Hershey Closing Peppermint Patties Plant in Pa. (moving to Mexico)

Business Week ^ | 2/20/09 | AP

[WorkingClassFilth]

Mmmmm! Now Hershey’s can advertise their products as ‘New and Improved! Now with 100% more slave labor in every delicious bite!’

[org.whodat]

ROFLOL, this is the result of cheap labor.

[mysterio]

As opposed to removing trade barriers with slave labor markets in the name of free market capitalism and then supporting bailouts and massive deficit spending. That’s much better than paying an American worker to make a chocolate bar.

[org.whodat]

Not to worry. They will still be distributed through Bentonville, AK (sarc)

Like all of those Chinese fruits washed in good old river water with that brown stuff floating in it.

[cripplecreek]

It’s kinda funny how these companies can buy politicians that will give them their way on immigration but they can’t buy politicians to ease restrictions and regulations.

[1rudeboy]

That’s much better than paying an American worker to make a chocolate bar.

And again, that's your problem: you are paying American workers not to make a chocolate bar and fail to see it.

[Tribune7]

ping

[Tribune7]

This is the result of protectionist policies choosing sugar beet growers over those who produce candy products.

That's a good point

[Mark was here]

ROFLOL, this is the result of cheap labor.

Nothing gets by you, of course they are going to have Mexicans putting each candy in a package by hand. Raw material costs are not even worth mentioning in this discussion, because everyone knows we have the least expensive sugar in the world.

[Mark was here]

It’s kinda funny how these companies can buy politicians that will give them their way on immigration but they can’t buy politicians to ease restrictions and regulations.

When is the last time any one stood up to the Farm Lobby? The are the masters of the game. They get paid not to grow crops! Both parties pull down their britches and ask the farm lobby to shaft them.

[Will88]

Yeah, it has nothing to do with the fact that Mexican workers only make $1 to $2.60 an hour.

Totally true, and it's never ceases to amaze how many free trade apologists jump in each thread and pretend that companies are leaving the USA because of corporate taxes, or unions, or environmental regs, etc. They leave for cheap labor, and anything else is just a minor bonus.

And all these people who think they're for free trade but against open borders will prove to have been some of the most useful, useful idiots in all history. Our political elites and corporate elites well know that to truly have free trade, we must have the free movement of labor as well as the free movement of capital and goods and services.

Some day these so called free traders who oppose open borders will open their eyes, and realize what truly useful idiots they were. But, for now, they really enjoy pretending their version of free trade is all that's being pursued.

[1rudeboy]

That's an interesting point, and someone should look into it. Let's assume that Hershey's shuts three plants in the U.S. and moves production to one plant in Mexico. Assume also that each U.S. plant employs 300 workers.

Does that necessarily mean that 900 jobs are created in Mexico? If the number is fewer than 900, does that mean that labor cost isn't as important a factor as people want to believe?

(I'm just navel-gazing.)

[CowboyJay]

What some fail to understand is that immigration (legal and illegal) is the enemy of offshoring.

People still buying this with millions of Americans out of work? There's no labor shortage in this country. We have a labor glut.

The people doing the onshoring and the offshoring both have the same goal. They want to make us as poor as the rest of the world.

I'm going to miss my candy bars, but not as much as those 300 people will miss their jobs.

[cripplecreek]

For that matter, when was the last time anybody stood up to the WTO and all their regulations and restrictions.

[1rudeboy]

Our political elites and corporate elites well know that to truly have free trade, we must have the free movement of labor as well as the free movement of capital and goods and services.

Milton Friedman argued that free movement of labor could be possible if we abolished the welfare state . . . but it was more of an intellectual exercise for him

As for the rest of your comment, nice strawman.

[Netizen]

Do you think the tarrifs are keeping the sugar prices high or the fact that less is grown, than in years before.

And while total U.S. cane and beet acreage has declined dramatically over the last few years, cane has dropped most precipitously. Hawaii alone has lost more than 60 percent of its cane fields over the last five years -- victims of urbanization and conversion to better-paying crops like macadamia nuts and coffee, says Roehl Flores , director of marketing for C & H Cane Sugar Co.

[1rudeboy]

For that matter, when was the last time anybody stood up to the WTO and all their regulations and restrictions[?]

Again, the farm lobby (including the sugar industry) is standing-up to the WTO rather well.

[Iscool]

Protectionism on steel lost more jobs than it saved as appliance manufacturers and others factories that used steel found it to be the last straw in pushing them outside the USA.

Craaaazy, man...Put tarriffs on the Mexican junk and the factories would have stayed here...

People would still have jobs...People would be buying appliances AND automobiles...

Wages would balance with the costs of production...

[RC2]

Buy American folks. Make it part of your life to look to see where a product is made. If we all do that, we will put more Americans back to work.

[freekitty]

I won’t be buying anything Hershey anymore.