Thread: Huffman: NAFTA caused a cascade of damage to U.S.

Huffman: NAFTA caused a cascade of damage to U.S.
By Glenn Huffman
Published: October 06, 2010
» 1 Comment

Morganton, NC --
Before the NAFTA agreement, prior to the early 1990s, if you wanted a job you simply went to different businesses such as manufacturers, contractors or public services and you submitted a resume and application. You might talked with a personnel office manager. If the company had a need for your skills, it would hire you for the spot or file your application for the next available job opening.

Now, because there has been such a migration of industry and manufacturing jobs and an influx of immigrants willing to work cheap hourly rates with no benefits, corporations no longer have to rely on traditional personnel-hiring process.

As corporate consolidations of power have relaxed import and export laws, it has made it possible to distribute our greatest wealth and natural resources to other countries poised to manufacture goods using unskilled labor at slave-labor prices. The global trade laws at hand have made it easier for corporations to exploit our resources while creating a labor imbalance that has resulted in a depressed job market, which has lead to loss of wage and labor laws that have ultimately driven the standard of living down for the middle-class workers.

These lower-paying jobs create a lower tax base. As a result, there is a decline in consumer spending and a huge gap in property gains and all other taxes associated with traditional spending.

As corporate America migrates its industrial operations and assets to Mexico, China and Malaysia and other places around the globe, they, the corporations, use the argument that foreign competition is driving down wages and benefit packages of those still employed here in America.
It also has become a trend among American corporations to hold large meetings using fancy charts and graphs showing profit margins and comparing the average cost of employees in the United States to those of slave labor in underdeveloped nations in an effort to justify slashing wages and benefits packages and increasing hours without overtime compensation.

Yes, corporate America and the stockholders are the ones that pushed so hard for free trade and global economics to increase profits and diminish wages and environmental controls while consuming more and more of our nation’s resources.

Meanwhile, the American middle-class worker has endured stagnant wages, decreased benefits, longer hours and the threat of total job loss.
The free-trade policies are not just wracking the workplace; they have created economic problems for local, city and state governments, resulting in lower wages and less tax revenue — less money for local, state and federal projects — and that means taxes must go up for the working people.

www2.morganton.com

(MOD edit separating paragraphs.)

"Before the NAFTA agreement, prior to the early 1990s, if you wanted a job you simply went to different businesses such as manufacturers, contractors or public services and you submitted a resume and application. You might talked with a personnel office manager. If the company had a need for your skills, it would hire you for the spot or file your application for the next available job opening. "
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Seems like those days were a million years ago. I've been trying to find a job and the way things work now, it's so impersonal, so technical and so very frustrating. Everyone has online applications now. Questions with multiple choice answers that may or may not even pertain to you the applicant. Applicants are chosen by a ficking computer! In the world of government workers, the computer scans the application looking for specific words and based on those words, applicants are narrowed down.

No one with the power to do something about this is even talking about it. No one running in this current election in a national election (Senate or Representative, from either party) is even talking about it, regardless of party affiliation.

When Obama was running, he was specifically asked about NAFTA/CAFTA, and his response was that he would look at the them. Look at them? He didn't already know the ramifications?

It appears that the powers that be who are running and ruining our country already control all ability to stop the process. Bush tried to get a free trade treaty with Columbia by saying weakly that it would improve exports of things like John Deere tractors because Columbia places import tariffs on our manufactured goods. No one bought the lies and it failed, and has continued to fail. We all know that Columbia will not buy enough John Deere tractors to make a free trade agreement viable, and will result in a loss of GOOD jobs here while Columbia gets the golden opportunity to benefit from increased imports to our country, while those in power in Columbia get richer and the residents work for peanuts.

Without a strong manufacturing base here, and trade agreements that penalize those with import fees for our products and penalties for currency manipulation by countries like China, we will continue to suffer declines in our wages - significant declines. If a company exports technology and expertise to manufacture overseas, then those goods should be banned completely. Companies that outsource and exploit our expertise and technology should be penalized with increased taxes on their income from this treasonous activity. We can compete, because products made here are made better, without poisonous materials like lead or cadmium, and inspected by proper agencies that actually prevent catastrophic injuries. Thousands of children in China are undergoing dialysis because of melamine tainted infant formula.

RINOs and others always argue that then companies and people will leave. Then go - let them move to Mexico and have their families live with the banditos who will murder them without reason or compassion. Maybe they can live in Communist China - I am sure their families will enjoy life there without our freedoms and opportunities. Let their families live in India - certainly that will be a big improvement over living in Beverly Hills, and they will enjoy the friendships they make.

Are there any candidates who will run on promises to rectify this situation?

After NAFTA people who worked jobs that couldn't be outsourced felt relatively safe from this disaster until our govt made it clear to IAs that they were welcome to come here and replace us for much lower wages.

Destruction of Middle Class America by Design!!!

Republicans and Democrats both Guilty!

American Unions (SEIU AFL/CIO) Complicit!

Does anyone remember when Americans went on the big campaign to buy American? If you notice it was after this that they starting moving manufacturing jobs out of the U.S. and through trade agreements have made us a service industry and the rest of the world would produce the goods.

Now Americans have nothing left to bargain with for (jobs, better wages and working conditions) We are at their mercy.....they knew exactly what they were doing taking away any power we had and flooding the country with cheap labor to finish us off.

Council on Foreign Relations, Progressive Democrats and Republicans are all apart of it, we must clean out the government!

Disadvantages of NAFTA
By Kimberly Amadeo,

Disadvantages of NAFTA:
NAFTA has many disadvantages. NAFTA made it possible for many U.S. manufacturers to move jobs to lower-cost Mexico. The manufacturers that remained lowered wages to compete in those industries.

Many of Mexico's farmers were put out of business by U.S.-subsidized farm products. NAFTA provisions for Mexican labor and environmental protection were not strong enough to prevent those workers from being exploited.

U.S. Jobs Were Lost:
Since labor is cheaper in Mexico, many manufacturing industries moved part of their production from high-cost U.S. states. Between 1994 and 2002, the U.S. lost 1.7 million jobs, gaining only 794,00, for a net loss of 879,000 jobs. Nearly 80% of these jobs were in manufacturing. California, New York, Michigan and Texas were hit the hardest because they had high concentrations of the industries that moved plants to Mexico. These industries included motor vehicles, textiles, computers, and electrical appliances. (Source: Economic Policy Institute, The High Cost of Free Trade, November 17, 2003)

U.S. Wages Were Suppressed:
Not all companies in these industries moved to Mexico. The ones that used the threat of moving during union organizing drives. When it became a choice between joining the union or losing the factory, workers chose the factory. Without union support, the workers had little bargaining power. This suppressed wage growth. Between 1993 and 1995, 50% of all companies in the industries that were moving to Mexico use the threat of closing the factory. By 1999, that rate had grown to 65%.

Mexico's Farmers Were Put Out of Business:
The 2002 Farm Bill subsidized U.S. agribusiness by as much as 40% of net farm income. When NAFTA removed tariffs, corn and other grains were exported to Mexico below cost. Rural Mexican farmers could not compete. At the same time, Mexico reduced its subsidies to farmers from 33.2% of total farm income in 1990 to 13.2% in 2001. Most of those subsidies went to Mexico's large farms, anyway.(Source: International Forum on Globalization, Exposing the Myth of Free Trade, February 25, 2003; The Economist, Tariffs and Tortillas, January 24, 200

Maquiladora Workers Were Exploited:
NAFTA expanded the maquiladora program, in which U.S.-owned companies employed Mexican workers near the border to cheaply assemble products for export to the U.S. This grew to 30% of Mexico's labor force. These workers have "no labor rights or health protections, workdays stretch out 12 hours or more, and if you are a woman, you could be forced to take a pregnancy test when applying for a job," according to Continental Social Alliance. (Source: Worldpress.org, Lessons of NAFTA, April 20, 2001)

Mexico's Environment Deteriorated:
In response to NAFTA competitive pressure, Mexico agribusiness used more fertilizers and other chemicals, costing $36 billion per year in pollution. Rural farmers expanded into more marginal land, resulting in deforestation at a rate of 630,000 hectares per year. (Source: Carnegie Endowment, NAFTA's Promise and Reality, 2004) Updated December 21, 2009)

http://useconomy.about.com/od/tradepoli ... oblems.htm