt. Endure. Improvise. Overcome. Upgrade your worth.
AEIOU (and sometimes y and w).
That works - survive by having a major vowel movement...
Some over-educated intellectual snob asked me (very sarcastically) if "popular culture" could ever edify and transform people as "great literature" could.
I pointed to the example of Heartbreak Ridge, and how that simple quote had become the foundation of my success.
I noted that even the shallowest action-adventure pulp novel teaches us that we are the masters or mistresses of our own destinies, no matter what challenges or problems come our way, but only if we have the courage to act and the willingness to accept the consequences of our actions.
The effete little snob didn't get either of my points.
"An investigation into 100 suspicious visa applications has ballooned into one of the nation's largest immigration fraud inquiries, covering as many as 3,500 people cleared to enter the country as religious ministers or multinational executives."
And, in all likelihood, discover that it was a third party from a country you'd accept as "OK," not the US firm itself.
BTW, the UN (who was administering the embargo) actually approved a lot of dual-use sales to Iraq between 1991 and 2003.
indict, prosecute, try, fry.
But, as always, you don't care about bourgeouis notions of "justice," because your goal falls under "purging class enemies."
And I've told you what you're likely to find--that a third party was the specific pipeline to Iraq.
Particularly, I am adamant about increasing the levels of both competence and productivity in the FBI, US Attorney, CIA and DIA.
"Productivity?"
Yeah, that's ALWAYS a good thing to have in a government agency, particularly when it's left undefined like that.
Clinton's IRS was "productive" in terms of how the President's political enemies just happened to get targeted for useless audits. That's a "productivity" increase.
With existing or even lesser funds, these agencies need to be held accountable for at least a 20% increase in investigations, arrests, indictments and successful prosecutions.
Wow. 20% more investigations, arrests, indictiments, and successful prosecutions. I notice that you don't seem to give a rat's keister whether or not the crimes are actually being committed to justify the convictions.
We see a few glimmers of hope. Kevin Ryan, for example, has, since being appointed by Bush to run the US Attorney's office in SF, cracked a number of industrial espionage cases involving PRC nationals who infiltrated local high tech firms and took intellectual property developed there straight to the PRC.
"Cracked?"
We have accusations, from a third party, not from Ryan's superior genius. BTW, the lead guy was a naturalized citizen, who would have been exempt from your paranoia.
Or maybe you'd just expand the circle to include naturalized citizens...anyone they marry...anyone they associate with...anyone who can spell their name properly...
It just won't stop for you, will it?
Try 'em and fry 'em, just like Dr. Savage says.
What next? When the jury doesn't convict, try and fry the jurors, too? Hey, maybe we can have a Star Chamber while we're at it.
I'm excruciatingly well-paid to fix code the folks in India screw up.
As awful as the exporting of our jobs -- and the rewarding of mediocrity and punishing of excellence in the American workplace -- are, I believe there is something even more insidious going on behind the scenes that is destroying the economic security of us all, and making the fact that we work to build ourselves a secure economic future almost laughable.
Are you at all familiar with the E.S.F. (the Treasury Department’s Exchange Stabilization Fund)? If not, you may want to do some research on it. It is a government arm (created and originally financed by the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 to contribute to exchange rate stability and counter disorderly conditions in the foreign exchange market) whose operations are conducted through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The original Gold Reserve Act authorized the E.S.F. to deal in gold, foreign exchange, securities, and instruments of credit, under the exclusive control of the Secretary of the Treasury subject to the approval of the President. The E.S.F. is not accountable to Congress, and therefore not accountable to the American people either.
Our own (said tongue-in-cheek) E.S.F. has been very instrumental in the decades long manipulation of the price of gold, and in gold swapping -- just two of its many activities geared, with the ascent of the Fed, to paint a picture of American economic ‘prosperity’ at the expense of the ignorant (not meant in a derogatory way – simply in an uninformed way) American worker. The E.S.F. has participated (and even invented itself) many a budgetary shell game – working hand-in-hand with the Fed – in order to deceive the American people into believing that the obscene deficit, the exporting of our manufacturing jobs, and the growing worthlessness of the dollar are simply silly mirages painted by people suffering from economic/financial paranoia.
What is even more frightening is that, when the U.S. adopted the revised articles of agreement of the International Monetary Fund in 1978, Congress amended the Gold Reserve Act to provide that the dealings of the ESF were to be consistent with U.S. obligations to the IMF. So not only is a (pretty much surreptitious) branch of our government working feverishly against its own citizens’ economic well-being, but it is also, in part, answerable to the infamous IMF.
The E.S.F. is an institution not consistent with a republican form of government, and is accountable to no one but those few whose agenda is anything but America-friendly. Its current function has little to do with its original definition, and it is used by the Treasury Department and the Fed to circumvent Congress in an effort to shore up the worthless dollar (at the expense of a free and un-manipulated economic market).
As you know, John, I am invested in gold and gold stocks as a defensive play against what I see as an approaching economic calamity. But, even there, there is no guarantee that what you see is what you get. We are at the mercy of both government, and corporate, power and money-brokers whose last consideration is the genuine health and prosperity of America and her people. And they have reduced world economic theory to a board game in which they control virtually every roll of the dice.
I own a little gold, too, but am realistic about how much it will help me and my family if things really go to hell (economically speaking). If gold ever reaches $2500 per oz., the government will simply confiscate it like they did last time. By "confiscate", I mean thay you will not be able to sell it (legally) to buy the things you need.
A secure home in a remote area will be more valuable than all the gold in the world.
Executive order: By virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 5(B) of The Act of Oct. 6, 1917, as amended by section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, in which Congress declared that a serious emergency exists, I as President, do declare that the national emergency still exists;
That the continued private hoarding of gold and silver by subjects of the United States poses a grave threat to the peace, equal justice, and well-being of the United States; and that appropriate measures must be taken immediately to protect the interests of our people.
"Therefore, pursuant to the above authority, I herby proclaim that such gold and silver holdings are prohibited, and that all such coin, bullion or other possessions of gold and silver be tendered within fourteen days to agents of the Government of the United States for compensation at the official price, in the legal tender of the Government. All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed, pending action in the due course of the law. All sales or purchases or movements of such gold and silver within the borders of the United States and its territories, and all foreign exchange transactions or movements of such metals across the border are herby prohibited.
"Your possession of these proscribed metals and/or your maintenance of a safe-deposit box to store them is known to the Government from bank and insurance records. Therefore, be advised that your vault box must remain sealed, and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of The Internal Revenue Service.
"By lawful Order given this day, the President of the United States."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.