NAFTA: No Assholes Foresaw This Abortion?

Yeah, they knew exactly what they were doing. Even pipsqueak Perot warned us about the sucking sound.

Yep. I voted for Ross becasue I saw it coming, too. I knew he was correct even back then, but most Americans swallowed the 2 Party bullshit hook, line and sinker. As usual.

These two parties are owned by the same people, rednecks. Can you not understand that very simple fact?

CAF (the Campaign for America’s Future) lays out the facts about NAFTA and how McInsane (and Obama) plan to keep it in place (no matter what Barack said during the Primaries… he lied, people):

* Americans strongly believe that NAFTA and similar trade agreements have hurt our economy. Fifty percent of Americans think “free international trade has hurt the economy” while only 26 percent think it “has helped the economy.” Fifty-eight percent say globalization is “bad because it has subjected American companies and employees to unfair competition and cheap labor” while only 25 percent say it is “good.” Moreover, nearly half of all Americans believe that free trade agreements have hurt their personal financial situation, while only 27 percent believe such agreements have “helped.” Source: PollingReport.com

* NAFTA has cost more than one million U.S. jobs. NAFTA advocates promised that the treaty would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S. Instead, trade deficits with Mexico and Canada have displaced over one million U.S. jobs. Roughly 660,000 of the lost jobs were in manufacturing. Source: EPI

* NAFTA has driven down U.S. wages. According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the one million Americans whose jobs were displaced by NAFTA were forced to take a pay cut of about 18 percent. Because of NAFTA, U.S. workers lost wages totaling about $7.6 billion in 2004 alone. Source: EPI

For all I know CAF endorses Obama??? If so, it will be something I disagree on. However, that doesn’t take away from the facts. NAFTA DID drive down wages and sent jobs packing. My business has been affected substantially by it and only by being quick on my feet have been able to survive. But I still see NAFTA as the big whore she is… sucking away like trying to take the chrome off a ‘57 bumper.

Free-Trade Agreements, Weaker Dollar Helped Mexico Car Industry

The Financial Times reports that “the face of Mexico’s car industry” is “efficient, technologically advanced, and increasingly oriented to export.” According to Thomas Karig, a vice president at Volkswagen in Mexico, the automaker’s “decision in 1997 to base world-wide production of the New Beetle at the plant has born fruit,” as “[s]ales of the model have exceeded forecasts. Mexico is very competitive,” he said. Over the past two decades, “output of new cars [in Mexico] has increased fourfold, reaching 1,416,665 units in 2007,” and “[i]nvestment has flooded into the sector.” Also automakers “are sourcing more and more of their components from Mexican suppliers.” The Times notes that “NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) helped make the Mexican industry more internationally focused,” while “two other developments have given extra momentum to exports:” Mexico’s entrance “into a string of free-trade agreements with other trading blocs,” and “the decline of the dollar against the euro and yen.”

B’Man: Well, good for Mexico. So, rednecks, you wonder where your job went? As our dollar goes down and these “free-trade” agreements are thrust upon us, it is the American worker and his lifestyle that will suffer.

You are losing your shit, while the Big Corporations are making even more money. Will you people wake up and elect someone that is looking after YOU, dammit? Obama will feed the creature. Look for those that will help feed YOU.

If Mexico wants to build cars, then invent one and build it. Compete with the rest. Keep our jobs here. Stop NAFTA, CAFTA and all AFTA’s from here on out. Fuck free trade. We lose. Period.

Obama Will Not Change NAFTA: He’s One Of ‘THEM’

I am convinced that Senator Obama has been saying some things simply to garner support for his election, when the truth will show that he will not pursue many of the issues that need the most work. NAFTA is one, and no matter what rhetoric you have heard, Big Money interests will not allow it. Like everything else I hear from Obama, most is pretty talk but no real balls to make it happen.

America is in for a let-down when we elect Barack, for he will not do what we need done. He is one of ‘THEM’.

From OpEdNews:

President Obama Won’t Change NAFTA

by Dana Gabriel

Barack Obama has all but wrapped up the Democratic nomination, with only the formalities of the convention remaining. There is a good chance that he will become the next president of the United States. For all his talk of change, it appears that in areas of trade, economics, foreign and monetary policy, things for the most part will remain status quo. During the grueling nomination battle, both the Obama and Clinton camps were highly critical of NAFTA and accused the other of changing their position on the trade agreement. What is really worrisome is that you don’t hear Obama, or McCain for that matter, talking about preserving the constitution or protecting American sovereignty. The reality is that NAFTA will remain intact, and the push towards a North American Union and global governance will continue.

Obama has promised that one of his first orders of business as president will be to call upon the leaders of Canada and Mexico to renegotiate stronger labor and environmental provisions into NAFTA. Both he and Clinton were specific about using the six-month opt-out clause in order to put pressure for changes to be made. It appears as if Obama has backed himself into a corner. With all this talk about renegotiating NAFTA, the U.S. ambassador to Canada , David Wilkins, has said that NAFTA is too important to do away with or make any drastic changes to. He pointed to the fact that regardless who wins the American presidential election, NAFTA will stand.

With the sharp tone of language directed towards NAFTA, some Canadian government officials became concerned. It was reported that the Obama campaign contacted Canadian officials to set the record straight and told them not to take the criticism seriously. They also received warnings that Obama would be further speaking out against the agreement. Does this mean that all this tough talk regarding NAFTA was nothing more than political positioning and rhetoric? It’s not just Obama as Clinton tried to court working-class voters in the industrial Midwest, where NAFTA has hit the hardest by also telling the people what they wanted to hear.

For years, both the Democrats and Republicans have been double teaming the American people. One gets in power and further advances the New World Order agenda, and then falls out of favor and passes the baton to the other. In Canada , it was the Liberal party who spearheaded the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) initiative, and with the Conservatives now in power, deeper integration has continued. It will be the same with the Democrats, who will further push for a North American Union, and this will not include dismantling NAFTA. Just like the Republicans, the Democrats are run by special interest groups and corporate powers that are pushing globalization and world government. With Obama in office, I am afraid that many on the left will go to sleep because their man and party will be in power. He doesn’t have the political baggage of a McCain or Clinton, and this makes him an even more useful tool of the elite.

In a recent article from washingtonpost.com, there are suggestions on what Obama should do as president. It included using the European Union as an example for economic and political integration. It talked about, “A functioning American Union that pools sovereignty.” It went on to say that this would not be possible by tearing down NAFTA. Much of the economic integration has already been achieved through NAFTA, and the SPP is continuing this process, further laying the foundation for a North American Union.

It is doubtful that the Democrats and President Obama will follow through on promises to fix NAFTA. It is so badly flawed, and a trade agreement that puts the interests of the people ahead of those of multinational corporations is what is needed. With all his talk on NAFTA, Obama has been silent on the SPP and the North American Union agenda. If there are no intentions of abandoning NAFTA, then it appears as if Obama’s change will be more of what we’ve come to expect from our politicians. With the next phase of the presidential campaign underway, I hope that this is not the last we’ve seen of NAFTA as an election issue.

newworldordermustbestopped.com

“I do this for the love of my family and humanity. If it sparks debate and leads people searching for the truth then it is all worth it. Keep up the fight against the NWO.”

How Free is Free Trade? Roger Wicker Knows

B’Man: h/t Jeff at Cotton Mouth

Southern politics was hijacked by neocon asswipes a while back. The Mississippi governor was elected, even though he was a lobbyist for many years and became the Chair of the ReTHUGlican National Committee. You can put a lot of blame on these individual democrats who endorsed this maniac over Musgrove: Xavier Bishop, Mike Espy, Brad Dye, and Bill Waller.

Also, Trent Lott was a mainstay in Mississippi politics, but he took the opposite approach the idiot governor took and is now a lobbyist. I believe the move will cost the THUGS in the general elections in November. Hence how important Cotton Mouth’s post and facts are.

With that asshole gone, we need to continually highlight the abuses and idiotic party voting for things that are ravaging our America. One of those “things” is “Free Trade” and Cotton Mouth ensures we understand precisely where Roger Wicker stands on this “free” trade, especially in light of the fact that he hails from Tupelo, MS, where furniture makers are shutting their doors to Asian competition.

Roger Wicker and Free Trade

A quick look at Roger Wicker’s voting record shows that he is a strong advocate of free trade. While the pros and cons of this can be debated for days, lets look past that argument to Wicker’s vote against assistance for those who lost their jobs due to free trade. The irony runs deep since Roger is from Tupelo, once the state’s industrial shining star for it’s furniture industry, now feeling the effects of shuttered factories that have left for the low wage, low regulation shores of the globalized frontier.

From On The Issues:

Wicker’s votes for free trade,

Voted YES on promoting free trade with Peru. (Nov 2007)
Voted YES on implementing CAFTA, Central America Free Trade. (Jul 2005)
Voted YES on implementing US-Australia Free Trade Agreement. (Jul 2004)
Voted YES on implementing US-Singapore free trade agreement. (Jul 2003)
Voted YES on implementing free trade agreement with Chile. (Jul 2003)

So Wicker is a big time advocate of free trade, but what about those left behind? What about the family of four from Nettleton, MS whose principle bread winners have lost their jobs to Chile or Mexico?

Voted NO on assisting workers who lose jobs due to globalization. (Oct 2007)

Once again Rubber Stamp Roger is exposed. He would rather vote with Wall Street than Main Street. Don’t take my word for it, take a look at his voting record and decide for yourself.

The Job-Loss Ripple Effect as American Auto Makers Decline

Parts suppliers suffer due to auto-plant closings, cuts

The Chicago Tribune reported, “The latest round of plant closings and production cuts by General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. are already rippling through companies that supply their parts.” For example, “Lear Corp., a Michigan-based maker of seats and other interior components, lowered its earnings forecast Wednesday, the day after GM said it would close four North American pickup and sport-utility-vehicle plants by 2010.” While “Lear is better positioned than most as a global player,” tens “of smaller companies feel the pain of auto industry cuts more.” Thus, “300 jobs at Logistics Services Inc., which delivers parts to the Janesville assembly plant, will disappear, as will 135 at Allied Automotive, which delivers the assembled vehicles to dealers.”

B’Man: This has been a slow bleed over the past several years anyway. Now that the gas prices and economy has tanked, however, we will begin to see the support industry take a huge hit. Auto making is not JUST the builders of the cars, but the out-sourced products that go in (seats, dashes, radios, electronic control modules, etc). Everything inside these cars are normally out-sourced through Tier One and Tier Two suppliers.

It is these folks that are going to lose their jobs, as will the auto assemblers. If you hear of a plant closing that employs 2,000 people, there will likely be off-shoot suppliers who will also go down. For every 2,000 auto-assemblers, there will likely be another 500-1,000 support jobs lost, as well.

Hello, Burger King. Taking applications?

Honda Bringing More Work to Alabama

The WSJ reported that “Honda Motor Co. plans to meet growing U.S. demand for small cars while maintaining North American jobs by moving production of two bigger models from Canada to Alabama,” according to Thursday’s comments by Chief Executive Takeo Fukui. “Honda’s Pilot sport-utility vehicle and Ridgeline pickup, now rolling off its plant in Ontario, Canada, will be produced in Alabama, allowing the Canadian plant to increase production of the Civic sedan.”

B’Man: How does it feel to be considered a low-wage country?

US Industrial Production Fell .7% in April

According to the Wall Street Journal, “U.S. economic reports released Thursday are keeping recession worries afloat, showing continued weakness in the labor market and a struggling manufacturing sector.” The Federal Reserve announced on Thursday that “industrial production plunged a sharp 0.7 percent in April, as output of motor vehicles and parts plummeted 8.2 percent.” Production had risen “0.2 percent in March and dropped 0.7 percent in February.” While “output at the nation’s technology firms increased 1 percent in April, with computers rising 0.5 percent,” industrial production “[e]xcluding motor vehicles and parts” fell “0.6 percent, reflecting decreases in output of business equipment, appliances, furniture, and other goods.”
        The fall in industrial production was “more than double [that which] economists had expected,” the Washington Post reports. “Manufacturing output dropped 0.8 percent, with half of that decrease coming from large cutbacks in auto production.” And even though the drop surpassed economists’ predictions, they “said the manufacturing slump would have been more severe had it not been for the decline in the value of the dollar, which has helped boost exports to record levels, offsetting some of the weakness in domestic demand.”

B’Man: So many coincedences happen that fit right into the New World Order’s dictate. We lose production in the US because US manufacturers are getting the stuff we use here made elsewhere. At the same time, the dollar loss causes exports to go up in certain industries.

Lose-lose, except for Big Money, who will not lose, even when they did lose (think Bear Stearns and every other prop the government gives Big Business when they give us $600).

Firms Leaving China… but Aren’t Coming Home

Rising costs force some U.S. manufacturing firms to leave China, survey finds.

AFP reported yesterday that “China is losing some of its attractiveness to foreign investors as rising costs are forcing some U.S. manufacturing firms to leave the country,” according to the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). “More than two-thirds of AmCham’s member companies surveyed in an annual white paper agreed that China was losing some of its competitive advantage in global markets.” Among factors are “price pressures from competition and major customers, rising salaries and wages, changes in raw material prices, tax expenses and real estate cost inflation,” according to the study. “‘For manufacturers, the seemingly endless supply of low-cost unskilled labor may be approaching its limits,” according to Norwell Coquillard, chairman of AmCham in Shanghai.” Coquillard also noted, “The competitive labor market poses difficulties for export-oriented manufacturers, especially in low-margin sectors such as toys, garments and shoes,” and said that now “they are looking to India, Vietnam, and other places.” But, despite the survey data, “companies still see China as a strategically important manufacturing base because of its domestic market potential.”

B’Man: One may read that and think that “our chickens may come home to roost”, in that, rednecks may think that their manufacturing jobs making that little widget or that furniture or auto part or whatever will eventually come back.

They won’t. Wake up and smell the coffee.

When the Chinese become too expensive or kill enough of our children or pets, we will simply go to the next lower waged slave place in the world.

These assholes who own these companies care nothing for you, if you happen to eat into their profits, even slightly. They will dump you after dumping your health insurance, retirement, then wages… next is your job.

B’Man’s Patriot Watch: Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR04)

Every now and again, I am surprised…

I believe it’s April Fool’s Day here on the floor of the House.  To hear the members of the GOP – the Grand Old Oil Party – talking about how they’re there for the consumers, they want to do something to help American consumers. The same party that benefits disproportionately from massive campaign contributions from the oil and gas and coal industries.  The same party that holds the White House, with two oil men in the White House.  The same party, on the Senate side, defeated our energy provisions because they would have God forbid, made the oil and gas companies pay taxes like other members of the corporate committee.  It would have taken away subsidies.  They’re crying crocodile tears about the massive profits that their buddies are making, their campaign contributors, their sponsors.  And the president, the oil man.  And the vice president, the oil man supply services company.

Q:  Will the gentleman yield?

No, I won’t yield.  Thank you very much.

Now, there’s a few things we could do.  Now, the president’s a big free trader, right?  He’s trying to push us into more free trade agreements.  They say they work great.  He wants “rules-based trade.”   Well, we’re in the WTO, they have rules. The rules say you can not restrict the supply of a commodity simply to drive up the price.  That’s what OPEC’s doing.  Now five members of OPEC are in the WTO.  Will this president – the oil man –- the friend of the Saudis and the others – will he file a complaint in the World Trade Organization against OPEC?  No.  I wrote to him three years ago, asking him to do that.  The answer was no.  If the Saudis and the OPEC countries want to get together and collude to drive up the price of the oil, that’s just fine with George Bush.  He’s all for free trade, and rules-based trade, except when the rules might hurt some of his buddies.  And then, the oil industry just piggy backs on top of that.

Now, there is another thing they could do. They can help us with a provision we put in the Farm bill, which is stalled in the Senate, which would close the Enron loophole. Remember Enron? Ken Boy, the President’s favorite guy? He just died before he went to jail. Well, the Enron boys convinced the Republican Congress to give them a special loophole, to deregulate energy commodities, to allow for massive speculation. And there is widespread agreement in the financial community that about 50 cents of the price that’s being paid at the pump today is being paid purely because of speculation brought about by the Enron loophole. You really want to do something about the high price of oil?  Help us close the Enron loophole. Get your president to file a complaint against OPEC for colluding to drive up the price of oil. Help strip out the taxpayers’ subsidies to the oil, coal and gas industry. You are taking out of their wallets while you are taking it out of their pockets at the pump.

José Can You See? Bush’s Trojan Taco

By Greg Palast

Monday April 21, 2008

(for TomPaine.com)

Psst!  George Bush has a secret. 

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three:  the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.

You’re not supposed to know that – for two reasons: 
First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics.  Well, it is a monument to Bush’s leadership:  The city still looks like Dresden 1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or wandering lost and broke in America.
 
The second reason Bush has kept this major summit a virtual secret is its real agenda.   More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible:  The North American Competitiveness Council. 

Never heard of The Council?  Well, maybe you’ve heard of the counselors:  the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27 other multinational masters of the corporate universe. 

And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a three-nation pajama party?  Their term is “harmonization.”

Harmonization has nothing to do with singing in fifths like Simon and Garfunkel.  Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in all three countries.  Or, more specifically, watering down rules – on health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on - in other words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their profits.

Take for example, pesticides.   Wal-Mart and agri-business don’t want to reduce the legal amount of poison allowed in what you eat.  Solution:  “harmonize” US and Canadian pesticide standards to Mexico’s. 

Can they do that?  Can Bush just say, “Eat your peas – even if they’re radioactive?”  Under NAFTA, at least the way George Bush reads it (or has it read to him), he can.  At any rate, he does.

The three chiefs of state will meet privately with the thirty corporate chiefs where they are also expected to legally erase more of our borders, to expand the “NAFTA highway.”  Technically, the NAFTA highway is a set of legal rules governing transcontinental shipment.  Some fear NAFTA highway expansion will allow a new flood of cheap Mexican products into the US and Canada.  Not so.  Their hunger to expand the NAFTA highway is to bring in even cheaper Chinese goods.

 
Say what?

As trade expert Maud Barlow explained to me, the new “NAFTA highway” will allow Chinese stuff dumped into Mexico to be hauled northward as duty-free “Mexican” products.  That’s one of the quiet agendas of this “Summit for Security and Prosperity,” the official Orwellian name for this meet.  Think of the SSP “harmonization” as the Trojan Taco of trade.

Barlow is Chairwoman of the Council of Canadians.  She is known as the “Ralph Nader of Canada” (not Nader version 2.0, The Spoiler Candidate, but Nader version 1.0, the consumer advocate).  Because Americans are too distracted by the Punch-and-Judy primaries to complain about this lobby-fest on the bayou, Canadian Barlow is leading street protests against this greed-grab.  

I caught up with this courageous Canadian (I’ve seen her face down corporate bullying we can’t imagine in the US) on her way down to New Orleans.  Barlow’s particular concerns are first, the NSS agreement promotes a five-fold increase in the mining of Canadian tar sands for import, as liquid crude oil, into the USA, an idea filthier than a re-make of  Debbie Does Dallas.  “This is an insane model of development,” she says, especially given Bush’s recent claim that he wants to slow global warming.  

Bush himself is pushing his Canadian and Mexican counterparts to adopt US-style “Homeland Security” measures so that, says Barlow, “we’ll all be zip-locked together in one security bag.”
There will be other anti-SSP protesters in New Orleans as well, from America’s populist Right.  They are concerned that the Security and Prosperity Summit is worse than the “NAFTA on steroids” that Barlow fears.  The populists see in the SPP a nascent “North American Union,” and the elimination of the good old US of A.
 
They’re wrong, of course.  The U.S. of A. has been long eliminated, at least economically.  The Competitiveness Council is a multinational crew, with one shared set of country clubs, beach homes, art collections, union busters and lobbyists knowing no borders.  

The populist radio hosts railing against the coming North American Union don’t realize that these CEOs won’t take away their flags or Fourth of July or Star-Spangled Banner.  The rags and flags will always be kept around to con the schmucks along the Yahoo Belt into donating their children to the Iraq Occupation or other misadventures.  A billionaire like Carlos Slim, the richest man on the planet (sorry, Mr. Gates), didn’t buy the Mexican government to “protect” his nation from Gringos but to protect his media monopoly. 

So there is no United States of America nor Canada nor Mexico - at least as we like to imagine ourselves in our national fairy tales:  self-governing democracies run by we the people or nosotros el pueblo.  There’s just the diktats of the North American Prosperity Council.  Get used to it.

Barlow said that the US Ambassador to Canada told her the legal changes wrought in New Orleans will not be put before the three national Congresses for a vote.  “We don’t want to open up another NAFTA.”  So, they’ll skip the voting stuff.  Democracy is so, like, 20th Century.

Is Bush just a reluctant participant in this “harmonizing” of our economic fate?  The meetings are secret, so I can’t say for sure.  But I note that, at the opening ceremony, if you read his lips, you can see our president singing the national anthem as, “José, can you see?”

***********
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse:  Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.   Sign up for Palast’s investigative reports for BBC on RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/gregpalast-articles

Make a donation to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund and receive a DVD of  the untold story of the drowning of New Orleans, Big Easy to Big Empty, made for Democracy Now! at http://www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org. 
 
Note:  On May 1, in New York, Palast will speak at the international conference of the victims of Barrick Gold mining operations, the Canadian-American company whose board members included the former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney and the former President of the United States, George Bush Sr.  Information soon at www.GregPalast.com

McCain wants to give even MORE of your jobs away

McInsane is either a freaking lunatic or unabashedly pro-business and anti-American worker.He is a fool in any event, and should not even be considered presidential material. Jeezus!

McCain eyes U.S. free trade deal with EU

Reuters
Wednesday, March 26, 2008; 4:23 PM

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The United States should build on the North American Free Trade Agreement by negotiating a new free trade deal with the 27 nations of the European Union, Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Wednesday.

“I am an unashamed and unabashed defender of NAFTA. I am an unabashed supporter of free trade agreements. In fact, it would be interesting … to have a free trade agreement between ourselves and the European Union,” McCain said in a speech to the World Affairs Council.Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have threatened to withdraw from NAFTA if Mexico and Canada do not agree to renegotiate the pact to include stronger labor and environmental provisions and to address critics’ concerns about investment provisions of the longstanding pact.

Clinton also has vowed a “time-out” from new free trade agreements if elected president.

But McCain was enthusiastic about potentially uniting United States in a huge free trade zone with Britain, Germany, France, Italy and other members of the EU which has expanded into Eastern Europe and parts of the former Soviet Union.

“They are one of the largest economic blocs in the world, if not the largest … I think to head a free trade agreement with the European Union would be a great thing to happen,” McCain told reporters on board a plane bound for his next campaign event in Monterey, California.

“I notice that some of their environmental standards and labor standards are higher than ours, not lower. So it would be very interesting to see how … the opponents of free trade agreements in general would react to that,” the Arizona senator said.

The Unites States and the EU already have low tariffs on most of the manufactured goods that cross the Atlantic, and recently began an initiative aimed at eliminating regulatory barriers that impede commerce.

However, both sides have preferred to deal with the contentious agricultural issues within the context of world trade talks, rather than negotiate a bilateral free trade deal to completely phase out tariffs on each other’s farm goods.

At the same time, some members of Congress have called for a services free trade agreement that would reduce or eliminate barriers to trade and investment in areas such as banking, insurance and telecommunications.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; writing by Doug Palmer; editing by Mohammad Zargham)