Some truckers oppose letting Mexican trucks on U.S. roads

The North American Free Trade Agreement took effect on January 1, 1994.

NAFTA opponents - including labor, environmental, consumer and religious groups - argued that NAFTA would launch a race-to-the-bottom in wages, destroy hundreds of thousands of good U.S. jobs, undermine democratic control of domestic policy-making and threaten health, environmental and food safety standards.
NAFTA promoters - including many of the world’s largest corporations - promised it would create hundreds of thousands of new high-wage U.S. jobs, raise living standards in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, improve environmental conditions and transform Mexico from a poor developing country into a booming new market for U.S. exports.
Why such divergent views? NAFTA was a radical experiment - never before had a merger of three nations with such radically different levels of development been attempted. Plus, until NAFTA, “trade” agreements only dealt with cutting tariffs and lifting quotas to set the terms of trade in goods between countries. But NAFTA contained 900 pages of one-size-fits-all rules to which each nation was required to conform all of its domestic laws - regardless of whether voters and their democratically-elected representatives had previously rejected the very same policies in Congress, state legislatures or city councils.
NAFTA opponents - including labor, environmental, consumer and religious groups - argued that NAFTA would launch a race-to-the-bottom in wages, destroy hundreds of thousands of good U.S. jobs, undermine democratic control of domestic policy-making and threaten health, environmental and food safety standards.
NAFTA promoters - including many of the world’s largest corporations - promised it would create hundreds of thousands of new high-wage U.S. jobs, raise living standards in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, improve environmental conditions and transform Mexico from a poor developing country into a booming new market for U.S. exports.
Why such divergent views? NAFTA was a radical experiment - never before had a merger of three nations with such radically different levels of development been attempted. Plus, until NAFTA, “trade” agreements only dealt with cutting tariffs and lifting quotas to set the terms of trade in goods between countries. But NAFTA contained 900 pages of one-size-fits-all rules to which each nation was required to conform all of its domestic laws - regardless of whether voters and their democratically-elected representatives had previously rejected the very same policies in Congress, state legislatures or city councils.
NAFTA requires limits on the safety and inspection of meat sold in our grocery stores; new patent rules that raised medicine prices; constraints on your local government’s ability to zone against sprawl or toxic industries; and elimination of preferences for spending your tax dollars on U.S.-made products or locally-grown food. In fact, calling NAFTA a “trade” agreement is misleading, NAFTA is really an investment agreement. Its core provisions grant foreign investors a remarkable set of new rights and privileges that promote relocation abroad of factories and jobs and the privatization and deregulation of essential services, such as water, energy and health care.
Remarkably, many of NAFTA’s most passionate boosters in Congress and among economists never read the agreement. They made their pie-in-the-sky promises of NAFTA benefits based on trade theory and ideological prejudice for anything with the term “free trade” attached to it.
Now, over a decade later, the time for conjecture and promises is over: the data are in and they clearly show the damage NAFTA has wrought for millions of people in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Thankfully, the failed NAFTA model - a watered down version of which is also contained in the World Trade Organization (WTO) - is merely one among many options.
Throughout the world, people suffering with the consequences of this disastrous experiment are organizing to demand the better world we know is possible - but we face a race against time. The same interests who got us into NAFTA are pushing to expand it to include 31 more countries in Central and South America through the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
In 2005, 2006 & 2007 Congress & The Senate voted to extend NAFTA to five Central American countries through the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the Bush administration is now looking to add Peru and Colombia to the list as well.

This is were and when obama and hillery both voted for nafta

 

Unemployment rate when NAFTA took effect in Jan 1994? 6.6%

Unemployment rate now? 5.0%

End of story

 

"Figures can lie and liars can figure"... While the unemployment rate might be lower now than it was when NAFTA was ratified, the fact neverthless remains that some 3,000,000 American manufacturing jobs have been lost, while American industry is virtually gone. What's "made in the USA" anymore? According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 1.8 million American workers applied for "trade adjustment assistance" after losing their jobs because of NAFTA. Many people have been forced to take much lower-paying, menial jobs (such as "flippin' burgers") and second and third jobs just to "make ends meet".

Rulings from unelected, completely unaccountable NAFTA tribunals (per NAFTA's Chapter 11) have been superseding state and federal court decisions, and are challenging our long-standing state laws. Despite congressional action to block them and valid safety concerns, NAFTA requires that Mexican trucks be allowed to haul freight here - freight that would otherwise have been hauled by U.S. drivers. Meanwhile, the Mexican border remains wide-open, with illegal aliens flooding-in, driving wages down. NAFTA evidently hasn't done much good for Mexico, either!

 

I Think you need to get your numbers correct, you maybe going by your states unempolyment rate.
Here are the employment average for the United States Before NAFTA and after nafta
and you can see for yourself.

A PERSON CAN ONLY COLLECT UNEMPLOYMENT FOR A SET NUMBER OF WEEKS
THE UNEMPLOYED NUMBERS MAYBE HIGHER THAN WHAT IS LISTED BELOW​

YEAR.............LABOR FORCE.......EMPLOYED......UNEMPLOYED......UNEMP RATE
2008 YTD Average 152,822,000 144,755,000 8,067,000 5.3%
2007 153,167,750 146,093,917 7,073,833 4.6%
2006 151,427,583 144,427,000 7,000,583 4.6%
2005 149,297,833 141,707,250 7,590,583 5.1%
2004 147,401,000 139,252,000 8,149,000 5.5%
2003 146,510,000 137,736,000 8,774,000 6.0%
2002 144,863,000 136,485,000 8,378,000 5.8%
2001 143,734,000 136,933,000 6,801,000 4.7%
2000 142,583,000 136,891,000 5,692,000 4.0%
1999 139,368,000 133,488,000 5,880,000 4.2%
1998 137,673,000 131,463,000 6,210,000 4.5%
1997 136,297,000 129,558,000 6,739,000 4.9%
1996 133,943,000 126,708,000 7,236,000 5.4%
1995 132,304,000 124,900,000 7,404,000 5.6%
1994 131,056,000 123,060,000 7,996,000 6.1%
1993 129,200,000 120,259,000 8,940,000 6.9%
1992 128,105,000 118,492,000 9,613,000 7.5%
1991 126,346,000 117,718,000 8,628,000 6.8%
1990 125,840,000 118,793,000 7,047,000 5.6%
1989 123,869,000 117,342,000 6,528,000 5.3%
1988 121,669,000 114,968,000 6,701,000 5.5%
1987 119,865,000 112,440,000 7,425,000 6.2%
1986 117,834,000 109,597,000 8,237,000 7.0%
1985 115,462,000 107,150,000 8,312,000 7.2%
1984 113,544,000 105,005,000 8,539,000 7.5%
1983 111,551,000 100,834,000 10,717,000 9.6%
1982 110,204,000 99,526,000 10,678,000 9.7%
1981 108,670,000 100,397,000 8,273,000 7.6%
1980 106,940,000 99,303,000 7,637,000 7.1%

 

Not sure what orifice you pulled those numbers out of, but here are the official numbers.

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: APRIL 2008
Nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in April (-20,000), following job losses that totaled 240,000 in the first 3 months of the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The unemployment rate, at 5.0 percent, also was little changed in April. Employment continued to decline in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade, while jobs were added in health care and in professional and technical services.The number of unemployed persons (7.6 million) and the unemployment rate (5.0 percent) were little changed in April.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/bbemp.pdf

P.S. the unemployment rate has not been at 5.3% since at least 2004.

 

Here is what ??????(do you have spell check? it office)I pulled my information form;


Historical Labor Force/Unemployment Data for
[SIZE=+1]UNITED STATES[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-2].[/SIZE]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]NOTE: 2007 numbers have been revised.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Latest data released 4/18/08[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]..................................................[SIZE=-1]MOST RECENT 13 MOS[/SIZE]...........................................................................[/FONT] MONTH..........LABOR FORCE.......EMPLOYED.....UNEMPLOYED..UNEMP RATE/SA RATE* 2007 March 152,236,000 145,323,000 6,913,000 4.5% 4.4% April 151,829,000 145,297,000 6,532,000 4.3% 4.5% May 152,350,000 145,864,000 6,486,000 4.3% 4.5% June 154,252,000 146,958,000 7,295,000 4.7% 4.6% July 154,871,000 147,315,000 7,556,000 4.9% 4.7% August 153,493,000 146,406,000 7,088,000 4.6% 4.7% September 153,400,000 146,448,000 6,952,000 4.5% 4.7% October 153,516,000 146,743,000 6,773,000 4.4% 4.8% November 154,035,000 147,118,000 6,917,000 4.5% 4.7% December 153,705,000 146,334,000 7,371,000 4.8% 5.0%2008 January 152,828,000 144,607,000 8,221,000 5.4% 4.9% February 152,503,000 144,550,000 7,953,000 5.2% 4.8% March 153,135,000 145,108,000 8,027,000 5.2% 5.1% LAST 12 MONTH AVG 153,326,583 146,062,333 7,264,250 4.7% 4.7%NOTE: April and May data were revised slightly 6-27-07 from the 6-20-07 data.
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]All data above are 2007 Benchmark.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]* S.A. -- seasonally adjusted.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]NOTE:[SIZE=-1]Due to an expansion in the Current Population Survey (CPS), mandated by Congress, estimates for[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]year 2001 and later at both the state and substate levels may not be fully comparable with[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]those of earlier periods.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Source: Research and Analysis Unit, Indiana Dept. of Workforce Development
Data above provided by Bruce F. Bendull, Regional Analyst: Phone 219 762-2705; Fax 219 763-3061
06BM = 2006 Benchmark, etc. Above data are estimates using Federal procedures.
Unemployment rates are computed from unrounded data.[/FONT]

 

Office? What the heck are you talking about?

I'll take the official numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the United States Department of Labor over some yahoo at the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

I provided a link to the official numbers, you cut and paste some crap from a guy named Bruce.

 

do you trust your goverment ??? that department can make the numbers say what they want you to belive, or what they want you to think,
The large companies that have left the states for other countries to increase profits; They laid off many people and there has been more and more lay off and some companies are closing their doors or even offices in some areas, were are the jobs going to come from?

 

March 04, 2008 Rescuing the Rust Belt

By Thomas Sowell
It is fascinating watching politicians say how they are going to rescue the "rust belt" regions where jobs are disappearing and companies are either shutting down or moving elsewhere.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is being blamed for the jobs going elsewhere. Barack Obama blames the Clinton administration for NAFTA, and that includes Hillary Clinton.
Senator Obama says that he is for free trade, provided it is "fair trade." That is election year rhetoric at its cleverest.

Since "fair" is one of those words that can mean virtually anything to anybody, what this amounts to is that politicians can pile on whatever restrictions they want, in the name of fairness, and still claim to be for "free trade." Clever.
We will all have to pay a cost for political restrictions and political cleverness, since there is no free lunch. In fact, free lunches are a big part of the reason for once-prosperous regions declining into rust belts.
When the American automobile industry was the world's leader in its field, many people seemed to think that labor unions could transfer a bigger chunk of that prosperity to its members without causing economic repercussions.
Toyota, Honda, and others who took away more and more of the Big Three automakers' market share, leading to huge job losses in Detroit, proved once again the old trite saying that there is no free lunch.
Like the United Automobile Workers union in its heyday, unions in the steel industry and other industries piled on costs, not only in wage rates having little relationship to supply and demand, but in all sorts of red tape work rules that added costs.
State and local governments in what later became the rust belt also thought that they too could treat the industries under their jurisdiction as prey rather than assets, and siphon off more of the wealth created by those industries into state and local treasuries with ever higher taxes -- again, without considering repercussions.
In the short run, you can get away with all sorts of things. But, in the long run, the chickens come home to roost. The rust belt is where those rising costs have come home to roost.
While American auto makers are laying off workers by the thousands, Japanese auto makers like Toyota and Honda are hiring thousands of American workers. But they are not hiring them in the rust belts.
They are avoiding the rust belts, just as domestic businesses are avoiding the high costs that have been piled on over the years by both unions and governments in the rust belt regions.
In short, the rust belts have been killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. That is a viable political strategy, so long as the goose doesn't die before the next election and politicians can avoid leaving their fingerprints on the weapon.
But the people who lose their jobs, and who live in communities that decline, need to look beyond the political rhetoric to the grim reality that there is no free lunch.
Many workers in the new plants being built by Toyota and others apparently already understand that. They have repeatedly voted against being represented by labor unions. They want to keep their jobs.
Where does NAFTA come into the picture?
International trade is just one of the many ways in which the competition of lower cost producers can cause higher cost producers to lose customers and jobs. Technological improvements or better management practices by domestic competitors can have the same result.
Jobs are always disappearing. The big question is why they are not being replaced by new jobs. Rust belt policies that drove out old jobs also keep out new jobs.
NAFTA makes it easier for politicians to blame the problem on foreigners. In fact, foreigners make ideal scapegoats for politicians. After all, people in Japan or India can't vote in American elections.
Americans who can vote would do well to start spending more time thinking about economic realities, instead of being swept away by political rhetoric.

Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate Inc.



http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/rescuing_the_rust_belt.html

 

I for 1 do thank you for the info that you have given us, there are issues that we would not have known about if not for you, so I say again, Thank You!