Posted on 01/02/2003 7:28:14 AM PST by madfly
Border Campesinos Block Bridge to Protest NAFTA
Lauren Macias-Cervantes - KFOX Producer
Community organizations from El Paso will join campesino groups from across the border in an effort to better their economic crisis. The organizations blocked a border crossing Wednesday.
They're protesting the impact of the new NAFTA phase that allows open importation of agricultural products from the U.S. and Canada into Mexico as of January 1st. They say the new change will promote a new surge of immigration to the U.S. by displaced campesinos.
Yes I want to see every citizen legally here succeed, including immigrants. But I also want to see this government change immigration policy so it works once again in our interests and not everyone elses. They can start by killing the H1-B scam until all those unemployed Americans in the tech industry are back at work. And they can lower the legal immigrant numbers so communities aren't so overwhelmed.
What we have going on now is nothing less than a policy of greed, flooding the market with cheap labor to enrich the pockets of campaign contributors.
A unified market and free trade make excellent sense IF the parties are economically some what comparable (as the EU is and we would be with Canada ) ..but we have been paired in unfair competition..Americans asked to compete against $3 a day workers..
As I pointed out to another poster that complained the real issue was taxes and government regulations ..he is right..If the government stops collecting corporate taxes and drops all regulations and drops the minimun wage to 10 cents and hour business will return to America..
If you want a future open a school that teaches toilet washing and floor polishing..that is the future of America's middle class
You don't think that's really going on? It is, get online and talk to people in the Carolinas. It may not have been the best job in the world, but it put food on the table and supported their families. The companies moved to Mexico thanks to NAFTA in order to pay slave labor without lowering the cost of the product one cent in the US.
Someone is getting rich, and they're doing it both off the backs of Americans and those south of the border. And your total lack of sensitivity to it tells me you most likely do work in government.
The response by the NAFTA supporters was those that were dislocated could be retrained. To what- computer programmers? Maybe, but the problem with that idea is they exploded the H1-B program and now American tech workers have to compete with cheaper labor from India and China. And when those Mexican rustbuckets start barreling down the highways, how many trucking jobs will be lost to cheap labor?
No good paying jobs, no middle class. That's where we're headed.
The EU does not work well (but could) because they are too protective..
Yes you were....you were trying to imply protectionism caused the great depression..well ...the next crash will be the direct result of the free trade policies you seem to love so much
Who said anything about the government determining what jobs should be high-paying? Where did this claptrap come from? All I expect out of the government is to provide for our country’s common defense, represent OUR interests overseas and to stay the hell away from meddling in the business sector unless an issue involves national security.
That means NOT taking payoffs from corporations for the importation of hundreds of thousands of H1B immigrants to swamp our high tech employment market in the middle of serious recession with huge layoffs. It means we don’t sign 10,000 page One-Way trade deals with 3rd world nations that have no rule of law and are little more than job exporting agreements. It means that our government doesn’t encourage illegal immigration on behalf of businesses that seek cheap labor while shuffling off the staggering welfare bills to American Taxpayers for their free health care, free schooling, subsidized housing, food stamps, bilingual programs..the list goes on and on here.
It means that I expect our government to stay out of the corporate welfare business period and put the interests and security of its citizens FIRST. From what I can tell, you seem quite comfortable with the symbiotic relationship of the big government, big business money/welfare game. You wouldn’t ply your trade on K-Street would you?
Conservative, you are not. A true conservative wants income taxes eliminated on ALL businesses and dividends (it’s a phony back door tax that the consumer pays for in higher prices). A true conservative is for a flat income tax rate that confiscates less than 20% one’s income (personally I’d like to see it lower than that). A true conservative is for the elimination of burdensome, costly regulations on business and the sunsetting of all grab bag entitlements and affirmative action programs that are putting our government into financial insolvency. Where is Bush on all this? Where are YOU?
Finally, at an absolute minimum, one would expect that the anti-NAFTA cadres, whose allies include such esteemed personnel as Teamsters, Greens, and out-and-out socialists, explain the rise in real income, the drop in unemployment, and the increase in industrial production that distinguished the period after NAFTA was enacted.
And before you accuse me of only paying attention to the "boom" of the 1990's, I will remind you that I am not the one who is running around and yelping that the sky is falling now.
To be honest, I'm not sure where you were going with your other points but on this, my position is that tariffs are the ultimate "Market Opening Tool" for American Exports. What do I mean by that? What I mean is that as long as many of our trading partners put up structural barriers to our exports and sky-high tariffs on our goods it is in the interest of America, as the largest market in the world, to reflect these barriers to our trade in the form of higher tariffs on their exports to us.
If these nations want to have a freer exchange of trade with America like we enjoy with many countries in Europe then let them lower their barriers to our exports and open up their markets. If not, then they have to deal with high tariffs on their goods.
This is SMART Trade. Something totally lacking in the way our government manages our international trade. There quite obviously has to be an economic incentive for some of our trading partners to open up their long-standing closed markets. And as long as we roll over and drop our tariffs while allowing them to keep their barriers up we will keep losing vital industries while running up staggering trade deficits. Where is the incentive for them to do otherwise?
Finally, at an absolute minimum, one would expect that the anti-NAFTA cadres, whose allies include such esteemed personnel as Teamsters, Greens, and out-and-out socialists, explain the rise in real income, the drop in unemployment, and the increase in industrial production that distinguished the period after NAFTA was enacted.
Politics always makes for strange bedfellows--political opposites that have common ground on an issue for different reasons. Perhaps you have noticed the way Bush has been sleeping around with quite a few Socialists on Capitol Hill with some of his recent budget busting initiatives. And yes, I find your assertion that NAFTA produced the rise in real income and lower unemployment during the 90s ludicrous when it’s so obvious and well known that the high tech/telecom boom (now bust) was by far the largest factor in that burst of prosperity.
And before you accuse me of only paying attention to the "boom" of the 1990's, I will remind you that I am not the one who is running around and yelping that the sky is falling now.
It may not be falling, but the skies are hardly “Blue”.
What we have going on now is nothing less than a policy of greed, flooding the market with cheap labor to enrich the pockets of campaign contributors.
Well Said and so true.
It's interesting how the so-called free trade crowd in government are exposing more and more of our industries and occupations to 3rd world labor. Just what in the hell are we as a nation getting out of these deals aside from lost jobs and greater welfare roles? And yes, it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster on all fronts when those Mexican rustbuckets hit our roads, not to mention being yet another national security nightmare.
The main economic reason behind it is it helps keeps inflation down. What economists like Alan Greenspan who support open borders fail to mention are the hidden costs taxpayers are stuck paying, like schooling and medical, not to mention jammed prisons from the soaring crime rates. This along with increased competition for scarce jobs.
At some point a decision will have to be made, higher inflation rates or a return to more traditional immigration policies, including shutting the border down from illegals. I think if you took a poll within the country it's pretty obvious which one would be chosen.
All things being the same I think mass immigration does lower inflation. It seems quite straightforward in one respect: if the supply of workers is increased, wages do go down. The way things are today though; inflation may be the least of our worries. These days I worry more about deflation.
Science and technological developments, which spur productivity, also pressure inflation downward. In fact, that is where our emphasis as a country should always be. Technology solves old problems, creates new efficiencies, saves money etc. Not to mention it's keeps us on the frontier of science and discovery where good things flow. And machines over time replace unskilled manual labor.
But like you previously mentioned, the social tax on America for the array of welfare services we provide to new immigrants (many of which are illegal) are a cost that few in Washington want to talk about. These costs are so great that it is hard to see where the net effect of mass immigration is anything but negative for America. To say nothing of how our culture, the families that actually built this country, are being rapidly displaced with 3rd world peoples that come from countries where tyranny is the norm and corruption is a way of life. I can’t see how this can be anything but a disaster for America.
With quite a few businesses, cheap labor just means higher profits for the CEOs, which amounts to corporate welfare.
Bingo. That really is the power behind the immigration free of all in this country. All the talk about immigration producing lower inflation is just a weak rationale for taking what are really bribes from businesses to keep America on its insane immigration ride.
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