Mr. Sanders peddles fiction on free trade

[reACTIONary]

Mr. Sanders’s populist rhetoric doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. His insistence, for example, that the North American Free Trade Agreement led to 800,000 job losses ignores analyses from unbiased sources such as the Congressional Research Service. “In reality, NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics,” a 2015 CRS analysis found.

Blaming freer trade for the loss of manufacturing jobs fails to tell the much bigger story of economic transformation that has swept the world over the past several decades. Technological change, automation, productivity improvements and other factors have eliminated old-school manufacturing jobs all over the world. Mr. Sanders cannot bring back the U.S. economy of the 1960s, and it would be harmful to try.

http://wapo.st/2247Nfo

[hollysmom]

1. People complain I use personal experience, but my experience in corporate America

always had the company chasing the cheaper employee. They also chase to places where they can pollute and save a buck on that as well. I wish oil was expensive an hell because then shipping costs would stop them.

here is the thing, you can think wow, we will just all be executives and work that way and let other places manufacture, but we no longer make most electronic here, we have no capability, we make no water heaters here, we make very little here, even paper towels have mostly moved to other countries. I used to buy american but that is impossible now. All those executive positions will move to cheaper countries soon enough. I was IT, my job is in India now.

I just believe that countries should be independent of each other, I suppose trade will lock us all together, except countries that buy from us tend to buy weapons and other unpleasant things, The people that control the items we buy and sell are not exactly the people we would politically want to support. I think it gets us tied up in a moral dilemma, where if there is a country that sells us something and tortures it's citizens (there are so many of our allies that are like that now) w can't protest or complain for fear of losing our access to XXXX it makes strange bedfellows.

world wide trade is actually enslaving more people rather than freeing them, it is not as if humanity is going forward, it seems to be going back to the dark ages

[Recursion]

70. The US manufactures more today than at any point in our history

We just don't need many people to do it. Same thing with agriculture; agriculture jobs are down about 80% from a century ago.

[kristopher]

84. Then pay middle class wages for a 30 hour work week.

Do you think the balance between the domestic economy and the political economy is properly balanced?

[Recursion]

86. I'm not sure what that means.

Then pay middle class wages for a 30 hour work week.

I'm all for either a work week shortening (to say 30 hours) or a lowering of the retirement age to say 55.

Do you think the balance between the domestic economy and the political economy is properly balanced?

I don't know what you mean by that; can you elaborate?

[kristopher]

106. Sure

I believe the term political economy originates with Marx and the means of production.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/economy/

With the evidence we've piled on top of theory since those days a fellow named M. Harris is a bit more dispassionate about the role of the political economy. He ties it to another web of similar function directed at the means of reproduction (both biological and cultural)

Now join/juxtapose/overlay those two interconnected structural webs of resources and needs.

Looking at the balance of those two integral aspects of culture provides an alternative point of departure for analysis.

Make love, not war.

[BernieforPres2016]

2. What a load of crap

If that's the latest Hillary talking point, let her try to sell the virtues of NAFTA and other trade agreements to the voters of Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina.

[H2O Man]

23. Gosh, I don't know.

I'm not sure what to think. I used to believe all my families and friends who have had their lives damaged -- if not destroyed -- by the greedy vultures who brought us NAFTA etc. But if there was a study that proves NAFTA didn't hurt them, then maybe it really helped them. I mean, there may be a study that proves that losing your job, your life savings, you home, and your car is a Good Thing.

[dana_b]

29. right?!

What is black is white, wrong is right, and what an upside down world we live in!

[H2O Man]

30. The sad things is

that the media will frequently provide both the truth and a goddamned lie, side by side, as if they are equally valid. (Sometimes, even providing a study!)

[Gwhittey]

102. Yea

And then same people accepting that now will be whining about it when the GE starts because media does it all the time with GOP lies. So I guess to run in a DNC primary you have to prove you are best liar so you can lie and win against the GOP. So I was wrong all along Clinton is the best candidate for the job.

[mythology]

38. Except the analysis is that the popular opinion is wrong

Just because people believe something doesn't make it true. Relying in people's fears is silly.

[Marr]

79. Just because something's in the Washington Post doesn't make it true, either. /nt

[Wilms]

3. WaPo also argues that NAFTA was good for Mexico.

But according to the study they cite, it wasn't so great.

Perhaps the study got both wrong. The wiki page has a handful of links saying there were BIG job losses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA's_effect_on_United_States_employment

If we dig into the details, it wouldn't surprise me if it was indeed good...for Mexican, Canadian and US 1%ers.

[Spider Jerusalem]

57. NAFTA was pretty terrible for Mexico in fact

since it led to the dumping of heavily subsidised US corn on the Mexican market, it destroyed the livelihoods of a couple of million Mexican farmers who ended up having to give up farming and moving to the cities (or crossing the border).

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-learned-from-nafta/under-nafta-mexico-suffered-and-the-united-states-felt-its-pain

[Hoyt]

60. You can't look at one industry to gauge the impact of trade. Many Mexican farmers have jobs

in European car plants paying more an hour than they ever made in a day. I bet most of them are glad not to be working in dried dirt. But since it might have cost some American a job, it's bad. Personally, I prefer to look at the continent as America, nor North and South, and would like to see more integration rather than Nationalism, America first type junk popular among Sanders' supporters.

[Spider Jerusalem]

64. Some other stats, then:

Mexico ranks 18th out of 20 Latin American countries in GDP growth (18.6% in the 20 years 1994-2014), while real wages only increased 2.3% over the same period. (And most of those Mexican farmers probably decided to move to the US; the number of US residents born in Mexico increased from 4.5 million in 1990 to over 12 million in 2009.)

[Hoyt]

65. Yet Mexico stands in lines to sign every trade deal they can. I bet Mexico

would have done much worse without trade. GDP ain't gonna grow on the back of farmers.

[kristopher]

112. Are you aware that Mexico ranks poorly as a democracy?

The US is crappy at 20th out of 20 "full democracies".

Mexico's overall rating is 66 placing it 46 places below the US and 46th on the list of flawed democracies.

The Democracy Index is based on ve categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Based on their scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then itself categorised as one of four types of regime: “full democracies”; “ awed democracies”; “hybrid regimes”; and “authoritarian regimes”.

http://64.37.52.189/~parsifal/EIU2015.pdf

Do you suppose that the flow of wealth entering Mexico is actually making it to the bottom in any sort of meaningful manner? Which prompts the question, do you believe are the beneficiaries of the "GDP" that "ain't gonna grow on the back of farmers".

The farmers?

The workers?

What level of wealth disparity between the haves and have nots is unacceptable?

[Hoyt]

113. When Mexico wises up, it will be better to have economic activity to tax and jobs to require

better wages. They are much better off with some improvement, attracting industry and investment, better jobs, etc., than doing nothing, hoping corn farmers will feed the 99%.

My reading indicates skilled laborers are doing much better under NAFTA, unskilled no so much but they do have some gains. Overtime, more should move into the skilled category.

Again, I'd rather have a bunch of plants operating in my country when the government wises up and workers gain more leverage, than to have little more than corn farmers to turn to.

[PyaarRevolution]

77. What is wrong with "America First"?

I would expect Mexico to have a "Mexico First" policy, the same with China and so on, etc.

I am totally for good international relationships but I don't WANT strong International economics. In the latter I'd rather have strong economic nationalism if not strong economic localism.
Looking at the continent as America, not North and South, with integration fosters huge centralization, leading to larger Big Ag Farms and further consolidation of factories/industry, more jobs lost, etc. Yes when industry consolidates everything is so much better. Additionally, I don't like what you're pushing for with that narrative, which is a common North American currency and Union. I'm not interested in a Euro and, by extension, sacrificing our countries sovereignty. I don't want Canada or Mexico to tell our country what to do, nor do I want Brazil, Uruguay, Belize or Ecuador. I don't expect those countries want us telling them how to spend our money in government either. Look at what the EU is making Greece do with the bailout package, they're selling government assets to private groups likely encompassing some hedge funds or something just as insidious.

[whathehell]

114. Nothing. A nation's first obligation is to its own citizens. n/t

[Jester Messiah]

4. Complete fertilizer. n/t

[Trajan]

5. Hilarious ...

Using Right Wing economic arguments, straight from the boardrooms of our corporate overlords, as a cudgel against a man who is trying to improve the lives of regular middle class families ...

How clever ....

Like we really need another economic voice in DU ... We don't ...

and like that ... poof ....

[revbones]

7. I grew up in a town decimated by NAFTA

Last edited Thu Mar 10, 2016, 10:07 PM - Edit history (1)

In my teens Martinsville, VA was often cited in the top 10 small towns in the US. There were plenty of jobs in the various industries there such as a extraordinarily large furniture manufacturing and textile base, as well as a large DuPont facility. Technology was starting to come into play in the late 80's there as well.

I graduated high school in '90 and left for the Army afterwards. I returned to a completely different landscape in 1996. All manufacturing had left for Mexico. By that, I mean absolutely all. Nothing but abandoned manufacturing sites. There were still a few logistics companies helping with transitions as it became cheaper to manufacture in Mexico and just ship from there.

Aside from the NASCAR track there, the town has never recovered. It's often cited as one of the most economically devastated towns in America now.

[reACTIONary]

12. So what? The United states is...

One of the most econocally advanced, most productive nations on earth. We are a prosperous people and unemployment is at 4.9% right now.

So what is there to complain about? Small towns are on the way out, just like small farms disappeared with industrialization.

Big deal - It's time to move to the big city.

[liberal_at_heart]

13. I see you have a Buddha avatar. Nice compassionate attitude you have there.

[kenfrequed]

41. Free Market Buddha?

Is that like Free Market Jesus?

Or maybe this is "the Buddha, CEO" Another in a long line of bullcrap business self help books.

Anyone that tries to tell you NAFTA was somehow good is selling something. Literally.

[revbones]

16. Wow.

So spouting out irrelevant data points is your counter argument? Seems more based in willful ignorance than educated opinion.

The point was that NAFTA destroyed many lives. One manufacturing left, it destroyed the service industries based around that. Many people did not have other skills that were easily transferrable, and since industry left that town, there were no other jobs anyway. How could they afford to move somewhere else?

You think these trade deals don't affect people in larger cities? Again, willful ignorance.

[Cheese Sandwich]

94. Yeah it arguably affects cities worse because when the economy is gone then

the only thing left is mass concentrated unemployment. It leads to all the problems one would expect like crime, drug addiction, bad schools, and all the rest.

I can't imagine how some people can be so cold saying stuff like "Big deal - It's time to move to the big city."

Some people have no sense.

[Punkingal]

18. What is the matter with you?

Small towns in America should just go away? That is ridiculous.

[BernieforPres2016]

24. I can't tell if you're a Hillary troll or a Republican troll

Not that there is always a lot of difference.

But I'm through reading your garbage.

[reACTIONary]

43. Hillary - but having an opinion...

.,. Contrary to yours doesn't make me a troll.

[revbones]

48. No, but remarks like that demonstrate a lack of various things

Also, that number isn't the true unemployment or underemployment.

[Marr]

81. +1, same here.

[cyberswede]

33. Perfomance art.

Has to be.

[cherokeeprogressive]

36. Time to move to The Hive, huh? Sweet.

[Bread and Circus]

40. My hometown was decimated by Nafta. I love my hometown. Fuck You.

[TM99]

59. No unemployment is much much higher.

?hl=ad&t=1457104397

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

Try 22% for the quarter ending in February. You must be a neoliberal.

[stevenleser]

110. And the reason we should believe this blog over BLS U6 is? nt

[Logical]

82. Wow, you might be on the wrong site. Nt

[HereSince1628]

47. I grew up in a town decimated by... brace yourself... South Carolina!

My home town's biggest industry was Elgin Watch. When I was a kid the town had a population of 25-30K. Elgin Watch employed about 25k in fulltime middle-income jobs. Then there were associated industries...Waltham a competitor, a factory that made watch cases, mostly for pocket watches I was told, many tool and die companies and a couple of foundries.

So during the work-week, my home town was a bit bigger than it's own population. Then a city in South Carolina cooked up a plan with help from the state to 'entice' Elgin Watch to move it's factory. Cheaper labor was promised, a free factory site, lower taxes...standard stuff in the "Jobs Gone South" competition, and so for my home town time ended for Elgin Watch

For many years things were pretty dreadful, I left in the midst of that and have never gone back. I understand that place has made something of a comeback as a bedroom suburb.

I tell this story only to say that NAFTA was something of a death blow in a process that had been going on for a long time. Some places lost factories in the early 60's like my hometown, many lost them in the 70's, the wave of "Going South was over before Reagan's first term ended, but with Reagan US companies began moving out of the country.

The old industries died as new technologies developed, but there is really no reason within the technology that new facilities with new technologies had to be built overseas. New technology replacing old industries wasn't really the problem.

[Generic Brad]

69. So NAFTA is to blame for people not wanting pocket watches?

Is it possible that technology changed, preferences changed and pocket watches fell out of fashion? Not every business failure or closure is the result of free trade agreements. Most of them are caused by mismanagement and the manufacture of unwanted products.

[HereSince1628]

83. I think I may have been unclear...

I tried to write two things....

1) Elgin Watch moved to South Carolina as part of the JOBS GONE SOUTH phenomena that turned the Great Lakes States Rusty well before NAFTA.

2) Well separated by spaces...I commented on the notion expressed in a thread above that US factories left the US because the US couldn't provide the technology. The US certainly -could- build factories to produce modern technology in modern facilities. The issue isn't technology.

sorry if I wasn't clear

[Recursion]

91. We make most of the heavy plant and machinery other countries use in their factories

It's one of our largest export sectors.

[Recursion]

67. Which is why so many people left Youngstown for Houston

The Rust Belt did badly from NAFTA. The Sun Belt did pretty well. This happens. The Sun Belt was doing really badly in the 50s and 60s when the Rust Belt (then the Steel Belt) was doing great. The town I grew up in doesn't have many jobs at all; that's why most of us left.

[Gwhittey]

6. Hell even Joe Scarborough

Admits (R) talking points like "Trickle down" is not working.

[Ino]

8. So why isn't Hillary embracing her trade deals?

Why is she running away from them?

[reACTIONary]

15. Politics, of course.... however....

Obama isn't running, and he's not running away.

http://reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0WB2R2

[Ino]

25. Politics, yes, of course...

and if Hillary is elected, she will not be running away from trade deals either.

It's important that people who have lost, or fear losing, their jobs to Mexico, India, China, etc., understand that even Hillary's supporters know she is lying for "politics" ... just to get their votes.

[reACTIONary]

44. She's not lying...

.... she's being responsive to the electorate. That's politics. As far as people who fear losing their jobs go, trade deals don't reduce jobs, they up the number of high quality, good paying jobs at the expense of low quality, lower skilled jobs. The way forward is to up our skills, up our productivity, and remain competitive - not to adopt regressive policies that will degrade our economic opportunities and upside potential out of fear.

[revbones]

49. "regressive" I'm not sure you are correct in your understanding of that word

[Ino]

56. I'm not sure I understand.

You are all for trade deals. But Hillary, once a champion of trade deals, is now -- during a campaign -- back-pedaling on them. You call this "politics" and define politics as "being responsive to the electorate."

Are you disappointed that she no longer loves trade deals?

Or do you understand she is just playing "politics" and that once elected, she will no longer need to be "responsive to the electorate" and will be free to flip-flop to her original position? If so, she's lying -- no matter what cute euphemisms you use.

A 50-year-old is out of work because his/her job vanished overseas. If he/she retrains for one of these wonderful high-quality good-paying jobs, won't he/she have to accept an entry-level position seeing as he/she has no experience? And how many would hire a 50-year-old for an entry-level position, or even if he/she does have experience? The factory worker is going to up his/her skills for exactly what kind of high-quality good-paying job? How about the IT technician/professional -- what new career do you have in mind?

Most people who have lost their jobs are not finding better ones! They are getting low-quality, part-time crap.

It's just a lot of flowery language that means NOTHING in the real world.

[liberal_at_heart]

9. How well did that argument work in MI?

[reACTIONary]

17. You mean the....

.... fiction that sander's is pedeling? Seems to have worked medling good. However, it's a fiction.

[liberal_at_heart]

20. The millions of people who lost their jobs know the truth. You are going on my ignore list.

[reACTIONary]

45. Since we are now at an unemployment rate of 4.9% and since....

....the population has been expanding, you're going to have to explain why you think we have lost millions of jobs.

[Vinca]

10. Tell that to the people who used to work at the 10 - 12 factories that used to exist nearby.

They used to make enough money to raise a family on. Now the jobs have been replaced by burger flipping jobs. NAFTA was a fucking nightmare and so were other trade agreements. There's a reason we don't have a textile industry in this country anymore or a furniture industry. Even radiologists have seen their jobs outsourced as doctors in India hire on to read x-rays.

[reACTIONary]

46. What exactly does the North American Free Trade Agreement have to do . ...

.... with india? India, believe it or not, isn't in North America. I think your complaint is with technological and economic progress, not with NAFTA. Guess what? We're moving forward, not backwards.

[Vinca]

116. NAFTA was the birthplace of outsourcing.

If you couldn't get cheap enough slave labor in North America, well . . . hell . . . why not India or the Philippines or Cambodia or China? Remember the good old days when you called up the credit card company customer service and got Chip in Chicago instead of Chip, with an accent, in Bangalore? If you think continuous trade agreements that decrease wages in this country are a good thing, you must be better off than many people. Add to that the insult of tax write-offs for the cost of closing down American factories to move to another country and there's no way to put a positive spin on the attack on American workers.

[Recursion]

68. The problem is every time a factory closes people say "NAFTA". Even if it went to China

Even if it went to another US state. Even if it didn't actually "close" but just automated most of its workforce away.

"NAFTA" has become a convenient punching bag for the two facts:

1. Our postwar hegemony over the world economy could never last.

2. Manufacturing doesn't take anywhere near as much labor as it used to.

On that second point, US manufacturing output is higher than its ever been. US manufacturing employment has been falling for 50 years.

[Vinca]

117. If you look up "outsourcing" in the dictionary, it should say "NAFTA."

That was the beginning of the end for American factory workers. Only it's not just manufacturing. It's customer support services, medical services, telemarketers, etc. If it can be done offshore for a fraction of what an American needs to survive, the job is gone. If US manufacturing is at such high levels, why is our trade deficit so high? (FYI, fast food hamburger joints used to be called "manufacturing" and I don't believe that has changed.) We're getting screwed every which way when it comes to trade deals. My particular favorite is the poor Americans who get to train their foreign counterparts before the American plant closes. A close second is my tax dollars subsidizing the plant closures. There is no way to put a positive spin on a bad policy.

[Jarqui]

11. That's one study's cherry picking opinion

But many, many others do not agree

NAFTA at 20: One Million U.S. Jobs Lost, Higher Income Inequality

Economic Policy Institute Fast Track to Lost Jobs and Lower Wages
http://www.epi.org/blog/fast-track-to-lost-jobs-and-lower-wages/

More than 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost between 1997 and 2014, and most of those job losses were due to growing trade deficits with countries that have negotiated trade and investment deals with the United States.

Towns, house values or homes, kids educations, etc got lost along with a significant drop in income and no safety net for a lot of them.

You walk around some of the towns in the rust belt with that article and they'll beat the living shit out of you for insulting the complete devastation of their lives and the unconscionable lack of compassion.

These people learned a trade. Did a bunch of what they were supposed to. And they got the rug pulled put from under them. And the only group of folks who made out well in long term on this deal, were the 1% Bernie talks about.

The notion of what they're spinning is an affront to the millions who suffered and lost their life's savings. I could go on and on. To me, it's like claiming the bombing of Hiroshima was a good thing for Japan or the slaughter of Jews in WWII was a good thing for Israel because their spreadsheets studying those events calculated a few positive numbers.

I was on a White House think tank studying NAFTA for Bush in 1989. We knew full well what NAFTA was going to do and tried to stop it. We at least got Bush to back off. Bill comes along, doesn't study it or look carefully - at the very least in how to implement it to lessen the damage and decides to make himself part of the history books.

And these economic gains Clinton touts, we knew it was going to be short term gain for long term pain. It was obvious. "Hey, look at me!! As president my numbers look really good!!" - only if you really believe what corporate America rightfully suckered Clinton with was good for the country. It wasn't. All you have to do is objectively look around at what the country was like in the early 90s and what it is like now. A bunch of the wealth and prosperity is gone - drained out of the US to other shores. The biggest culprit for that are these trade deals.

Their spreadsheet behind that article overlooks what really happened to American human beings. To me, it is offensive. This trade deal and how it was implemented was devastation on good, honest, hard working, decent Americans, blindsided when their own country sold them out for the welfare of corporations. I don't give a shit what they try to come up with. What I'm saying will be what the history books record - not some stupid spreadsheet analysis trying to prop up some lame politicians in Washington scrambling to save their jobs.

[beedle]

14. “In reality, NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics,”

What does that even mean?

Did it cause an increase in jobs?
Did it cause an increase in better jobs?
Did it cause an increase in poorer jobs?
Did it cause job loses, but not as much as feared?
Did it cause job loses, but more than feared?

Are they simply saying that 'sure there were lots of job loses, but we can not know for sure that it was NAFTA that caused them'?

Those are weasel words. If they had evidence that NSFTA created net positive job growth; or provided better jobs, they would be up front about that for sure.

[Fearless]

19. Complete bull shit.

[ibegurpard]

21. "economic transformation" is not a force of nature

It is a political phenomenon with political solutions. It is not inevitable and we have the power to shape it in ways that are not damaging to our own peoples' interests...which has NOT happened with free trade agreements.

[basselope]

22. And SOME people still say cigarettes don't cause cancer.

There have been MANY MANY analysis that show job losses HIGHER than 800K

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/nafta-at-20-one-million-u_b_4550207.html

Some lower in the 600K range.

Some LOVE to point to the 20 million jobs created between 1994 and 2000 as *proof* that NAFTA didn't harm anyone; however, they are completely ignoring the .com bubble that was about to burst and how many of those jobs went up in smoke with the bursting of that bubble.

What I find interesting is that the article you posted from the Wa Po isn't unique similar editorials appeared in a ton of papers. I wonder why? I wonder if it has to do with the fact that anti-free trade candidates are now in danger of taking over BOTH parties and the establishment loves their free trade?

Here's a quote from a story in the LA times.

"But when Sanders criticizes NAFTA by saying, “American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour,” he overlooks the fact that American workers were already competing with Mexican workers, as well as those from countless other low-wage countries. Globalization isn't a product of trade deals, it's a product of developing economies becoming more connected commercially to the developed world by technology and other forces." From the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-presidential-race-trade-20160310-story.html)

The Wa Po article makes the same basic argument, but it is kinda a laughable one. Once you have FREE TRADE it creates a far more direct competition and while we have made vast technological advancements... the teleporter isn't one of them yet.. so building a factory in Mexico only becomes economically feasible when you don't have additional costs associated with import.

Yes, "Call centers" became easier to outsource due to technology, but not manufacturing jobs, where an actual product has to be made and transported.

[Scootaloo]

26. Jeff Bezos must have shit his pants after last night's debate

[PatrickforO]

27. The USA did indeed lose 850K jobs to NAFTA.

Good union jobs with good benefits and reasonable economic security. The kind of jobs you can raise a family on.

These jobs have been replaced, it is true, by lower paying service jobs that don't have nearly the benefits or offer the economic security of the jobs lost through NAFTA.

Sorry, but your claim doesn't hold up.

[I hate liars]

28. This is exactly the right response, thanks

Any analysis of job losses or gains that counts employed heads without taking changes in income, job security, and other employment factors into account is hiding important facts.

[Hoyt]

61. Don't believe that's true, but it would be less than one percent of jobs if it were.

[Recursion]

71. Nope, median inflation-adjusted wages are higher today than in 1993

And they're higher at every quintile. Not even W's disastrous handling of the economy could wipe out all the gains that were made in the 1990s.

The jobs that replaced the factory jobs mathematically must pay more, then; if they paid less, wages at the quintiles (at least the bottom 3) would be lower. But they're higher.

For that matter, the period from 1994 to 2001 was the largest peacetime economic expansion in US history, and the only period of rising wages since the 1960s.

[brentspeak]

107. Not surprising that you failed to point out that household/consumer debt has exponentially increased

since the time of NAFTA and MFN.

We don't expect honesty coming from fans of Paul Singer, the GOP's primary financier.

[Recursion]

108. It's not as bad as, say, Canada, but it's up from 1993 (but coming down)

[dana_b]

31. Sure - why don't you just post that to the people of MI, OH, IN, WI, Il, and

all of the other states where factory work and manufacturing has been decimated. I'm sure that hearing that they didn't really lose their jobs and that they weren't outsourced will make them feel so much better!!

Tell these folks:

It's still happening as we speak. Wapo is a conservative outlet that serves it's clients.

[libtodeath]

32. The stuff one has to defend to support Clinton.

[HooptieWagon]

34. WaPo...LOL!

[yuiyoshida]

53. I wondered if anyone else noticed that...

Its sorta like "BERNIE SANDERS IS A HORRIBLE PERSON---FOX NEWS"

[BillZBubb]

35. At least you took an accurate user name.

You certainly have accepted the reactionary economic position. That's why you support Hillary no doubt.

[cherokeeprogressive]

37. "NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics,” Uh huh.

And Anna Nicole married for love.

[Dem2]

39. Been training replacement workers since the mid 80's

I know anecdotal evidence is pretty useless, but I shipped 3 factories to Asia before NAFTA was even passed. One was moved from Mexico to Philippines because of poorly trained and unmotivated workers in Mexico.

[Bread and Circus]

42. Personal experience is very meaningful. Similar things happened every where.

The OP article is just a lie wrapped in cherry picked statistics.

[Jitter65]

115. Somewhere there must be a thorough analysis of the number of jobs shipped elsewhere

BEFORE NAFTA. And somewhere there is a record of who benefitted from NAFTA.

[99Forever]

50. You forgot this:

BTW Hillarian....



NO FUCKING SALE.









Lying liars gotta lie.

[valerief]

51. Really? You really have that name? Really? Really? On DU? REALLY????

Welcome to my Forever Ignored Club.

[november3rd]

52. Congratulations!

You can quote the Washington Post! Wow!

They are so unbiased!

[Kall]

54. Thanks, Washington Post.

Make this speech in a shuttered factory town and you might not leave it alive.

[DefenseLawyer]

55. Carrier did not just move its plant from Indianapolis to Mexico!

It did not happen. No, those jobs were lost due technological change, automation, productivity improvements and other factors. That factory obviously did not move to Mexico. They won't be building air conditioners in Mexico. Oh hell no. They'll still make them in Indianapolis, but with technological change and productivity improvements, not workers. I can't believe you rubes fall for that NAFTA bullshit.

[Hoyt]

62. It is moving there in an attempt to survive against cheaper/better products made elsewhere. It's sad

But the alternative is just packing it in because not enough people will pay hundreds of dollars more for American made products. Would be nice to go back before Toyotas, Samsungs, etc., but it's not happening. That's the reality, as ugly as it is.

[DefenseLawyer]

63. I'm well aware of your position on American manufacturing

The only thing that matters is that you should be able to buy cheap crap.

[Hoyt]

66. People want high quality, inexpensive stuff. Carrier, Toyota, Samsung, etc., are proof of that.

We saw our auto industry flounder under trade protections because our gas guzzlers sucked, and spewedollution. We blew it.

[DefenseLawyer]

75. Am I correct in assuming you're a Boomer? n/t

[WDIM]

58. Free trade is not free.

It cost the workers and the consumers and only benefits the owners and investors.

If a country wants to trade with us then it should meet our level of pay and guarantee worker and human rights. and be devoted to democracy liberty and freedom. Otherwise we should cut all trade. no theocracies no dictatorships no oppressive tyrannical regimes. It is time for people to live and it is time to end all forms of slavery.

[ibegurpard]

73. yup

[Billsmile]

72. 20th Anniversary of NAFTA Article

More than 845,000 U.S. workers in the manufacturing sector have been certified for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) since NAFTA because they lost their jobs due to imports from Canada and Mexico or the relocation of factories to those countries

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/nafta-at-20-one-million-u_b_4550207.html

[Recursion]

78. In the context of about 50 million net new jobs having been created since then

So, yes, there are probably about a million jobs that have been lost, which were dwarfed by the job gains in the same time period, jobs that were in general better-paying (we know this because personal income is up, as are median non-supervisory wages).

The past 20 years have been the best economic times in American history.

[polly7]

85. What kind of jobs lost vs. what kind gained, do you know?

Would it be anything like the Mexican farmers forced off their land by NAFTA - either that, or starve - being so lucky to now work in factories in the city, as was boasted of above?

Ok, I guess it wouldn't be factory jobs there, obviously, as they seem to be disappearing.

[Recursion]

88. Yes, factory jobs have been disappearing since WWII

The jobs they are being replaced with in general pay more.

(They're disappearing all over the world, for that matter: China is replacing workers with robots right now.)

[polly7]

92. What types of better paying jobs are replacing them?

I don't care about China. And no, they wouldn't be disappearing if it weren't for all these charity for the 1% 'free-trade' deals giving corporations the right to use lower-paid, unprotected workers - and in countries unable to defend their own environments for fear of being sued, while destroying hundreds of thousands of good-paying and often union jobs that once supported a middle class.

You're making excuses for that?

What types of better paying jobs are replacing the manufacturing jobs being lost?

[Recursion]

95. Why were they disappearing in the 1950s?

What types of better paying jobs are replacing the manufacturing jobs being lost?

Service jobs. BLS has a pretty good rundown of them:

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm

Looks like retail, healthcare, and "professional and business services" (ie most people who work in an office somewhere) are the real winners here.

[polly7]

96. I'm asking you about now.

So the factory and manufacturing workers are now all employed in office and retail jobs that pay better? I call bullshit.

[Recursion]

98. All? Definitely not. Most are.

Median wages and incomes, again, are higher today than in 1993, meaning at least half of the country is better off than they were 23 years ago. It's also true at each quintile (though the lowest quintile showed the smallest gains), though FRED doesn't have quintile data.

[polly7]

100. Hard to believe anyone here supports outsourcing hundreds of thousands of

jobs that once supported a middle-class just to enrich those who don't worry for one second about all those they've plunged into poverty.


Growing Apart

A Political History of American Inequality
Colin Gordon, Author
Introduction

Americans today live in a starkly unequal society. Inequality is greater now than it has been at any time in the last century, and the gaps in wages, income, and wealth are wider here than they are in any other democratic and developed economy.

The dimensions of that inequality are fully described and explained in the pages that follow. The graphics below offer a summary overview. The first distills the basic findings (for the U.S.) of Thomas Piketty's magisterial Capital in the Twenty-First Century: the now-familiar “suspension bridge” of income inequality, dampened only by the exceptional economic and political circumstances of the decades surrounding World War II; the growing share of recent income gains going to the very high earners (the 1% or .01%); the stark inequality within labor income (see the top 1% and top 10% wage shares) generated by the emergence of lavishly-compensated “supermanagers”; and a concentration of wealth that fell little over the first half of the twentieth century and has grown steadily since then.

The second graphic (below) zeros in on inequality measures and metrics since the end of the Second World War, highlighting the sharp break in the late 1970s. The basic pattern is not hard to discern: against a backdrop of fairly steady economic growth (the grey bars show gross domestic product in inflation-adjusted 2012 dollars), the richest Americans have raced ahead. Working Americans and their families, by contrast, are either treading water or slowly sinking (for an indexed version of the same graphic, allowing comparison across measures).

The dimensions of that inequality are both familiar and depressing. A smaller share of national income is flowing to wages and earnings, and—more important—inequality within that labor share is widening. As a result, wage growth has flatlined for a generation [see graphic below]. Middle-income workers make no more now than they did in the late 1970s; those in the lower wage cohort have lost ground over that span. The current inequality of labor income in the United States, as Thomas Piketty concludes, "is probably higher than than in any other society at any time in the past, anywhere in the world, including societies in which skill disparities were extremely large."

On each of these fronts, inequality has grown more in the United States than it has elsewhere. Nowhere in the industrialized world is there a bigger gap between wage growth and productivity growth over the last two business cycles. Over the last twenty years, the richest Americans started with a bigger share of income than any of their well-heeled peers and gained more than any of them. Among the world’s wealthy countries (those with an average adult wealth of $100,000 or more), the U.S. ranks dead last on the relevant inequality measures. The graphics below plots the gini index measure of inequality for 2000 and 2010 for the United States and its OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) peers. By this measure, the United States is second only to Portugal in 2000, and--its inequality growing at a faster rate than that of any of is peers, an unqualified number one by 2010.

(Interactive graphs).

http://scalar.usc.edu/works/growing-apart-a-political-history-of-american-inequality/index

http://inequality.org/

[Recursion]

74. The data are very clear: the last 20 years were much better than the 20 years before them

First off, as a very long term trend, manufacturing employment has been falling as a percent of the total economy since, well, really the industrial revolution started, but it's been particularly pronounced since world war 2, and it's in fact one of the key metrics we look at in determining that an economy is "developed":



Meanwhile, the amount of stuff we actually manufacture has gone way, way up:



(Before you start: no, flipping burgers does not count as "manufacturing", though actually making the pink slime burger patties are made from in a factory does count as "manufacturing", because that's exactly what it is.)

The reason this is possible is that technology is making an individual worker able to produce a lot more stuff:





Not only that, but employees are getting more hours than they used to:



At higher wages:



This is part of a much larger trend of steady wage increases except for an anomalous period between about 1970 and 1990.



That's median wages for all non-supervisory employment, not just manufacturing. In fact, manufacturing is such a small part of the workforce that its trend line looks flat:



And the big result of this is that median real personal income is much, much higher than it was before NAFTA:



(Before you start: "real" means it's adjusted for inflation; "median" means it's not impacted by people like Bill Gates making a billion dollars a year.)

If the time since NAFTA has been a disaster, it's a disaster we could use a lot more of.

[cannabis_flower]

80. My $17.50 tech support job

went to Mexico.

[Lucinda]

87. Bookmarking to read later. Thank you!

[Armymedic88]

89. Sir, idk you or your story but...

You obviously didn't see the difference first hand before and after Nafta. Your fancy charts and stuff doesn't tell the story man!! Drive thru Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan 25 yrs ago compared to 15 yrs ago and you'd know the truth!! Nafta gave us the SHAFTA!!!!

[malletgirl02]

90. I can not believe what I'm reading,

people actually defending NAFTA on Democratic Underground. Bernie Sanders over all point is that many Americans have not benefited from trade deals such as NAFTA. Cities such as Flint and Detroit have been devastated.

I have seen this economic devastation first hand when I visit my grandparents in Dayton, OH. My uncles who use to work in the auto industry lost their jobs and although they have new jobs, they aren't as well paying as the ones they lost. Also when I go to Dayton, I see boarded up houses everywhere.

[ucrdem]

97. TPP is in the Democratic Party Platform for a reason. Anti-NAFTA spin is pushed hard by the RW

noise machine but so are the false claims that John F. Kennedy was a militarist chary of introducing civil rights legislation. Well, he wasn't.

[Ken Burch]

103. JFK had been president for two and a half years by then.

He could have ended Jim Crow just by announcing that the 14th and 15th Amendments would once again be enforced. He had nothing to lose by doing that.

[ucrdem]

104. Nope. Sept 26, 1960: "I'm not satisfied until every American enjoys full constitutional rights.

September 26, 1960, Kennedy-Nixon Debate - JFK's opening statement:

"I'm not satisfied until every American enjoys his full constitutional rights.

"If a Negro baby is born - and this is true also of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in some of our cities - he has about one-half as much chance to get through high school as a white baby. He has one-third as much chance to get through college as a white student.

"He has about a third as much chance to be a professional man, about half as much chance to own a house. He has about our times as much chance that he'll be out of work in his life as the white baby.

"I think we can do better. I don't want the talents of any American to go to waste."

[Ken Burch]

105. And then he left the Freedom Riders totally unprotected against the white mobs.

It took the little girls getting blown up in that church in Birmingham to make him do anything ONCE HE WAS IN OFFICE.

He could have just announced that the 14th and 15th Amendments would once again be enforced(they had been officially disregarded since the corrupt bargain that let the Republicans win the disputed 1876 election). No one could have stopped him doing that.

I'm glad he finally made the speech, but it looks as though if it hadn't been for those kids getting blown to bits, JFK would have been perfectly content to let the matter wait until a second term.

There was good in JFK, but he was wrong to let the invasion of Cuba go ahead and wrong to drag his feet on civil rights.

[ucrdem]

109. Nope. Kennedy sent 400 federal marshals to protect the freedom riders.

Freedom riders were arrested in North Carolina and beaten in South Carolina. In Alabama, a bus was burned and the riders attacked with baseball bats and tire irons.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent 400 federal marshals to protect the freedom riders and urged the Interstate Commerce Commission to order the desegregation of interstate travel.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Civil-Rights-Movement.aspx?p=2

As for enforcing the 14th and 15th amendments, JFK announces as much in his opening statement. He also sent the 1964 Civil Rights Act to Congress and his attorney general RFK initiated five times the number of voting rights suits brought by the previous administration.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Civil-Rights-Movement.aspx

[Recursion]

99. It's in our party's platform

Nationally a (slim) majority of Democrats support the TPP and a (vast) majority of Republicans oppose it. Ditto NAFTA.

[Armymedic88]

101. As a resident of Dayton I second your statement!!

[ucrdem]

93. +10! Can't be said enough. Offshoring started so long before NAFTA that GM was RETURNING in '93:

Associated Press Jun 22, 1993 - GM bringing back up to 1,000 jobs from Mexico

http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/gm-bringing-back-up-to-jobs-from-mexico/article_06f14a83-871c-5c4c-8918-bcaaea6d0716.html

[PyaarRevolution]

111. Oh jeez, it's the Washington Post?!

This is the same paper owned by Jeff Bezos now and wasn't it owned by the Moonies before, a cult who is very Conservative?

[Katashi_itto]

118. .

.