Return manufacturing jobs to U.S.

Ken Anderson (11/28, Letters) said we are responsible for the economic mess. He also stated we do not make anything anymore. This is sadly true.

I can tell him why we do not make anything in the United States as we used to. Back in the 1990s I watched congressional leaders on national television debating a bill called NAFTA, the “North American Free Trade Agreement.” It passed and was signed into law by President Clinton and took effect in 1994.

The bill gave corporations permission to send their manufacturing jobs overseas for cheap labor. This was the worst thing they could do for U.S. workers. Everything is made in foreign countries and shipped back here for Americans to buy. We have a Congress oblivious to the fact that jobs are scarce and unemployment is rampant. We should be flooding them with letters.

NAFTA should be abolished, and companies should be required to manufacture goods in America as they used to do. It would be great to buy everything here with the logo “Made in the U.S.A.” as it used to be. Think of the jobs this would create.

Faye McHenry
Kearney

Comments

[Pub 17]

Since we can't
-ban triggers
-ban fingers
-restore thirty thousand people to life every year
let's make guns
-safe
-legal
-rare
and stop feeding the diseased notion that a pack of old farts with shaky hands is going to be the last bulwark against an invasive government armed with RPGs and MRAPs.

Want to feel really dirty and polluted? Have a chat with a "sportsman" who wants to tell you about his avocation, game hunting with handguns. Icky.

[solomon]

Triggers don't kill people, fingers kill people.

We as a nation will not eliminate gun ownership, and if the anti gun nuts do manage to take guns from law abiding trigger happy defenders of "good" such as myself, god help us because only crazy racists and gang bangers will have guns.

The very thought makes me want to fire up a Lucky in the Power and White district.

[Pub 17]

Well, I'm perfectly fine with unlimited gun rights as long as we can ban triggers.

[Sammy]

Nice try. How did they take control of the planes? The terrorists woke up that morning with nothing more than their box cutters.

Perfect example of what Marctnts referred to as "they'll always find a way." Or maybe your advocating the outlaw of airplanes or jet fuel?

[whispering_to_kc]

"Everything is made in foreign countries and shipped back here for Americans to buy."

Since "trade" is generally considered a two-way street, this one way traffic arrangement of the last few years can't go on forever.

Until the day it ends, party on Globalists.

[TinaMcG]

OMG, are you aware that NAFTA stands for "North American Free Trade Agreement"? As in, the US, Canada and Mexico. For better or worse, NAFTA made it easier to import and export goods in and out of Canada and Mexico. "Overseas" markets were not part of NAFTA.

[Pub 17]

Actually they used a couple of planes with a few gallons of jet fueld on board, but don't let that slow you down.

[Sammy]

The Exacto knife examples is ironic, since that's the only weapon used by terrorists on 9/11.

[Pub 17]

Thirty thousand dead each year from gun deaths: how do I protect myself from legal gun owners who are too stupid to keep criminals out of their gun lockers? How do I protect myself from legal gun owners who go off and start wiping out classrooms full of innocents? Wayne LaPierre (who declined the call to duty, BTW) says we should arm EVERYBODY, then we'd all be safe, just like in Baghdad.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Those of you that do not want to execute your RIGHT to own/bear a fire arm to protect yourselves and property, so be it. That is your choice, however the rest of us may want to execute that right. As for fighting with stick and stones, you can totaly prohibit guns. The governemnt and thugs will still sue them, hence is why the forefathers came up with such a grand idea of the 2nd Amendment.

[solomon]

Less NAFTA, more guns. That's what fair trade really is.

[Pub 17]

So if I intend to harm terrorists, I can get by with a paper clip and a lot of ingenuity, a la McGyver.

You're repeating cant, marctnts. It's as silly a line as, "An armed society is a polite society."

Come to think of it, that's the strongest argument I could give you: if the NRA truly believed that people will kill each other with whatever weapons are at hand, and that guns aren't the problem, they wouldn't be so shrieky and whiny about gun rights, would they? What is there different about a gun versus any other weapon? Whatever it is, it's why there's an NRA. If that gun in the hands of a private citizen is there to protect our freedoms, we could protect them just as well with sharpened sticks right?

[Marctnts]

No one's arguing that all weapons all created equal. I'm arguing that when the intent to harm is present (which it will always be), people will find a way to express that intent regardless of the tools required to do so.

[Pub 17]

"They'll always find a way." That may be the worst thing you've ever posted here, on the simplest possible grounds: if all weapons were created equal we could equip our troops in Iraq with drywall knives and lots and lots of fresh blades.

[Marctnts]

"Yeah, I remember reading about all those accounts of pre-gun massacres in history class where a lone crazy would walk into a church and take out the entire congregation with an Exacto knife."

If you honestly think murder or acts of violence, whether on a small or large scale, is a function of the tool used to commit the act your fooling yourself. People with the intent to do harm will always find a way.

BTW - Even in today's gun-heavy world, somone with a few pounds of amonia nitrate, the internet, and a few hours to spare can cause just as much, if not more, mass chaos than someone with an assault rifle.

[Pub 17]

And in the wonderful world of Mr. Nice Guy, the only virtuous people are the noble company owners, who are totally greed-free, and would never, never, never reward years of loyalty and hard work by canning a worker as soon as they found a third-world country to ship the jobs to.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

We need to keep jobs here however between greed and often over the top regulation, it's no wonder jobs go elswhere. I know if i owned a company, paid market value for given skillsets/jobs and workers continually walked off the job, went on strike, whined, moaned, complained about how unfairly they are paid, I would just shutdown and take the business to a place less indignent. Greed in the number one catalyst in why manufacturing jobs bail. Enviro is the second. The third is the confiscatory mindset of entitlement thinkers that believe only certain industries should be allowed to profit.

[Pub 17]

Yeah, I remember reading about all those accounts of pre-gun massacres in history class where a lone crazy would walk into a church and take out the entire congregation with an Exacto knife.

[Marctnts]

"We NEVER used to ship jobs overseas till the passage of NAFTA."

Of course not, and we never used to kill people until the invention of guns.

(Yeah, I know you were being sarcastic, but I couldn't resist)

[Pub 17]

Bigod, I know if I want deep insight into global trade I'll go right where they know their onions, Kearney, Missouri. We NEVER used to ship jobs overseas till the passage of NAFTA.