Posted on 06/08/2009 9:31:36 AM PDT by carolgr
Industrial globalization has contributed to the initiation of shockingly cheap offshore product production in places like China, which surpasses Mexico’s deplorable low cost labor status. Mexico, because of its close geographic proximity to the United States, has been particularly targeted by U.S. industry for wage-slavery and consequential human rights violations.
Ross Perot, who opposed NAFTA and ran against Bill Clinton for President, said that the “Giant Sucking Sound, would be the jobs heading south to Mexico.” NAFTA has been a disaster for the working people and the communities in which they live in all three nations. Today we clearly see that the results of NAFTA have led to a much weaker America with devastated and shuttered manufacturing communities. Mexican wages have dropped, and almost 20 million more Mexicans now live in poverty. American business leaders have been quick to seize upon the opportunity to take advantage of these desperate workers. It is common knowledge that many U.S. politicians get hefty campaign contributions from industry. The only NAFTA winners have been the companies and politicians. There are about 3,000 high profit maquiladora factories along the 2000-mile U.S.-Mexican border with over 1 million Mexican workers. As of 2006, maquiladoras accounted for 45 percent of Mexico’s total exports. The impoverished maquiladora workers really have few choices and are forced to choose between working for starvation wages and not having employment at all. A husband and a wife working full time jobs in these factories still cannot earn enough money to decently support a family of four. It is economic subjugation. In too many instances, workers put in grueling 10 hour shifts 6 days a week doing difficult unhealthy jobs at an unreasonable work pace often around hazardous and toxic elements.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecuttingedgenews.com ...
NO THEY WON'T!
It's the slavery stupid!
US, State and Local taxes along with a growing gov’t make wage slaves of most Americans.
And of course if you read down into this, it is all America’s fault — those mean, nasty, greedy capitalist gringitos. The nerve of them, employing Mexicans. People from all over Mexico have swarmed into Cd. Juarez and other border cities to work at the maquiladoras because they provide good, steady jobs that are unavailable elsewhere. If they are unable to live on the wages, why are they all still there, and why is there such competition for those jobs? Why haven’t they all starved to death? (Perhaps the cost of living is lower in Mexico? Just a guess....) This naive little writer seems surprised and disgusted that they aren’t paid the American minimum wage. If they were, these poor people wouldn’t have jobs, their jobs would be here. Unfortunately for the Mexicans, those jobs that this writer so scorns are moving to China and other places in East Asia where the wages are even lower. This author has no sense of proportion or perspective. Meanwhile, Japan is all over Mexico setting up tech businesses and providing jobs for those with a little education.
These jobs typically would have went to China, at least if it goes to Mexico under Nafta the profit stays here.
This is the simple truth.
That is ridiculous. How can you be so blind? We are all being victimized!
Can’t you understand that these exported jobs were once our middle class jobs that paid a living wage? Look what has happened to our middle class manufacturing jobs for heavens sake!
Do you actually believe that exporting those jobs to foreign workers who are paid starvation wages benefits the U.S. or Mexico?
If the cost of living in Mexico were as cheap as you allude then they wouldn’t be racing over here.
Sorry, but you don’t know what you are talking about!
So, if the plants weren't there these people would have no work at all.
Which would mean they would have no money for food and would starve. But that would be better then them working for "starvation wages". Except if they are truly working for "starvation wages" they would all be dead.
Does this person understand what a "starvation wage" is?
That is easy. How can jobless Americans who have lost their jobs to exploited foreign workers buy anything?
After these corporations have reduced all of the worlds workers to the lowest common denominator then we won’t have to be worried anymore about hungry people busting through our borders for a better way of life.
We will all be lower class!
You simply don’t know what you are talking about.
The maquiladoras are competing with China. Companies have discovered that thanks to the magic of broadband they can manufacture their stuff on the other side of the globe, and they don’t have to deal with the security issues that go along with working in Mexico. Your execs don’t have to worry about being kidnapped. Your truckers don’t have to worry about being hijacked.
While Mexico is the logical place to go for companies wanting to get “offshore”, for a lot of reasons, security has made China an attractive alternative.
I am sure with your vast knowledge you are right. The fact that I lived in Mexico for many years and in El Paso for several leaves me with absolutely no insight into this article, the entirety of which I read, and the agenda of which I picked up on immediately. This is Leftist economics at its most strident, complete with the hand-wringing about global warming. Manufacturing jobs are, by definition, not middle class, they are working class, what used to be called blue-collar. Jobs moved to Mexico because the working class, organized into unions, priced itself out of those jobs. The laws of supply and demand work in the labor market as well as the retail and commodities markets. Businesses can only afford to pay what a job is worth, not what the worker wants to be paid. The jobs didn’t pick up and leave on their own, they became too expensive to maintain in the U.S. and still make a profit, which last I heard was one of the goals of capitalism. The Mexicans who work in the maquiladoras are not rich by U.S. standards, but they are much better off than the majority of people in that country. The ones who have maquiladora jobs aren’t racing over here, it’s the ones who don’t that are flooding our country. The cost of living in Mexico is something close to 35 or 40 percent less expensive than living in the U.S. We are being victimized, but not by companies that operate maquiladoras.
You have to ask yourself why that would be?
If people are lining up to take those jobs, they must be the best jobs in town. The writer may look down his nose at them, but that doesn't change the reality on the ground. If people are lining up for these jobs, there is a reason, and he ought to look a little deeper.
Mexico is a major oil producer, and its oil sells on the open market for dollars. Its also a major industrial power in its own right. The country is enormously wealthy in natural resources. Its people are hard workers, and they have a well educated managerial class. So what is the problem? Socialist and populist political expectations, and a very weak rule of law. Rule of law, a transparent legal system, personal security, respect for private property and private initiative are the keystones of prosperity. Get those right and the rest follows. Fail to get those right and the results are foreordained.
So, you are claiming the American Middle Class “priced itself out of business” ?
Here’s a really simple question: If American workers who used to earn a living wage have been reduced to “want-fries-with-that ?” jobs, WHO is going to buy the products our loyal corporate compatriots are selling ? (Or is that too “strident” and “leftist” a question?)
No, I am NOT arguing that the American middle class priced itself out of business. I thought I made that very clear. I am arguing that the American blue-collar, WORKING class, manufacturing workers priced themselves out of business, GM being a case in point. The price Americans are willing to pay for manufactured goods is not as high as the workers’ expectations. May I assume you would close the country to all imports in order to rectify this situation, even if it meant doubling or tripling the price of everything we consume?
No, I would not close the door to imports - but I would give some thought to the REAL cost of those “irrestible bargains” !
Let’s say I can buy an imported guitar for $300 less than an American-made Martin: not quite as good, but a heckuva lot cheaper. What happens to the workers over at the Martin factory who lost their jobs ?
They draw unemployment for a while(at a cost to the public) and then-if they’re lucky,find lesser paying jobs-which contribute less to the economy and to the tax base : degrading the overall quality of life.
(To add insult to injury, the import I bought doesn’t hold up very well, and probably won’t be handed down to my great grand children.)
Carol,
What’s the point of posting a nonsensical article that distorts reality and implies that America is (again) at fault for something that is not her responsibility? Is it not enough that we the MSM is full of such garbage. What’s YOUR point?
Coming to a neighborhood near you.
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