NAFTA Years Later

[Sava]

Originally posted by DanS
You're on drugs, Dan.

The numbers don't lie, Sloww. We're all making out like bandits on this deal.

What do you mean "we"? I'm not a rich corporation, neither is Sloww. NAFTA does suck.

[gunkulator]

A treaty is only as good as its signatory member nations. In the case of Mexico, it simply not on par with the US or Canada in terms of per capita wealth, education and productivity. Additionally, Mexico is plagued by rampant and blatent corruption.

To Canadian and American capitialists, NAFTA means duty free access to cheap Mexican labor plus lax labor and environmental laws. To the average Canadian and American we lose jobs and get cheaper consumer goods.

To Mexicans, they basically get more of the same: low paying sweatshop jobs with any real wealth siphoned off by the rich through graft and corruption. Oh, and the gov't continues to deflect anger to the evil Americans.

NAFTA should have included provisions like the EU has that only allow in countries that have achieved a certain level of economic and democratic maturity.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by DanS

The numbers don't lie, Sloww. We're all making out like bandits on this deal.

Most of the time, I agree with you.
This time, you're wrong. I don't know what numbers you're looking through.

Canada, of the 3, is doing the best, by default.

When home foreclosures are at an all-time high in The U.S., and Mexican border towns are as I just said, it makes you wonder who the bandits are.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by DanS
NAFTA is great!

Everybody's doing huge business.

In the last 10 years, our imports from Canada have more than doubled, while our exports have almost doubled. We import $236 billion worth of goods and services from Canada each year.

DanS is right. I don't see how you can touch NAFTA right now, especially Canadians.

[DanS]

I don't know what numbers you're looking through.

As stated above, here are the numbers...

In the last 10 years, our imports from Canada have more than doubled, while our exports have almost doubled. We import $236 billion worth of goods and services from Canada each year.

And then when you say...

and Mexican border towns are as I just said

I've got to point out that trade with Mexico since 1990 has almost tripled. And our trade deficit with Mexico isn't very large. They're buying our stuff as much as we're buying theirs.

[SlowwHand]

So what, Dan?

I already said Canada is doing the best.
Who cares? Unless you're a Canuk.

It's evident that you're neither in manufacturing, nor familiar with Mexican border towns.

But that's ok. Glad you're doing well.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Otherwise, a free-trade zone is simply equivalent to the strongests stripping the other countries of their only protection.

But as DanS has pointed out both exports and imports have increased for both Canada and the US. Furthermore, both countries have been growing economically. It doesn't seem to me that one country is 'stripping' the other one.

[Drake Tungsten]

Ughh....how'd you manage to get all that Welsh all over you?

Some nasty things can happen if you hang around the back alleys of Cardiff enough. I'd rather not go into the details.

BTW, DanS is right. NAFTA is da bomb.

[DanS]

It's evident that you're neither in manufacturing, nor familiar with Mexican border towns.

Not too many people are in manufacturing anymore, Sloww. It's only about 15% of our economy.

So I've got good company.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
When home foreclosures are at an all-time high in The U.S., and Mexican border towns are as I just said, it makes you wonder who the bandits are.

Captive manufacturing jobs in no longer competitive industries wouldn't solve the unemployment problem. If you can NAFTA, you get some of those jobs back, yes, but you trade off by losing a lot more jobs in a lot more sectors of the economy from the loss of trade.

The reason Mexican border towns are the way they are is that the further south you go, the more the local economy sucks. Growth and the achievement of some prosperity is happening up here, but like most areas, when there's a relative boom, more people come in than the boom benefits or can handle.

Another aspect of the problem in Mexico is the God-awful tax system. If you had to be subject to the Mexican tax system and the whims of Hacienda (SHCP), you'd happily go find your nearest IRS agent and perform obscene acts in public on said agent as a symbol of your total submissive devotion.

Access to dollars is a function of proximity to the border, and access to dollars = access to an underground economy mostly sheltered from the giant proctoscopy of the Mexican income tax system. The Mexican government needs money to provide public services, but the tax system is so bad that it requires non-compliance to just survive decently. So they add new taxes, rather than tear the system apart and start over, because the country isn't in an economic position to engage in radical structural reform. That's why people go to the border - good ol' trade in US dollars and active commerce in an underground economy. Plus toilet paper is better in the US.

[Japher]

I'm in manufacturing and I live California, which is pretty much a Mexican boarder town

NAFTA has it's pros and cons. At the height of the US' tech boom it was awesome to have, but now that we are in a recession (or something that seems like one) it is not so great.

I think NAFTA is a great idea, but needs to be reviewed. It is having a big effect not only on the economies of the three nations, but on the quality of life in these nations... and I don't think the effects are as were intended.

Therefor, I agree with Sloww... NAFTA blows.

[SlowwHand]

What's 15% of the population, Dan?


Check the headlines.

US home foreclosures hit highest level in 30 years




That's ok.

[SlowwHand]

Here, Dan.
Have some more "making out like bandits".

Some who have lost jobs question U.S. priorities
05/05/2003

By MICHAEL GRANBERRY / The Dallas Morning News

PLANO – Sunny Kim used to be a project manager at a telecommunications company. Now he's running a doughnut shop.

Jim Bowrey worked as a process manager for a high-tech firm before being laid off. He then took a job at Home Depot to make ends meet.

Paul Evans was an information technology manager with a salary in the "high five figures." Now he's out of a job, having suffered a layoff. It couldn't have come at a worse time.

His wife, Meryl, who has only a part-time job, gave birth to a baby boy last Monday. They also have a 9-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son.

All of these people live or work in Plano, which is hardly a hotbed of anti-war fervor. But in recent weeks, they have felt frustrated by the war in Iraq and the necessity of having to put back together a war-torn country, which could carry a price tag of $100 billion.

Some of the unemployed feel that's $100 billion not going to their aid. And although the American public has been widely supportive of the war, many of those without jobs are feeling ignored, left behind – and angry.

"You see these analysts on television who keep saying that it's going to be so much better when the war is over. Well, guess what?" Mr. Evans said. "The shooting's stopped. So where's my job?"

The feelings of the unemployed notwithstanding, some experts are actually optimistic about the postwar economy.

"We as a nation and as consumers don't like instability or the unknown," says John Feezell, a professor of finance and economics at LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas. "Going into the war, none of us knew how long it was going to be."

Since the war's end, he says, "There's a sense that the country's OK. We've done what we intended to do. And consumer confidence will begin to jump as a result."

But Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University and a resident of West Plano, says many of his neighbors are in shock. Granted, it was shock that came well before American troops landed in Iraq.

Big employers such as American Airlines and Ericsson have struggled, and as Dr. Jillson notes, many of his neighbors are entering their second year of unemployment. Home foreclosures in Collin County alone are up 103 percent from a year ago.

"These are not the traditional unemployed," he said. "They're the white-collar telecom unemployed. At the individual level, they're intensely focused on the loss of a big chunk of their dreams, their sense of what the future is going to be like.

"What they do for their children, what their retirement is going to look like – all of that is suddenly in the wind," says Dr. Jillson, who notes that the country's focus on matters abroad "has done nothing" to help.

"The country is focused on international affairs in general and war in Iraq in particular," he said. "With the successful resolution of that, a substantial part of the public is in high celebration. You can feel good that the threat facing American troops is over, but for these people, it's hard to get to the point of where the country's celebration is."

Uneasy about future


Unemployment, he said, "has shaken them to the core." Certainly, Mr. Bowrey feels that way. Now 55, he lost his job in November 2001 and worked at Home Depot until recently landing a temporary job in a telecom firm. He supports the president and his policies, but he contends that "something has to be done" to stop the "hemorrhaging" on the home front.
Once attention is paid to unemployment and the economy, "it's going to be a jolting wake-up call," Mr. Evans said.

Many of the jobless feel "forgotten and abandoned" by "all this talk" swirling around Iraq, he says.

Unemployment figures for the Dallas-Fort Worth area – particularly the telecom-heavy zones of North Dallas, Richardson and Plano – reinforce the concern of those worried about the cost of rebuilding a faraway country.

In March, the last month for which the Texas Workforce Commission has published statistics, overall unemployment had risen to 8.8 percent in Dallas and 5.6 percent in Plano. Collin County figures show Allen at 6 percent, Frisco at 7.7 percent and McKinney at a whopping 11 percent.

Such figures stand in sharp contrast to February 2001, when unemployment in Dallas was 4.2 percent and 1.7 percent in Plano.In unemployment figures released Friday, the nation's jobless had reached 6 percent – matching December's eight-year high. More than 500,000 Americans have lost their jobs in the last three months alone.

According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, white-collar unemployment stands at 2.9 percent. But in the information industry, the number is 7.3 percent.

Plano lawyer Jill Weinberg, a labor and employment law specialist who often represents executives who find themselves jobless, argues that the picture is actually worse than the figures indicate.

Thousands of jobless Americans have exhausted their right to unemployment benefits, she says.

"At that point, the government no longer reports them as 'unemployed' simply because they're no longer receiving unemployment compensation," Ms. Weinberg said. "And that gives you a very false idea of a situation that is actually getting worse instead of better.

"Many of the people I see are no longer listed as 'unemployed' though they have been for over a year."

Like most of her clients, she doesn't see the focus on Iraq doing much to improve the situation.

"It's almost as though Iraq has become a diversion for more pressing problems back home," she said. To her, the real "shock and awe" is what's happening to American workers.

Biggest problems


Recent polls show Americans feeling more concerned about the economy and joblessness than they are about war or threats of terrorism.
In a nationwide survey of 1,018 people released April 15 by the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, respondents were asked: "What is the biggest problem facing you and your family these days?"

Thirty percent answered "not enough money/paying bills/making ends meet," followed by "family/personal/health problems" (16 percent) and "economy/recession/business" (12 percent).

Coming in fourth at 9 percent was "war/international affairs/military service."

Many of the unemployed cling to the hope that, once the economy improves, they can return to the jobs they love. But others aren't so sure.

Neal Stollon, 45, a computer architecture engineer who lives in North Dallas, went without full-time work for months before landing a post with an Oregon-based semiconductor firm. He's heard displaced workers express concern "that, once the economy comes back, the jobs they were doing before may be moved to India or China – or even Iraq – where the price of labor would be much cheaper than it ever was here."

He cites newspaper advertisements taken out by North Texas companies that talk of employment opportunities in India and other countries, but not here.

Some of the unemployed, he says, have been forced to take jobs well beneath their skill level. Mr. Evans has heard of former executives taking jobs at Starbucks – which offers medical coverage even to part-time employees working 20 hours a week – or Dillard's, which offers "bridge" jobs to the unemployed while they search for something better.

If he can't find a job – any job – soon, Mr. Evans says, he'll have to make some tough decisions.

"I have enough savings that I can go for a little while. My greatest fear is that I'm going to have to sell this place [his home in Plano]," he said. "It's something I don't want to do. We don't even want to leave the area. All of our roots are here."

'We have suffered'


Now making a fraction of the $70,000 a year he used to earn, Mr. Bowrey has a daughter at Southern Methodist University, which costs the family about $24,000 a year. He has a 17-year-old son whose college savings he's had to use just to get by.
As for the war that dominated his television screen, "We should have equal development and focus on our country's internal issues and status to keep us moving forward," he said. "I definitely feel we have suffered. We need to have the same – if not more – attention placed here at home to get us revitalized ... rejuvenated. We need to get this country back in shape."

For Mr. Kim, a 28-year-old native of Seoul, South Korea, being laid off gave him the impetus to start his own business. He used to make $40,000 a year with Fujitsu but now runs Sun Donuts in West Plano.

He supported the war in Iraq but worries about the money and effort required for the rebuilding phase.

"The amounts I'm hearing are, quite frankly, astounding," he said. "And it's scary, especially when you consider all of the unemployed people and how their benefits or health insurance have been reduced or taken away entirely."

With war having dominated the news the last month, Mr. Kim says that most of America is ignoring the obvious – what he calls "the elephant in the living room."

"The philosophy seems to be, 'If we shoot out the window, maybe we'll scare it away,' " he said. "If only we devoted that much attention to the U.S. economy. To say unemployment is being overlooked is a serious understatement."

In his case, though, fate did manage to carry a silver lining. He loves being his own boss, even if running a doughnut shop means reporting to work at 2 a.m.

Three former Fujitsu co-workers have called recently, he says, asking for jobs behind the counter. He has no openings and finds it painful to tell a once highly paid executive, who has a mortgage to pay and a family to feed, that even the doughnut counter has no openings."These are qualified engineers, people with computer science degrees ... computer programmers," Mr. Kim said. "Some are still collecting unemployment, or they've exhausted their [unemployment] benefits."

"At the moment," he says, "there's an absolute dearth of opportunities, and I don't see it getting better."

[SlowwHand]

Woo-hoo! NAFTA!

[DanS]

That's ok.

OK, now you want me to apologize for being among the at least 85% (or whatever) benefitting from NAFTA? Don't hold your breath.

US home foreclosures hit highest level in 30 years

And we have 50% more people in the US than 30 years ago.