NAFTA Rhetoric vs Reality
We have all heard that old joke; "How do you tell if a politician is lying?" To which, of course, the answer is; "If his/her lips are moving!"
Banana Rama and Hillary Clitoris are both on a wild rampage in the northern States about how they are going to rip up the North American Free Trade Deal.
(Never mind that it was her husband who helped implement it to begin with!)
The bottom line in the whole thing is that both politicians are making hay by claiming that NAFTA has cost jobs in the US and they are absolutely right.
What they fail to tell anyone is that for each job lost, about two were gained in other sectors of the economy! But, that wouldn't make good politics now, would it?
Both Banana and Clitoris want to rip up the deal and re-negotiate it so that it's all in the U.S.'s favor, but as we all know, in the real world things don't work that way. Just in politics.
Canada still has to be careful, because as we all know from the U.S. - Canada softwood lumber deal, the States has no compunctions about ignoring a treaty if they have enough pressure from lobby groups, but all in all, NAFTA seems fairly safe for the following reasons.
Free Trade has been hugely beneficial to U.S. works too. For 36 of 50 U.S. States Canada is the leading export market.
This includes Michigan, Ohio and New York! The only big one's that do more business elsewhere are California and Texas. And don't get me started on how there seems to be more Canadians than Americans in Florida.
In 2006, the last year for which data is available, Ohio alone exported $18 Billion worth of goods to Canada and bought $4.2 billion worth of Canadian crude oil.
As a matter of fact, Canada provides about 18 percent of the United States foreign oil supply while Saudi Arabia only supplies about 15%.
We also supply just about ALL of America's natural gas supplies without which the lights would already be out in California!!!
Just between energy and auto's alone, trade between the two nations is so vital that no one would dare jeopardise it to any great degree. Even the idiot who suggested putting up a fence between Canada and the U.S. like down Mexico way.
The only thing we have to worry about in Canada is that someone doesn't get the bright idea of just annexing Canada and then all the oil and water is free!
Of course this would only happen with a Democratic administration because Canada is mostly "small l" Liberal and the Republicans sure as hell wouldn't want another 33 million Democrats to contend with.
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com
Banana Rama and Hillary Clitoris are both on a wild rampage in the northern States about how they are going to rip up the North American Free Trade Deal.
(Never mind that it was her husband who helped implement it to begin with!)
The bottom line in the whole thing is that both politicians are making hay by claiming that NAFTA has cost jobs in the US and they are absolutely right.
What they fail to tell anyone is that for each job lost, about two were gained in other sectors of the economy! But, that wouldn't make good politics now, would it?
Both Banana and Clitoris want to rip up the deal and re-negotiate it so that it's all in the U.S.'s favor, but as we all know, in the real world things don't work that way. Just in politics.
Canada still has to be careful, because as we all know from the U.S. - Canada softwood lumber deal, the States has no compunctions about ignoring a treaty if they have enough pressure from lobby groups, but all in all, NAFTA seems fairly safe for the following reasons.
Free Trade has been hugely beneficial to U.S. works too. For 36 of 50 U.S. States Canada is the leading export market.
This includes Michigan, Ohio and New York! The only big one's that do more business elsewhere are California and Texas. And don't get me started on how there seems to be more Canadians than Americans in Florida.
In 2006, the last year for which data is available, Ohio alone exported $18 Billion worth of goods to Canada and bought $4.2 billion worth of Canadian crude oil.
As a matter of fact, Canada provides about 18 percent of the United States foreign oil supply while Saudi Arabia only supplies about 15%.
We also supply just about ALL of America's natural gas supplies without which the lights would already be out in California!!!
Just between energy and auto's alone, trade between the two nations is so vital that no one would dare jeopardise it to any great degree. Even the idiot who suggested putting up a fence between Canada and the U.S. like down Mexico way.
The only thing we have to worry about in Canada is that someone doesn't get the bright idea of just annexing Canada and then all the oil and water is free!
Of course this would only happen with a Democratic administration because Canada is mostly "small l" Liberal and the Republicans sure as hell wouldn't want another 33 million Democrats to contend with.
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com
Labels: clinton, free trade, nafta, obama
posted by Allan W Janssen | 12:10 p.m.
8 Comments:
There you go complaining about money again. There's no point in blaiming the politicians when it is the nature of the money we use that does this to us. Change the nature of our money and the whole issue goes away.
Please read my novel "Invisible Hand" that explains all this and lots more in the context of a cheerful story (well several cheerful stories and a couple of sad ones). It's here on Gather at:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977234427&nav=Namespace
Yea but Larry, if you have money and no love, you can buy love! If you have love and no money, you can't buy shit!
I follow what you're saying...but, the part of NE Ohio I live in has been decimated by NAFTA. All the good jobs are gone here. What happened here was that these huge corporations came in and bought the smaller local factories...they then bled them for all they were worth with things such as "lean" manufacturing and then they slowly stripped the companies down and shipped the jobs to Mexico, China, and India. Once company called Pentair bought out a local company called Structural North America and even brought up Mexicans to train on the machines. After they learned how to run the machines, those machines were packaged up and shipped to Mexico. The person who ran the machines here were either offered to be layed off or except a job that went down from $17 to $10 an hour. BTW...that company still has a plant here...they downsized from over 500 employees down to about 75 employees. This was also a local factory that was in operation for over 50 years (and shipped water filtration tanks all over the world) before it was bought by a corporation. It took them abou t 5 years to dismantle a solid place to work - and they did to get cheaper labor to increase their profit. These are the stories those reports don't tell you. Most of those reports are generated by consultants ,who are biased, because they are financed by the corporations that want to hide what is really going on.
On a side note....before acquiring Structural North America, Pentair wasn't even in the water filtration business. They originally were in the paper business. Then they expanded by buying all kinds of companies with different product lines that ranged from water pumps, water tanks, tools, electronic housing cabinets, etc. Look them up to see all the different companies they bought up. All of the companies they have acquired were companies that paid well with good benefits. One of the first thing Pentair does is scale back the benefits and freezes the wages of the good paying jobs. They do this to immediately increase their bottom line. Companies like this were out there in the late 90's preying on good solid companies where someone could work for a living.
On a side note....before acquiring Structural North America, Pentair wasn't even in the water filtration business. They originally were in the paper business. Then they expanded by buying all kinds of companies with different product lines that ranged from water pumps, water tanks, tools, electronic housing cabinets, etc. Look them up to see all the different companies they bought up. All of the companies they have acquired were companies that paid well with good benefits. One of the first thing Pentair does is scale back the benefits and freezes the wages of the good paying jobs. They do this to immediately increase their bottom line. Companies like this were out there in the late 90's preying on good solid companies where someone could work for a living.
You seem surprised Obama and Clinton are as reactionary as they are.
I added this blog to my blogroll.
Additionally, the local town where Structural North America had to find a way to replace the lost tax revenu e by Pentair downsizing SNA. Chardon's answer? They brought in a Walmart and Home Depot. These are the stories that are not told by all of those reports -this is the reality of the situation and how it effects people on a local level.
Chuck, it's amazing how much difference there is between the truth and the fictions we're being sold, isn't it? I know you're exactly right about the kinds of things that are going on because the same things happen in Michigan and New York State, the two places I watch first-hand. I have no idea what we can do to stop this.
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