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."
No I think it could worsen the situation. Many times the companies really are outsourcing to foreign firms as opposed to simply relocating their own operations elsewhere.
This proposal could cause CEO's to want to outsource their lowest paid employees as a way of raising their average wage. And if they are going to outsource the jobs anyway, why not go foreign.
A company, for one quarter, generated 88 million in profit. We expected it to be 100 million this quarter. Let's devalue the company by a quarter. There is no logic there. It's emotionality.
Even though it was a dumb Hollywood movie, I loved the scene in Trading Places, where Eddie Murphy told the head honcho to hold off buying pork belly futures, because people were desperate, it was christmas, and they would start selling for lower, because they wanted extra money to buy their kids GI joes with the kung fu grips, and a nice present for their wife so they would have sex.
Sometimes, it really is that simple. Wall Street has turned into the lottery and gambling for many people. Many people who would have played the horses, or bet the Knicks are betting Eli Lilly instead. The same kind of pathology often applies. I would bet that the majority of day traders bet on sports as well.
Goes against Free trade by having an American do the work.
The last half of your response is untilligable to anyone but you as it relates to the question.
These people are the one who decide elections.
The Free trade advocates don't care about that they want their political correctness from the right. Yet the allegations of Communist or Nazi flow freely from them. Now as to "Free Traitor" many of them complain about that term and many of them egg people on to use it. Are you noticing similarities in methodology to some other group or groups.
Free trade doesn't care who does the work, just that the consumer (trader) gets the best possible benefit.
They would preclude the NWO goals of RINO Bush, don' cha know.
Which is why economics will continue to confound you. How much I want one apple can't be measured and compared to how much you want an apple, or how much either of us would want a hundred apples. Valuation is subjective and as importantly, temporal. Liberty lets the individual use their talents to satisfy their wants as they see fit, you're trying to pull the levers of government coercion to get an outcome you desire, your fellow man's liberty and desires be damned.
The mathematical approach to economics was attempted by the GOSPLANners, who were confounded by reality at every turn. You want to substitute your wisdom for the wisdom in action of 280 million independent and free human beings. We're just so many cogs in the machine you envision as the economy.
Anyone who doesn't grasp the significance of this issue...will be out of power January 2005.
And then we will all be in REAL trouble...
So you don’t make a distinction between a government “taking care” of it’s people (I’m assuming you mean in the same sense as social entitlements) and a government looking out for the general well being of the nations business practices in international trade? There is a distinction.
The government imposing tariffs on nations that engage in unfair trade practices does not guarantee any prospective US employee a job. There is no entitlement. Only better opportunity to go out and make ones own way and this is (IMHO) exactly what the Fed should be doing. Working to make it easier for people to TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES and to improve their lot in life and making it easier for businesses to operate domestically (less regulation and limited liability).
You tell 'em, Pollyanna!
I do not assume the government improves the 'general well being' of the nation by making goods more expensive than they otherwise would be. It is by realizing new efficiencies, not by restricting access to them, that new capital savings can be realized and provide the resources for continued growth.
The government imposing tariffs on nations that engage in unfair trade practices does not guarantee any prospective US employee a job.
Correct, but it does guarantee a consumer has to pay more for a product, thus leaving him less capital to invest, or otherwise spend to improve his standard of living. Hence my distaste for government intervention in the markets.
this is (IMHO) exactly what the Fed should be doing. Working to make it easier for people to TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES and to improve their lot in life and making it easier for businesses to operate domestically (less regulation and limited liability).
I'm all for less regulation, I just don't think increased regulation of trade is the vehicle that will get us there.
Get a smaller house? ~ Texas_Dawg
I see. My 1000 sq ft 1906 vintage house is too good for me?
Sell the stupid computer you are using to get online about what jobs you've been too good for over the past year of unemployment (as that guy was doing) ~ Texas_Dawg
And were I a carpenter, would you expect me to sell my saw and hammers?
Dude, on the off chance you're living in a cave, engineers use computers for their jobs. I still have my slide rule, but it's lousy for report writing. It's terrible for editing resumes to specificly target a given job opening. And it's hopeless for finding job leads on the web.
and cancel your internet bills? ~ Texas_Dawg
Just by happenstance I cancled my earthlink account yesterday. Happy now?
Did you recognize your kindred spirits?
The line of the day...
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