The thing that strikes me as funny when I read about these trade agreements is Americans screw each other without them. Look at the roads today and check out the high end foreign cars that pay for healthcare and college overseas. Makes me laugh as corporations and those who gain from selling foreign products sure don't care that many Americans today don't have a living wage. How about all of you out there write your media and corporate advertisers and tell them to support made here? And please don't come back with government motors bs as the Japanese have that down to a science while you cry over a loan.
"Japan ships 1.5 million cars to America each year, but allows only 20,000 American cars into its own market. Since 2012, Japan’s yen has devalued by 50 percent against the dollar. Now Japan wants tariff-free access to the U.S. market through the TPP while it continues cheat on currency."
896 600 Reasons to Care About the Trans-Pacific Partnership Alliance for American Manufacturing
"If any single number captures the state of the American economy over the last decade, it is zero. That was the net gain in jobs between 1999 and 2009—nada, nil, zip. By painful contrast, from the 1940s through the 1990s, recessions came and went, but no decade ended without at least a 20 percent increase in the number of jobs."
Who Broke America s Jobs Machine - Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman
"The recent job actions and “Black Friday” protests at Walmart underscored the dismal wages and working conditions of many of the nation’s retail workers. Walmart hasn’t staked out some low-wage, no-benefit margin of the labor market: its labor and compensation practices are now the mainstream. For most of the last century, the worst employers in the United States—the tenement sweatshop, the company-town mine—were remnants of our past. Today, they are glimpses into our future."
The Good Jobs Deficit Dissent Magazine
"At the top of this list is a trade policy that was designed to put manufacturing workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world. This had the predicted and actual effect of lowering the wages of U.S. manufacturing workers. Since manufacturing jobs are comparatively well-paying jobs for the 70 percent of the workforce without a college degree, this policy had the effect of lowering wages for this larger group of workers as well."
How to Create Middle Class Jobs CounterPunch Tells the Facts Names the Names
"In a nation that measures jobs in the tens of millions, changes to a few thousand barely register. But when multiplied across a wide range of industries, the rise and fall of companies such as Schwinn help explain why the economy has become less forgiving of workers who lack higher education or specialized skills." ¶ "We're missing a big, important part of our society. Either everyone has to go to college or everyone has to have very low-paying jobs," said Richard Schwinn, part of the fourth and last generation to run the firm that bears his name. "I'm not sure that's a great balance."
A Rough Ride for Schwinn Bicycle washingtonpost.com
A Rough Ride for Schwinn Bicycle washingtonpost.com
"America has always been a country of entrepreneurs, builders, and creators. As we work to restore our economy, it is important to stand behind the American companies that make good products, maximize U.S. employment, and earn the loyalty of their workers and the communities of which they're a part." Roger Simmermaker, howtobuyamerican.com
