[Newsbot]

Title: US Lawmakers launch push to repeal NAFTA
Topic: Economy
Written By: Fiatlux
Date: Friday, March 05 at 15:41
U.S. lawmakers launch push to repeal NAFTA

   Doug Palmer, WASHINGTON
   Thu Mar 4, 2010 4:35pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A small group of U.S. lawmakers unveiled legislation
on Thursday to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement in the
latest sign of congressional disillusionment with free-trade deals.

The bill spearheaded by Rep. Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Democrat, would
require President Barack Obama to give Mexico and Canada six months notice
that the United States will no longer be part of the 16-year-old trade
pact.
read more

[RickW]

Harper wouldn't know how to "govern" this country without a NAFTA-like agreement.......

[Dave Ruston]

We should all demand that Canada scrap NAFTA too!

[Michael Scott]

And what would we put in it's place exactly? Just allow subsidies and protectionism to rise up immediately? This doesn't bring their jobs back from China which is really where they went. What jobs does scrapping this create? Lawyers. Without NAFTA (or some other deal), how much more are we suddenly going to be paying for cars? Or is there some Canadian that will be making cars here since all the plants are going to be shut down. You think softwood lumber was bad before? Or we were getting shafted on oil? We don't have a manufacturing base to compete. Which means we'll be paying - either more for the products or more in taxes to pay for subsidies to create fake jobs. It takes decades to build a real base. Take away NAFTA in 6 months, and we'll have 10 years of pain. Of course the government of the day won't be able to take that since there would be fury at whomever was in power... and they would end up with a deal that really sold the farm. We'd be screwed because our shortsighted machismo (or these Democrats') would give way to the fact that the majority of people would be worse off in the short and mid term without NAFTA. And we'd make a hasty decision based on short term gains and political expediency.

But I needn't worry, since Obama and the Dems are too inept to enact anything, let alone abbrogate NAFTA. It's pitiful really.

[RickW]

Quote:

And what would we put in it's place exactly?

It's not so much what does happen as what doesn't. The most blatant example that comes to mind is the farce that we call a forest industry, which is slowly being reduced to shipping logs out of country, at the cost of at least 50,000 jobs. So stop the shipment of logs and let the trees stand, because the only people making money are the (mostly) foreigh outfits cutting them down.

[Michael Scott]

50,000 jobs? How do you come up with these numbers?

Of the 99 or so main forestry companies operating in Canada, the vast majority are owned and operated by Canadians - not "foreigh" (sic) outfits.
http://www.canadian-forests.com/forind.html
Abitibi notwithstanding, most of our logging and forestry companies are Canadian. But if you prefer to "let the trees stand", well then I guess at least 50,000 Canadian jobs will be lost as these companies go under, the mills stand idle and we lose yet again.

This is only one example of the decades long pain I previously described. In almost all industry, the plants will die, the jobs will flee and the public will be unemployed. Soon, the starving public will demand something, anything to fill their bellies, and we'll be signing an agreement so horrible you will beg for NAFTA to be reconstituted.

You cannot negotiate from a position of weakness, and that's where you are trying to put us. I have no problem organizing a different agreement, but only while NAFTA is still in place.

[Dave Ruston]

Michael Scott asks: What would we replace NAFTA with? Well, I`d replace it with what we had before- bi-lateral fair trade deals, used to benefit the people of Canada, as opposed to the banker-corporate criminal cartel. NAFTA wasn`t about trade. It was about eliminating investment rules that used to exist. Once upon a time, companies were told that if "you want to sell it here, you have to build it here." But under NAFTA, and WTO,we`ve lost all kinds of good paying manufacturing jobs. We`ve lost control over our resources. And of course, under NAFTA, specifically chapter 11, corporations can sue any level of government for lost profit. This means, that unelected corporate boardrooms dictate foreign and domestic policies. Under the energy clause, Canada must continue to ship the same amount of oil and gas to the US- even if our own domestic supplies are dwindling dangerously! What kind of a treasonous government agrees to all this? But secondly, I`d tell the international bankers to stick it, and return the money creation task to the Canadian government through the Bank of Canada. This would free up billions in interest free money, since it is not borrowed from the criminals, to grant or loan to at low interest, to Canadian companies that wish to expand, but the stipulation would be, that the jobs stay in Canada. And as long as the government doesn`t print more money than the value of all goods and services in the country,there`s little to no inflation. If I was PM, I would have used this formula to help Magna buy Chrysler. I would have used it to Merge Stelco and Dofasco. And I`d use it to nationalize our energy sector, among other things! I`d use it to build high speed rail in Canada. Bombardier is right here, yet we don`t even use our own! Just like all the windmills being built. We`re using a Korean company? We`ve got Canadian companies that could do it too! But of course, the plan is, to make Canada a 3rd world country by de-industrializing us, and turning us into cheap resource provider. I could go on and on. There was a Canadian company that needed 500 million dollars a few years back from the Canadian government to mine for diamonds in the NWT. Instead, the gift went to DeBeers. What a joke! When we are constantly told that we can`t do this, and we can`t afford that- ALL LIES!! Just look at the result of the right wing corporate economic model- disaster! The CCCE are not so mouthy now! because they know!There NEVER was a free market- only a fixed oligopoly by the billionaires, for the billionaires. Various people have been assassinated for challenging the bankers greed through monetary reform, but I`ll quote US president James Garfield, who was shot, just for publicly saying, "He who has the power to issue currency is the master of all industry and commerce." Sure, we need politicians brave enough to stand up and go against this, but like the people of Iceland, we need the REST OF THE WORLD to stand up to these sociopathic theives, and say, NO MORE! I suppose that`s why World War 3 is now being pushed hard- the people are waking up!

[Fiatlux]

The FTA has killed half million jobs, destroyed the manufacturing sector and thousands of businesses and opened the country for foreign takeover.

We were doing very well before these "free trade" rackets, with new businesses producing a daily increasing list of products all over the country. I was part of that system and know what we were doing and how we really "grew", with well paying, full time jobs for people.

We're now a "resource based economy" which means selling our resources and the country from under our feet, while calling it GDP and "income". The sale of resources is not an "income" in any business accounting system, only in the fraudulent system of the neoclassical crime wave. We now have pert time, minimum wage "service jobs" which are also not assets but a liabilities, because the payment for them must come from the sale of resources and infrastructure.

The purpose of the NAFTA, so called "globalization", and all other so called "free trade" rackets is the collectivization and takeover of the world's economic systems by the transnational corporate mafia, who now control virtually everything, with the jubilant approval of our brainwashed economists and politicians on the take, waiting for directorships with the biggest crooks in human history.

All forms of competition always increase costs because they're based on the laws of speed, demanding ever increasing energy inputs for less results. The purpose of economic competition is the violent takeover of the systems and the wrecking of real private enterprise and its replacement with Soviet style kolkozes, now called "free enterprise".

So called "monetary efficiency" and "cheap" are frauds, because monetary values can not be defined. The most and only efficiency is physical efficiency, which means self sustaining, locally based and overlapping economic systems producing the greatest variety of goods and genuinely trading and cooperating with others for the necessities, and not some multinational gangsters ruining the producers and stealing the consumers blind, calling it "efficient".

And don't tell me it can't be done, because we grew up with efficient, self sustaining economic systems, have been practicing them all our lives and now are enjoying the benefits and rewards, while others at our age are eating dogfood to survive, because they believed their "betters".

Canada is one of the very few countries on Earth where the greatest degree of self sufficiency could be achieved, benefiting everybody and showing the world how it can be done.

So, to hell with the NAFTA and all those who are using it to enslave us.


Ed Deak.

[RickW]

Michael Scott wrote:

50,000 jobs? How do you come up with these numbers?

http://www.uinr.ca/2010/03/tetapuo%E2%8 ... resources/

[Brent Swain]

We were doing just fine before NAFTA and FTA. I think USanian politicoes should be reminded that in every election in which free trade was an issue, more Canadians voted against it than for it. We need to send that info to them in emails, as often as possibel. It shouldn't be hard to find the email addresses of those USanian politicoes wanting to scrap NAFTA and give them ammo to help them in that persuit. If they scrap it instead of us, it protects us from retaliation. We never had a free referendum on FTA or NAFTA alone . Scraping such scams would be a return to Canadian sovereignty, and a return to value added exports, getting far more jobs per tree out of each tree or other exported product.
We should bear in mind that under NAFTA, when the oil runs out the US gets first crack at Canadian oil , even if it means leaving Canadians freezing to death in the dark. It also means selling Canadian fuel for less in the US than in Canada. Before NAFTA we could charge less for oil for Canadians than for USanians, giving Canadian industry a competitive advantage, with our own resources. NAFTA forbid the practice, which part the Mexicans refused to sign.
It means the US dictates oil sand policy, and makes the Canadian government a compliant branch of the US government.
We were successfully sued under NAFTA for trying to ban a toxic ingredient in gasoline, as it would cut into oil company profits. Under NAFTA, corporate profits take priority over the safety and health of Canadians.
Time to rein in the corporate world dictatorship. This is a golden opportunithy to start the process.

[Michael Scott]

Rick, your article cites decreasing demand as the source of the reduction, not NAFTA. The forestry sector actually made out quite well because of NAFTA - only lobbying by the US lumber association has caused issues... mainly with our "stumpage" fees and the fact that we produce at much lower cost. This has also caused our producers to neglect tech advances which in turn has led to massive consolidations of recent years. NAFTA did not cause this issue.

Dave, thank you for actually coming up with alternatives - many of which I agree with. That being said, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because you want to change NAFTA or discard it, you still need to create the alternate treaties and generate the alternate manufacturing facilities BEFORE you throw out the treaty. That's all I've been saying. If we want to change or toss NAFTA, in order to negotiate new treaties, you need to do it from a position of strength. If you toss NAFTA, hundreds of thousands will be out of work in the next 2 years. Then, with nothing else to generate jobs or trade, the government of the day will make deals to get some people in jobs, any kind of jobs just so people can feed their families. The best deals can be made when you don't really need them. There is nothing stopping us from creating manufacturing facilities here if the economics are sound. As you said, why not use Bombardier, or Canadian manufacturers for wind mills instead of Samsung? In this, you and I are in complete agreement. But don't toss NAFTA before we are ready.

Ed, you didn't say anything. 9 paragraphs of words that rail against the establishment without saying anything except that you can eloquently say nothing. I get it, you hate corporations and think they are the root of all evil. Hate to tell you though, NAFTA didn't send jobs to China. Mexicans and Americans didn't kill Canadian jobs. The Chinese did. Why do the Dems want to scrap NAFTA - people believe the US jobs went here and to Mexico and we are a convenient scapegoat when they know in reality the jobs are being done in Shanghai. You want those jobs back, make one of those bilateral deals you keep talking about with China - oh wait, we did... and it sucked. Now if a deal needs to be scrapped, we can scrap Chinese deals pretty quick - we buy way more than we sell there. The only thing we hurt is our ability to access that market, but if you are OK with screwing the US one would think you would be doubly quick to mess up the Chinese deals. The only issue with this, is that you are going to create a massive black market because people still want really cheap disposable goods. And unless the US follows suit (doubtful seeing as how much of the US debt is tied to the Chinese), there will be a major amount of cross border shopping. And we would probably fall way behind in tech use seeing as how much of our cheap tech comes from China. Pluses and minuses, but none of it due to NAFTA.

Brent - have Canadians ever been "freezing to death in the dark" while Americans burn Canadian oil? EVER? No, I didn't think so. And since you bring that point up, where in the treaty does it say that we give oil to the US FIRST? It doesn't, what it does say is that we agree to sell to the Yanks at the same price we sell to ourselves, which happens to be set by the world oil markets (yes, we get market value for what we produce).
What toxic ingredient were we trying to ban and were successfully sued for? Or is this another rumour that goes nowhere?
Can you point to any specifics on how the US dictates oil sands policy? Or is that conjecture?

[RickW]

Quote:

The forestry sector actually made out quite well because of NAFTA

Making 2x4's is not "making out". The only think reduced production has proven is not to put eggs in one basket -- either they buyer's or the products that are produced.

http://forestpolicyresearch.org/2009/03 ... emissions/
The study finds that in the past five years alone, 17.5 million cubic
metres of usable wood has been left behind at logging operations in
BC, an amount that would fill a line of logging trucks lined bumper to
bumper on the Trans Canada Highway from Vancouver to Halifax and
almost all the way back again.
I can cite many more links, but why bother.....

[Michael Scott]

And us leaving wood is NAFTA's fault? Seems more like lazy production practices. I'm not disputing your sources or the facts of waste and lost jobs, just the conclusion you came to that this is NAFTA's fault. The deal did not lead to laziness - the fact that we can produce super cheap wood is. Why invest in tech or clean up your site when we can undercut the Yanks and use early 1900's tech? This issue was around long before NAFTA and will be with us long after.

[RickW]

Quote:

And us leaving wood is NAFTA's fault?

Absolutely! The forest companies highgrade, because they know the logs go directly to export, and fetch the highest prices. Without NAFTA, this wouldn't happen.

[Dave Ruston]

Look, there`s not much hi-tech involved in making lumber. Quality of lumber is in the tree that`s cut. But the argument is- we here in Canada should be making the finished, value added product, instead of letting the yanks take our logs, then making the finished product, and then selling it back to us! Again, what kind of bought and paid for whores of politicians sell their fellow Canadians out like this? There used to be lots of good paying sawmills across Canada. Thanks to the Amero-centric NAFTA sellout, not anymore! Again, that`s the idea of NAFTA- eliminate Canadian competition. I still can`t believe, that even now, there are brainwashed people who still say, "Why don`t we just let Washington and Wall Street run us!" We most certainly can run ourselves, but we don`t have the political will. All you have to do is look at smaller countries like Norway and Sweden, who have alot less resources to work with than Canada, yet because their leaders don`t have a sellout attitude, they take care of their own!