ITAA: Offshoring Overblown > I guess you mean me

I guess you mean me

There's lots of "revisionist" economics running rampant today.

For instance, when the debate over NAFTA was at its peak, pundits held it up as the panacea for economic growth for americans and mexicans.

So much for theory. We managed, in less than a year, to go from a trade surplus to a large trade deficit with Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were moved south of the border. But relax, we were told, in time Mexican wages would increase thus giving us access to a market of 90 million consumers of american goods and services.
So much for theory....in reality, thanks in part to the devaluation of the peso, real time mexican wages actually decreased over 20%. So much for increased purchasing power.
But relax again we were told, after all, with reduced manufacturing costs, we consumers (assuming we still had jobs to buy things)would benefit as costs decreased. This would supposedly increase our standard of living since we could buy more and pay less.

So much for theory. In reality, wage pressures thanks to being forced to compete against a buck an hour in Mexico meant that real time manufacturing wages shrank as companies used NAFTA as a bargaining tool "accept a 5 dollar an hour pay cut or else we go to Mexico". Similarly, actual retail prices on made-in-mexico goods were the same if not higher than prices when they were produced stateside! I offer Ge appliances, Maytag, and Whirlpool as examples.

When free traders have these facts thrown in their faces, they retreat on all accounts and say, well, its done so that shareholder value increases and since they (shareholders) actually own these corporations, we're obligated to maximize profit for them.

Kinda sounds like a Robin Hood thing only in reverse. What is tragic is the fact that beyond lost wages, you have lost revenue for taxes, increased social costs (retraining, welfare, etc), and crumbling infastructure.

Bottom line, this whole arguement about who actually benefits from these wacko trade laws is at best skewed. Free traders bury their heads in Adam Smith and assume that jobs lost will be replaced by jobs in different areas and that wages will roughly remain the same. That isn't happening. The other piece about creating wealth for shareholders so that they "re invest" in their corporations thus creating jobs is a bunch of hogwash. Someone step up and proclaim, if you will, how you have a job thanks to a shareholder. If anything, shareholders wil invest in places where there is minimal risk and maximum returns on his investment. That does not include keeping YOU employed, but rather getting you off the payroll so that you can be replaced with much cheaper labor.

said by MotoVT:

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What is tragic is the fact that beyond lost wages, you have lost revenue for taxes, increased social costs (retraining, welfare, etc), and crumbling infastructure.

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Well gimme some time and I can dig up some stuff on Bloomington IN, Greenville, MI, and some places in PA where good paying manufacturing jobs have gone bye bye and the overall wage structure has declined.

What you speak off is the wealth being created for those who are already wealthy. Methinks statistics are being "bent" to reflect how lovely free trade is and also to cover up the fact that the gulf between rich and poor is growing.

It will take some doing but I will report back here with facts that you desire.
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Part time Vonage Phone man.

reply to ElGuapo1775
»www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4653882/

Here's one to start.
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Part time Vonage Phone man.

reply to Varangian
»online.sfsu.edu/%7Ejdrew/web/maquila.html
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Part time Vonage Phone man.

reply to Varangian
Hightower: NAFTA Job Losses

By Jim Hightower, Original to AlterNet
April 26, 2000

There it is again...Hear it? It's that "Giant Sucking Sound" from Mexico.

Remember how the Big Media, the White House, the Republican leaders in Congress, the Wall Street Elite, and all the other card-carrying members of America's establishment heaped ridicule on those of us who warned that NAFTA – their North American Free Trade Agreement – would hurt American working families?

"Oh posh and tish," they said, "Why, NAFTAÕs going to create at least 100,000 new American jobs in its first year alone."

ItÕs now a year-and-a-half since NAFTA passed. Guess how many jobs weÕve netted from it? If you guessed zero...youÕre wrong. ItÕs minus zero. By WashingtonÕs own, official count, 60,000 U.S. jobs have gone. And thatÕs only the tip of the iceberg, since most job losses to Mexico arenÕt reported.

Want some bitter irony? In August '93, Lawrence Bossidy, chief honcho of AlliedSignal corporation, was head cheerleader of Wall StreetÕs push to pass NAFTA. On CNN, he was asked straight out, "Do you think jobs will move to Mexico, would your company put jobs in Mexico?" Bossidy answered, "Quite the contrary, the jobs that were to move to Mexico have already moved there."

Oh? That would be news to the AlliedSignal employees in Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas, who've since lost their jobs as a direct result of NAFTA, giving Bossidy the dubious distinction of being the number one shipper-outer of U.S. jobs under his NAFTA trade scam. Indeed, AlliedSignal is now the 12th largest employer in Mexico, paying workers about 80 cents an hour.

Sure, Bossidy lied, but hey...it pays well. For all of his fibbing and firing, Bossidy personally was paid $12.4 million last year.

IÕm reminded of Lily TomlinÕs observation, "Even if you win the rat race, youÕre still a rat".
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Part time Vonage Phone man.

reply to Varangian
NAFTA’s Decade of Job Losses

When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993, its proponents claimed that it would create jobs and raise incomes in the United States because of increased exports. Now they like to boast that 794,174 new jobs are a result of the trade agreement.

It’s a clear example of a half-truth that's worse than a lie. A study by the Economic Policy Institute shows that the NAFTA agreement is directly responsible for the loss of 1,673,454 U.S. jobs, meaning that the net effect of imports and exports results in 879,280 less jobs in the United States.

American investors have taken advantage of the agreement to invest in Mexico and move factories out of the United States. Most of jobs lost were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries, accounting for the lion's share of the more than 2.4 million manufacturing jobs that have been lost in the past three years. Thousands of dislocated workers were members of our union who have had to accept employment in service industries with substantially less income.

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Part time Vonage Phone man.

reply to Varangian
»www.ftaaresistance.org/state-los···able.pdf

You're always shouting for figures well here's some.
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Part time Vonage Phone man.

Plus a study in Arkansas.

»www.jwj.org/global/FTAA01/AK.pdf

And one for PA

»members.aol.com/paconsumer/nafta501.htm
»www.commondreams.org/news2001/1025-11.htm

Let me get this straight... I post figures direct from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government's sole means of objectively measuring employment and economic growth, and you respond by cut & pasting articles and "figures" from such outstanding, non-biased sources as "Jobs Without Justice" and "Free Trade Area of the Americas: An anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian response to capitalist globalization." Boy, you really looked hard to root out the true facts. Could you please find some support that is even half-way credible?

I did.
Not my problem that you chose not to believe it.

Typical free market puppet.......everything YOU guys say is gospel while whatever anyone else says is wrong.

Yeeeeesh!
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Frustrated Vonage user.

See, this is why there will never be trade restrictions anywhere near scale you're seeking, because you rely on doomsday predictions and the emotional appeal of "people before profit." When your claims are put under scrutiny, the only emperical evidence you can give is from extremist groups to combat figures from the the hard-core right-wing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Accounts.

said by MotoVT:

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Typical free market puppet.......everything YOU guys say is gospel while whatever anyone else says is wrong.

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reply to MotoVT

Where's the beef, guys?