"President Bush is in a state of grace"

[Berzerker]

no Captain Jack, dont go innnnnnn

[SlowwHand]

NAFTA

Welfare Reform

And at least he attempted to push for gays in the military (until even his own party Senators pushed back) and universal health care.

Tell me who benefitted from NAFTA. Certainly not the U.S.
Not Mexico, their infrastructure collapsed. Canada? Ask a Canadian. They'll say no. Who else? Why, I believe that covers all involved. So much for that theory. Blown to hell, like so many others. NAFTA is kind of like Pakistan sending all their manufacturing to India. Is a light bulb going off over your head yet? You hear any bells ringing? Getting the picture yet?

[Arrian]

So, I just spent my day in a seminar in which the representative White House official present (who shall remain unnamed) explained Bush's approach to foreign policy via the direct quote (and it is a direct quote) in the thread title.

I wish I were making that up, but I'm not.

Honest to God, the 7 days remaining of this presidential freak show is still 7 days too many.

(As an aside: does anyone know if, theologically, a Protestant can even determine whether he himself is in a state of grace? A Catholic can, but I just don't know about Protestants.)

That's amazing. The level of delusion there....

And Sloww, man, come off it. Rufus wasn't just whining for no reason. He was whining for a damn good reason: some windbag from the WH literally "explained" the President's policy decisions theologically. I don't give a **** which party that comes from - it's ridiculous.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

Tell me who benefitted from NAFTA. Certainly not the U.S.

Of course the US did. The US made billions on the free trade deals with Mexico and Canada. It's one of the reason the late 90s ended up as successful as they did.

http://banderasnews.com/0806/nz-benefitsofnafta.htm

The United States exported $136.5 billion worth of goods to Mexico in 2007, up 242 percent since 1993.

Over that period, gross domestic product (GDP) grew 50 percent in the United States and 46 percent in Mexico.

Investment in Mexico has helped increase the efficiency of U.S. domestic production. Many manufacturing companies are able to reduce costs by shifting assembly of their products to the maquiladoras. This has helped boost U.S. manufacturing output, which rose by almost 60 percent from 1993 to 2006. By contrast, output increased only 42 percent in the 13 years before NAFTA.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2489

(written in 2004)

Since 1993, the year before the pact took effect, two-way commerce between the United States and Mexico roughly tripled, from $81 billion to $232 billion.

Though U.S. investment in Mexico has increased, American cash hasn't exactly been gushing southward. In the past four years, America's direct manufacturing investment in Mexico has averaged $1.9 billion a year, a fraction of the $200 billion invested annually in our domestic manufacturing capacity. In fact, U.S. companies invest far more each year in other high-wage, high-standard economies, such as those of Western Europe and Canada, than they do in such developing countries as Mexico.

Total manufacturing output in the United States has risen 41 percent during the past ten years, compared to 34 percent in the preceding 10 years.

http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/NAFTA.asp

From 1992-2007, the value of U.S. agricultural exports worldwide climbed 65 percent. Over that same period, U.S. farm and food exports to our two NAFTA partners grew by 156 percent.

Unless you think much higher prices and less exports would have benefited the US economy more? Are you getting the picture yet or are you just too dumb to face facts?

[Tuberski]

How do manufacturing plants in Mexico help the US output?

It wasn't produced by Americans.

ACK!