U.S. corporate tax rates may be among the highest in nominal rates, but look at what corporations actually pay. Far far lower. Corporations used to be the source of about 30% of the US tax revenues. Now it is down to about 10%. More to the point, the cost of moving US jobs overseas is tax deductible (Republicans have blocked legislation reversing this) and foreign profits are tax free if held overseas. As for manufacturing, Germany is more socialistic and has higher tax rates than the US, but they have expanded manufacturing. How? Go look.
Unintended consequences
- Thread starter eastcane
- Start date
As I said....
"WASHINGTON, Nov. 20— Following is the 61-to-38 roll-call by which the Senate voted tonight to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement. A "yes" vote was a vote to approve the agreement. Voting for the agreement were 27 Democrats and 34 Republicans; voting against it were 28 Democrats and 10 Republicans.
.....Republican, Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (Ga.), usually a confrontational leader, rallied House Republicans to support NAFTA. "This is a vote for history, larger than politics, larger than reelection, larger than personal ego," said Gingrich, who is to be his party's House leader in 1995.
Even though the outcome was no longer in doubt, Majority Whip David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), who led the House opposition to the trade pact, made a passionate plea at the end of the day-long debate. "It will cost jobs. It will drive down our standard of living," Bonior said. "If we don't stand up for the working people in this country, who is going to?"
Sorry....but when a Democratic President and his Vice-President are the ones who bring the case for passage to the public and are the ones responsible for convincing the same that this is a job creator they and their party own it....not saying the Reps opposed the deal on the whole either. However, you have a Democratic President, Vice-President, House and Senate. Nothing gets passed or ratified without a huge push from Clinton and Gore. This deal doesn't get done without Gore in primetime selling the same to the American people.
Passing free trade agreements with countries where workers pay is pennies on the dollar never made sense. Yet, we seemingly haven't learned from our past mistakes. Not surprisingly....do we ever learn? See Libya and Syria after Iraq.
Passing free trade agreements with countries where workers pay is pennies on the dollar never made sense. Yet, we seemingly haven't learned from our past mistakes. Not surprisingly....do we ever learn? See Libya and Syria after Iraq.
We all know that when something has the votes to pass, some Congressmen will slip away from the fold and vote what will help them at home. With Clinton and Gore pushing it the votes would have been there if needed from the Democrat side. Also, right today Obama and Kerry pushed the Pacific trade agreement. Hillary did too until she didn't. She started finding flaws as a presidential candidate when she started hearing from the unions. She was for it before she was against it. Politics as usual. We hear a lot about business money influencing party politics, but unions do too.
So NAFTA didn't pass because a majority of Republicans in Congress supported it over a majority of Democrats opposing it because it would ship jobs overseas? Al Gore is responsible. And Ross Perot was selected by Republicans to run for President because he represented their views on trade?
Remind me who you are talking about?
Question: How has Germany managed to have higher taxes, more environmental regulations, and continue to have a strong manufacturing base?
As long as we sit around blaming other Americans instead of seeking out what works elsewhere, we will continue to stagnate and polarize. It's a big world out there.
Nafta passed because a Democratic President and Vice-President rallied public support behind the same. Are the Reps also to blame...absolutely. However, to ignore who pushed this thing through and who was out front leading the charged is disingenuous at best.
I posted numerous thoughts on the Germany model a few months back. They value quality products and take great pride and effort to produce quality over being the low cost producer. The U.S. consumer is yet to embrace this model on a large scale. In fact, our trade deals and tax code encourage just the opposite.
On a related note...I just purchased my first pool table a few weeks ago. I was amazed at the number of U.S. companies (one very well known) who actually import their tables from Indonesia and then slap their sticker on it as a U.S. based company. The only way to discover where these tables are made is through internet research as there's nothing on them to indicate they aren't made in the U.S. Finally went with a table made in Tennessee and couldn't be happier. Moral of the story is that it isn't always easy to discover the origin of the products we purchase.
I type slower. Clinton and Gore wanted it. If they didn't, they would not have pushed it. It would never have been forwarded to Congress. It was going to pass. It is not uncommon when something is clearly going to pass that one party or the other breaks ranks a bit to appeal to their home states interests.
Clinton sent it to Congress. It got enough votes to pass a Democrat Congress. Then President Clinton signed it. Here is what President Clinton said.
"NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement."
IOW you would prefer not to answer the simple question.
OK explain why 10 years later Bush was still defending the benefits of shifting US jobs overseas in his reelection campaign? Why do Republicans in Congress still refuse to stop subsidizing the costs of moving manufacturing overseas?
Interesting twist of the 'Blame Bush" lament who left office 8 years ago. Nafta was signed 22 years ago, yet it's blame Clinton and Gore? At least they didn't argue that shifting jobs overseas was good for America.
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Dude.....There would be no NAFTA but for the efforts of Clinton and Gore. When was the last time a sitting President or Vice-President went on prime time TV to debate a pending law or treaty? The answer is never. Clinton and Gore went to extraordinary lengths to pass this agreement. Public efforts which hadn't been seen prior to or since in the efforts to pass NAFTA. They both promised that NAFTA would be a job creator for the U.S. Sorry but those are the facts and Dems must own them. This post is in no way an attempt to defend Reps in the area of trade. They are equally guilty in supporting agreements which have led to the migration of American jobs. However, the refusal of some to even acknowledge the efforts put forth by Clinton and Gore to ram this Act through Congress and the Public is a bit amusing.
My gosh you are stubborn. Yes, NAFTA was signed 22 years ago. By Clinton and that's why he is blamed for it. He submitted it to Congress and signed it.
Let's try this again. Bill Clinton "NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement."
But you blame Republicans for what he submitted to them and "supported" even though they could not have passed it without the vote of 102 Democrats in the House and 27 in the Senate.
The passage of NAFTA wasn't ultimately about the actual Rep and Dem votes in the House and Senate. The Public was very skeptical of the Act and for good reason. NAFTA doesn't pass without a change in public perception. Clinton recognized this and sent Gore to sell the legislation to the public. He even got Gore a prime time audience. He succeeded and the American people bought into what Clinton and Gore were selling. At that point he had enough votes in Congress to pass his legislation.
The NAFTA discussion is interesting since I was a little too young to be paying attention. #notinhighschoolyet
Interesting article
"Since March, 2010, when manufacturing employment in the U.S. hit a trough of 11.45 million jobs, nearly a million new factory positions have been created, most of them in the Southern states, particularly North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Better still, the jobs are typically good ones: across that same five-year period, average hourly manufacturing wages have increased over ten per cent, to more than twenty dollars. On the whole, U.S. manufacturing, as measured by the Purchasing Managers’ Index, has steadily expanded......Meanwhile, according to Quanton Data, which tracks global job postings by industry, open manufacturing positions in China have been droppingconsistently since 2012, down nearly six per cent in that time."
http://www.newyorker.com/business/c...p-is-wrong-about-manufacturing-jobs-and-china
"Since March, 2010, when manufacturing employment in the U.S. hit a trough of 11.45 million jobs, nearly a million new factory positions have been created, most of them in the Southern states, particularly North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Better still, the jobs are typically good ones: across that same five-year period, average hourly manufacturing wages have increased over ten per cent, to more than twenty dollars. On the whole, U.S. manufacturing, as measured by the Purchasing Managers’ Index, has steadily expanded......Meanwhile, according to Quanton Data, which tracks global job postings by industry, open manufacturing positions in China have been droppingconsistently since 2012, down nearly six per cent in that time."
http://www.newyorker.com/business/c...p-is-wrong-about-manufacturing-jobs-and-china
Interesting read.
And hey that's what I said...
"Given this, what would arguably help underemployed U.S. workers the most is retraining, so that their skills match the requirements of the better-paying jobs in U.S. factories."
I'm also in favor of government funding for technical programs.
Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Fox News + all its WASP anchors, Koch Brothers, Almost every oil executive, the Tea Party (Sarah Palin + Ted Cruz, etc...) , Rush Limbaugh, Ibis, Ted Nugent, the American gun industry.... It's just as much of a business.
They also leave out the fact that manufacturing as a percentage of GDP hasn't changed much. Things are still being produced here, just more efficiently.
The Republican establishment is management of Goldman Sachs, GE, IBM, Bank of America, Ford, Caterpillar, Koch Industries, coal companies, Exxon, Shell, etc. etc. who want to avoid paying for pollution, financial regulation, to keep sending jobs overseas, keep illegals working cheap, etc.. The wealth available to these groups dwarfs a few names from Hollywood.
Agreed on income, although the same point about median income and recovery was true about the so-called recovery under Dubya. The same over all factors affected both.
Bernie is making real gains by tarring HRC with supporting Trade bills. The same ones defended by Bush. I don't know about you, but I was always taught in college and grad school about the value of free trade; that it optimized efficiency in participating countries to the benefit of all participants. I'm not sure that academic theory took into account real life policies that encouraged shipping jobs overseas such as allowing a deduction for moving costs, allowing overseas profits to go untaxed, tax credits for offshore R&D, write offs for shutting down factories to send jobs overseas, etc. Policies which are now defended by the party claiming that they can bring back jobs.
Which is what Bernie and Trump figured out. Trump in particular realized that the Republican establishment had so demonized a government that was in fact being run for big business at the expense of wage earners that he could appeal to their frustration and thumb his nose at the establishment.
Trump's message is "The government is incompetent and I alone can help you.
Bernie's approach is somewhat the same, although more direct: The government can help you but has been perverted by big business. Let's take it back.
You should have gone the Antique route on your pool table. A few years ago I bought an antique Brunswick Saratoga (made in 1905) that belonged to the R.S. Kerr family at one time. New tables become used tables in no time.. But antiques are antiques forever...
I looked at those but everyone I spoke with told me how hard they are to move without damaging them. I finally bought a used top tier Olhausen. Paid roughly 30% of the new price for a 2 year old table and had a dealer move it. Great table.
Another post that doesn't answer the question. And no, that's not what I said nor what I am saying.
olhausen is good stuff!
The one I bought shows a little age and use but overall I would challenge anyone to seriously damage the 2" oak it's made of...
In a nutshell, this is why Trump will be the GOP nominee, the base realizes that the GOP establishment has sold them out to the investor class, the people who make money when capital goes outside the country taking advantage of cheaper labor. The Trump supporters have been played for so long, they don't trust anything the GOP establishment says at this point.Here's another way of pointing out what people are angry about. The GOP that my dad and I were loyal to vs.Trickle Down and the Laffer Curve.
It also underscores the "who is going to buy all this stuff?" problem that our economy faces. People are not earning enough to support a consumer driven economy and at some point the overall ability to borrow will hit a limit. Then what?
Because Congress has refused to stimulate the economy by spending, particularly by investing in productive, modern infrastructure, the only avenue left was the Fed which dramatically dropped interest rates and expanded the money supply. So our economy borrowed to buy the latest gadgets, clothing styles, and other consumer items instead investing in productive assets. What happens when that game stops? No ability to consume and an outdated infrastructure?
Trump has tapped into people's anger about the problem (how do we pay for all this stuff we bought on credit?), but blaming China for our own stupidity is not the cure.
BTW right now the only opposition to the TPP has come from Democrats in Congress. Even Trump is pro-trade agreements, he just claims he can negotiate a better deal....although he only recently learned that China is not part of the TPP.[/QUOTE]
Yes, deep pockets, aka corporations, Kochs, Wall Street, etc., have influence. Remember Trump talking about giving to both parties in the past, because of the influence it buys?
These trade agreements wouldn't pass without majority Republican support, and the only opposition has come from Democrats. Recall in 2004 when it was clear that US manufacturing jobs were being shipped overseas that Bush defended sending jobs overseas as good for America. Congressional Republicans still block removing subsidies for sending jobs overseas. IOW sending job overseas is central to the Republican DNA.
So let's summarize. Democrat Presidents who were influenced by money signed bad trade agreements and Republicans in Congress who were influenced by money and some Democrats in Congress who were influenced by business money voted for them. Some Democrats who were influence by union money [and votes in their district] voted against them. A Republican President who was influenced by business money defended them. The leading Democrat candidate for president was influenced by money and helped the current President draw up the last one. Now she needs union money and votes she is against the last one.
Heard a piece on NPR today talking about American manufactured goods making a comeback. Said it started in the early 2000's. Talked about New Balance tennis shoes, that cost more, and the chinese were lapping them up in their growing middle class. Said they thought they were better made products because of the Made in America label. I was inwardly laughing at the ironic probability that the New Balance factory probably had a large latino segment of manufacturing workers not that distanced from immigrant status.
If the chinese middle class wants to prop up our manufacturing segment then I'm all for it. It's seeming like deja vu in reverse. The shoes were favoring style/looks over athletic performance. I'm just thinking it is the silly chinese middle class and some great marketing ploys that got them treating New Balance like they are the Rolls Royces of tennis shoes. They were saying it is the perception of quality making them sell, implying they really aren't any greater quality products than any of their competitors.
The focus of the story was on New Balance, but they said the comeback was in a wide swath of industries even agricultural, what ever that means. Our corn products must be better because they are grown in the USA, just like our prize Bull meat. I'm making light of it, but only because I saw nothing in the segment saying any of the products we were selling were any better quality, nothing but marketing. While they said everyone was 'embracing' the made in the USA label(Europe, Asia, and even the domestic market) the chinese were the biggest embracers.
How does Nancy pelosi own a company that is exempt from unions and minimum wage?
Oh! Yeah. She is a Democrat and was house speaker.
