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Look Who's Arriving on the NAFTA Train
Townhall.com ^ | July 15, 2014 | Phyllis Schlafly

Posted on 07/15/2014 9:24:50 AM PDT by Kaslin

Do you remember when President George W. Bush, in 2005, held a summit meeting with the "three amigos" to promote the free movement of people and goods across our borders with Canada and Mexico? The Council on Foreign Relations then spoke of "building a North American community" with a common "security perimeter" and "labor mobility" among our three countries.

Texas planned to build a massive North American Free Trade Agreement superhighway that would begin at its southern border with Mexico and eventually reach northern U.S. cities. The Kansas City Southern Railway bought a Mexican railroad and began branding it as the NAFTA railroad, with the goal of carrying Chinese products from Mexico's Pacific Port of Lazaro Cardenas all the way to Kansas City, Missouri.

The prospect of an economic union with Mexico, which could eventually become a North American Union modeled on the European Union, rightly alarmed many Americans. Texas Gov. Rick Perry was forced to abandon his NAFTA superhighway, and President Barack Obama quietly removed Bush's Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America from the White House website.

But the NAFTA railroad, now called the Kansas City Southern de Mexico, is up and running. Thanks to the exclusive reporting of Dr. Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily, we learn that this train is now playing a major role in bringing tens of thousands of young Central American immigrants into our country illegally.

Americans have been aghast at the sight of unending waves of people, ranging in age from babies in arms to tough, tattooed teenage men. The trip north is no joy ride: riding on the top of moving freight cars for hundreds of miles, preyed on by bandits. Those who take this harrowing trip call it "La Bestia" (the Beast) or the "Train of Death."

How were these desperately poor people able to travel the distance of more than a thousand miles from their homes in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to the U.S. border? The answer, apparently, is that they were allowed to hitch a ride on the NAFTA train that is owned and operated by an American company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Kansas City Southern Rail Network.

Obama, predictably, is demanding that American taxpayers foot the monstrous bill. A mere billion dollars or two won't be enough. Obama's first demand is for $3.7 billion, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Considering all the entitlement programs these kids will eventually soak up, from public school education to medical care, this is easily a trillion-dollar problem. American taxpayers will again be the ones left holding the bag.

This is the background for an astonishing article recently published by three of our most famous billionaires: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Sheldon Adelson. The three men, whose combined worth approaches $200 billion, say they are putting aside their political differences (Adelson is a Republican; Gates and Buffett are Democrats) to demand immediate so-called immigration reform.

The billionaire advice-givers tell us the immigration "impasse certainly depresses the three of us," but a vacation trip to sunny Murrieta, California, might have lifted their spirits. The administration sent agents dressed in riot gear there to confront residents opposed to the busloads of illegal immigrants being driven there.

The three amateur political wannabes of Adelson, Buffett and Gates could have offered to provide some of their own luxury real estate to welcome the many busloads of illegal kids. That would provide much-needed relief for average Americans from the very depressing news that hundreds or thousands of teenagers living here without legal permission and who cannot speak English might soon be dumped in their small town.

Instead of explaining how these immigrants will find jobs at a time when so many Americans are unemployed, the three billionaires instead focus on their own desire to expand a cheap supply of college graduates who are foreigners. Misnamed "talented graduates," these immigrants are no more talented or entrepreneurial than American-born graduates.

This racket of giving visas to foreign students (sometimes falsely labeled "the best and the brightest") has enabled Gates and the ultra-rich to hire foreigners at less cost, with less risk of competition, than fully qualified Americans. The oversupply of foreigners willing to work for lower wages has made it impossible for average American wages to increase in more than a decade, and our middle class has fallen below even Canada's.

Fortunately, Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions pulled the curtain down on the amateur hour by observing, "It is clear that three of the richest billionaires in the world have no clue what Congress owes to the American people." Sessions could have added that the trio of politically clueless businessmen should first tell us what they are willing to fund before demanding phony immigration reform at the expense of American workers and taxpayers.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
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To: 1rudeboy
That appears odd coming from someone who thinks Vladimir Putin is the second coming

I don't think Putin is the second coming. I wouldn't want to be ruled by him but he's definitely not as bad as the Globalist trash says he is.

41 posted on 07/15/2014 11:09:23 AM PDT by Count of Monte Fisto (The foundation of modern society is the denial of reality.)
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To: 1rudeboy

Read the greyed sentence about averages.


42 posted on 07/15/2014 11:09:50 AM PDT by B4Ranch (Name your illness, do a Google & YouTube search with "hydrogen peroxide". Do it and be surprised.)
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To: 1rudeboy

I never tire of exposing the treason lobby.

I once heard someone accuse a libertarian of patriotism. I’m sure you find that accusation as preposterous as I do.


43 posted on 07/15/2014 11:10:53 AM PDT by Pelham (California, what happens when you won't deport illegals)
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To: Pelham
Schlafly is right of course, and rudeboy is predictably more concerned with trying to defend a flawed trade bill rather than the border.

Strawman #2.

And the notion that illegal immigration would not be a problem in the absence of NAFTA is delusional. So those low-skilled, low-income farm workers would be coming despite what Ralph Nader and his fellow-travelers claim.

44 posted on 07/15/2014 11:12:35 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

That is true, and not NAFTA’s fault, either.


NAFTA cost us jobs.

All one has to do is consider the textile industry. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost.

All you have to do is go across the border into Mexico and see all the USA companies manufacturing down there — automotive, appliances, etc. The list is long.

Caterpillar has multiple facilities just south of the border. I believe it’s 18. Wasn’t too many years ago that they closed 5 facilities in Mississippi and moved all those jobs to Mexico.

They are paying very low wages for these jobs in Mexico. USA workers have to compete against it. It should be very easy to see that we lost jobs in this deal.

Bill Clinton told us that the low paid 50 year old woman in the textile mill would be retrained with a tech job making more money. That never happened and the jobs weren’t there. This was not too long before the tech crash on Wall Street.


45 posted on 07/15/2014 11:16:17 AM PDT by boycott
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To: Pelham
I never tire of exposing the treason lobby.

I'm sure you miss Willie Green, too.

46 posted on 07/15/2014 11:16:36 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: boycott
Pet peeve of mine: by textile-industry, you mean garment-industry. We ship our textiles to Mexico (and points south) so that they can sew them into garments and ship them back to us.

So unless you aspire to have your kids working in a garment-sewing factory, or wish to do it yourself . . . .

47 posted on 07/15/2014 11:20:01 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Pelham

His charts showing increases in the number of jobs and wage rates since 1994 were clearly flawed thinking. If someone doesn’t think we lost jobs because of NAFTA, they weren’t paying close attention.


48 posted on 07/15/2014 11:30:45 AM PDT by boycott
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To: boycott

Thanks for pinging me. No one said jobs weren’t lost, the charts say that the total number of jobs increased. I know, math is hard.


49 posted on 07/15/2014 11:32:40 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

So unless you aspire to have your kids working in a garment-sewing factory, or wish to do it yourself . . . .


There were a lot of people here working in those jobs. That was all they knew. What about them?


50 posted on 07/15/2014 11:33:24 AM PDT by boycott
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To: boycott
There were a lot of people here working in those jobs. That was all they knew. What about them?

They were replaced by a machine. Been in a textile factory recently?

51 posted on 07/15/2014 11:35:47 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

So does denouncing inconvenient facts as “strawmen” really work for you?

I see that it’s one of your favorites. Probably passes for convincing argument in your weekly ayn rand study group.

Too bad for you that the Clinton era surge of illegals was well studied and even the illegals themselves knew the connection. The inexpensive American grain poured into Mexico and their little farms failed by the thousands.

Just a coincidence I’m sure. Unless you use Occam’s Razor and then it’s not so tough.


52 posted on 07/15/2014 11:35:54 AM PDT by Pelham (California, what happens when you won't deport illegals)
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To: Pelham

I actually don’t point-out strawmen very often . . . just to people too stupid to understand, otherwise.


53 posted on 07/15/2014 11:37:35 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: boycott

It’s not a matter of not paying attention.

It’s a matter of dogma. In the church of libertarianism trade is one of the holy sacraments.

Questioning the perfection of NAFTA exposes you as a skeptic and probably an infidel.


54 posted on 07/15/2014 11:39:38 AM PDT by Pelham (California, what happens when you won't deport illegals)
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To: 1rudeboy

” just to people too stupid to understand, otherwise.”

Oh! I’m wounded!

When you run out of argument hurling one feels so good. Playground 101. But then you did name yourself ‘rude boy’...


55 posted on 07/15/2014 11:44:11 AM PDT by Pelham (California, what happens when you won't deport illegals)
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To: Pelham

Well, that explains your first comment to me on this thread. LOLOL


56 posted on 07/15/2014 11:45:50 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

Thanks for pinging me. No one said jobs weren’t lost, the charts say that the total number of jobs increased. I know, math is hard.


Jobs increased in number by 25 million but the population increased by more than 60 million. Your numbers were pretty meaningless.

You mentioned wage rates going up but you should gotten my point that this chart was also absolutely meaningless.

I tried not to be offensive and I do not wish to continue.


57 posted on 07/15/2014 11:47:26 AM PDT by boycott
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To: 1rudeboy

Did it hurt your feelings? I apologize.


58 posted on 07/15/2014 11:48:17 AM PDT by Pelham (California, what happens when you won't deport illegals)
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To: Pelham

Absolutely the opposite: nothing amuses me more than someone who parachutes onto a thread with a personal insult, only to claim later that personal insults indicate that one has no argument.


59 posted on 07/15/2014 11:51:20 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: boycott

Then don’t post a comment that we are “trading our jobs for free” on a public forum.


60 posted on 07/15/2014 11:54:18 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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