What NAFTA and shipping jobs overseas does...

[Bread and Circus]

I live in a small town. 40,000 people in the whole county. In the last 7 to 8 years we have lost scores of factories that mainly engage in light manufacturing. These factories are what employ your rank and file rural high school to 1-or-2 years of college educated individuals either through direct line work or middle management.

We had a Bose plant here, which was a great company to work for in terms of esprit de corps, wages, and health benefits. Several years back my best friend's wife was one of the line managers as she had worked there for several years. She got excited because they "sent her to Mexico" to train folks down there. As far as she knew it was an all expense paid vacation with some work thrown in. She thought it was pretty cool. What she found out later was that she trained the folks who took her job. Bose closed its doors here and the jobs left.

This is just one example. My town is still hemorrhaging jobs to Mexico, China, and elsewhere. It's eviscerated my town. Wages are down. It's hard to find a job. Crime is up. Substance abuse is up. Domestic violence is up. I know this because the local Sheriff is a friend and he told me about it in frank terms.

The tax base is down. It's harder to pass millages for schools.

Property values are down. Houses sit on the market longer. People can't get approved for home improvement loans. Foreclosures are up.

Maybe somewhere this all makes some American richer. But not here, not in my town.

Maybe somehow these local folks can "retrain" and get a better tech job. But people don't want to "retrain". They liked the jobs they had and they don't want to literally have to move 5 states away for that training and new job. Their roots, families, and grandparents are here. It's depressing for them and it's depressing for the community.

NAFTA and this "free Trade" boon is brought to us by Republican corporatists, the Republican-lite DLC, and Democrats who forgot what they stand for (it used to be the people).

That's what NAFTA and shipping jobs overseas does.

[mod mom]

1. It's also a National Security Issue. As manufacturing is shipped overseas who

can say that those who pick up those manufacturing plants won't someday be our adversaries.

The National Security Implications of "Free" Trade
All we hear about are the supposed benefits of this corporate written trade policy, even though those benefits are often highly questionable or just plain fabricated. But we never hear about how "free" trade policy is now being used not only to destroy America's job base, but to help arm what could be one of America's most dangerous military competitors (we barely hear it from the "strategic class" of foreign policy elites in D.C., we don't even hear it from the Bush neoncons, who purport to be serious hawks, but whose silence on this issue shows they are hawks only when it doesn't offend their corporate benefactors). That should concern not only the workers who have been displaced by corporate-written trade policies, but every single American who is interested in the long-term security of this country.

-snip
http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/12/national-security-implications-of-free.html

[Kittycat]

2. Imgaine if we became a Sustainable World Energy Leader?

Imagine if we opened plants all over the country to improve technologies, and make part/supplies for solar & wind energy, and developed other solutions that could bring manufacturing jobs to all these communities? I dare say that much of what is gone, won't be back - but what if we created an entirely new industry. So many communities would begin to prosper again. No longer would there be lines for jobs at the local McDonald's or Wal-Mart. Income base would rise, take revenues would flow, and middle class families could once again begin to prosper.

Also think about the possibilities in Green Building/Manufacturing supplies. Recycling to renewables... So many things are just out of reach right now, but almost attainable.

I think we're verging on a very exciting time - but we have to make some changes in order to move forward. For the sake of our country, and it's citizens.

[PsN2Wind]

3. Those jobs manufacturing the "green" supplies

could as easily be exported as those making the other products now produced in China. Our government has not only allowed but greased the way for our manufacturing base to be exported. The only person of standing that was honest about the effect of NAFTA was not Clinton or Gore, it was Ross Perot but then he was "crazy". The MSMs first success at marginalizing a candidate for the benefit of corporate America.