CAFTA
July 27, 2005 10:15 PM   Subscribe

CAFTA passed in House Despite unions, NGOs, and even some hispanic organizations, CAFTA was passed by the House tonight, most likely soon to be followed by the Senate and signed by Bush. Is this a positive move, or will this "send jobs overseas"?
posted by Moral Animal (25 comments total)
 
What's wrong with sending jobs overseas?
posted by mosch at 10:22 PM on July 27, 2005


er, has been passed by the Senate.

I need to go to sleep...
posted by Moral Animal at 10:24 PM on July 27, 2005


What's wrong with sending jobs overseas?

I don't think there's anything wrong with it. In fact, I think it's best for everyone involved. I was just feeling everyone else out.
posted by Moral Animal at 10:25 PM on July 27, 2005


If you're in the textile, agriculture or manufacturing industries in the US, I'd say your only hope is education, but this administration prefers funding wars before grants. So good luck. I'd say vote for the other guy, but the other guy wants "free trade" just as much. Maybe he'll help with your tuition. If there's money left after the war.
posted by raaka at 10:32 PM on July 27, 2005


you can't stop the borg... you can only hope to carve out your space
posted by cell divide at 10:53 PM on July 27, 2005


What rhymes with "alcohol-saturated dread?"
posted by rolypolyman at 11:30 PM on July 27, 2005


tylenol infatuated head?

overall hit-paraded shed?

Barbasol maturated red?
posted by mono blanco at 12:38 AM on July 28, 2005


I was getting e-mail against this from both the libertarians and the progressives. I thought that was a pretty good indicator that its not a good thing.
posted by hupp at 4:10 AM on July 28, 2005


Send jobs overseas?

You mean there actually are jobs left to send overseas?

The most helpful jobs to send would be those in the Legislative and Executive branches. Maybe then we could get some accountability. The money saved could get the country straightened out in no time...
posted by Enron Hubbard at 4:10 AM on July 28, 2005


Yeah, everyone who loses their manufacturing job should go back to school and get their computer science degree.

Oh, it's not 1998?

Nevermind.

Hey, I hear Wal-Mart's hiring.
posted by tommasz at 4:51 AM on July 28, 2005


You cannot have "free trade" with our current systems.

Allowing a free movement of goods and capital without a corresponding free movement of persons and capitalist balancing organizations tilts the playing field in favor of corporations.

I favor fair trade, not free trade.
posted by nofundy at 5:39 AM on July 28, 2005


I'd say your only hope is education

That's what the Democrats and Republicans always say when they've just outsourced jobs. And it's pure fantasy. You can't take a 40-ish man with a family and say "Well, I guess you're going to have to take some time off and learn aerospace engineering!". There isn't some magic wand that you can waive and educate thousands of blue-collar workers, most of whom never got a decent high school education to begin with, and all the money in the world won't change that. The truth is that every time these jobs are lost, the workers have two choices: unemployment or McDonalds. I'd say that people should vote Democrat, except that the Democratic party is in favor of outsourcing too. Small wonder that the unions aren't as enthused about politics anymore. The two parties are both perfectly willing to sell them down the river.
posted by unreason at 5:53 AM on July 28, 2005


Sam Seder over at The Majority Report was freaking out over this last night. He encouraged listeners to call and email their representatives and he was going on and on about how this is a bad thing for everybody but Big Business. A lotta good that did.

CAFTA doesn't even help U.S. corporations. It only helps international interests that know no borders. Anyone who still thinks the U.S. congress functions as representatives of U.S. citizens? You only have to look at CAFTA. Our civil servants are no longer working for us. They're working against us. They're taking orders from something else.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. For years we have been living in a corporate oligarchy parading itself as a democratic republic. There is literally nothing to be done about it, because our vote, our voice, falls on deaf ears. Unless you have several thousands of dollars to burn through lobby interests, your 'vote' is not heard. The last two presidential elections in the US are proof positive of all that, yet we continue perpetuating the illusion, because we're left with nothing else to do.

Mosch: "What's wrong with sending jobs overseas?"

I had assumed that you were a European, Mosch. Then I looked at your user page. You live IN the US and you dare ask that question?

World War Three isn't being fought through terror and violence. History will say it was fought through economics, and we Americans lost the battle years ago. We're just too stupid and arrogant to realize it.
posted by ZachsMind at 6:08 AM on July 28, 2005


Allowing a free movement of goods and capital without a corresponding free movement of persons and capitalist balancing organizations tilts the playing field in favor of corporations.

I agree. Yet, if NAFTA had contained a free travel clause do you really poor Americans would have gone to Mexico for plentiful jobs and low living expenses? Somehow I doubt it. In Fact, I don't think it's very hard for an American to get a work visa for Mexico.

The fact that Mexicans are streaming across the border every day is proof that even the crappiest jobs have stayed. Although it's hard to move a farm job, obviously.

We've had free trade between the states for 226 years, and while it hasn't evened that much, it has certainly not caused any intra-state problems. You never hear New Yorkers or Californians complain about all the immigrants from other states they get.
posted by delmoi at 7:18 AM on July 28, 2005


We've had free trade between the states for 226 years, and while it hasn't evened that much, it has certainly not caused any intra-state problems. You never hear New Yorkers or Californians complain about all the immigrants from other states they get.

A bit of specious reasoning, no? We have a federal government that oversees all fifty states, managing intrastate needs like health, transportation, energy, etc. as well as standards of law, including a minimum wage.

Does NAFTA enforce this rule of law — in particular, wage equity — across to Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Canada? So far as I can tell it only deregulates some commerce and regulates others. CAFTA is the same, except that it adds different countries to this deregulation/regulation effect.
posted by Rothko at 7:29 AM on July 28, 2005


Ditto on the point about the US government overseeing trade between the states.

That's why corporations are so keen on global trade -- there IS no world government to oversee them. Labor standards? Sorry, no government to set them, let the countries lower theirs in competition for jobs. Environmental standards? Same thing.

Meanwhile the corporations are happy to extract their money with no regard for things like human life, because after all, corporations are only supposed to care about their owners, and if their directors do anything that benefits others at the expense of their owners it is a breach of fiduciary duty.
posted by RalphSlate at 7:57 AM on July 28, 2005


What Zachsmind said. Globalism is pure, unadultered evil.
posted by keswick at 8:05 AM on July 28, 2005


Ah, Geography impaired Americans - you see, this Central American Free Trade Agreement, so there is absolutely no need for the jobs to go overseas. The jobs can take a bus, a truck or even their cars, make a nice travel throughout Mexican plains and reach Central America without ever having to cross any sea.

On a more serious note,

delmoi writes "I agree. Yet, if NAFTA had contained a free travel clause do you really poor Americans would have gone to Mexico for plentiful jobs and low living expenses? Somehow I doubt it. In Fact, I don't think it's very hard for an American to get a work visa for Mexico."

You'd need not just a "free-travel" clause but also a "free-work" one, so an American would be automatically allowed to work in Mexico or Canada. And then I think Canada would soon be flooded by the poor Americans you refer to. Eventually, many richer Americans would go to Mexico too, not only for the jobs, but also for the cheap land, cheap construction prices, lower taxes. It happened before in other parts of the world.

delmoi writes "The fact that Mexicans are streaming across the border every day is proof that even the crappiest jobs have stayed. Although it's hard to move a farm job, obviously. "

No, it's proof NAFTA did nothing for the poorest Mexicans - those precious jobs have probably gone to the educated middle-class, as it happened in India with the tech jobs. The poor are still in the same position, jobless and without hope to get better, since they don't have the means or the time to educate themselves. I would say they may be even worse, because NAFTA probably brought some automation with it, cutting many jobs previously available for unskilled workers.
posted by nkyad at 8:11 AM on July 28, 2005


you live IN the US and you dare ask that question?

Yep, I do.

The problem isn't that companies are hiring foreign workers, it's that they're not providing those workers with the same benefits and protections that a worker in a more developed nation would receive.

Sending jobs overseas, in and of itself, is not evil.
posted by mosch at 8:19 AM on July 28, 2005


In Mexico NAFTA has weakened workers' rights, displaced small farmers, degraded the environment and emptied traditional agricultural communities.

CAFTA will subject millions more family farmers to unfair competition from heavily subsidized U.S. agribusiness. There will be increased urban and northward migration as it will be almost impossible to continue to eke out a living off the land. It's painfully ironic that just as Fair Trade (of coffee, sugar, bananas and handcrafted goods) has started to make real inroads in these very poor regions of the world, CAFTA will unbalance - perhaps destroy - these emerging local economies.

Against all odds, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador are at this moment producing some of the most lovely and distinctive coffees in the world. Under CAFTA the odds against grow even higher... I can only hope they are not insurmountable.
posted by deCadmus at 8:20 AM on July 28, 2005


CAFTA doesn't even help U.S. corporations. It only helps international interests that know no borders.

I don't know if that statement is correct. The United States practically developed the term "banana republic" so our corporations have been doing business in Central America for quite some time. I suppose there is a question of ownership of the corporations since they know no bounds, but if the United States government is allying itself with these corporations I would at least assume both parties are on the same team which is tragic enough. I find free trade to be another scheme for wealth distribution where the money still goes to American corporations, however, not to the American worker and certainly not to the Central American worker either.
posted by j-urb at 8:52 AM on July 28, 2005


And under NAFTA, Canada cedes rights to her natural resources. As in, we don't control our water.

That sure as hell was decided to benefit me and other Canucks. Grrr.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:19 AM on July 28, 2005


The problem isn't that companies are hiring foreign workers, it's that they're not providing those workers with the same benefits and protections that a worker in a more developed nation would receive.

Moving all or part of a business operation thousands of miles away from where it is is not something that corporations do just for the fun of it. Hiring workers for less wages, benefits, and protections than their American counterparts is the reason corporations outsource. If workers in Venezuela or India or China or wherever are to be paid the same as their American counterparts, why would anyone outsource?


rather a circular argument you make, mosch
posted by krash2fast at 12:50 PM on July 28, 2005


Perhaps when the cost of transporting goods becomes much higher (which it will under today's peak oil scenario), then maybe the production of food and goods will return to local hands everywhere, where it should have been all along. I'll miss fresh bananas year 'round but it's a sacrifice I can live with.
posted by nofundy at 6:08 AM on July 29, 2005


krash2fast: There are two issues that are commonly lumped into one.

Issue 1: Should the United States take an isolationist stance towards global trade? Personally, I think this is a clear no.

Issue 2: Should foreign workers be granted the same protections that exist for Western workers? I think this is a clear yes.

The problem isn't global trade, it's worker's rights. I have no issue with companies that use foreign labor but treat them responsibly.

We disagree about wages. I don't see a problem with making adjustments to salary based on location. Salaries in New York are much higher than those in rural Ohio. Salaries in rural Ohio are much higher than those in Mumbai. As long as standards of living are, in general, increasing, I don't see an issue.
posted by mosch at 2:58 PM on July 29, 2005


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