When textile quotas end, will US jobs go, too?
"Companies worried about expiring limits on textiles"
From the Winston-Salem Journal: "CHARLOTTE -- Limits on Chinese textile imports to the United States will expire at the end of the year, causing officials at North Carolina textile firms to worry about competing with a government-subsidized industry.
North Carolina's textile industry has taken a blow from imports. The state had 173,100 textile and apparel jobs in 2000. That number dropped to 58,600 this year.
Officials said they worried that what happened in 2005 when import limits were lifted temporarily could happen again. The U.S. textile industry lost about 55,000 jobs in 2005 after China flooded the market with cheaper goods. [..]"
Who's smart idea was all this outsourcing and "free trade" in the first place?
For one - Wal Mart CEOs and other execs who own a bunch of shares in corporations who have off-shored. The greedy bastards who make money from serf labor and the difference between what something costs to make and what they can sell it for.
Then there's the neo-cons and the neo-liberals (like Clinton) who told us that "Free trade will give us new markets and create new jobs!"
Well, it did no such thing...and next the "free traders" started saying "We all must adapt to a global economy!" Which is code talk for "We screwed up big time!"
I'd be for Free trade if all pollution standards and labor standards were the same. But, foreign manufacturers (or farmers) do NOT have to meet the same health, safety, and environmental standards that American manufacturers do.
Why should Chinese and Indian textile mills be able to dump toxic waste directly into their rivers upstream, while US mills have to pay millions to clean up the waste? Talk about an unfair playing field.
While I'm at it, allow me to rant about the fruits of Free Trade...all the poison crap the Chinese have sold us. The latest is five poison sea foods, including shrimp and bass, that the FDA has banned.
If you bought some cheap truck tires lately, you might want to check the brand...because close to a million dangerous Chinese tires were recently sold in the US.
Did you buy your kids any Thomas the Train toys for Xmas? Well, the ones made in China have enough lead paint to poison them.
If your pets haven’t died yet, they probably didn’t get any of the 60 million melamine-contaminated bowls of dog food.
Then there was the poison toothpaste...
Just think -- 60 percent of all imports are from China, so there’s a 60 percent chance something in your house is going to kill you...soon.
I never have understood why our nation started allowing the import of products or produce that can be manufactured or grown here.
Manufacturing brings wealth to a country, not a service based economy.
