Tapsearch Com EditorWhere is the time line on Free Trade (LINK)
March 5th 2008 03:25
Bizarre Politics Reports:
Back to the Future with NAFTA
The issue of Free Trade has finally reached the major political candidates after being hid under the table for years.
I made the mistake of sticking to the end with the last PC computer made in true USA. It was 1990. I was suprised by the docile response by consumers and companies to the moving of production outside the USA.
I thought the people would wake up and radically respond when they found out they were shopping their way out of their jobs while the government was creating a working poor class. And as we found out after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans there is a vast underclass residing in a silent depression across the United States. The underclass was missing in action from any kind of real reporting for years and still are. The low unemployment rate reporting rate needs to be challenged.
This did not start with NAFTA and GATT trade agreements. In past posts, I traced the origin of what is called Free Trade back to 1956 and talked about the Maquiladora factories that existed for more than thirty years before the words NAFTA or GATT were ever coined. Electronic manufacturers moved outside the USA about thirty years ago. Most went to Asia. Some came back to Mexico. The term Free Trade was changed to include the moving of production and factories from place to place for the sake of the cheapest labor possible. Free Trade was mostly about mobile portability of production and not about trading products. Historically, trade was about one country traded something they made for something they did not make or grown. Never before in history did one nation transport their production and factories to other lands.
Today our political leaders talk as if Free Trade began with the passage of NAFTA in 1993. In 1992, there were more than 2,000 former U.S. factories in Mexico. Today we do not even know what an export or import is. In some cases, factories in the USA send the "dirty" parts of their manufacturing to places like Mexico to escape U.S. pollution laws and then send the parts back to their factory in the USA for final assembly. Who knows how to define an export or import this way.
As I said before, I sold the last PC computers made in the USA. The year was 1990. When the first IBM compatible came out in the early 1980's, it prompted the start up of thousands of dealers and system houses. By 1990, most of them had thrown in the towel because they could not compete with foreign manufacturers and systems support. In just a tri-state region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan there were more than a 1000 startups that never made it into the 1990s. President Clinton was a not a party to this but he did hammer the last nail in the coffin when he orchestrated the passage of NAFTA. He consummated Free Trade. Now the new Federal Reverse Chairman says we should spend the economic stimulus money we will get on "domestically produced goods". Consumers will have a very difficult time finding these products. They are gone.
With this backdrop, Hillary Clinton and Obaman do small talk about fair trade. You can not trade something you no longer have. The final curtain has come down already on most "domestically produced goods". On stage, we only have our leading contenders for President doing a dance in never never land. ( or should I say in the Land of "is" where everything depends on what your definition of "is" is. ) In the Land of "is" most everything was reversed. On the other side we have Sen McCane calling for more of the same in the worst betrayal of workers in history. It is obvious, he was never in business.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln told this Generals this - "If we but knew where we were, and where we were going , we could better determine the choice of means at our disposal.
This is why, I will now do Back to the Future posts to demonstrate what went down in the past tweny years, so we can start with the truth about Free Trade and Globalization.
Ray Tapajna's, advocate for human dignity in the workday since 1992, main site Tapart News and Art that Talks
We will release our data and letters from the 1990s in a Back to the Future analysis in our coming posts.
I made the mistake of sticking to the end with the last PC computer made in true USA. It was 1990. I was suprised by the docile response by consumers and companies to the moving of production outside the USA.
I thought the people would wake up and radically respond when they found out they were shopping their way out of their jobs while the government was creating a working poor class. And as we found out after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans there is a vast underclass residing in a silent depression across the United States. The underclass was missing in action from any kind of real reporting for years and still are. The low unemployment rate reporting rate needs to be challenged.
This did not start with NAFTA and GATT trade agreements. In past posts, I traced the origin of what is called Free Trade back to 1956 and talked about the Maquiladora factories that existed for more than thirty years before the words NAFTA or GATT were ever coined. Electronic manufacturers moved outside the USA about thirty years ago. Most went to Asia. Some came back to Mexico. The term Free Trade was changed to include the moving of production and factories from place to place for the sake of the cheapest labor possible. Free Trade was mostly about mobile portability of production and not about trading products. Historically, trade was about one country traded something they made for something they did not make or grown. Never before in history did one nation transport their production and factories to other lands.
Today our political leaders talk as if Free Trade began with the passage of NAFTA in 1993. In 1992, there were more than 2,000 former U.S. factories in Mexico. Today we do not even know what an export or import is. In some cases, factories in the USA send the "dirty" parts of their manufacturing to places like Mexico to escape U.S. pollution laws and then send the parts back to their factory in the USA for final assembly. Who knows how to define an export or import this way.
As I said before, I sold the last PC computers made in the USA. The year was 1990. When the first IBM compatible came out in the early 1980's, it prompted the start up of thousands of dealers and system houses. By 1990, most of them had thrown in the towel because they could not compete with foreign manufacturers and systems support. In just a tri-state region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan there were more than a 1000 startups that never made it into the 1990s. President Clinton was a not a party to this but he did hammer the last nail in the coffin when he orchestrated the passage of NAFTA. He consummated Free Trade. Now the new Federal Reverse Chairman says we should spend the economic stimulus money we will get on "domestically produced goods". Consumers will have a very difficult time finding these products. They are gone.
With this backdrop, Hillary Clinton and Obaman do small talk about fair trade. You can not trade something you no longer have. The final curtain has come down already on most "domestically produced goods". On stage, we only have our leading contenders for President doing a dance in never never land. ( or should I say in the Land of "is" where everything depends on what your definition of "is" is. ) In the Land of "is" most everything was reversed. On the other side we have Sen McCane calling for more of the same in the worst betrayal of workers in history. It is obvious, he was never in business.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln told this Generals this - "If we but knew where we were, and where we were going , we could better determine the choice of means at our disposal.
This is why, I will now do Back to the Future posts to demonstrate what went down in the past tweny years, so we can start with the truth about Free Trade and Globalization.
Ray Tapajna's, advocate for human dignity in the workday since 1992, main site Tapart News and Art that Talks
We will release our data and letters from the 1990s in a Back to the Future analysis in our coming posts.
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