New Report Shows U.S. Job Losses from NAFTA-Style Trade

[papau]

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=120-11172003

New Report Shows U.S. Job Losses from NAFTA-Style Trade

"The High Cost of 'Free' Trade" by Robert Scott, an economist and leading authority on the impact of NAFTA on U.S. jobs, reveals the steep bill paid by American workers for NAFTA and the huge trade deficit it produced. That bill, as itemized in the report, is measured in nearly 900,000 jobs lost, greater wage inequality, suppressed real wages, reduced fringe benefits, and in overall weakening of workers' ability to stem the erosion of their wages and benefits through collective bargaining. "Ten years of NAFTA have meant 10 years of net losses for American working families," says Scott. "With the flow of jobs and capital out of the United States, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have experienced a net loss of jobs over the decade."

Key findings include:
-- Through the end of 2002, the U.S. lost 879,280 jobs as a result of NAFTA - jobs that formerly existed and were eliminated as well as those that were created in other countries instead of here as a result of the growing U.S. trade deficit. Nearly four-fifths of the job losses were in manufacturing industries.
-- By the end of Sept., the U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico and Canada was 12 percent higher than for the same period last year. Job losses in 2003 are likely to grow at a similar pace.
-- The massive U.S. trade deficit has also led to massive "offshoring" of investment capital, as production becomes more profitable in Mexico and Canada. Foreign direct investment by multinational firms more than tripled in Canada and more than quadrupled in Mexico in the decade after NAFTA took effect.
-- All 50 states and the District of Columbia have experienced a net loss of jobs due to NAFTA and the trade imbalance it has produced.
-- The largest job loss to NAFTA trade policies -- 115,723 -- occurred in California. Other hard-hit states include New York, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Tennessee, each with at least 20,000 jobs lost.
-- Growing downward pressure on wages is a direct consequence of the replacement of higher paid manufacturing jobs with service sector jobs that pay, on average, only four-fifths as much. The service sector is the source of 98 percent of the new jobs created in the United States since 1989.
-- This wage pressure has fallen especially hard on less educated workers, those without a college degree who are the lowest-paid 62.5 percent of the workforce.
-- Widespread use of the greater import competition and capital mobility created by NAFTA as a threat for driving down wages has made it increasingly difficult for workers in import-sensitive industries to bargain for better wages and benefits.<snip>
http://www.usnewswire.com/
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[Say_What]

1. The USA --soon to be the world's newist Third World country

<clips>

3rd World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon To a City Near You

Policies traditionally carried out overseas by “international lending institutions” such as the World Bank or International Monetary Fund (IMF) are quickly becoming part of the U.S. domestic economy. Privatization, loss of social services, bifurcation of the economy and an overall decline in the lives of working people are an ongoing reality in the U.S.

Officially, IMF and World Bank measures were imposed to curb inflation, increase exports and strengthen the fiscal condition of debtor nations, allowing them to pay back their loans. In actuality, however, the common result of structural adjustments has been depressed wages, reduced consumer purchase-power, and environmental degradation, while boosting profit rates for multinational investors. Small farmers, having lost their subsidies and import protections, are driven off their land into overcrowded cities. According to a number of economists, including the former chief economist for the Wold Bank, as western investment in the Third World increased throughout the '90s, so did poverty and social instability.

The World Bank and IMF have a four-step "reform" formula for each country. The formula includes Capital-market liberalization, privatization, market-based pricing, and, finally, the introduction of “free trade.” In step one, capital is freed up to flow in and out across the borders. Generally the result is the increased flow of capital out to external businesses with no guarantee that the money will flow in through foreign investment.

Privatization is the second step. This refers to the transfer of traditionally state-run services and utilities like gas, oil, roads, water, post offices, and banks to private companies. The problem, say critics, is that private ownership of a country’s framework leaves it unable to protect its citizens or natural resources from abuses of power.

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/21.html

[Maple]

2. Canada went thru

all this hand-wringing and angst some years ago.

American newspapers even told us we were becoming a third-world country.

The 'de-industrialization of Canada' it was touted as.

Well...we survived, and are out the other side now and doing fine.

Dunno why it's taking so long for you guys to catch up.

Mind you, Bush isn't helping with his deficit and debt.

[treepig]

3. the U.S. lost 879,280 jobs as a result of NAFTA

for some perspective, that's not nearly as many as were lost as a result of "electing" a moron for a president