Arkansas Blog

Someone tell me again what the average American is getting from NAFTA expect life without a job.

GM cutting jobs, Ford cutting jobs, lots and lots of factories suddenly announcing they're shutting down operations. It's not companies like Enron who are actually evaporating......a smart reporter might find out that every public announcement of a factory closing in America by such and such a company is followed by no announcement of the new factory being built in Mexico.

George H.W. Bush, Bill Cllinton and George W. Bush have made a deal with the very rich to help them move their plants away so the owners can make 20 times the profit. Could there be anything more un-American? NAFTA must be ended NOW.

OK. So another Am. company is heading south to set up a plant so they can pay such low wages their workers can't buy their own products and the company has to ship them to the USA for customers but those customers are former employees and don't have jobs to buy those Mexican made products.

Sure is crazy thinking to me on the part of American CEOs. Of course, patriotism and loyalty to country doesn't apply to these folks.....except in rhetoric.

Vote for A$$a. He will fix it along with everything else!

NAFTA in theory was suppose to provide an even playing field for ALL countries that trade with each other.

Unfortunatley for middle America it almost immediately morphed into a window of huge profits for Corporate America...the darlings of Washington.

NAFTA needs to be revisited NOW, before all that's left for middle America are Wally and McJobs.

Bring back the tarriffs now!!!

How can Washington turn a blind eye to the mess NAFTA has exacted on this country.

Here's what we do.

Whirlpool moves their fridge plant to Mexico...and Kenmore is still here...before that Whrilpool fridge crosses the border...a tariff equal to the competitive price of the Kenmore is tacked on.

You can't have a "free market" system, when on player has the hand cuffs removed.

Cheaper labor
Cheaper costs of services
No enviromental codes to worry your little corporate heads about
Cheaper cost of goods...since as a good corporation, you brought down to Mexico your "suppliers" operations.

NAFTA has made our free market system a dangerous joke to our jobs and a boondoggle for Corporate America. Bring back tarriffs.

And one more thing...this really, really chaps my ass.

Communist China - yes Communist China, is our largest trading partner, they carry our debt and have us by the short hairs anytime they want to pull the plug.

They sell their goods for pennies on the dollar from what an American Company can produce and sell it for...they have child labor, they limit 1 child per family (where's the Christian right when you need them). They have nukes, the have a military that our's pales to...and yet, because this Communist country can sell trinkets for .10 cents rather than .25 cents...we continue to sell our country and treasure to a Communist country.

We, are our own worst enemies...sold to the highest bidder. Who ever would of thought that a Communist country would have the influence it has over the greatest country ever created?

Greed is not good. Bring back tariffs.

It's not just the 500 jobs. It is the support industries. There are industries who make boxes, sell parts, clean the outside of the buildings, provide the cafeteria. An enormous amount of jobs support these factories in Ft Smith. This is what happens when you have an economy totally factory based. Friends are begging for Wal Mart type jobs there and that is hurting the economy, It is too bad that the northwest boom didn't go just a little south. That is a good area with a lot of workers in the smsa that are better educated than eastern Arkansas, with the factories moving maybe our state officials can find some industries that need workers and get them to look at western Arkansas.

Where does ASA! stand on this issue? Apparently the current administration believes it is ok for us to send jobs to Mexican workers, but God forbid those Mexican workers have the audacity to come ask us for a job.

Question: if NAFTA is suppose to help facilitate "free trade" between North American Nations, then why does that not apply equally to trade labor?

Vernal,

It does. It's just that the "trade labor" which our Corporate Socialism system is based on calls this labor - "illegal"

The free market systems as set up by NAFTA solved the problem for Coporate America...millions risked their lives to cross the border to fill those low paying - stay competive, net profits, bottom line jobs.

Hey! We're getting a Target so it's all cool, right? (Assuming it doesn't wash away down the hill when the retaining wall under the water tower goes.) We can all just work at the abundant retail jobs that replace the factory jobs. But we won't be able to work long since they're pushing out long-term and full-time employees.

Did you know that large parts of the city cannot get DSL service?

I sometimes wonder if anyone in charge here has any desire to move Fort Smith forward, or if we are just going to morph into the place with the Wal-Marts with Sooner merchandise and live off the sales taxes. They have "plans" but no desire to implement them. I'll be dead before any greenways are built.

I think it would help if some new blood found its way into the city, but that's all going north.

Mr. Knotts....I think Fort Smith's form of city government sucks. Time for a change! 39 years of amateurs running the show will make this place a ghost town in another decade. Not to mention how downright unfriendly this town has become. Time for a change!

I was in FS Saturday and purchased a new HP laser printer. Then drove over to Pocola to the casino. The parking lot was full. They have bought land inside the Arkansas state line for parking lot expansion. Decided to not go in 'cause I had just spent enough money in the city of Bible thumpers. And no, DBI, I didn't visit the sex shop next door either.

Will Whirlpool be offering transfers to those jobs in the new Mexican plant to their Ft. Smith employees? And how is the Mexican government likely to accommodate them?
People, we are our own worst enemies. Next time & every time you are about to make a purchase check the tag to see where its made, if it came from China choose something else or leave the store. We no longer have a choice at Wal-Mart...its all imported crap from some third world country. The whores in Bentonville are playing their fiddles and US manufacturers are dancing to their tune. Sam must be rolling over in his grave.

Heck, the sex shop next to the Choctaw Casino ain't no fun any more since the do-gooders stopped the happy customer sex in the back rooms. When you can't stick your penis thru a hole in Oklahoma any more what good is Oklahoma I say!

I've never been to the Casino or the sex shop, but I keep hoping I'll get my nerve up soon. I hear if you're 55, Wednesday night is cheap steak night over there. At the casino I mean, not the sex shop.

One last thought....me thinks the Injuns buying land in Arkansas for a parking lot means next thing we know that evil gambling is going to sneak over the line. Guido the head Indian in NY can buy cheap land in all directions for a parking lot, but he picks the land on the Arkansas side.

I predict instead of cars that land will be for parking fat Arkie butts on bar stools while they throw them dice, spin that roulette wheel and whatever else they do in these gambling joints. Nothing is ever what it seems these days.....have you' all noticed that?

Republicans srceam 'ALL IS WELL"!

"I hear if you're 55, Wednesday night is cheap steak night over there. At the casino I mean, not the sex shop."

Whew! Glad you straightened that out for me. I would have hated to walk into the sex shop and ask for a hunk of meat well done!

Looking for a silver lining in this dark cloud? If manufacturing plants keep moving to Mexico, we will see a return exodus of our illegal alien, I mean immigrant, I mean . . . guests to their home country. Illegal immigration problem solution at hand!

"In January 1994, Canada, the United States and Mexico launched the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and formed the world's largest free trade area. The Agreement has brought economic growth and rising standards of living for people in all three countries. In addition, NAFTA has established a strong foundation for future growth and has set a valuable example of the benefits of trade liberalization."
How many jobs have gone to Canad?

"The Agreement has brought economic growth and rising standards of living for people in all three countries."

Guess Fort Smith must have been picked up and moved to Europe or something. Our economic growth here sucks and the only thing rising in Fort Smith are the water bills and Yard Nazi notices. SHAFTA is killing us!

Oh Don,

You couldn't be more wrong. i was in central Mexico last fall and in the town I visited there was an American factory. The pay-$15.00 a day.

Even a lowly housekeeper can make a minimum of 48 dollars a day here - Not only is Corporate America moving good jobs to Mexico, they are exploiting the Mexican worker in their own damn county.

"Communist Cha - yes Communist China, is our largest trading partner, they carry our debt and have us by the short hairs anytime they want to pull the plug."

Not yet. Canada has that slot.

What NATA does is bring Third World conditions to us, USA. It can happen here cause it's happening.

Oh Don, You couldn't be more wrong. - Posted by: BlueTicker
********
Well, maybe the silver lining isn't really there. I may be kinda color-blind after all.