NAFTA to expand globally?

Re: [spiers] NAFTA to expand globally?

On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:02:24 -0700, "Malcolm Dell"
wrote :

> How has NAFTA shaped small businesses involved in import-export, John?
... In other words, NAFTA was less about "free trade" and more about favoring
> BIG BUSINESS OVER SMALL BUSINESS. ... you indicated that many small
import-export
businesses in the US found it
> easier to do business overseas, sans-NAFTA, than with our neighbors in
> Canada and Mexico.
> Can I assume a lot of small players got out of the
> business??


***Well, got rid of employees, reorganized to meet the tax and regulatory
environment one
finds oneself. Further, it is distressing to visit world trade crossroads
liked Canton China
and find zero, zip, nada young americans, but wall to wall young africans,
Russians, south
americans. The USA young are busy doing something else, not business.***

> Now, reading the article below, it looks like the US political machine is
> going to expand its assault on domestic small business by expanding
> NAFTA-like legislation to a wider range of countries. What challenges or
> opportunities will this create for the small businesses represented in this
> forum? Am I overstating the downside? Or did NAFTA create small business
> niche opportunities in this industry for trade between North American
> contries?? If so, will the same principles apply to quasi-NAFTA's around the
> globe??
>
***Well, to my mind it is a replay of the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity
Sphere" a Japanese
plan to counteract European domination of Asia. USA is trying to lockdown its
business
patterns and trade lanes, while the Chinese (this time) are growing and freeing
up their
economy. The Chinese are making a pretty good offer to the rest of the world,
and USA is
what... legalizing torture and conducting a War on Moisture on our airplanes.

The niche opportunities are to simply punish stupid government policies.
Privately I think
USA needs to import very little, and export even less. Much international
trade is a result of
market distortions and malinvestment. See below...***

>
> Lost jobs blamed on trade accord
> By Alwyn Scott

> The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, D.C., think tank, said
> Thursday that NAFTA has cost the U.S. more than 1 million jobs and billions
> of dollars in lost wages.

***At least... but not unwittingly...***

> Others economists disputed the study. The number of factory jobs in the U.S.
> has plunged in recent years, but many economists say more productive U.S.
> workers are the cause, not trade.

***More productive making cars, or more productive making real estate loans,
and more
productive searching luggage? something like 40% of new job creation since
1991 is in the
real estate field... and a similar amount in govt jobs.***

> Hufbauer said the growing U.S. trade deficit wasn't caused by NAFTA but by
> larger economic forces - the U.S.'s high budget deficit and low savings
> rate.

***Exactly, it gets down to monetary policy, the fed reserve system. A gold
standard is the
cure, one that the russians, argentinian, likely India and all of Islamia is
taking now,
slowly.***
>
> Bill Center, president of the Washington Council on International Trade,
> said that by blaming trade, the EPI study misses the real predicament for
> U.S. workers - a lack of education, training and government assistance for
> moving from manufacturing to other jobs.

***LOL***
>
> "They're letting the politicians off the hook," Center said. "Politicians
> should fix health care, fix education ... Those are the kinds of things we
> should be addressing. Not trade."

***ROFL***

John

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