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The hidden cost of free trade
THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | September 18, 2005 | Jeffrey Sparshott

Posted on 09/18/2005 9:19:51 AM PDT by Willie Green

Angel Mills worked at GST AutoLeather in Williamsport, Md., most of her adult life. She cut, inspected, packed and shipped leather upholstery until she was laid off in June 2003 as the company scaled back local operations and shifted production to Mexico.

"It's sad. It's scary. I've been a factory worker all my life, and I didn't know what I wanted to do," said Ms. Mills, a 38-year-old Williamsport resident with a teenage son.

But by March 2004 she was taking a half-year course to become a state-licensed massage therapist. A federal program that helps workers who lose jobs owing to foreign competition paid for her training and offered extended unemployment benefits.

In July, she started working at Venetian Salon and Spa in Hagerstown, Md.

~~~SNIP~~~

Mr. Thomas said that for all trade adjustment program workers passing through the consortium, the average wage was $14.36 an hour before the layoffs, while after retraining it was $11.87 an hour, a decline that is common for factory workers who have to restart their lives.

U.S. Labor Department figures indicate that among the retrained, those that find new jobs end up making only 70 percent to 80 percent of their old wages on average.

(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: cafta; corporatism; freetrade; freetraitors; globalism; nafta; offshoring; protectmeplease; racetothebottom; thebusheconomy; wagesandbenefits
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To: Sam the Sham
A factor that free market fools fail to comprehend...

A factor you are not comprehending is that people will not pay $500 for a DVD player that used to cost $50.

Fact it. The US cannot afford many products if businesses are forced to pay UAW wages for jobs that require the skill of any Burger King worker.

421 posted on 09/21/2005 11:59:15 AM PDT by linkinpunk
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To: superiorslots

I'll give it a look.


422 posted on 09/21/2005 12:00:03 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy; superiorslots
I may be wrong, but as long as the two of us are blowing smoke, England's economy at the turn of the 20th Century was mercantilist in nature.

You may be wrong, 1rudeboy? You are ridiculously wrong. England was free trade all the way since the end of the Corn Laws.

And obviously the decline of blue collar living standards since 1980 has everything in the world to do with the deindustrialization of America because of free trade. As superiorslots so wisely saw the symptoms of moral collapse (crystal meth, the profusion of "gentlemen's clubs") come from economic decline, just as heroin skyrocketed among urban blacks as the light industrial jobs they did were exported in the 60's.

423 posted on 09/21/2005 12:00:21 PM PDT by Sam the Sham (A conservative party tough on illegal immigration could carry California in 2008)
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To: Sam the Sham

I can't speak for England, but shouldn't you be able to show the decline in "blue collar living standards" here in the U.S., especially if the decline is as dramatic as you claim?


424 posted on 09/21/2005 12:03:15 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Willie Green

later read


425 posted on 09/21/2005 12:05:15 PM PDT by Red6
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To: 1rudeboy
Are you suggesting that a Chinese purchase of Maytag Corporation in 2005 will grant it access to Maytag Aircraft, which happens to have been founded by someone with that surname, and hasn't even been in the family since 1982?

Just because the family may no longer be directly involved doesn't mean that long-time vendor/supplier relationships don't still exist. Heck even the Maytag Appliance company timeline states: "1941-45 Maytag discontinued washer manufacturing and made parts for military aircraft."

So how do YOU know that Maytag appliance isn't still supplying components to Maytag Aircraft and Mercury Air Group???

426 posted on 09/21/2005 12:19:23 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: Designer
"..that's why only a traitor would want his import taxes cut."   I don't understand.

Neither do I, but there's a consensus on this thread that uses "traitor" to describe anyone who wants lower import taxes.  Maybe those guys are old fashioned Tories that didn't want the colonies fighting King George's import taxes.  The Brits used hang as traitor anyone who spoke out against import taxes.   Perhaps neutrino, superiorslots, and Willie Green really are more 'conservative' then we are after all.

427 posted on 09/21/2005 12:19:30 PM PDT by expat_panama
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To: Willie Green
So how do YOU know that Maytag appliance isn't still supplying components to Maytag Aircraft and Mercury Air Group???

Easily. You assert it as fact.

428 posted on 09/21/2005 12:25:05 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy
Easily. You assert it as fact.

You denied any relationship whatsoever.
I proved that a relationship DOES exist.
We're deep within the entangled interdependency of our industrial infrastructure.
Exotic high-tech industries can only exist at the pinnacle, they are the icing on the cake.
But if you constantly demonize and outsource the more "mudane" and so-called "buggywhip" industries, the whole house of cards collapses. That's what you really want, isn't it??? You can't stand America's industrial prowess, so you advocate "free" trade policies that will undermine the very foundation of our technological superiority.

429 posted on 09/21/2005 12:38:12 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: Willie Green
Stop it with the semantics Willie; you proved nothing but the fact that Maytag Aircraft was founded by someone with the last name of Maytag, and that even that relation ended decades ago.
430 posted on 09/21/2005 12:40:40 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Willie Green
Once more, for emphasis.

". . . there is no relation between Maytag Aircraft and Maytag."

431 posted on 09/21/2005 12:42:45 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

Companies don't abandon close relationships with their vendors simply because the stuffed shirts in the executive suites play musical chairs.


432 posted on 09/21/2005 12:48:30 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: nyconse
You don't get it...the jobs are not being replaced with good paying jobs.

How about a little proof? Wages going down? Link?

People can't afford to buy anything.

How about a little proof? Consumer spending dropping? Link?

433 posted on 09/21/2005 12:51:09 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (If you agree with Marx, the AFL-CIO and E.P.I. please stop calling yourself a conservative!!)
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To: Willie Green
For the last time Willie, you have yet to establish a close relation in the first place.

Your grandson goes off and forms Green Aircraft. He sells it. More than twenty years later some guy using Google claims that Green Aircraft is related to the company you founded much earlier. C'mon.

434 posted on 09/21/2005 12:52:58 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: nyconse
Why don't you check...Starbucks is about to end benefits for their workers.

Why don't you check? You made the assertion that service jobs have few or no benefits. How many employees does Starbucks have? Is it close to the 140 million Americans that have jobs? Or is it a tiny fraction of 140 million? I'll repeat myself, I work in the service sector and my benefits are great. As long as we're just going to use anecdotes, mine proves that all service sector benefits are great.

Also, Mexican workers have really lowered the salaries in many of these industries-double edged sword-immigration and free trade.

I agree, we need to close the border and send the illegals back.

435 posted on 09/21/2005 12:55:06 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (If you agree with Marx, the AFL-CIO and E.P.I. please stop calling yourself a conservative!!)
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To: 1rudeboy
"Free trade will lead to socialism, so we should enact socialist policies now and avoid the wait."

That's known as Willie logic. Cheap foreign steel will drive expensive US steel out of business. Foreigners will then raise prices. So to avoid higher priced foreign steel in the future we need to make all steel more expensive, NOW!!!

Willie logic!!

436 posted on 09/21/2005 1:00:00 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (If you agree with Marx, the AFL-CIO and E.P.I. please stop calling yourself a conservative!!)
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To: Tench_Coxe
people tend to mistake the US as a pure market-capitalist system. It is not. The US has a mixed economic system.

My sin was to take a definition of "capitalism" out of a dictionary.   That's wrong because "capitalism" is not a term that needs a definition, it's a concept that needs an understanding.  My Econ 1A prof used to describe communism as "state capitalism" because the capitalist market mechanisms of supply and demand were being used to allocate resources, it was just that the state (and not the individual) was setting the prices.

Just like the protectionists that want the state to control prices with import taxes in order to decide who gets what.

437 posted on 09/21/2005 1:07:22 PM PDT by expat_panama
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To: Sam the Sham
But then a car loan was 3 years. Now it can be 7. What does that tell you ?

It tells me consumers now have more choices.

438 posted on 09/21/2005 1:08:21 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (If you agree with Marx, the AFL-CIO and E.P.I. please stop calling yourself a conservative!!)
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To: 1rudeboy
Your grandson goes off and forms Green Aircraft. He sells it. More than twenty years later some guy using Google claims that Green Aircraft is related to the company you founded much earlier. C'mon.

And since Green Appliance happens to make aircraft components, guess who's going to be one of my preferred vendors...
Yep, that's right! Try to keep it "all in the family".... one hand washes the other...
And after twenty years or so, the relationship becomes deeply rooted in the corporate culture, whether I remain at the helm or not.
All the peon salesman/buyers/engineers have been thoroughly indoctrinated in the relationship.
Oh, it may eventually fade with time, but generally the more senior employees will continue to train the newbies before they retire. It's called "networking". Probably still going on at Maytag Appliance and Maytag Aircraft. Perhaps not as much as in "the good old days" but I bet it's still there. It's kind of like dandelions... once established, it's darn near impossible to get rid of!!!

439 posted on 09/21/2005 1:10:36 PM PDT by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: Toddsterpatriot
But then a car loan was 3 years. Now it can be 7. What does that tell you ?

It tells me consumers now have more choices.

Frankly, that made no rational sense whatsoever. If the car loan has to be stretched because the consumer can no longer afford to buy a new car in 3 years, and the price of the car is the same adjusted for inflation, obviously the buying power of the purchaser has dropped considerable from 1970.

440 posted on 09/21/2005 1:13:23 PM PDT by Sam the Sham (A conservative party tough on illegal immigration could carry California in 2008)
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