Current campaigns aside, was NAFTA really that bad?

[question everything]

Or is it the excuse for the bleeding of manufacturing jobs, a process that has been taking place now for over 30 years?

Can we really halt globalization a-la Lou Dobbs while the whole world adopts it?

After all, just with American vs. Japanese cars - these are two-way traffic. American cars are being made in Canada while Japanese cars are being built here, providing decent jobs to many.

Are these statements true? "Canada and Mexico are the top two markets for exports from Ohio, accounting for more than half of the state's exports in 2006. According to the Ohio Department of Development, 283,500 workers in the state earn their living in the export sector, with machinery, car parts, aircraft engines and optical/medical equipment among the leading exports."

Wouldn't something like NAFTA would have happen, one way or the other, eventually?

We know that the erosion of the middle class started with the conversion of our manufacturing based economy to a service one. But this started in the 70s, I think, and accelerated during the Reagan years. So it is really the fault of NAFTA?

I don't know. It would be nice if we could have an un-biased discussion which is not influenced by the current campaigns.

[LSparkle]

1. It might have continued as a slow drip .. NAFTA turned the tap on full force

I agree completely (in retrospect) with Ross Perot -- the "giant sucking sound" has materialized all right.

[Hydra]

2. Superpowers don't do "free trade"

They do "free trade" to others.

You can't have it both ways. Do we want to be number 1, or number 210 and falling?

Anyway, "Free trade" has failed enough times that I think we can safely dustbin the concept on general principles.

[leftofcool]

3. I think NAFTA is the scapegoat

Certainly, some jobs have been lost in some parts of the country while other parts have benefited. The real problem I believe is the outsourcing of jobs.

Left of Cool

[Mojambo]

4. Yes, it was (and is)

And the loss of manufacturing jobs is just one small part of how bad these "free" trade organizations are. They are undemocratic cabals that can overturn laws passed by WE the people.

Read Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann.

I'm in a solidly blue state and am quite tempted to withhold my vote from either of these candidates based on their support for this shit.

[DJ13]

5. Yes it was that bad

"According to the Ohio Department of Development, 283,500 workers in the state earn their living in the export sector, with machinery, car parts, aircraft engines and optical/medical equipment among the leading exports."

Those exports are to supply manufacturing that moved OUT of the US to Canada and Mexico due to NAFTA.

Before NAFTA the number of US market automobiles manufactured in Canada and Mexico were a small fraction of the numbers made there today.

You long for a new Ford Mustang?

Its only made in Mexico.

Before NAFTA would you have ever thought a car so uniquely American would be made in Mexico?

[LSK]

7. the All American Camaro was made in Canada, the GTO in Australia

[dmallind]

But

Those 283500 are in manufacturing in the US surely? If their customers are international why is that a problem? Export markets are a good thing to have with a weakened currency like ours.

What about the manufacturers in the US who sell to Japanese and German companies with US assembly or sales offices? Do you imagine any kind of isolationist trade would only be applicable to us and that we could expect companies from other countries to keep their jobs here at the same time we pulled out of free trade agreements?

[LSK]

14. Europe has "isolationist policies" in place

Why assume that only we would have them.

I read an article that VW was opening plants in Russia because of Russia's trade tariffs.

Also it is a red herring to say that all trade would stop. It would not.

[dmallind]

17. Yes it is a red herring because I didn't say that

It's not trade stopping that would be the problem, it would be that punitive tariffs would be reciprocated, and given that we are the world's biggest importer of consumer goods, that's not exactly going to be pleasant. It would be a significant decrease in real income for the very people you are trying to help, because it would increase the cost of imports. Since, regardless of tariffs, the cost structure of many consumer goods simply does not allow them to be competitively built in high wage economies like ours, it's not like buying domestic would be a viable option in many cases.

[question everything]

55. I agree. And, apparently, the non-union jobs in making Japanese cars

do pay well.

[Romulox]

21. The Mustang is made in Flatrock, Michigan (in a Mazda plant!) nt

[AlertLurker]

22. Not so good for Canada, either.

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1543949

"Between 1989 and 1997, 870,700 export jobs were created, but during the same period 1,147,100 jobs were destroyed by imports. Thus, Canada's trade boom resulted in a net destruction of 276,000 jobs" (Scott et al., Section 3, 16).

"This huge job loss has translated into a sustained, countrywide rise in unemployment levels. "Unemployment since the grim 1990s has lately fallen to around 7%, but this is still far above the 5.4% average unemployment rate for the entire three decades from 1950 to 1980" (Scott et al., Section 3, 19).

"Much of this job loss was the specific result of closures of the above-mentioned branch plant operations. Canadians have seen "the dismantling of the U.S. owned branch plant sector. For example, the Ontario Ministry of Labour documented 397 complete plant closures from 1989 to August 1992" (Campbell, p. 22). The closure of these branch plants, while contributing to Canada's rise in unemployment, is also evidence of a reduction in U.S. investment in Canada."

[LSK]

6. Trade Tariffs

We used to have them. They have been around for most of the lifespan of our country. They started getting eliminated when Reagan came to office. Coincidentally that is when our manufacturing base started to disappear.

If XYZ company wants to sell their made in China product in the USA, then we charge a certain percent import tax on that product. That protects ABC company who sells the same product that was made in the USA. China can make the product cheaper because of cheaper labor. So we use a tariff to equalize the product to the same price as the one made in the USA.

We benefit from trade tariffs because they generate tax revenue and also protect our jobs.

The USA is still one of the biggest markets in the world so companies will still want to sell products to us. When we have our manufacturing jobs, our consumers are even stronger.

When we were a manufacturing base economy we had more jobs that paid better. With service, well how many jobs can a Walmart support in a small town?

Yes Japanese companies opened factories here, however I think they are non-union and have lower pay and benefits than the big 3 used to offer.

Read and listen to Thom Hartmann, he talks about this a lot.

[dmallind]

10. Why did real median wage go up until Bushco if our old jobs paid better?

This is something that is either met with irrelevant anecdotes or indignant posturing most times I try it, but here goes again. If the median wage went up in real terms that means more people had better paying jobs right? How did we do that between 92 and 2001 then if that was the heart of NAFTA's job loss rush?

[LSK]

11. dot.com boom

The dot.com boom ended but NAFTA did not go away.

How do you explain the decline in wages since the dot.com boom?

[dmallind]

18. you mean the boom that at it's absolute peak employed less than one tenth

the additional jobs created in the 90s? In total that is? And that's IT overall, not the dot com specifically, which impacted far less than anti-Clinton revisionists like to pretend, concentrated as it was in a couple of regions for labor and those who speculated on NASDAQ stocks.

The US IT industry was panicking when they thought they might grow to employ two million people (in total - not two million extra), because they couldn't find enough qualified people.


23,000,000 new jobs in the 90s. A workforce of about 140,000,000. The median income is right in the middle of that, and you honestly think that a smallish bubble in about 1% of that labor force dramatically affected the median income? How exactly?

[Selatius]

24. From what I've looked at, median wages grew slower or remained stagnant for the last 20 yrs.

If you go back to pre-Reagan days, median wages grew at a faster clip. However, that's only part of the story. In the 1990s, the top 1 percent left everybody else in the dust as far as real gains in income and wealth. That's not progress by any fair definition I'm aware of. When you account for inflation, the gains made by a lot of people seem meager or non-existent.

[dmallind]

28. Not so, moot and not so in that order

Median wages in real terms (2005 dollars) have done the following:

1980 - 17473
1984 - 18467 - Reagan first term increase 5.7%
1988 - 20808 - Reagan second term increase 12.7% Total Reagan term increase 19.1%
1992 - 20245 - Bush 1 term decrease 2.7%
1996 - 22467 - Clinton first term increase 11.0% (part NAFTA)
2000 - 25330 - Clinton second term increase 12.7% (all NAFTA) Total Clinton term increase 25.1%
2004 - 24665 - Bush 2 1st term decrease 2.7% (all NAFTA, but an idiot in charge)

So no not stagnant except when a Bush is in office. Again these numbers are in REAL terms which means they are inflation adjusted and given in constant dollars, so are the gains made by real people.

They can be verified here:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p01ar.html


The top 1% thing? May be true, but irrelevant to median income by definition. Mean income can be skewed by the Gates' and Soros' of the world but they only count as one person above the median in these data, just like somebody who makes $26K a year no more no less. It does not matter how much MORE money teh rich got in this context. It would only matter if a huge number of people who previously made less than the median income started making more, which would of course be a good thing. Once you're over the median, any gains made regardless of how honest or ethical or fairly distributed they may or may not be doesn't change a thing.

[Selatius]

38. I concede the first two but still have a thing to say about the last.

The top 1 percent is in reference to the income gap in the US, which has grown to levels not seen since the 1920s. While wealth has been created, most of it is going to the people who largely derive their income from unearned income as opposed to earned income through payroll. In other words, income inequality as well as wealth inequality has grown. The largest beneficiaries of NAFTA are executives seeking low labor costs and lower costs in terms of compliance with weaker environmental standards. Mexico's exports had grown so that they're among the largest exporters in the world--I believe they're the 8th biggest in the world--yet if we examine their economy, the profits generated by the revenues aren't really reaching the workers toward the lower end of the spectrum.

NAFTA had and continues to have serious flaws, especially in giving investors the power to sue the government over regulations that they deem "harmful" even if the regulations are well justified, and I think NAFTA should be reformed to protect labor and the environment, and if all else fails, replace it with a new deal completely that does do that while promoting economic growth.

[dmallind]

39. Maybe I should have been more lucid

I know it's a weak point of mine.

I'm not arguing that the growth in income equality is a problem, because I agree it is, for social cohesion if nothing else. I'm not even arguing that NAFTA may have some influence on it. It would be difficult to measure this either way, but it's logically sound on an inferential basis at least to assume that increases in corporate profits which NAFTA unquestionably made possible by seeking lower cost labor would benefit those who own companies more than those who work for them (on the other hand, over 50% of the US now owns some stocks, so the benefit is only MORE to the uber rich, not exclusively).

What I AM arguing is that this does not dramatically or even noticeably impact median income growth, which remains a valid relative measure of the spending power of the average person and how that is going up or down.

If Mr FatCat makes 10 million a year now thanks to NAFTA where he only made $2 million before, he is still just one person over the median income. It does not skew what the median income is nor how many people are above it. The median income still means that the person in the exact center of the income ranks makes more now than they did pre NAFTA, in real terms, by a sizeable margin. Obviously the workforce has grown a bit in this time, but 50% make more than that guy and 50% make less still. How much more is not important in this context.

[Selatius]

41. I concede the point on median income at this point. Indeed, by the median numbers, I was wrong.

I concede that point again, if only to make it clear to you.

However, I would end by saying that for ordinary folks, it's about perceptions of the wealth and income gap. Historically speaking, the greater the gap, the more unstable a country becomes, prone to bouts of extremist methods as a way of dealing with poverty and heavy economic inequality, which is why I referenced former World Bank economist Joe Stiglitz. It tends to spill over into the political arena, as evidenced with Latin America's opposition in countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, etc. to more free trade deals with the US.

[dmallind]

42. No disagreement there

We have to do something about income inequality, and it's actually quite simple - raise marginal rates on very high earners while raising minimum wage linked to COL. The rest should sort itself out.

EDIT - and considering an increase in infrastructure and science spending funded by raised marginal taxes would be good. The multiplier effect of government spending would spread that around quite nicely.

BTW I'm vary much a capitalist and not at all suggesting silly punitive taxes like the 95% top rate of Beatles fame. But anyone who says a billionaire would say "screw it I'm not investing more money to make another $50 million because I'd only keep $25 million" (if the top rate were say 50%) is nuts. If they only get to keep $2.5 million then sure they might not bother.

[Selatius]

43. Simple on paper, but there'll necessarily be a lot of stonewalling by corporate interests.

It remains to be seen if the political will is there, especially in terms of raising marginal rates on top earners, given Republican stonewalling and filibustering. Dems invariably get red-baited like John Edwards, and many others simply don't seem to possess the stomach for such things. Ah well, we'll see how the results look next election.

[Hannah Bell]

48. No, you were right. He is wrong.

His chart shows per capita income, not median.

[Hannah Bell]

44. That table is PER CAPITA income

not median income.

Here's the table you want:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p05ar.html

It tells a different story.

Male median (2005 dollars):

1978: 29,807
1985: 28,224
1990: 29,390
1995: 28,700
2000: 32,129
2005: 31,275

The jump in the last part of Clinton's term is probably attributable to the mini-boom then. Down since. With the adjustment in calculation of CPI, it's not even clear how comparable pre & post-Clinton figures are.

Women's income has done better but is considerably lower.

For all extents & purposes, median income has been flat since the 70's despite expanded productivity.

In manufacturing, US production hasn't gone down (though the mix seems to have changed).

But employment & wages have.

[dmallind]

45. Why is male better than per capita?

[Hannah Bell]

47. Per capita divides total US income by the total population.

Every man, woman & child. It says nothing about who really GETS that income. 90% of it, in real life, could be going to one person.

Median (not average) income is the wage received by workers in the middle of the income distribution.

[Hannah Bell]

49. and male median is better

than per capita because PC only tells you how much income is being produced, not how it's divided.

I chose men rather than women because men still tend to be main household breadwinner, women's wages, though they've grown (partly at the expense of men on the low end of the distribution), but are still significantly lower, & I couldn't find combined chart.


Why are you so adamantly talking about MEDIAN income if you don't even know what it means? Where'd you get the term, since the chart you used doesn't have it?

[Disturbed]

16. Immigration Flood Unleashed by NAFTA's Disastrous Impact

on Mexican Economy
by Roger Bybee and Carolyn Winter

The recent ferment on immigration policy has been so narrow that it has excluded the real issue: family-sustaining wages for workers both north and south of the border. The role of the North American Free Trade Agreement and misnamed 'free trade' has been scarcely mentioned in the increasingly bitter debate over the fate of America's 11 to 12 million illegal aliens.

NAFTA was sold to the American public as the magic formula that would improve the American economy at the same time it would raise up the impoverished Mexican economy. The time has come to look at the failures of this type of trade agreement before we engage in more and lower the economic prospects of all workers affected.

While there has been some media coverage of NAFTA's ruinous impact on US industrial communities, there has been even less media attention paid to its catastrophic effects in Mexico:

NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'

NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.
Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour.

More here: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0425-30.htm

[Andy823]

8. Good topic

I say yes, it was that bad. Farmers in Mexico can no longer make a living off the land, nor those that used to make things by hand in Mexico. This has cause a massive influx of people coming to the U.S. to work, illegally, and has resulted in wages being surpressed, and the loss of jobs for those who once did the work, but can no longer compete with the low wages that illegals will work for.

In the area I live in, lots of orchards and fruit packing sheds, the vast majority of those now working in this industry are from Mexico, and the vast majority are here illegally. This started back in the early 70's with the picking of the crops, and has spread to all phases of the work. Tractor drivers used to be american citizens, as did truck drivers, and those who worked in the packing plants. Now those from Mexico have taken over all those jobs because they work for less money, and get no benefits.

It has also spread to the local stores, hospitals, clinics, etc. where now you have to spaek spanish to be hired. That includes school teachers, teachers aids, etc. A person who speaks spanish can go and learn english at no cost to them. Someone who speaks english, but not spanish, has to pay to learn spanish. Most of the young have moved away because there are no jobs to be had. Once we had many school kids woking during the summer, but there are no longer jobs for them because of the influx of so many from Mexico.

It has also increased outsourcing to other countries. Corporations are closing shop here, and sending the work overseas where the wages are 50 cents an hour and children are working 10 or more hours a day, along with the adults. How can this country compete with those kind of slave wages?

Yes, NAFTA was bad. We need a "fair" trade areement, not a "free" trade agreement. Wages need to be brought up in other countries, no lowered in this country.

[question everything]

56. I think that the problems for farmers in Mexico go back to the 80s, at least

with the increase of the agribusiness. Many American companies went to Mexico to get the farmers there to be a one crop farmers and to purchase their crops. Thus, instead of raising a bit of corn and a bit of soy beans and some vegetables, a farmer would convert his whole land to a single crop and then would have to go to the market to purchase fruits and vegetables.

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. NAFTA was NOT a free trade deal!!!!!

It's not free trade when you ship labor and capital out of the country to take advantage of slave labor and lax or nonexistent environmental, consumer, and labor laws.

It's not free trade when you give your trading partners 15 years to lower their tariffs, while we have to lower ours almost immediately.

It's not free trade when you let industry lobbyists write hundreds of pages of special favors into the legislation.

It's not free trade when you have corporate lawyers meeting in secret to settle trade disputes.

It's not free trade when the agreement voids local, state, and federal laws - see Chapter 11.

It's not free trade when the agreement allows our trading partners to hit USA exports with a VAT that could be as high as 30%, while we have no VAT on imports.



NAFTA has cost the USA over 2 million jobs when you factor in spin-off and support jobs. Who knows how much it has cost us in extra social costs and lost revenues. However, it's been a boom for corporate CEOs and wealthy investors.

[question everything]

57. It appears, though, that the Texas border towns have greatly benefited from it

According to some sources

"In the past decade, Laredo has gone from an impoverished backwater to one of the nation's largest inland ports. Its population has grown from 72,000 in the early 1990s to 250,000 in 2006."

And

"Last year, Texas's 3.1% job growth was triple the nation's 1% growth rate and topped the state's historic average of 2.8% for the third year in a row, according to a report issued last week by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Employment in the construction sector grew by 4.3%, while it fell by 2.9% nationally."

I suppose one can question of whether the Texas good fortunes are the result of NAFTA.

[trthnd4jstc]

12. It was Bad, but there is more than Nafta.

Allowing the Peoples Republic of China into the WTO as Most Favored Nation has had probably a bigger effect. When Nafta was passed, some industries moved to Mexico, then jumped to China. Further, allowing off-shore tax havens has allowed nearly $150 to $400 billion to not be taxed every year. Finally, and I know most people are against tariffs, but they could be used to equalize the prices for countrys like China.

I believe that there are those who wished for the Middle Class to be destroyed in this Nation. Nafta, off-shoring, China as Most Favored Nation, and Off-shore tax havens are a big reason for having nearly 1/2 reduction in the Middle Class in the last 20 years.

I believe that Politicians should serve the US first and not any grand ideas. Is America stronger by destroying the Middle Class?

I think it becomes harder for people to be involved in politics, with less time, and less money. I believe this is another reason I think the few wished to destroy the Middle Class.

I think that we need to be more involved in the Democratic Party, like being involved in Democrats for America. The People need to have our way over the interests of the Elites, who apparently have no real concern over the economic reality the majority of us are dealing with. I do not understand why the Working Class are seen as nothing less than Serfs, and expendable. Democracy is the Rule of the majority. I hear many Democrats saying that the Democratic Party is the Party of the People. This is why I am supporting the Democratic Party. I believe in the rule for the greatest good for the greatest number.

I also support representation for the wealthy, and there are members of the upper class who are Democrats. I wish for a country that is not oppressive nor tyrannical. Our government should serve the People, the whole of the country. Business owners have the right to property, but do they have a right to dominate? One Vote per Person.

[sendero]

13. NAFTA....

... was bad but not nearly as bad as letting China sell everything they want here with no quid pro quo.

[FogerRox]

15. Actually NAFTA is part of an idea that goes back 400 years

In the Early 1600's the Dutch used Trans-national alliances. Now its called Nafta, CAfta, New World Order, Globalism, etc.. Whats ironic is that Globalisn is just a failed retreaded idea.

Around 1600, the Dutch had a tradesmen class, nearly a middle class as we thought of it in the post WW2 era. 6000 ocean going sailing vessels, weavers and woodworkers that were in a class of their own, Remember the Dutch Empire ? NYC was called New Amsterdam. Well the Dutch starting engaging in trans-national alliances, outsourcing of jobs, regressive taxes.

We should ask, what happened to the Dutch ? Well, the Portuguese, French and Spanish periods of dominance followed. TO a degree some of this crap we see today is nothing new.

Under Globalism, corporations become stronger than the nation state, and erode economic sovereignty.

As, I see it we need to return to progressive taxation. When I was born the top personal rate was 91%. Reagan came in in '81 and dropped it 28%. Since then it hasn't been over about 36%.

AND to fix all this crap we need lots of DEMs elected in Nov. That means a lot of work, starting now to add to our total in the House and to work on 59 or 60 DEM Senators.





>




CLick me...

[Virginia Dare]

19. I think the concept is a sound one..

unfortunately the policy was driven by pure greed. So yeah, in the end, it WAS that bad.

[robcon]

20. NAFTA was one of the best accomplishments of the Clinton administration

Added jobs, increased economic growth across all three countries.

[dysfunctional press]

30. when you replace decent paying w/benefits for low-paying jobs without benefits- how is that good?

for the working class?

i can understand it being good for the investment class- but those are generally the republicans.

[Selatius]

23. NAFTA is unfair because it didn't include minimum safe labor and environmental standards.

Firms that went to Mexico often not only plowed under their own American workers but also often abused Mexican workers as well as despoil their environment and draining resources.

NAFTA is not fair trade. I favor fair trade.

[iamthebandfanman]

25. i think nafta was great, for the economy it was instituted under

but given the current economy its just a drag and a drain on resources and money.
nafta should be scrapped completely

[Johonny]

26. Was even good for Mexico?

If all these jobs went to Mexico why was there such a big influx of immigrants to the US looking for jobs right after NAFTA started?

[ReformedChris]

27. NAFTA is a negative, but Reaganomics and Corporate Leaders (Jack Welch) started the trend

Anyone remember when Jack Welch over at GE was called Nuetron Jack for his brutal downsizing? That generation of Corporate Leaders was more interested in maximizing profits over the welfare of the nation their business made money off of. Managers across all of GE were silenced by record Stock numbers and newfound wealth. They were enriched by screwing over the employees and turning into dictators in business suits. Some companies like IBM tried to resist the wave of greed, but were eventually forced to fall in line with the Welchian view of endless greed.

Reaganomics didn't help much either. The tax cuts and de-regulation crippled the American worker and created the working lower class we have today. We have an American labor force built on service that will disappear in the blink of an eye. Its truly amazing how nobody else sees the house of cards our economy has become. And sooner or later, that house of cards is going to tumble.

[dmallind]

29. Interesting numbers:

http://www.geocities.com/[e-mail]/NAFTA.htm

Summary for nonclickers: Unemployment down since enacted. Real wages up since enacted (compared to the corresponding time period pre NAFTA when real wages declined). Manufacturing employment down, but was up for six full years after enactment and only started declining after Bush took office.

But worth clicking - short article just a few paragraphs with lots of data and links.

[dysfunctional press]

32. "...If it were due to NAFTA, then why did it take so long for the loss to happen?"

for one thing, factories and supply chains can't be built and be brought up and running overnight...there are a lot of considerations & logistics involved in moving production facilities out of the country. as well as things like labor contracts and tax-break deals that have certain time-frame restrictions on a company being able to pull up stakes and move.

[dmallind]

36. I actually do those things for a living

Not always outside the country of course or I'd be posting from Bangalore, but certainly have done that a time or three. And before the predictable accusations of treason start, I've done it the other way too and brought production into the US.

We moved an entire FDA regulated, complex cGMP production facility, both logically and brick and mortar (setting up the systems took longer than the buildings, as is often the case) from the US to India in 18 months.

I got a so-so review for that as it was considered a bit slow.

Moving non regulated production to Mexico? Anyone doing it in more than a year is dragging.

[Elwood P Dowd]

33. Who believes stats from cooked books?

The Labor Department has been cooking the books in relation to job creation and unemployment for years. Real wage figures are a joke. They don't use REAL inflation numbers. The number of jobs lost to NAFTA could be over 2 million because they only count the proven direct losses. They don't count spin-off and support jobs. They don't count future jobs that were never created because of the agreement.

Anyway, NAFTA is not even a free trade agreement. It is an investment and outsourcing scam designed to make a fortune for corporate CEOs and wealthy investors. It's not free trade when you ship both labor and capital out of the country to take advantage of slave labor, along with lax labor, consumer, and environmental regulations. It's not free trade when you lower your tariffs immediately, but give your trading partners 15 years to lower theirs. It's not free trade when you allow your trading partners to charge a VAT of up to 30% on USA exports, yet we have no VAT on their exports.

[dmallind]

35. All numbers are compared to themselves

Unless the definitions are continuously changed for some reason (to make Bush look bad in losing ground? Why would his own appointees do that?) the direction remains valid no matter what quibble you have with the metric. We can all play what if games and think of conspiracies but if you do that then we simply know nothing and have no data to go on whatsoever - we descend to solipsism perforce if we cannot look at data.

The number of jobs lost due to NAFTA is quite simply a guessing game regardless of who does it or whether it supports your contentions or preference or not - there is absolutely no way to get direct single factor causation for such things. What we CAN establish is the change in workforce and in unemployment in toto, and both have improved since NAFTA was enacted. Even the most anti-NAFTA tin foil hatter can thus do no more than guess that things would have been even better had it not happened, but then we're back to guessing games.

You seem to be trying to argue that NAFTA is not perfect. Not sure with whom, because that's not my contention. All I posit is that whatever impact NAFTA has had has not in any way reduced aggregate income or increased aggregate unemployment. I can prove that by pointing to metrics which measure those things, in the same manner they did before NAFTA, and which have moved in the opposite direction. If unemployment is understated by 50% it matters not one whit - it's still better now than pre-NAFTA.

[Elwood P Dowd]

37. Your outsourcing job must pay you well.

Keep on spinning!

[dmallind]

40. spinning? The guy who actually supplies data doesn't spin

The one who guesses what the data really should be based on how they feel about something spins. And swivels.

Median income is up since NAFTA. Unemployment is down since NAFTA. Those are cast iron absolute facts, measured the same way, by administrations of both parties. Any attempt to explain them away as bad things or explain that somehow NAFTA was bad for employment and pay even though they improved is where the spin comes in.

But yes thanks, the (insourcing and) outsourcing job pays quite well it's true, and requires a thorough understanding of economics and finance naturally enough.

[Elwood P Dowd]

50. Your data is a worthless joke!!

The Government started tweaking the inflation figures in the 80s. Clinton did it again in the 90s. Same with unemployment and job creation. Bush's crowd made it even more meaningless with their new secret formulas. A few months ago the Labor Dept announced 160,000 jobs created. Upon closer inspection, you find that 103,000 of those jobs were simply "make believe" jobs. They just pulled the numbers out of their ass. According to government methods my real wages have increased the past 5 years, when in the "real world" they have decreased.

Median income and poor workers often spend 30-40 percent of their pay on products not even included in the inflation figures. Between eliminating food and energy, along with the multiple substitution tricks, the government figures you cite are worthless. I don't believe half the crap they put out anymore.

[Hannah Bell]

52. For a person who doesn't know per capita income from median

income, you seem to be quite the economics expert.

What's up with that?

How come you're posting misleading information?

[Hannah Bell]

46. You seem to be pushing a certain storyline on nafta.

But the numbers don't support it. Median wages blipped up 1995-2000, most likely due to the computer mini-boom (which, though you say it only affected x number of jobs, had spin-off effects through the whole economy). Wages trending down through the GWB presidency & with recession coming, more lows likely.

Median wages have been essentially flat since 1973. The only period of sustained real wage growth in modern times was post-war - 70's. Under selective tariff regime.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p05ar.htm

Male median (2005 dollars):

1953: 19,951
1973: 30,660
1978: 29,807
1985: 28,224
1990: 29,390
1995: 28,700
2000: 32,129
2005: 31,275

[Marr]

31. Yes, it was-- and GAT was even moreso.

These two pieces of legislation-- GAT in particular-- greatly accelerated a destructive process that was already in motion. But it needn't have been allowed to stay in motion. It's not some unstoppable force of nature. We could reverse all this with sane trade policies.

[Xithras]

34. Yes. Fair trade, not free trade. The Ohio thing is a sham and a lie.

Most of the so-called "exports" going to Mexico and Canada are SOURCE PARTS for products that used to be made in the United States. There is zero economic difference to Ohioans as to whether those source parts are shipped to Michigan or to Mexico. There is a MASSIVE difference to the countless thousands of people who used to RECEIVE those parts in Michigan and other states, who are now unemployed or underemployed because those "Made In Ohio" pieces are now assembled in Mexico instead of the USA.

Prior to NAFTA our government had the right to levy tarriffs to protect domestic jobs as needed. NAFTA killed those protections and improsed economic darwinism onto working Americans.

Clinton supported NAFTA because he was a DLC neoliberal (his choice of title, not mine). Look up the platform of the DLC sometime if you want to be thoroughly disgusted. It can best be described as "anti-populist progressive corporatism".

NAFTA was no friend to the working person, and represented an abdication of duty on the part of our government. OUR government is supposed to represent OUR interests. NAFTA works against our interests.

[Selatius]

54. Ouch, the truth hurts for some here who favor neoliberalism.

Mexico boosted its exports after NAFTA, but the wealth wasn't reaching the poor workers. The products they were assembling were sent out of country. That's counted into the export totals, but the profits largely went into the pockets of their bosses, while the wages of workers either stagnated or even declined in real terms. NAFTA was simply a way to smash labor while boosting profits.

[countryjake]

51. NAFTA was only good for those who own the means of production...

increasing the profits of imperialist capital, leaving American laborers behind, to be smothered in the rising smokescreen of service industry. Sure, we had runaway shops 35 years ago, electronics ran first to the South, then to Mexico, and on to Asia; they left behind their trail of PCBs and other vile pollution, which was alot of the reason the corporations saw the "need" to run, in the first place, with environmental restrictions and worker safety issues on the rise during the 70s with awareness of exposure and hazard waste dumps.

I worked for years in a transformer sweatshop, we sub-contracted for Western Electric, Motorola, GE, and many others. After we struck for union recognition in the early seventies (and won), our plant made good on their threats to runaway and late in that decade they relocated their electronics production to Mexico. The pollutions the owner was responsible for here were buried and forgotten after his operation left the country, since he'd gotten away with his illegal dumping for decades and the area he'd poisoned was a sparsely populated and wild hill country, which drew little interest in the eco-minded activist sector. In Mexico, his new dumping was noticed tho, and after years of struggle on the part of the indigenous population whose countryside he'd poisoned, a wonderful settlement was reached and that waste-dump was cleaned up and stopped cold. The fine supposedly bankrupted him. But somehow his operation managed to re-open in China. Enter NAFTA. Take away the organizing rights of the workers handling and breathing those PCBs, take away the right of the population to sue for the polluting at dump sights, strike the duties on shipping and selling the product, and that one owner has finally got it made, to "rape and pillage" the workers and land, at will. The American Way.

NAFTA was merely the icing on the cake, a necessary goal, in the capitalist push to control and profit from the labor of the workers of our world.

[warren pease]

53. Great if you enjoy participating in the race for the bottom...

...or if you're a rich and well-capitalized manufacturer on the lookout for a cheaper and less uppity labor force. Otherwise, not so good.


wp