Kerry vs Edwards on trade (from NY Times)

[AP]

"{Edwards} did approve China's entry into the World Trade Organization, which opened one of the world's biggest markets to American industry. And he voted initially to give the president authority to negotiate trade agreements as long they contained certain labor provisions. But when those protections were stripped out of the bill, Mr. Edwards voted against final passage, while Mr. Kerry voted for it.

"Mr. Edwards also voted against smaller trade deals for African and Caribbean nations, while Mr. Kerry supported them. Even though these agreements opened up the American market to some of the poorest nations, Mr. Edwards said they would have hurt the textile mills and workers in his home state, North Carolina. The only free trade accord he supported was with Jordan, which has labor standards in the pact.

"Mr. Edwards insists that protection for labor and environmental standards must be part of the texts of trade agreements because that is the only way to enforce them. Mr. Kerry says they can be accommodated in side agreements. This is probably their central dispute.

"Mr. Kerry has voted for all trade agreements since the cold war ended and opened the way for increasing globalization. But on the presidential trail, he has become a skeptic and now promises to review them."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/20/politics/campaign/20ISSU.html

The times coverage has been hostile towards Edwards, and this article is no exception. However, this part in the middle offers a nice little summary of what the differences are. It also confirms what Dan Schorr said on NPR about Edwards over the summer: Edwards isn't liked by the DLC becaue he's voted against free trade when it has hurt NC jobs.

[Slice]

1. Edwards

Edwards voted for PNTR china, a much more significant vote than these other trade deals. how does he reconcile this with his protectionist stance?

[AP]

3. The article says he voted AGAINST it after the version he voted for was

modified.

And he doesn't claim to be a market protectionist. He claims to be protecting jobs. See the Jordan vote -- with the right job protections, he likes trade.

[Slice]

6. It inflates the price of goods

in consumer markets. Americans are already strapped for cash and can't afford increased prices.

[AP]

8. Americans' wages are decreasing. NAFTA is about creating a big gap

between costs of productioin and prices (even if prices are low) and transferring that value to shareholders rather than to employees.

This is the essence of Keynes and the New Deal. Even Henry Ford knew that he had to jack up wages to create a middle class who could buy his product.

Protecting the value of work and keeping Amerian and overseas salaries up is way more important to our economy than keeping prices low.

[Slice]

9. That's your opinion

But everyone knows that Keynes's theories have been summarily discredited.

Keynes was wrong in his interpretation of Say’s Law, and he was wrong about a lot of other aspects of economics also.

Keynes was wrong about deficit spending, and it stimulating the economy.

It doesn't look like we have a problem, considering that consumer confidence has been up a lot, and productivity is up a lot, also.

Look at our GDP. I know that you are focused on job growth and protecting jobs, but no one can say that our economy did not grow by a lot during the final two quarters of last year.

[AP]

11. That's not opinion. That's fact.

Do you think Henry Ford was wrong?

GDP has grown becasue of the defecits we're running. We have transferred billions of dollars from tomorrow to big businesses TODAY. (Kind of like Enron's pyramid schemes -- sign the NYT to an ink contract, PAY the NYT a couple milion, report the future value of the contract as an asset today, watch stock price go up.)

Of course we're going to look productive. But we aren't.

[Slice]

14. My portfolio is looking mighty good, AP.

It's been awhile since I've seen a 12% return on investment. I like this climate.

[HFishbine]

16. True enough

The last time investors could expect those kinds of returns, or better, was during the Clinton years. Of course we had phenomenal job growth too then, so I'd say a 12% return with the loss of 3M jobs is really nothing to boast about.

[Slice]

18. lol

That is true, but job losses do not impact the portfolio.

[AP]

21. Very telling exchange.

[Slice]

22. Ok

It's not that I don't care about job losses, I do, but those do not affect the portfolio.

I know that dividend taxes and cap gain taxes are most likely going back up, and that's unfortunate. I will save money because of those, especially on the cap gains size because of my realized gains for 2003.

[Slice]

23. Ok

It's not that I don't care about job losses, I do, but those do not affect the portfolio.

I know that dividend taxes and cap gain taxes are most likely going back up, and that's unfortunate. I will save money because of those, especially on the cap gains side because of my realized gains for 2003.

[HFishbine]

25. It's a rare occasion

when I find myself in agreement with AP.

[AP]

20. Household Wealth Maldistribution/ 96% of all common stock owned by 20%

Two posts from this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1139798#1140622


they want get their grubby little paws on more of the middle casses money{like they have any to spare} by privatizing social security.
and with supposedly responsible people like greenspan encouraging more debt burden on the masses -- the public can expect the squeeze to get tighter.
 
U.S. wealth distribution is extremely concentrated, much more so than income.

<1998 data from The State of Working America 2000/2001, Economic Policy Institute. Current distribution and of wealth is much more unequal, as it has been substantially accelerating under the Bush tax, budget, and regulatory regimes. >

Percent of wealth owners, percent of total wealth, average wealth of class
0.5% 26% (not available)
1% 34% $10,200,000
5% 57% $1,400,000
10% 69% $623,000
20% 82% $345,000
bottom
20% n/a -$8,900

The bottom 80% of wealth owners now own less than 15% of this country’s wealth.

96% of all common stocks are owned by the top 20%.

I'm interested in this 85+% of the wealth sequestered in the top-20-percenters' assets because, while this is the supposed “investor class,” the effect of their “investments” is a generation-long decrease in the overall U.S. and global quality of life.

Bush's tax-based legacy to the rich, just his tax-based legacy, is around $2 trillion (nine zeros), and growing. That doesn't even count his budgetary and regulatory largesse. God forbid wealth would flow-not-trickle down into local infrastructure projects that would provide full livelihood incomes and safety nets for the 80% of us who are now scraping over our meager share — less than 15% — of this country's wealth.

Just $1 trillion can be visualized as billion dollar grants to 1000 cities
with which each could build 10,000 $100,000 homes, which they could rent for
$500 per month and derive enough income to maintain and grow that housing
stock 5% annually (500+ per year new houses). That's giving 30,000,000 in-debt individuals (and an additional 1.5 million people per year) an opportunity not to have to pay 50% of their income for housing.

Oh, and for every $1 invested in construction, at least $3 are leveraged
into local economies. So, in addition to the 500+ new houses built in each
city in each outyear, there's an annual injection of $150 million in productive activity in each local economy.

[mouse7]

30. I also agree on this one, AP

Wow, this is a good post.

In other news...

[AP]

53. slice is uniting HFishbine, AP, and mouse7??!!!?? Wow.

[HFishbine]

62. From weather.com

HELL - current conditions: Cloudy. 0 degrees Kelvin.

[Slice]

33. Do you intend to steal that money?

I'm aware of how rich the rich are.

I'm not rich.

But how do you plan to take that money, AP? Are you suggesting that we should institute a wealth tax, and tax people on the same principal yearly until it is all gone? Because I think that is a really terrible idea. I have no problem with taxing the wealth again at death, before it is transferred.

[spooky3]

38. I can't speak for AP, but wasn't your conversation earlier about

protecting the accumulation of wealth or purchasing power at the expense of people who have lost jobs due to offshoring?

[Slice]

42. no

[AP]

39. "take that money"? Rich got rich from TAKING money from those with less!

Wealth comes from labor. The people who create wealth from labor are only keeping a fraction of the wealth they create. The rest is passed on to corporations who then pass it on to insiders through avenues that are barely taxed, relative to tax rates on eanrned income.

This isn't a question of taking money. It a question of keeping the wealth you create by not having it taxed at the highest rates we tax just about anything, and it's about not forcing down wages to subsistence levels through Republican shenanigans like destroying unions, putting everyone in such incredible debt that they can't afford to take steps to protect their wealth, and by increasing unemployment to such a degree that people will do anything even if they get paid almost nothing to do it.

You know the rich are getting richer, and corporate profits are high (the insurance industry just had their best year EVER).

Meanwhile the bottom and middle quintiles are getting slaughtered. The people at the top are getting all the wealth the middle is creating. It's just a shift in wealth.

Nobody wants to take anyone's wealthy. They just want to keep their own.

Like Edwards says, it's ridiculous that someone in America can work 40 hours a week and be desperately poor. That's fucked up.

[Slice]

41. ok

Wealth comes from a combination of labor and sound management. It is much harder to find a good CEO than it is to find a good worker. Hence they get paid more. No one forces you to buy goods from companies that treat workers in a way that you feel way is unacceptable. You also have no right to tell boards of directors how much their CEO and senior management are worth to them.

[AP]

46. You don't think it's a coincidence that in a tanking economy...

...where labor isn't being rewarded at its full value that the rich get richer and peopel who work for a living get poorer?

You know that food wholesale prices are dropping (what farmers get paid for growing food), yet retail prices get higher (the price you pay for food).

You know where that difference goes? It goes to dividend payments taxed at 15% for Monsanto and ADM sharehodlers. It's a devaluation of labor and a transfer of wealth straight to the top, thanks to price fixing (in '95 ADM was convicted of doing that) and de facto monopolization of markets, and due to Republicans (and Democrats) protecting these corporations from real competition.

This is what happened in the run up to the great depression: wealth transfer to the top, the middle and working class overburdened, and the whole thing comes crashing down. A few people get so greedy they ignore the inevetible impact on the economy.

[Slice]

51. You know,

my dividends get taxed at 15% too. And I like that 15% rate, I don't want it go back up, AP. It's helping the economy. The capital gains tax cut and dividend tax cut have helped the economy. Clinton cut the cap gains rate to 20% and we saw huge growth in federal treasury receipts.

And I don't like how people always use the word greedy. How is it greedy to want to keep as much of your money as possible?

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money --- only for wanting to keep your own money." -Joseph Sobran

[AP]

56. You would hold on to 15% dividen rate when 85% of your inc. is earned?

And, Republicans saddle earned income earners with unbelieveably inequitable portion of tax burden so that people who get 90% of their income from unearned income don't have to take it up?

Don't "Slice" off your nose to spite your face.

[Slice]

61. It boosts economic growth

so yes I would hold onto it. And please lay off the personal attacks. Let's just debate the issues.

[AP]

65. It pads savings accounts of rich. It kills the economy. Great Depression

anyone?

[Slice]

70. No

The great depression was caused by monetary policy. In the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve System put new money into circulation in the US. The new money was threatening to increase inflation, so the Fed pulled the money back out of circulation. This brought on the 1929 crash and the resulting recession. The Federal Reserve continued to persist in this stupid policy, allowing the nation’s money supply to shrink by a large percentage during the next 4 years. President Hoover increased government spending, raised income taxes, and pressured large companies to keep prices and wages high, producing a glut of unsold products and mass unemployment.

There were recessions in the early 20s, and these were a lot shorter than the great depression. The great depression was caused by the fed and bad economic policy. If the government had not intervened, like Harding refused to intervene in the early 20s, the recession would have been short-lived. Unfortunately, they decided to get involved.

I understand your urge to blame the free market for the failures of government, however. I do.

[mouse7]

54. Maybe. But we can go back to Eisenhower-era tax rates

President Eisenhower thought a 90% top tax rate was fair.

[Slice]

58. Hah

Do you know how little revenue we had back then though? People would stop working when they hit the 90% rate, because htey didn't think it was worth it to only be able to keep 10% of what they earn. I think it's unfair too.

Anywhere in between 35-40% is a fine top marginal tax rate, in my opinion.

[mouse7]

68. 10% of a billion is 100 million

If they aren't willing to work for 100 million, they were never actually working anyway. George W. Bush is EXACTLY the type of person who would claim he would stop working when he hit the upper tax bracket.

I prefer a top rate of about 70-75%. I use the 90 % Eisenhower tax bracket as both a threat and a reminder what real Republicans thought real economic policy should be. Eisenhower is the big GOP hero. They need to remember what Eisenhower REALLY supported.

[Slice]

73. A threat?

How nice. You don't have a right to tax other people's income at 90%. Thank god you aren't in power.

[mouse7]

77. I have a US Constitution that says I do have the right.

If Eisenhower could do it, I can do it.

The precident is set. I'm sorry. Try again.

[Slice]

78. Fine

Then I suggest that we make the bottom rate 75%. Let's just tax the **** of the poor. They deserve it. Not. And neither do the rich.

[mouse7]

81. The rich have no legit "needs" after the 1st million a year.

There's a difference between needs and greed. You have exited the realm of needs and entered the realm of greed. I'm all for taxing the hell out of greed.

[Slice]

82. again

" Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money --- only for wanting to keep your own money." ( Joseph Sobran)

So it's greedy for the rich to want to keep their money, but when the poor want some of the rich's money, that's not greed? lol. ok.

[mouse7]

88. The poor want prescription drugs for kids, not Ferraris

Yeah, it so greedy for the poor to want rich people to sacrifice their 4th Ferrari so the poor can have health insurance and prescription drugs for their children.

The poor are so evil to want to have a living wage.

The poor are so wrong to want schools to have textbooks for their kids and class sizes under 40 kids per classroom.

How dare the poor be so greedy!

[Slice]

90. I didn't say they were

But on the other hand, don't call the rich greedy for not being willing to give up 90% of their income above a certain amount.

[AP]

69. The problem isn't rates on earned income, it's the incredibly low rates

on unearned income relative to eanred income rates which are giving people who don't work for a living a way to get a lot of money in a way that creates bad social and economic incentives.

[Slice]

45. and

the rich didn't take anyone's money. did the rich go into people's houses and take their money? no. it's called capitalism.

[mouse7]

49. Yes. The rich steal their share of infrastructure costs.

The rich profit handsomely at a far greater rate than others because of good US infrastructure and stability. The filthy rich need to be paying their fair share of the costs of the economic costs of providing and maintaining good infrastructure as well as a stable and secure marketplace.

[AP]

50. Capitalism is a fair competition on a level playing field with the Gov't

being an unbiased referee between conumers/individuals/labor & management/capital/corporations.

If you think we have this you need to wake up.

We have a playing field that is nowhwere near level. We have moving goalposts at the other end of the field, and we have referees who aren't just biased, they ARE ON THE OPPOSING TEAM. They don't even bother to take off the uniforms.

[Slice]

55. Um

Part of the reason that corporations have become so powerful is because they are working with government. For example, companies right now are able to use eminent domain laws to take people's houses and turn that land into parking lots. I think that's wrong, and I've fought against it.

Natural monopolies are wrong. We should have full competition for cable, phone, and utility services.

I think you fail to see how much of a role the U.S. government has played in creating the "environment" that we see today.

[AP]

64. That parking lot has an analogy: the value of your labor.

[Slice]

66. Not really

Because i can't be forced to work. But the government, colluding with corporations, can take my house and land.

[AP]

67. People are being forced to work. 1 in 5 Americans have negative

net worth. They have to reduce options, accept less, and work at jobs they don't like to pay off that debt (for most, student loans).

The difference between what they're getting paid and what their labor would really be worth if the goverment weren't colluding with corporations to create this kind of environment is going into the back pockets of corporate insiders. See the farmer analogy.

[mouse7]

43. Rich need to pay real value for ability to profit off US infrastructure

The rich make a fortune in this country because the military and police keep the US stable, various agencies build roads and ports and sewer systems, and Americans work hard to educate themselves to provide a knowledgable, innovative work force. All that "stable business environment" stuff costs a LOT of money, and the rich need to pay their fair share of the upkeep on keeping that business environment stable.

[Slice]

59. They do pay their fair share.

The top 5% pay 53.25% of all income taxes. They pay a LOT.

[mouse7]

74. It should be about 75% on the top bracket.

Nobody needs more than $250,000 of the next million(s) after they get their first million a year in income.

Not when there are so many more important needs facing our society. This is a case where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

[Slice]

75. That's your opinion.

But look at the lower class. They pay hardly any income in taxes, and look at all of the goodies they get.

No tax liability, plus state earned income tax credits and the federal EITC. Plus they are the ones most likely to be eligible for federal financial aid.

If you tax the rich too heavily, they'll just stash their money in foreign accounts. Or they'll leave the country. What will you do then?

[mouse7]

79. Look at the goodies they get. Like Walmart jobs.

Minumum wage jobs with no benefits. WOW! What a smorgasbord for the poor.

To deal with money leaving the country, you have a system for taxing exiting capital.

[Slice]

83. It can be avoided.

I know how to help them avoid it too, and if it came to that, I would gladly do so. You obviously aren't aware of all of the loopholes available. I would do it just to make you mad, too.

[mouse7]

89. Close the loopholes, too

All loopholes can be closed very easily. A little capital would escape, but not much. The rich couldn't go to the EU. Their tax rates are higher. So the rich would be force to move to banana republics. The rich would soon see the dictators of said banana republics would steal from the rich what they would have lost in taxation costs, and they would come back to the US with their tails between their legs.

The rich aren't going to leave all their assets in Panama or Nigeria. Too unstable.

[Slice]

91. Switzerland

nt

[mouse7]

94. Close the loopholes to Swiss Banks.

If they want to go to Switzerland without their money, fine. Don't let the door hit them in the rump as they are leaving.

I'm sure Switzerland is going to love to have a mass emigration of ex-filthy rich people with no money and no skills entering their work force. I'm sure they will just hand out Swiss resident visas like pizza coupons for them.

[mouse7]

27. I personally don't give a rat's butt how your portfolio is doing.

You're part of the small percentage of people that has enough money to invest. The vast majority of peopple do not have money or coverage for ONE serious health care emergency. Someone goes sick, and these families go bankrupt.

It's time for this country to concentrate on something OTHER than the stock market.

[Slice]

34. I'm not rich

Not unless you call middle class rich. More people than ever are invested in the stock market.

[AP]

40. And 20% own 96% of equity wealth in America.

What percentage of your income is earned and what percentage is unearned?

[Slice]

47. Ok.

If you must know, 85% of my income is earned and 15% is unearned.

I don't know if your 20% stat is correct, but I'm far too lazy to check it, so I'll assume it's correct. So what if they own 96%? They also pay a huge percentage of the tax burden so that I can get a break. I don't hate the rich.

Here's a nice stat for ya:

The top 50% of wage earners pay 96% of income taxes. Now I know that doesn't include payroll taxes, but there is a big difference in the two. People pay payroll taxes because they get something out of it: social security and medicare later in life. People derive much more of a benefit from payroll taxes than they do from income taxes.

[AP]

52. You have no business voting republican if 85% of inc. is earned.

The Republicans represent people who get 85% of their income form unearned sources.

Why don't you wake up and come over to our team?

[Slice]

57. Sir, I don't vote Republican

Where did you get that from? :shrug:

I've voted Democratic ever since 1992, when I cast my first presidential vote ever for Bill Clinton, and I intend to cast my primary vote for John Kerry on March 2nd.

Do you think that just because I think we should cut capital gains and dividend rates that I must be a Republican? I'm not, AP.

I'm not a Republican, so I don't know what "team" you're talking about.

I have about $10,000/yr income from investments, and I like my dividend and cap gains rates where they are. I think the economy is starting to come back and I don't want to ruin it.

John Kerry understands how important tax rates are to economic growth. That's why he wants a 0% effective capital gains tax rate for all new investment, up to 100 million per year.

I guess you could call me an entrepreneurial Democrat. I've been a DLC supporter for a long time too, and I was going to vote for Lieberman until he dropped out.

Hope all of this clears things up.

Slice

[AP]

71. I was using "you" in the sense "people" or "you all" or "everyone"

Not you personally.

I have no idea how you vote.

[liberalnurse]

95. Did ya like the tax cut?

Do you think we should roll them back or just leave sleeping dogs lie?


Curious.....

[Slice]

96. I like some parts

I like the middle class parts and I like the dividend and cap gains cuts. I don't like the 100,000 tax break for SUV buyers or the cut for the top 2%.

[RichardRay]

32. Keynes' demise

seems overly stated.

Can I get a reference to work showing Keynes wrong with respect to deficit spending? I know the standard conservative attacks, I don't want those, I want theory and proof - you know, numbers, models, etc.?

[AP]

44. I heard Clinton say last year that just about all Dems now agree that

deficit spending during times of trouble to get a return down the road is not only a good idea, but it's the best idea.

[Slice]

48. Clinton's not an economist,

and he never took economics classes.

[AP]

72. You don't know that. And he did take tax law classes.

[Slice]

84. I do know it.

He's said before that he did not take economics classes. And tax law classes are not heavy on economics.

[HFishbine]

15. What is "it"

What is the "it" to which you refer?

[Slice]

17. Sorry, let me clarify, sir/ma'am

I meant tariffs. Tariffs jack up the price of foreign goods trying to compete with American goods, and since a lot of companies in America(ex: Wal-Mart) buy a lot of their goods from foreign markets, it will hurt American consumers. Ok?

[HFishbine]

28. Thanks for the reply

Excpet that, as far as I can tell, Edwards wasn't voting for or against tariffs, but for labor standards.

[Slice]

36. Labor standards are taxes on goods

Because the more foreign workers are paid, the higher the price is for imported goods.

[HFishbine]

60. Taking that argument to its logical conclusion

wages are taxes on goods, so the best thing for consumers would be unpaid forced labor where the only cost of a product is the raw materials and your 12%.

[Slice]

63. Of course not

We don't have slave labor in this country. Whatever you may think of the minimum wage, no one is FORCED to work in this country, except maybe in some prisons, and even then, they can always choose not to work.

[HFishbine]

76. Exactly!

And why don't we have slave labor, or child labor, or 80 hour work weeks, or unsafe work places? Because we, as a society, have determined that government has a role in protecting workers; that it is perfectly proper for government to establish rules to protect working Americans.

When jobs are threatened by cheap overseas labor, it is well within the established role of government to demand that there be a level playing field, solely for the purpose of protecting American workers as it does on numerous other fronts.

[Slice]

80. Oh come on

I was not talking about the OSHA and labor regulations. I was talking about the right of each person to control their body, and decide whether they want to work or not. We don't need incredible amounts of rules to achieve that. There has not been slave labor in this country since the civil war.

[HFishbine]

85. Uh, er, okay

And this started with Edwards refusing to vote for trade agreemeents unless they provided for labor standards. The question is not whether we need rules to allow someone to decide whether or not to work, but whether or not we need rules to provide a level playing field for labor with our trading partners. The answer is yes.

[Slice]

86. disagree

answer is no.

[HFishbine]

87. And we've come full circle

Okay. Willing to try again. Why no?

[bornskeptic]

37. You're misreading that.

He voted for the final China measure. It was Presidential negotiating authority (fast track) on which he voted for the original version and against the final version.

[Options Remain]

4. remember also

that in politics a partial win is still a win. All this talk of "voted for" merely boils down to "there was enough merit to say yes and not enough damage to say no"

perspective is important when you look at politics. As well as rationale.

TearForger

[sadiesworld]

2. This is hostile coverage on Edwards?

[AP]

5. Did you read the whole article?

[sadiesworld]

7. Yes.

[AP]

10. Its argument is that Kerry and Edwards were bound by state citizenship and

that you shouldn't blame them or laud them for their votes.

This actually directly contradicts Howard Fineman's assessment of Edwards yestrday. He says Edwards has abandoned his state and has voted in a way that appeals to a national constituency rather than to NC'ians.

The fact is that everything Edwards does is about protecting the value of the one thing most Americans have to sell: their labor.

Look at how he voted on these bills: he protects the value of labor.

That IS a real distinction between Edwards and Kerry which this article tries to mitigate.

[sadiesworld]

12. I don't know that having Howard Fineman playing nice with

Edwards proves your geberal point.

[AP]

13. He wasn't playing nice. I wrote about it yesterday.

He told a lie about Edwards's appeal but couched his criticism in two or three compliments.

You can see how he was setting himself up for his angle of attack if Edwards gets the nom.

[Cocoa]

19. this would have been a good time to mention Kucinich

NYT decides to do an article about the candidates and trade, and they only mention the two that actually have the same position?

I guess that's the kind of debate on trade the NYT likes.

[mouse7]

24. Edwards has not pledged to remove US from WTO and NAFTA

Without THAT pledge from Edwards, there is little substantive difference between Kerry and Edwards.

Certainly not enough difference to justify choosing Edwards and getting a vastly inferior health care and energy policy compared to Kerry.

[AP]

29. How can you say the differences on those votes are insubstantial?

[mouse7]

35. Because in the grand scheme, they ARE insubstantial

The problem is the WTO and NAFTA treaties themselves. Any policies that do not include throwing out the treaties completely, and starting over is just nibbling around the edges. It doesn't matter whether Kerry has 6 nibbles and Edwards has 9 nibbles. They are nibbles, and they don't fix the problem.

[Nicholas_J]

26. Problem is

That a president must take a broader view than ones own state.

Jordan has labor standards in the compact, but they are not enforced. And that is a problem with individual compacts. You can place all sorts of things in writing, but you cannot enforce them without a larger concensus.

[AP]

31. Exactly. Edwards's umbrella theme: not watching the value of labor

devalued in America.

That works nationally.

[waldenx]

92. when a politician says they will "review" an issue

it means they are a fucking coward and a liar, and they deserve to lose.

[bigtree]

93. The China vote was an expensive betrayal of the NC textile workers

Edwards tries to widen divide on trade issues
http://www.newsobserver.com/edwards/coverage/story/3307716p-2950831c.h...

In the Senate, Edwards voted in 2000 to grant China permanent normal trade relations and entry to the World Trade Organization. At the time, he expressed sympathy for the textile industry, which feared the move would lead to more job losses. But he said the deal would help North Carolina industries that thrive on exports, including agriculture, furniture and high-tech companies.

On the day last summer when Pillowtex announced the shuttering of 16 textile plants, most in North Carolina, Gephardt fired off a statement saying they closed "because they were unable to compete with competitors in China under the unfair trade deals Congress imposed on them."
___________________________________________________________________

Memories:

House set to vote on China trade bill Textile Industry opposes
http://www.textilenews.com/Previous/archive5222000/headlines522_2.htm
Chuck Hansen, chairman and CEO of home textiles manufacturer Pillowtex Corporation, said he also doesn’t buy China’s promises of reform.


Death of a giant.
http://www.textilenews.com/index.html

Pillowtex Corporation, one of the largest and most venerable American home textiles producers, sent huge shock waves through the industry and the country July 30 when it announced that it had closed its 16 manufacturing and distribution facilities and had terminated about 6,450 of its 7,650 salaried and hourly employees. With the closing, the 116-year-old company, which boasted such famous brands as Cannon®, Fieldcrest®, Royal Velvet® and Charisma®, became the poster child for the crisis that has hit the industry since 1997.

“I think the comment that they will reform is very laudatory and very worthwhile, but actions speak louder than words,” he told STN Thursday.

“It’s almost impossible for us to ship textile-made products made in the United States into China. So we’re really excluded from their market. They have prohibitive procedural and tariff regulations in place that prevent us from having appropriate access into the Chinese market.

Continuing decline of jobs. Including the Pillowtex shutdown, industry employment declined by 50,000, or 10 percent. For the past half century, that's second only to the 13 percent decline the industry experienced in 2001.


Edwards keeps N. Carolina Democrats guessing
http://www.charleston.net/stories/080903/sta_09edwards.shtml

When textile giant Pillowtex Corp. shut down July 30, the bankruptcy resulted in the biggest mass layoff in the state's history, with nearly 5,000 workers affected. Edwards faced criticism for not doing enough.

On Thursday, the senator traveled to Kannapolis to meet with textile workers who lost their jobs.

Asked why he did not visit sooner, Edwards said he had been working behind the scenes for months to try to find a buyer for the troubled textile firm.


Increasing Chinese textile imports threaten US textile industry
http://www.bizasia.com/trade_/bm9ev/china_us_textile_industry.htm

It was not difficult to predict this: the American textile industry is seeking relief from a deluge of Chinese textile imports. The reason for this surge of clothing is cost: an American textile worker earns in less than two weeks what a Chinese worker earns in a year.

According to the American textile Institute, the US textile industry lost 267,000 jobs from January 2001 through March 2003. Chinese sales of textiles to the US rose by 63 percent to 3.15 billion in 2002.

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ATMA announced in late September 2003 that its U.S. textile mill customers have suffered more damage in the past five years than the industry did during the Depression of the 1930s. ATMA's analysis shows that from 1929, just prior to the Depression, to the low point in U.S. textile performance in 1932, U.S. production of cotton fabric dropped from 8.4 billion square yards to 6.3 billion, a decline of 25.3 percent.
http://www.textilenews.com/news/020204_8.html

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Since China entered the trade organization, textile officials in the United States say, China's market share in 29 textile and apparel products has jumped to 45 percent from about 9 percent.
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And in the four products cited in the industry's petition, China's exports to the United States soared to about 4 billion square meters from 484 million, according to the textile industry. American textile executives are now asking the federal government to put safeguards into effect that China agreed to upon entering the trade organization. According to the agreement, the United States can put quotas on certain Chinese products if there is evidence that the U.S. market is being seriously disrupted.
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Quotas on the four disputed products were lifted after China joined the trade organization. There are still quotas on other textile imports, but nearly all of them are expected to be lifted by 2005.
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The coalition is pressing the Bush administration to limit certain imports from China, raising the stakes in the latest of several long-running trade disputes with Beijing. In a petition Thursday, the group also called on the White House to impose safeguards that were agreed upon when China entered the World Trade Organization in late 2001. Industry officials say a flood of cheap imports from China has put some American textile and apparel companies out of business and led to the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
http://www.iht.com/articles/104183.html