General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThanks to free trade agreements, our country has lost 13.6 million jobs.
It was 1993, and our new President Bill Clinton had inherited trade agreements negotiated by George H.W. Bush and his USTR Carla Hills. First up for debate in Congress would be NAFTA, and the Uruguay Round of GATT/WTO would come the next year. In general, the vast majority of republicans and their big money fat cats on Wall Street and in the Fortune 500 boardrooms were huge supporters. The majority of Democrats, most of whom were concerned about the potential for massive middle class job exports and downward pressure on wages, were against these new agreements.
That fall, I got into it with a Reagan/Bush loving Econ professor about NAFTA. He had every bullet point down pat
.. The Tide of Free Trade lifts all boats, we can't put a wall up around the country, Globalization is here, etc., etc.. We agreed to disagree and moved on, but he said something that came back to haunt him when we met again years later. During that original exchange, he stated that NAFTA would significantly reduce our trade deficit by billions of dollars a year, and each one billion dollars in deficits equals 1,700 jobs lost in the good ole' USA. NAFTA eventually ended up dramatically increasing our trade deficit with Mexico and Canada by over 100 billion dollars a year.
Since we started this rush to embrace free trade and globalization during the Reagan years, the USA has run up almost 8 trillion dollars in trade deficits. Using that republican Econ professor's stat the each billion costs the USA 1,700 lost jobs that means we have lost 13.6 million jobs due to NAFTA, GATT/WTO, CAFTA, MFN, and all the others. I wonder if they ever found a nice, slick way to back track from that little stat they were throwing out back in the day?
Its really hard to pin down the exact number of jobs lost because so many spin-off and support jobs are lost months or years later after the initial closing of a factory. When corporations saw all the labor savings from the factory job exodus, then they started shipping customer support, electrical engineering, computer programming, technical support, and other types of jobs out of the country. I know three electrical engineers that had their jobs shipped to China just a few years ago, and various studies show that workers who lose jobs to free trade and outsourcing end up making about 25% less than in their original job, that is if they can even find a job. Oh, and let us not forget those still working in the US and the pressure to work longer hours for lower wages or else their jobs to will be shipped out of the country.
I'm all for fair and free trade, but we ain't seen anything fair about our so called "free trade" agreements in many moons. In reality, they are nothing more than outsourcing/investment agreements for the 1% that are masquerading as free trade.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)The argument against NAFTA basically seems to consist of holding your ears and pretending the mid and late 1990s didn't happen.
That employment rate looks pretty good until W fucked it up. (Unemployment is now back down to 1994 levels.)
Ditto that median income. Note that even Bush's disastrous mishandling of the economy couldn't wipe out the median income gains after NAFTA.
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)Your charts and stats have been totally debunked in the past.
NAFTA took a few years before the negative effects started kicking in. By then Bush was president.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)The bottom quintile's income gains were not statistically significant, and welfare "reform" made this problem worse. But, yes, the other 80% of America is making more money in real dollars today than they were in 1993.
Your charts and stats have been totally debunked in the past.
No, they haven't. People saying "but the factory in my town closed down" isn't debunking. You actually can't "debunk" a fact, for that matter.
You can say (people seem to) that lower unemployment and higher median income aren't what you care about, but there's no getting around the fact that both happened.
NAFTA took a few years before the negative effects started kicking in.
How many manufacturing jobs did Mexico add since 1994? And how many did China add? Which of those countries do we have a free trade agreement with?
Aligned to that: how did manufacturing in Canada (also a NAFTA partner) fare?
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Because nobody challenged any of these statements:
1. Unemployment is lower now than in 1993
2. Median household income is higher now than in 1993
3. Nonsupervisory wages are higher now than in 1993
If lower unemployment, higher median income, and higher nonsupervisory wages aren't what you are looking for, what exactly are you looking for?
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)WASHINGTON Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.
And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1996.
Economists pointed to a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great Depression that median household income, adjusted for inflation, had not risen over such a long period, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard.
This is truly a lost decade, Mr. Katz said. We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but were looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s.
The bureaus findings were worse than many economists expected, and brought into sharp relief the toll the past decade including the painful declines of the financial crisis and recession had taken on Americans at the middle and lower parts of the income ladder. It is also fresh evidence that the disappointing economic recovery has done nothing for the countrys poorest citizens.
The report said the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line last year, 15.1 percent, was the highest level since 1993. (The poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,314.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Recursion
(56,582 posts)that happened since NAFTA's formation in 1994
Can you really persuade yourself that the red vertical line was the problem here?
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)*U.S. real (inflation adjusted) median household income was $51,939 in 2013 versus $51,759 in 2012, statistically unchanged.
*In 2013, real median household income was 8.0 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the latest recession.
*Real median household income averaged $50,781 from 1964-2013, ranging from a low of $43,558 in 1967 to a high of $56,895 in 1999.
Commenting on the Census Bureau report, economist Ben Casselman wrote that U.S. median household income was "...9 percent lower than at its peak in 1999, and essentially unchanged since the end of the Reagan administration." The recovery from the 2007-2009 recession had not translated into higher incomes for the typical American family.
Measured relative to GDP, total compensation and its component wages and salaries have been declining since 1970.
This indicates a shift in income from labor (persons who derive income from hourly wages and salaries) to capital (persons who derive income via ownership of businesses, land and assets).
Extreme poverty in the United States, meaning households living on less than $2 per day before government benefits, more than doubled from 636,000 to 1.46 million households (including 2.8 million children) between 1996 and 2011.
While the median household income had increased 30% from 1990 to 2006, it has increased only slightly when considering inflation.[21] In 1990, the median annual household income was $30,056 or $44,603 in 2003 dollars.
While personal income has remained relatively stagnant over the past few decades, household income has risen due to the rising percentage of households with two or more income earners. Between 1999 and 2004 household income stagnated showing a slight increase since 2004.
Households in the top 1% experienced the by far greatest increases in household income.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
Recursion
(56,582 posts)income gains for the median US household.
In contrast, the post-NAFTA recovery from the GHWB recession did translate to higher incomes for all Americans -- much higher, in fact, for 4/5ths of Americans. Which, again, makes my point that calling NAFTA a disaster seems to fly in the face of what, you know, actually happened.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)U.S. median household income was "...9 percent lower than at its peak in 1999, and essentially unchanged since the end of the Reagan administration."
The recovery from the 2007-2009 recession had not translated into higher incomes for the typical American family.
While personal income has remained relatively stagnant over the past few decades, household income has risen due to the rising percentage of households with two or more income earners.
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)They have full-time jobs and part-time jobs to supplement their incomes. Some have their kids working to help out. But, everything is wonderful thanks to NAFTA and all the other so called "free trade" deals given to us by the millionaires and billionaires.
think
(11,641 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Anything from a huge deficit to a huge surplus (if you count dollar-denominated debt, which you probably should).
Median wages and incomes are higher (for all five quintiles, though the gains for the lowest quintile are barely perceptible) now than when NAFTA was formed, and unemployment is lower. NAFTA just seems like an odd particular target to rage against, given that. Particularly since to the extent you can say manufacturing "moved overseas", it mostly went to Chindia.
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)NAFTA created millions of US jobs.
NAFTA raised family incomes.
NAFTA cured cancer.
NAFTA eliminated poverty.
Did I miss anything?
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Disappears for a day, then comes back with the same right-wing talking points to begin anew.
I smacked the shit out of that poster earlier, got lucky enough to have the time to hang around to counter said poster's "gish gallop".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6146258
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6146439
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6146451
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6147795
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)Any rumors out there about some trade deal that will increase exports, create millions of US jobs, make us all rich? Oh, it must be that wonderful TPP thingie.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)The thing that enrages me is the glibness...the willingness to to use specious claims and jump from one to another with no shame. Why don't they just admit who butters their bread?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Nobody has yet shown any of my claims are wrong (because they aren't):
1. Unemployment is lower now than before NAFTA
2. Median household income is higher now than before NAFTA
3. Nonsupervisory wages are higher now than before NAFTA.
If anybody wants to address those three points, rather than simply yelling "shill" because I disagree with you, that would be awesome.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)I guess they're that effective, Mr corellation is causation.
And you are in fact a shill of the vilest sort. You move goalposts every time someone calls you out your bullshit bullet points.
I'll not say what I'd really like in deference to decorum.
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)It takes years for the full effects of trade deals to make a difference one way or another. NAFTA went into effect during boom times not even remotely related to NAFTA. As for household income, much of that was from more family members working, and the stats are not even adjusted properly for inflation. Inflation numbers then (and now) do not include increases in the costs of energy and food, plus they were full of substitution tricks to mask real world inflation.