Posted on 12/29/2010 9:36:43 AM PST by triumphant values
“Free Trade” agreements create jobs. Our area witnessed a vivid illustration of this in November 2005, when the brick walls of the massive Pillowtex Plant No. 1 in Kannapolis crumbled to the ground. Four thousand pounds of dynamite in shaped cartridges detonated to create a series of controlled explosions that shattered critical supports throughout the structure, and gravity did the rest. Spectators gasped and yelled in response to the succession of booms, and at the huge crumbling sections that slammed to earth with so much force, they blew dust even higher than the towering smokestacks that stood untouched nearby. But all then gazed in silence at the eerie precision of the collapsing structure, which dropped exactly as the engineers of the D.H. Griffin Wrecking Company planned.
It was Griffin’s second-largest demolition job in the company’s history. Its largest was the World Trade Center cleanup. Nine months later, it took down the twin smokestacks.
When Fieldcrest executives first announced the closing in 2003, workers gathered at the plant for weeks afterward during lunch breaks and days off to hold prayer vigils. When the plant closed, 4,300 workers lost their jobs, the largest single layoff in North Carolina history. The Kannapolis area still has not recovered. While the state unemployment rate just increased to 9.7 percent, Kannapolis struggles with a rate of 12.3 percent.
Even supporters of the North American Free Trade Act, which had eliminated tariffs between the US, Canada, and Mexico, admitted Washington’s free trade policies were to blame. Economist Michael L. Walden, in an article entitled, “Pillowtex: Don’t forget the benefits of freer trade,” identified “lower-cost foreign labor” as the reason so many American textile and apparel jobs had vanished overseas. From 1997 to 2002, North Carolina lost 100,000 textile and 70,000 apparel jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at salisburypost.com ...
Are there no prisons? Are there no workshouses?
Bunch of bums. They all should've gotten PhDs in biotech engineering or did something constructive like packaging mortgage securities.
But but... Free Trade is everything right?
I despise free trade with nations like Mexico and China more than I despise the Unions... They have both killed blue collar jobs in the US...
Exactly
The “Free Trade” fraud strikes again. Mild Protectionism for needed basic industries. By the way that concept of Protectionism was president Madison’s. While Madison was a long time ago at least he did not have a hidden agenda as do most of today’s “Free Traders.”
What we have with China is free trade? Um....I don’t think so...
What we have with China and Mexico isn’t free trade either but it doesn’t stop anyone from throwing the term around.
You are correct. And one wonders why we
STILL have no free trade with Colombia (which would be an economic PLUS for us)?
Better yet, they should all move to California and get one of those ‘green jobs’ the leftists promise that cap n’ trade will create.
Why? Because if you find youself trapped in a pit, stop digging!
Go to Bloomingdale’s or Nordstrom and try to buy a single towel or sheet or pillow or rug or shower curtain or duvet that was made in this country. It is impossible. And it is impossible to purchase a quality, durable version of any of those items without paying a small fortune at Neiman or Horchow. The cheaper ones self-destruct in a short period of time. We have been twice screwed. In my pile of old towels I use to bath the dog, there are a couple that my mother bought in 1971 that are still intact and functional, and I know they were made in this country, not Mexico or where ever. Yet I have a couple of Bloomingdale’s towels I bought two years ago that are about to join their elders in the dog’s pile.
It is the LIBERALS who don’t want free trade with Colombia. Nancy Pelosi, in particular, has worked hard against this.
The same region also produced high quality hardwood furniture, which probably employed about the same numbers of people as the textile industry (also not union labor).
I like free trade. It reduces my cost of living and of doing business.
You trying to pin-point who I should and shouldn’t blame for screwing things up here?
I just want to say, I voted for Ross Perot. Do you hear that sound? That GIANT SUCKING SOUND! We all need to remember that it was Al Gore who debated Perot on Larry King and who swore up and down that Perot was wrong (or worse) for being opposed to NAFTA. It was the Democrat’s Al Gore and Bill Clinton that made the sales pitch for that free trade agreement and because of this, I think we can draw a few conclusions about their actual credibility. For instance, when Al Gore yells about global warming, let’s remember, he yelled about NAFTA too. When people make claims that the Clinton economy was so wonderful, let’s not forget, he signed NAFTA into law. He also forced banks to give home loans to people that were unqualified. And, furthermore, he also permanently extended MFN status to China. How did this all work out for America? Not very well IMO.
No, I am not. Actually, I think all of us share some of the blame for what has happened to our great nation. I am a realist. ;-)
You should check your math again. But regardless, everything isn't always about you.
“You should check your math again. But regardless, everything isn’t always about you. “
You either.
Locally a lot of mill jobs up and left for places like NC in the early/mid 20th century. My entire grandparent’s generation basically sang the song you are singing now.
Were workers in NC upset they took jobs from (relatively) overpaid workers in New England? My guess is they weren’t.
Ross Perot was a visionary, I didn’t vote for him but as we all know hindsight is 20/20.
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