NAFTA and unemployment: "We told ya so!" - or, tried to tell ya

From the 'no shit Sherlock' desk;

"Consumer spending is going to have a very difficult time recovering with the labor market as weak as it is," said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_economy

Those of us frustrated by "New Dems" and corporatists blocking the anti-NAFTA message in the media, tried to warn:
IF THERE ARE NO JOBS LEFT IN AMERICA, THERE WILL BE NO MONEY TO BUY YOUR STUFF!
I dropped my subscription to the local newspaper when the constatnt pro-NAFTA slant began to make my head explode. Now it's dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Duh

So here we are. Corporatists own the Republican party and much of the Democratic party. And they're going to have a helluva hangover when this little party is over.

they just figure on selling their stuff in other countries instead.

Or if no money in other countries either, buying the damn country and retiring there to an enclave.

Welcome to DU!
:hi:

This is actually my 2nd time around. Gave up a +1000 login a while back because I was scrubbing my personal info from the internet. Fears of identity theft and all that.

gee, trying to think of the right word. . . right?, nah, beneficial? nah, Oh, I know.

NAFTA-type ideas will only be successful when they are written to bring others up to (what used to be) USAs and Canadas standards, not the other way around. The way these things are written now, well, every bit of evidence indicates that NAFTA hasn't been as beneficial for other countries labor forces and our pocket books (as in lower prices here because of slave labor there) as it has been detrimental to our labor force and the influx of illegal aliens (though the recession seems to be having an effect there now, my point is not to be anti-immigration, but to point out that it was supposed to make folks happy to stay in their own country, wasn't that one of the perks we were told about?).

In the end it doesn't need to be repealed, we can't close our doors like that anymore, I think that time has past. But it needs to be rewritten based on the advancement of the labor force because the labor forces are a country's and the world's key consumer base. And if nothing else is evident to me through out these recent economic collapses, the glaring truth is that ongoing, reliable economic growth occurs through one of two things, sometimes both, a solid consumer base that spends (ie has something to spend) or military spending.

Seriously, there's not a conflict anywhere that doesn't have its true basis in economic hardships. Even the so-called religious uprisings are because those economic hardships seem to break at a religious affiliation level, from my humble observations and understandings.

NAFTA, the idea isn't bad, but the actual agreement and the execution here to date entirely suck eggs.

Job-creating, economic growth-inducing, peaceful relations-causing.

:hi:

but the facts seem to say otherwise.

and have been in one conflagration or another consistently for over 50 years. Not a student of recent history? :shrug:

in those countries.

Doubt he would stand for Afghanistan to freely trade in its #1 cash crop, all his platitudes about "free trade" to the contrary. Wars the only thing for it!

Turns out that these "peaceful relations-causing" effects of globalism only work if you kill a LOT of people.

Very few are buying it anymore.

How's it feel to be the Dem version of a neocon?

Don't blame me, my response to you is utterly peaceful.

Free trade among European countries has led them to peace and prosperity, so his frame of reference would be different from ours. :) Now that they are interdependent in their trade with each other, they have avoided wars for 64 years (probably a European record) and have achieved an impressive level of prosperity.

You must be totally oblivious to what's happening in the real world.

. . . is one of my least favorite Red-X'd corporate lapdogs at it again? The bile just got to be too, TOO much after a while. Phyllis Schlafly and Neil Cavuto didn't shill for the Reaganite corptocracy this insufferably, and they're SUPPOSED to.

Eliminating tariffs and immigration barriers within Europe has led to a peace and prosperity that Europe never experienced during its long history of national borders, tariffs against each other and wars. Now that France, England and Germany trade freely with each other (and the other members of the EU), they are more prosperous and haven't fought with each other in 64 years, which has to be some kind of a record. ;)

There are some who contend it is easier for European countries to drop tariff and immigration barriers because its countries have similar levels of development. (Of course they also have a history of fighting war after war after war, also, something we haven't had with Canada or Mexico in quite a few years. :) ) For Western Europe that is true, but the EU has expanded into countries like Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland where per capita incomes are similar to or less than that of Mexico.

Of course, one big difference is that the big European countries all take care of their citizens much better than the US does. They all have effective national health care, social safety net, market regulation and progressive taxation, so that their citizens don't live with the same level of fear that society will not protect them if someone less well off then they are benefits from the opening of borders to trade and immigration. Perhaps if our government provided the same level of services, our citizens wouldn't be any more afraid of Mexicans than the British are of the Poles, Bulgarians, Romanians and other Eastern Europeans.

Also, European countries naturally realize that events in one country (often of a military nature) can affect citizens in other countries, so there is a certain level of "we're all in this together". The US, on the other hand, is bigger, stronger, relatively isolated geographically and has a history of not worrying too much about what happens in other countries since it didn't affect us very much. It's harder for us to accept that countries can share

fyi

Which is why he's in my Red X Toilet (ignore list). Most economic Repukes on DU for whatever reason end up there.

Call center and data entry jobs going overseas :hi:

but the whole point is people have to WORK to get money

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont

This isn't even Business 101 or Econ 129, it's Intro to Common Sense.

Obama seems like a little kitten for such a smart guy, vis-a-vis MSM propaganda. And the "Democrats" are not spineless, just flat Republicans. Election fraud is still very possible again. And the corporatists wont be so easy on us next time.

:bounce: We were all supposed to be scared of the scary Mexicans coming to steal our jobs!!!!!!!!!!! :evilfrown:

not a fucking thing american.....

But since it isn't, you don't.

please pay attention

C H I N A

google dot com

it's a communist country that has eaten our lunch and is eying our dinner.

:sigh:

First, this recession has caused unemployment to increase greatly in many countries, not just the US. Quite a few countries impacted by the recession have unemployment rates higher than ours.

Second, what does China have to do with NAFTA?

NAFTA was the paradigm for GATT and the whole give-away-the-farm for todays profit that ensued. Milton Friedman was proved wrong and only the most indoctrinated can't accept that. Or, maybe it gains them (you perhaps) and they don't give a rat's ass about America nor Americans.

NAFTA was a knee jerk response to the European, Asean, etc. trade blocks.
The result was what we predicted. Water seeks the lowest level, and people in the poor countries were not buoyed up. They are even more repressed and exploited since NAFTA and GATT.

You are either in the ex-im biz or a corporatist or easy to fool. But you're not alone in the latter. You certainly haven't lost a job to an industry that no longer exists here because it was moved to the Maquiadora or Asia. If you don't know that we have lost our R&D capacity, our machine tool capacity, out manufacturing capacity, ad infinitum - then you are sincerely baffled by the bullshit.

Your European recession is comparing apples and oranges, and therefore false.
Europe was collapsed because the money elites had their tentacles wrapped around the world. The corruption was an extension of the corporatism that was cemented with NAFTA, but not a 1 to 1 correlative with a bullshit trade act designed to profit the few as it bled America pale.

NAFTA opened the gate and China has since sold capitalism the rope to hang itself. Communist China.

Do you need info on the murders of union folks in Mexico? Or murder and rape of workers in Mexico? Do you care nothing about people who suffer for the gold toilet seats under the ass of people who don't deserve to breathe the same air as those decent, hard working human beings?

How many automobile jobs have been lost? How many automobile parts jobs have been lost? How many textile jobs? How many jobs making shirts and shoes? How many steel-making jobs? How many computer programming jobs? How many customer service jobs have gone to India and other places? How many jobs have been lost because of Walmart and the products from China? How many computer chip and television jobs have been lost overseas? Must be at least a couple of dozen, don't you think??

Yep, i bet it's a few, no doubt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEWgs6YQR9A
roflmao! helicopter style