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Republican senators have just announced that they will block the confirmation of a new Commerce Secretary - or any commerce related positions - until Democrats move on free trade agreements for Columbia and Panama.
Forty-four GOP senators signed on to a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid Monday, vowing to hold up the nominations until "the President submits both agreements to Congress for approval and commits to signing implementing legislation into law."
"The time for delay is over," they write. "Colombia and Panama are strong democratic allies in Latin America and both have undertaken serious and meaningful reforms, many of which directly address the concerns of those who want to further delay these agreements. Yet the administration continues to move the goalpost by withholding clear direction and not providing a specific timetable for implementation."
The previous Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke, was just appointed by Obama to be the next ambassador to China, replacing possible GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman.
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It is simply amazing to me the number of people who simply cannot grasp that expanded trade means that US manufacturers have an expanded market for their goods. An expanded market means more jobs. This has little to do with shipping jobs to Columbia or Panama and more to do with liberals being afraid of upsetting their union base.
Exactly.
Yeah, we can sell them all the goods we make here in the USA like.........um...........give a minute.........
Did you miss the giant sucking sound from NAFTA that Ross Perot predicted? In a perfect world this would benefit us. Instead it just benefits the Grossly Overrated Party and their lobbyist cronies.
oh...the drug lords will be buying American exports in Columbia? Lets see...and the Chinese buy HOW much of our exports?
It means more slave labor for our disgraceful corporations. How will you export to people you pay 50 cents an hour? We should force our public owned corporations to pay our minimum wages wherever they go. That alone would save many jobs; But, the government helps them outsource. The only people not considered is almost all of our people.
Just more dirty politics from the Grand Obstructionist Party.
Go USA,
If these agreements are so good, why do we run a net trade deficit with these 17 countries?
The elections of 2010 is turning out to be like a gigantic drunken orgy. Those that voted GOP thought they knew what they were doing and what they were going to get. But now that the celebration is over, each and every day they are waking up to the fact that the sick hangover lingers and they can't believe that the "sexy party" they went to bed with was in fact a big, fat, ugly beast that has caused them to realize what a huge mistake they have made.
Them beer goggles can be a real beyatch!
Uhum.......not that I would know from experience of course.
Seriously though, is anybody really that surprised by the GOP's stance on this issue? This is par for the course for this group of greedy, self-serving con men. These are the guys who think public school teachers are bankrupting the country for God's sake. How stupid can anyone be?
td: They are not stupid or ignorant. It is much worse than that, they are greedy and evil to the bone and know exactly what they are doing and why.
What the want is "Everything" and they will do anything to get it. The peole or the country mean nothing to money worshipers. That's why the capital gains tax where most giant money is made is only 15%.
Let's see how long before Gary Locke tries to sell out the Chinese as a Chinese American. China has the USA on a leash with full service as a prostitute. USA is a consumer addict and the crack is offered by the Chinese pimps. Too bad the European Americans have no allies to help rescue them in a crisis....just watch them burn.
If i understand this right,the holdup is how too deal with this (these) bill(s). president obama wonts them one at a time and the republicans wont it as one bill.Korea.I understand,Panama,possibaly, Columbia,one of the drug export capitals of the world,I find a little hard.You would have to prove to me we were not dealing with the drug lords,I think a little hard to do. I dont blame the pres. one bit--have the republicans stooped to dealing with drug cartels????
My mother in law...who is in her 90's had an insurance supplement through a company that was absolutely robbing her blind. She was paying over 350.00 per month for a SUPPLEMENT. No other insurance company would cover her....until the healthcare legislation passed. Its just sad that she lost most of her lifes savings before it passed. That healthcare legislation is a VERY GOOD thing...but of course could have done much more good except for the republicans fighting it tooth and nail. Gullible people actually BELIEVED the propaganda put out by their Nazi news station...fox no-news. Open your eyes. Hitler blamed the Jews for hard times in Germany. Republicans blame only the POOR on welfare...NOT THE RICH who get most of the welfare bucks. We poor working middle class pay for it all. When the rich made the decision to send out jobs overseas...they essentially decided to impoverish the majority of the working class...especially blue class workers. Now...we are a nation that pay taxes to CREATE jobs that are not needed. Many useless military jobs, many office workers....many CHIEFS at the welfare trough.....all artificially created. We dont need half the crap out there. And the jobs we DO need are the ones that are shorted...that assist the working man. Our country was destroyed the moment they made the decision to export our jobs...and import overpriced poisonous crap back to sell to us. The republicans Nazis have been in power all along and are now about to finish tightening the noose about our necks. DONT BUY IMPORTED JUNK. QUIT BUYING. ONLY BUY NECESSITIES. We middle class dont have much clout left...but we can do this. Our great country is not great any longer. We are oppresssed by Nazi dictators...spewing lies about socialism. Better a socialist than a dictator.
CJ: Amen, you are exactly right. Best regards.
Nice post CJ!
All action is met by and equal and opposite inaction. We are paying for these constant threats.
Get er done!
But is that the office in charge of trade policy?
As ususal the Republicans once more want to gut American jobs with flimsy agreements that don't protect the environment or rights to organize labor unions. In both panama and Columbia union organizer have been killed. This is hardly conducive to collective bargaining. This is getting as close to the Mafia and drug Cartels as one dares get. "Free trade for what"? we ask. In Mexico after Free trade went into effect we had a mass migration of illegal aliens move north because free trade gutted rural agricultural markets-forcing peasant off the land into the cities because low American factory farms corn and what under cut local farm prices. The direct result of this was illegal immigration here as displaced farmers working for less, took jobs from current skilled workers .
Why does one want to compete with low wage counties to begin with? It only re-inforces the notionof the race to the bottom, and perpetuates poverty, and guts the middle class.
Arlin: No sane worker wants to compete with slave labor; But, our banks, wall street and big corporations love slave labor and they own most of our government and media.
The post on free trade citing productivitystatisics left out a crucial one: wages have declined markedly. In fact accorrdin to economists at Challenge magazine over $1 trillion in wages has been lost while this" productity" surged. And factory utilization today still stands at 60% when in the 1980s it was almost 80%.
"Productivity" didn't work for workers. It did for Wall Street banks that got $144 billionin bonuses last heay. Wher's ours?
This is not about jobs; Repubs have shown they are invested in a strategy of breaking the economy for political gain (turning down federal contracts for high speed rail, massive cuts that will kils 100s of thousands of jobs, their contd. attempt to strangle the wages, hence consuming power, of the middle class, etc.). The Dems, at least the liberal wing, are the only force in our corporate captured government that attempts to maintain protections for labor rights, the future of this lovely planet from the ravages of corporate greed and so-called free markets, and an alternative to the ignorance and denial of the right wing thought-machine. Colombia and Panama, as other comments have stated, have the kind of corrup financial markets and anti-labor work environments, that are not exactly model societies, but seem to be what the Repubs want America to turn into.
Isn't it amazing how some American corporations decry the evils of communism and then go give American jobs to communist laborers? Apparently communism is okay with many American businnesses if it is profitable. Many conservative news-entertainers posture with a Cuban embargo as the US exploits communist labor in China. No EPA, no unions, few workers rights, that's what many American manufacturers wnat, like the ones that sell to Wal-mart. All these free trade agreements are for more cheap labor so these companies can send back their own manufactured goods back and forth without tariffs and taxes. They have third world laborers make their products and then mark them up to American c.o.l. retail, all the more profits for the executives that do not go to workers or environmental damage. Apparently they pay Chinese workers Chinese wages but our executives get American compensation packages and then threaten that any new tax willbe passed on to the American consumer.
China can thank the shortsightedness of many US businesses for making communism (authoritarian one-party rule) successful and also for supplying them with enough money to develop their military. Conservative anti-communists rant while US companies are hiring Chinese laborers over our own free citizens. Talk about betrayal the US laborers were abandoned by US manufactures who went to China and hired powerless communist workers instead. That or South America, where the authorities will beat down any attempt to unionize. Seems many in corporate America actually love communism, as long as they can turn a buck off its workers.
Ironically, free-trade laissez-faire capitalists are the equal opposites of communists in naivety. The communist naively trusts government power; the laissez-faire capitalist naively trusts private greed. One believes the market will do whatever it can to raise the level of its citizens with jobs (not in the US) and any profit interference is perversion. The other believes the centralized government can control commerce and any privatization is a perversion of the people's communal ownership. Both are dupes, one trusts power the other trusts greed.
tvelection: Well done post. I am 78 and I hope I live to see the day when the young Chinese take over the factories they were exploited in. The Chinese are a well educated proud people with a long history. They will not permit US corporate pigs to use them for slave labor long.
There is a movement all over the world for a better and fairer life and it appears we don't want to join. However it will happen. Best regards.
Don't expect moral behavior from Multi-National Corporations, they are amoral and owe no alligence to any flag. It matters not their country of origin. Some of these Corporations are bigger and more powerful in terms of GDP than the countries they purport to originate from. Many of the so-called US Multi-Nationals have such wide reaching business interest that their political postion on any issue is highly compromised at best, and is far more likely to work against the interest of the American people than for them. There really is no such thing as "Free Trade" in a world where collusion, price fixing, and exclusionary tactics are as simple as turning on your computer in the morning. These companies are a power onto themselves, they comprise a special club of the ultra powerful and the ultra-rich, they are a new and awesome force in international affairs that has been flying under the radar screen for decades as they accumulate power and influence world wide.
These companies have no effective limits on their power. I will say that again, these companies have NO EFFECTIVE LIMITS on their power. As such they have no alligence except to themselves and the other members of this very exclusive club. They have the military and industrial might of the US, Britain, NATO, and others protecting their business interests Globally (and we pay for it because many of these companies do not pay US Taxes, in fact some of them GET SUBSIDIES).
These companies have managed to buy power and influence not only in the US Senate and House but world wide. They are serious threat to the American Way of life because they have no regard for the principles we stand for, in fact those principles, to them, are laughable ( Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton, gave us just a small taste of their underlying attitude towards American values).
Until America wakes up to this important threat to its way of life we will continue to slide downhill, and these International Pirates will continue to pillage the planet with our blessing and protection.
perhaps it is time to ship overseas the entire us government and both the monopolistic parties named republican and democrat. a sad day when the middle east values freedom more than the complacent us citizen (a legal term that both parties choose to ignore in favor of monied contributors)
Ah yes, Same old crap just a different day.
Damn! Typical party of "NO" tactic. The "WRONGS" still haven't accepted that president Obama is president and rides in Air Force One. Rather than legislate to produce jobs here in America, they attack the Health care package passed last Congress. Republicans do not work for Americans, but for themselves and their deep pocket benefactors. They give the top 2% of Americans a free ride to the bank! They ease restrictions on derivatives. The Republican leadership would stripped $126 million from the Natural Weather Service, which provides emergency notifications of impending hurricanes and severe weather to Americans. The Republican leadership would slashed $120.2 million from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is used and maintained for emergencies like Hurricanes and severe weather. The Republican leadership would
axed $150 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's grants for firefighters who are the front line in Forest fires and maintaining control and assistance in dire times or emergencies. The Republican leadership would curtail the Law Enforcement Wireless Communications of $70 million dollars, the agency that maintains and upgrades inter-agency communications in times of emergency or threat. The Republican leadership would cut $56.8 billion from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which is tasked with overseeing derivative swaps and financial markets, thereby protecting many GOP fund raising elite. The Republican leadership voted to cut $2.1 million from the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network which enforces current laws governing treasury and financial transactions. The Republican leadership would gut by $70 million from critical assistance for women in domestic abuse cases as well as custody, eviction and foreclosure cases. The Republican leadership would eliminate $110 million in community grants for teen pregnancy prevention. The Republican leadership would gut $300 million in funding for the Department of Labor's Office of Job Corps -- a program that offers education and training for low-income Americans 16 and above so they can better find a job. The Republican leadership would axe $783.5 million from the USAID's Child Survival and Health Grants Program, which offers aid to programs that seek to mitigate life-endangering poverty in some of the world's most underdeveloped regions.
Why do most posts that contain "GOP" also contain the word "BLOCK"? I would love to see the same amount of energy that is spent opposing everything spent getting some work done.
GOP, Your unfair trade deals are destroying America.
$ 1.21 a hour, 12 hour days, 6 days a week. That's what workers in the Alianza Factory in Guatemala earn so that you can wear the lastest fashions from Briggs New York, Sag Harbor, Fashion Bug, Alfani, and JM Collection. In addition, workers get cheated out of their social security. They have no health coverage or pensions.
In the Galaxy Fashion Factory in Jordan, so-called "guest workers" from Sri Lanka and Bangladhes work 80 to 90 hours a week. They are cheated out of their pay. They work 80 to 90 hours a week. They are beaten and housed in miserable dormitories. All this so you can buy the latest fashions in Wal-Mart.
These are the working conditions that the Republicans support. Not only abroad, but in the good old USA. This is YOUR future if you vote Republican. I might add that Tea Party Congressmen want to abolish minimum wage and reinstitute child labor. Our free trade agreements must be re-written to guarantee collective bargaining, both abroad and here in the US. We must ensure that free trade doesn't mean slave labor, or child labor. We can begin by voting all Republicans out of office.
I got this information from the latest issue of USW@ Work. Why don't I get it from MSNBC News?
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The NAFTA bill was taken advantage by your ANTI AMERICAN INSTITUTION called WALL STREET!! The Republican government is the employee of this Rogue Institution. The greatest American RIP-OFF was done by Wall Street, everything from the housing market finance to the out sourcing of American Manufacturing jobs. Everyone of these SOB's should be behind bars. Go find out why Richard Fuld ex CEO of Lehman Brothers walked away from a Congressional hearing in 2008 with a MULTI MILLION DOLLAR BONUS for going BANKCRUPT! He called it " CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS ". YOU SEE EVERYONE IS BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE, GO SHUT DOWN THE REAL CULPRITS OF AMERICA'S DOWNFALL.. THEY SHOWED YOU ALL CRIME DOES PAY! WE DON'T NEED A REPUBLICAN PARTY WHO ONLY REPRESENTS THE WEALTHY. WHY DO YOU THINK REPUBLICANS ARE PROTECTING WALL STREET?
They have to reward their biggest supporters, so don't look for this to change. The words We The People have taken on a different meaning these days and now mean We the Powerful and Most Wealthy. This wont change without term limits on public office holders.
Free Trade what Free Trade ? It's all going in one direction, they don't buy enough from us to make the books balance. That's what's costing us jobs in this country today. We can't continue to do business that way, unless we want to become a Nation in poverty, with jobs that only pay half of what they do now.
I keep saying that the "Big Squeeze" is on!!!! At the federal level, not only are the Republican/Tea Party legislators reducing and/or eliminating policies that benefit the poor, working class, middle class, women and education; they have now promised to block the confirmation of a new Commerce Secretary - or any commerce related positions - until Democrats move on free trade agreements for Columbia and Panama. While those at the federal level are doing their bit, the newly elected governors of our state houses are cutting programs for the same groups, as well as silencing the voices of public employees and eliminating their bargaining rights for the sake of the free market. At both levels of government, the Republican/Tea Party are demonstrating that they have more concern for American corporations and the Multinationals than they do for the American people.
Our current free trade agreements have had a negative affect on working Americans. Private businesses continue to downsize and public institutions continue to layoff workers. Manufacturing in America is almost nil and other businesses have shuttered. The American worker is being and will continue to be shafted as a result of our free trade agreements. The privatization of many of our public entities is the result of the free market endeavor. Besides job losses, taxpayers are being made to financially support these private companies. Charter schools and prisons, to name two. With what is happening at the state level, it is apparent that these newly elected governors are setting the stage for more privatization to take place. As they take away protections and rights from workers and give themselves more power, they will be able to do whatever they want; because, they have made their decisions LAW!
98% of Americans are losing at the hands of the Republican/Tea Party. If they continue to get their way, it will no longer be: We the People..........; but, We the American Corporations and the Multinationals in America.........!
98% of Americans will be serfs (Republicans, Independents and Democrats) to the Corporate Oligarchy!
They are absolutely right so why are they "blocking" (another word for delaying) a vote on any commerce related appointments. What are they afraid of? Have a new Commerce Secretary that doesn't agree with their position on free trade? Things that make you go hmmm.
Well they sure aren't worried about creating jobs here. Seems that they need to create more jobs in Central and South America.