NAFTA Is Good

Filed under: 2008 elections, Feature, NAFTA, United States — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on February 29, 2008 @ 4:40 pm CET

[Obama] campaign claims a million jobs have vanished because of the deal. That sounds devastating, but over the last 14 years, the American economy has added a net total of 25 million jobs—some of them, incidentally, attributable to expanded trade with Mexico. When NAFTA took effect in 1994, the unemployment rate was 6.7 percent. Today it’s 4.9 percent.

But maybe all the jobs we lost were good ones and all the new ones are minimum-wage positions sweeping out abandoned factories? Actually, no. According to data compiled by Harvard economist Robert Z. Lawrence, the average blue-collar worker’s wages and benefits, adjusted for inflation, have risen by 11 percent under NAFTA. Instead of driving pay scales down, it appears to have pulled them up.

Manufacturing employment has declined, but not because we’re producing less: Manufacturing output has not only expanded, but has expanded far faster than it did in the decade before NAFTA. The problem is that as productivity rises, we can make more stuff with fewer people. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s essentially the definition of economic progress…

Even if the candidates don’t want to acknowledge the gains of the last 14 years, it’s hard to see how they can blame NAFTA for economic troubles in Ohio or elsewhere. The whole idea was to eliminate import duties in both the United States and Mexico (as well as Canada). What everyone forgets is that we got the best of that bargain, since our tariffs were very low to begin with.

“Mexico had very good access to the U.S. market” already, says Charlene Barshefsky, who was U.S. Trade Representative in the Clinton administration. “What NAFTA did was level the playing field.”
Critics complain that while exports to Mexico have risen, imports from Mexico have risen even faster.

But that’s not because we embraced free trade. It’s because our economy has been more robust than theirs. Prosperous consumers buy more goods, from both home and abroad, than struggling consumers. Absent NAFTA, the trade imbalance with Mexico would not be smaller. It would be bigger.

This anti-NAFTA and anti-free trade rhetoric isn’t just counterproductive, I even consider it to be dangerous. Obama and Clinton, but especiallay Obama, are giving people the impression that free trade is wrong, NAFTA is wrong, etc. Others are influenced by it and this will only help the anti-globalization / free trade movement in the US (which is a bulwark of raving lefties).

Obama should be honest about this matter: stop complaining, NAFTA is good. Adjust.

If you’re not convinced, there’s more, this time at USA Today.

The reality is that NAFTA has relatively little to do with either the overall job losses or job gains. China is a far larger factor. But the number that best displays the nonsensical nature of the debate is 66% — the increase in the manufacturing output of American industry since 1993.

It’s impossible to look at an economy that has increased its manufacturing output so dramatically while simultaneously cutting its manufacturing workforce and not see a much larger force at work than NAFTA.

That force has been the unprecedented and sweeping gains in worker productivity that have allowed U.S. companies to churn out more goods with fewer people. Some of this has come from outsourcing the most labor-intensive parts of manufacturing, particularly to Asia. But much of it is from the use of more automated systems for assembly lines and high-tech inventory management.

Put another way, the main job killer of the past 14 years has not been the “giant sucking sound” of jobs going to Mexico, as enunciated by Ross Perot. Rather it has been that giant humming sound of machines replacing humans.

The only real answer to the problem of declining employment in manufacturing lies in educating younger workers and retraining older ones. This is, to be sure, a big challenge and a tough sell politically. American schools continue to underperform, particularly in technical knowledge. And most federal retraining programs have failed.

Any other answer, however, is simply not responsive to the problem — a workforce with too many people lacking the skills to prosper in a global economy and climb into the middle class. Fixing this is both essential for the economy and vital to U.S. democracy.

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1 Amgine

February 29, 2008 @ 8:06 pm CET

No, free trade by itself really is bad, because it forces manufacturing, shipping, and retail to operate in the financially cheapest manner. Commonly not the economically or environmentally cheapest manner. Asbestos is still one of the cheapest materials, superb in a range of applications, but the health cost - eventually born by the economy - is simply too high. The chemistry involved in battery manufacturing is toxic, and extremely long lived in the environment, as well as economically taxing. Which is why 99% of US battery manufacturing takes place in Mexico.

Oh, and you might consider your source for the numbers you’re spouting. All those US firms manufacturing products in Mexico, or Indonesia for that matter, are included in the numbers you’re reporting as "US manufacturing". And here’s a towel to wipe off that egg - you’ve been tooled too.

2 Lucien BONNET

February 29, 2008 @ 8:08 pm CET

RE:

NAFTA Is GoodFiled under: 2008 elections, Feature, NAFTA, United States — Michael van der Galien on February 29, 2008 @ 4:40 pm CET ————————-
LETTER TO SENATOR BARACK OBAMA
Montreal, February 20, 2008

SENATOR OBAMA ,

The whole world has its eyes on you, on The United States Of America and its people.

Everyone expects you to be democratically elected and see that something happen in America.

In March 1983, one of humanity’s most famous spokesmen, Pope John-Paul II, came to our country - " Haîti " - and loudly proclaimed what each and every one of us had been whispering:

" Something must change here. "

Today, more than ever, a lot of people of The United States of America stand up, longing for something and working to make something happen.

And, like in March 9, 1983, beloved Haiti, History - (which from then and now on rests in thy hands) - tells thee: "It is now time to let people speak to thee of love!", let’s say today: "Go thou America ahead and show us thy true countenance in a positive light." It is up to everyone to play his or her part in order to let thee regain thy mark of excellence !"

With this letter, I am communicating with You, Senator Obama, and with the whole people of The United States of America.

You offer this country what it takes to be a Wonderfull Land." Yes, let us say "with a great people living together."

Go thou, America, go ahead, following in the footsteps of one of thy sons who is now becoming one of thy statesmen.

With this in mind, Mr.Obama, to whom else could I entrust this letter sent to his Holiness Pope John Paul II when he set foot on Haitian soil for the first time, as well as its acknowledgment by the Vatican?

That letter to Pope John-Paul II is intended to draw attention to the problem posed by anti-Black discrimination and its negative repercussions on the advancement of scientific progress in the West, and more precisely in the realm of Optics.

In the Western world, according to Newton’s widely accepted theory, white is considered to be the synthesis of all colors. Actually, the opposite is true. White constitutes the analysis or "visible" decoding of light or color, whereas black is its synthesis or "invisible" composition.

In other words, darkness or blackness and, we might add, "Black Holes" - a scientific misnomer designating invisible stars or "Black Suns" - are a source of energy and light.

That basic raw material of light energy culminates, in its most radiant form, in the neutralization of all the colors of the spectrum in the form of so-called "white light."

Therefore "absolute blackness", the absorption of all the colors, is a divisible component of light. Needless to say, Newton’s theory gives only a partial interpretation of the notion of light, by excluding black. Our contribution aims at demonstrating that the black color is not only an integral part of the color process, but its true synthesis. Light is therefore shown to be a divisible whole comprising an intensity or color scale in which black is the "invisible" or "absorbed form" of the energy in question.

Allow me, Senator Obama, in order to support my statement concerning Black Holes and radiation, to pose a question asked by Hubert Reeves, Doctor of nuclear astrophysics and Scientific Consultant to NASA:

"What would have become of the Sun, if it were plunged into a high temperature radiance like the one that existed at the beginning of the Universe? [our translation]."

"Instead of emitting light, it would absorb it and, in the end, it would be completely reabsorbed into the cosmic fluid."

The cosmic fluid is what, due to an "optical mistake", is called "darkness" or the "blackness of space". We are talking about the electromagnetic flux, that immeasurable ocean in which the planets and stars are bathed, like the sea which links all the continents together. Darkness is thus "The Sea of Space."

"What would have happened if, instead of an ordinary star like the "White Sun", a Black Hole or "Black Sun" were injected into that primordial radiation?"

"According to Einsteinian Physics, a Black Hole is a place where gravity is so formidably intense that nothing can escape it, not even visible light. Such a hole should suck in and absorb radiation and increase its own mass: E=MC2, always."

"But after Einstein came Bohr, Heisenberg, and Quantum Physic. From then on, nothing was the same as before."

"The Einsteinian version of the Black Hole is equivalent to a statement that the matter inside the Black Hole is definitely there to stay, in that volume of space. Let us quote Hubert Reeves: "Such an absolute statement is thus contrary to the "Quantum spirit", affirming that nothing is definitely localized in one place. There is always a probability of escape. If the enclosing wall is too high, a tunnel will be dug; if the prisoners are patient, they will escape. One has only to wait. [our translation]."

"According to that principle, Black Holes "evaporate." Matter constantly escapes as radiation. Black Holes "shine!" Their surfaces behave like those of any body heated to a certain temperature and that radiation endlessly feeds that marvelous "Cosmic Fluid" which, wrongly and in bad faith, people keep calling "Darkness."

Nigra sum "sed" formosa. Yes, but should we not say instead, I am black "and" comely? Darkness, which is both source and vehicle of light, does not have to defend itself for being the beautiful and infinitely discreet raw material of the Universe. Darkness is the "Mother of the Universe."

Also, beautiful and discreet art thou, Haiti. Discreet, yes, but never outshone! Just like the Black Virgin who inspires and sheds her love on thee from the hilltop and even beyond Cité Soleil (Sun City).

Our purpose was to offer a more constructive approach aiming at correcting the abusive traditional, so-called scientific, theories of Optics. That is why, we wrote to that authentic witness to the signs of this age, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, the prophet of the new era.

Congratulations to You, Sir, and congratulations to the people of The United States Of America, for having made it possible for this day to mark the beginning of a "New Era of Hope !"

Lucien Bonnet

PLease, SEE :
LETTER TO POPE JOHN-PAUL II
in "BILL A RI AND THERE WAS LIGHT !"
http://www.contact-canadahaiti.ca

3 Jay_C

February 29, 2008 @ 9:43 pm CET

Two developments to make a case against NAFTA
1) Bush’s plan to regularize the flow of Mexicans into the United States and grant a still-vague legitimacy to illegals.
2) In 2004 news spread that General Motors was to put it nicely was “uncompetitive” versus foreign made cars, even with the huge cash rebates and other incentives it’s used to help sales, it also gave away 1000 of its cars and trucks. Since then things have not improved. Their sales numbers as we saw recently are getting embarrasingly worse.

Almost 15 years after it went into effect, NAFTA has failed to achieve its two major objectives:1) Improve life for the typical Mexican to slow down the flow of illegals into the U.S. 2) Strengthening U.S. industry to help it increase market share at home and abroad, and boost the living standards of American workers.
In addition, NAFTA supporters talk about increased U.S.-Mexican trade and investment flows, and about the 1990s boom that followed NAFTA, forgetting that expanding trade in an economic relationship has no importance independent of the structure of trade itself and its financial sustainability. I agree that some NAFTA opponents have made up some stories as well. Just as NAFTA could not have sparked the ’90s boom, its effects are not the "root of all evil" in a U.S. economy bigger than North American trade. And Mexico had no choice but to increase exports and assimilate itself more thoroughly with the United States. That being said, a good test of NAFTA’s success, should be economic change and reforms to encourage more Mexicans to stay in Mexico. I’m not seeing that, overall I am seeing the opposite.I agree that China (and I’ll add India) are other Countries where our jobs are being lost. According to that USA today article, 39 million jobs outside of manufacturing may have been created in that time in the USA, but where are these jobs? More service sector jobs I presume? (You want fries with that?) Have illegals taken any of these jobs?