Somethings happening in Texas.

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Originally posted by Jugflier:
BFRED,
Sometime, drive around the industrial parks and look at the empty manufacturing buildings.

Not to argue, but I doubt NAFTA created your job.

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If you are talking the about the empty buildings where T-Shirt plants used to be that was only a matter of time anyway

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Originally posted by Jugflier:

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If you are talking the about the empty buildings where T-Shirt plants used to be that was only a matter of time anyway

Glad you can tell the future. You got any stock tips?

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Originally posted by BFred07:

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Originally posted by Jugflier:

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If you are talking the about the empty buildings where T-Shirt plants used to be that was only a matter of time anyway

Glad you can tell the future. You got any stock tips?

Has nothing to do with predicting the future, before NAFTA was ever passed apparel companies were already flocking to Mexico because before NAFTA wages in Mexico for that type work was generally less than the equal of 70 cents per hour compared with around $7 to $10 per hour here. NAFTA did not reduce costs to import all of that much, it eliminated a tax on goods made in Mexico and allowed raw materials to go back and forth during the manufacturing process without paying a tax but we still have the broker fees at the border. Sad thing is that in Mexico since wages have gone up so much the apparel companies have started to migrate to China (again not a "future prediction", just saying what's already happening).
Most people have very little understanding about what NAFTA is and the ones that bash it are mostly very ignorant on the subject, if NAFTA were to be repealed there would be a lot of jobs leaving both the U.S. and Mexico, it would have some negative effect on Canada but as things are right now NAFTA makes it very easy to export to Canada from the U.S. which of course means more jobs here at home.

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Originally posted by Jugflier:

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Originally posted by BFred07:

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Originally posted by Jugflier:

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If you are talking the about the empty buildings where T-Shirt plants used to be that was only a matter of time anyway

Glad you can tell the future. You got any stock tips?

Has nothing to do with predicting the future, before NAFTA was ever passed apparel companies were already flocking to Mexico because before NAFTA wages in Mexico for that type work was generally less than the equal of 70 cents per hour compared with around $7 to $10 per hour here. NAFTA did not reduce costs to import all of that much, it eliminated a tax on goods made in Mexico and allowed raw materials to go back and forth during the manufacturing process without paying a tax but we still have the broker fees at the border. Sad thing is that in Mexico since wages have gone up so much the apparel companies have started to migrate to China (again not a "future prediction", just saying what's already happening).
Most people have very little understanding about what NAFTA is and the ones that bash it are mostly very ignorant on the subject, if NAFTA were to be repealed there would be a lot of jobs leaving both the U.S. and Mexico, it would have some negative effect on Canada but as things are right now NAFTA makes it very easy to export to Canada from the U.S. which of course means more jobs here at home.

BFRED,
With all do respect, before NAFTA there existed a thing called tarriffs. NAFTA expedited the exodus of jobs by eliminating tarriffs designed to protect the American way of life.

What you are advocating is corporate socialism.

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it is sorta like the three of us teaming up against Asia and the EU to compete on a world market and a defense against more of our jobs heading to China.

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Really I would love to see imports from China tagged with a bit higher tariff

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Originally posted by seeweed:
Gotta admit I don't keep up much with Texas politics, but this woman sounds like she would be an excellent choice.
Perry thinks Texas can succeed, and has said he wanted to do so (I guess the last time was no lesson in history for him), and he is about crazy.
Kay Bailey is just a bobble-head for the National Republican party.
This woman could be good.

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Originally posted by Jugflier:

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it is sorta like the three of us teaming up against Asia and the EU to compete on a world market and a defense against more of our jobs heading to China.

It doesn't seem to be working.

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Really I would love to see imports from China tagged with a bit higher tariff

So let's see. We cut one guys taxes and raise another. We cut taxes on Mexico because it's in our interest and raise taxes on China when it isn't. Do you realize the hogwash of that argument?

Now if you believe corporate socialism, you are supposed to eliminate all tarrifs because it cuts into corporate profits, and you eliminate the American way of life in the process. (That is cutting all tarriffs.)

You can't have it both ways. Either tarriffs are to protect the American way of life or they aren't. You can't arbitrarily raise and lower taffiffs indescriminately, you would be following the Democratic policy on income taxes, only on a global scale.

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Originally posted by BFred07:

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Originally posted by Jugflier:

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it is sorta like the three of us teaming up against Asia and the EU to compete on a world market and a defense against more of our jobs heading to China.

It doesn't seem to be working.

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Really I would love to see imports from China tagged with a bit higher tariff

So let's see. We cut one guys taxes and raise another. We cut taxes on Mexico because it's in our interest and raise taxes on China when it isn't. Do you realize the hogwash of that argument?

Now if you believe corporate socialism, you are supposed to eliminate all tarrifs because it cuts into corporate profits, and you eliminate the American way of life in the process. (That is cutting all tarriffs.)

You can't have it both ways. Either tarriffs are to protect the American way of life or they aren't. You can't arbitrarily raise and lower taffiffs indescriminately, you would be following the Democratic policy on income taxes, only on a global scale.

You can have it both ways, it is in the best interest of the U.S. to have NAFTA however the trade balance with several other countries is way off. Whereas NAFTA has balanced taking down trade barriers between all 3 countries our agreements with China and several other countries are tipped in favor of the other countries. If we are taking down a barrier for them they should take the same or equal barrier down for us.

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Trade deficits also have a direct impact on wages, especially for non-college educated workers, who make up three-quarters of the U.S. labor force. The other line in Figure 1 shows that the average real wage for U.S. production workers peaked in 1978, declining more or less steadily through 1996. Real wages have begun to increase in the past 3 years. However, the small upturn increased real wages by only 4.5%, not nearly enough to offset a decline of more than 11% since the 1978, nor to return workers to the path of steadily rising wages they experienced from 1950 through 1973.

What is responsible for the decline in U.S. wages? Trade is certainly one of the most significant causes, because it hurts workers in several ways. First, the steady growth in our trade deficits over the past two decades has eliminated millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs. As we showed in another recent EPI report, trade eliminated 2.4 million jobs in the U.S between 1979 and 1994 (Scott, Lee and Schmitt 1997). Growing trade deficits eliminate good jobs and reduce average wages in the economy. Since then, many more jobs have been lost to NAFTA and other sources of our trade problems, including China, and recently, Europe.

The second way in which trade depresses wages is through the growth in imports from low wage countries. If the prices of these products fall, it puts downward pressure on prices in the U.S. Domestic firms are forced to cut wages or otherwise reduce their own labor costs in response. A third way in which globalization depresses wages is through foreign direct investment. When U.S. firms move plants to low wage countries, as they have done at an increasing rate in recent years, it has a chilling affect on the labor market. The mere threat of plant closure is often sufficient to extract wage cuts from workers. This tactic has also been used with increasing frequency in the 1990s and is effective even when plants don't move.

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Most economists now acknowledge that trade is responsible for 20 to 25 percent of the increase in income inequality which has occurred in the U.S. over the past two decades. However, existing research can only explain about half of the change in income inequality. Therefore, trade is responsible for about 40% of the explainable share of increased income inequality. The rest is due to forces such as declining unionization, and inflation-induced erosion in the value of the minimum wage.

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Originally posted by Jugflier:
You need to spend some time here.

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/j...load/trade_graph.pdf

As you can see, there is a direct correllation with the decline of our country and the establishment of NAFTA and MFN for China.

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AFLCIO? Not a place where you will get a very objective opinion. We can both get into the "post an article" war because there are plenty on both sides of the debate with phrases like "most economists".

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Everything I have said is based on facts, NAFTA has helped all three countries maintain exports which of course means jobs that would otherwise be in China or another truly low wage country. Not only do I see the stats that everyone else sees but I get to see the tangible benefits of NAFTA. I get to see a lot of jobs created and jobs that were saved as a result of NAFTA.

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For manufactured goods, our trade deficit rose to $536 billion, from $504 billion. In Bush's six years, America has run a total trade deficit of $2.6 trillion in manufactured goods, as 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared and wages in that sector have fallen 3 percent in three years.

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Recall NAFTA. In 1993, we had a trade surplus with Mexico. Some of us warned it would be gone with the wind if NAFTA passed. And NAFTA did pass, through the collaboration of Clinton Democrats with Gingrich Republicans, over the opposition of the American people.

Since 1994, we have run a trade deficit with Mexico every year. In 2006, it hit a record $60 billion. Grand total: almost $500 billion in trade deficits with Mexico since NAFTA. Mexico now exports more than 900,000 vehicles to the United States every year, while the United States exports fewer than 600,000 cars and trucks to the entire world.

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"Free trade is essential to the creation of high-paying quality jobs," said Bush on Thursday. But if exports create jobs (and they do), imports displace them. And if we import half a trillion dollars more in manufactures than we export, is not Bush trade policy literally slaughtering industrial jobs?

Is there not a correlation between $4.3 trillion in trade deficits under Bush, the 3 million manufacturing jobs lost under Bush, the fall of the dollar by 50 percent against the euro under Bush and the resurgence of inflation, signaled by a quadrupling of the price of gold, under Bush?

Neither Hillary nor Obama has laid out a new trade-and-tax policy to deal with the de-industrialization of America and our deepening dependency on foreign technology, manufactures and the loans to pay for them. But at least they are listening to the country.

John McCain seems blind and deaf to the crisis. In Michigan, he informed autoworkers their "jobs are not coming back" and explained his philosophy: "I'm a student of history. Every time the United States has become protectionist ... we've paid a very heavy price."

This is ahistorical nonsense. From 1860 to 1913, the United States was the most protectionist nation on earth and produced the most awesome growth of any nation in history. In 1860, the U.S. economy was half of Britain's; in 1913, more than twice Britain's.

In 1920, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge won a landslide, cut income taxes from Wilson's 69 percent to 25 percent and doubled tariffs. America went on a tear. When Coolidge went home in 1929, the United States was producing 42 percent of the world's manufactured goods.

Who were America's protectionists?

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison moved the Tariff Act of 1789 through Congress. Aided by Henry Clay, John Calhoun, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, President Madison enacted the Tariff of 1816 to protect U.S. infant industries from British dumping.

Abraham Lincoln used Morrill Tariff revenue to fight the Civil War. The 11 GOP presidents who followed, from 1865 to 1929, all protectionists, made America the greatest industrial power in history, with a standard of living never before seen. Mocking protectionism, McCain is repudiating Republican history and all its achievements up to the era of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.

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Additionally none of the stats you show can be definitively pinned on NAFTA, there are way to many factors out there.

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I am saying I do not think NAFTA is to blame for the deficits.

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I am also convinced from what I have seen that NAFTA has created more jobs than what critics claim it cost.

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Originally posted by BFred07:
Do I trust the Government, geez do you even need to ask? Even if I did these tables were not published by the U.S. Government anyway they were not made by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S.Labor Department, or any other government agency. The charts were made by EPI and reflect their analysis of data from those agencies. No NAFTA did not cause trade deficits. Learn what NAFTA is if you want to argue any points on it and be ready to sit down a while because there is a lot of reading and research to do. How can you decide if you like or do not like something you know nothing about (excuse me for making an assumption but I can tell from a lot of what you have written that your knowledge of the agreement is nil).

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Originally posted by Jugflier:

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Originally posted by BFred07:
Do I trust the Government, geez do you even need to ask? Even if I did these tables were not published by the U.S. Government anyway they were not made by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S.Labor Department, or any other government agency. The charts were made by EPI and reflect their analysis of data from those agencies. No NAFTA did not cause trade deficits. Learn what NAFTA is if you want to argue any points on it and be ready to sit down a while because there is a lot of reading and research to do. How can you decide if you like or do not like something you know nothing about (excuse me for making an assumption but I can tell from a lot of what you have written that your knowledge of the agreement is nil).

I have already documented my case with good sound economics. If you want to rely on the Rush Limbaugh/Milton Friedman failed Chicago school of economics go right ahead.

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Originally posted by interventor12:
Much of the US trade deficit does not involve goods, but commodities. Oil being the most important.

For example, in 2008, the US imported $673.3 billion in trade.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...ll-sha_n_176238.html

Oil imports in 2008 were valued at $342 billion.

http://import-export.suite101....imports_exports_2008

The presence or absence of NAFTA or unions can effect that.

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Originally posted by kperk014:

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Originally posted by Jugflier:

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Originally posted by BFred07:
Do I trust the Government, geez do you even need to ask? Even if I did these tables were not published by the U.S. Government anyway they were not made by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S.Labor Department, or any other government agency. The charts were made by EPI and reflect their analysis of data from those agencies. No NAFTA did not cause trade deficits. Learn what NAFTA is if you want to argue any points on it and be ready to sit down a while because there is a lot of reading and research to do. How can you decide if you like or do not like something you know nothing about (excuse me for making an assumption but I can tell from a lot of what you have written that your knowledge of the agreement is nil).

I have already documented my case with good sound economics. If you want to rely on the Rush Limbaugh/Milton Friedman failed Chicago school of economics go right ahead.

So I guess you are in favor of government control of our economy (communism).

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Originally posted by kperk014:
Milton Friedman failed Chicago school of economics

The reason ALL models will fail is because we continue to pay people trillions of dollars to NOT work. Well that money for the slackers has to come from somewhere. Guess where that is.