Looks Like Ross Perot Was Right About The “Giant Sucking Sound”

[Karmadillo]

http://www.businessinsider.com/looks-like-ross-perot-was-right-about-the-giant-sucking-sound-2011-2

Looks Like Ross Perot Was Right About The “Giant Sucking Sound”

Perot is famous (among other things) for his statement during the 1992 presidential campaign that if NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was not a two way street would create a “giant sucking sound” of jobs going south to the cheap labor markets of Mexico.

Both of Perot’s opponents (George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton) argued that NAFTA would create jobs in the U.S. because of business expansion.

However, the goods balance of trade for the U.S. with Mexico has been negative and steadily growing over the years. In 2010 it amounted to $61.6 billion, which was 9.5% of the total goods trade deficit last year.

So Perot has been vindicated in his opinion; expanded free trade has not been accompanied by an increase in jobs in the U.S. relative to the vast numbers of jobs created in the rest of the world as NAFTA became just a stepping stone on the pathway to global commerce.

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[shraby]

1. That was an obvious conclusion to make even back then.

Even this old girl figured it out on my own and Perot just voiced my concerns.

[kenny blankenship]

2. The paranoid little chicken man was right !

[underpants]

3. He was right. We ridiculed him (SNL) and ignored his point

Perot was right.

[LiberalEsto]

14. Just like SNL ridiculed Gore's SS "Lock Box"

Makes you wonder if those comedy sketches had a deeper purpose orchestrated by NBC corporate management.

[somone]

4. Perot was a businessman

He knew exactly what the corporate CEOs would do with NAFTA

[shanti]

5. of course, he was right

and he lost :(

[tblue37]

7. I suspect that his "nutty conspiracy theories" about how the BFEE was

coming after him were probably not all that nutty, either. That is after all precisely the BFFE's MO whenever someone proves inconvenient to them.

[shanti]

8. that is true

perot was becoming a wee bit too popular, so the BFEE had to "shut 'er down". all you have to say to someone is that they are crazy, and they usually shut up.

[loudsue]

21. EXACTLY: Do you remember when he got out of the race, and then got back in?

I told my roommate at the time that someone threatened him and/or his family... in such a way that was even too scary for Perot, who was actually a very stubborn, courageous person himself. I KNEW it was the bush mafia...even back then. I've never trusted that bunch even for a minute, and we're still going to have ANOTHER bush for president before we're done with them. The next one should turn this country completely nazi like their granddaddy wanted it to be when he was conspiring to assassinate FDR.

[DefenseLawyer]

6. It's not only lost jobs

It's stagnant wages for those trying to compete with a third world labor market.

[WinkyDink]

9. Some of us agrred with him, then. But hey: were Democrats NOT going to vote for Clinton?!

[MrMickeysMom]

10. Well, I didn't the first time ... I helped Perot

... precisely for understanding that the Giant Sucking Sound was our jobs on the way down to Mexico. It was a very interesting time and I believe a lot of Democrats simply would not have voted for Clinton again the second time around if there was a higher evolved Perot in the corner.

[pampango]

11. Of course our trade deficit with the EU is larger ($79 billion) than with Mexico ($66 billion),

but it's all of our problems are the fault of NAFTA. We do not, of course, have a free trade agreement with the EU.

Our trade deficits are larger with the EU and China than they are with Canada and Mexico, even though our total trade with each is approximately the same. Blaming trade deficits on free trade agreements is a misdiagnosis of the problem.

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/index.html#

Our first fta was with Israel in 1985 followed by Canada in 1988.

As the other table shows the value of our manufacturing shipped increased practically every year from 1992 to 2008 when the Great Recessions started. It not like our manufacturing sector was devastated. The problem is that manufacturing employment fell by 30% (over 5 million jobs) because it takes less labor to produce more products.


http://econintersect.com/wordpress/?p=5769

That decline in manufacturing employment has affected every developed country.

[Hello_Kitty]

27. Hardly anyone buys your bullshit anymore, pampango.

Here's the thing: You race to the bottomers need to come up with some more persuasive talking points. Then again, what you're peddling is so obviously bullshit you've got your work cut out for you. Maybe Frank Luntz could help? :shrug:

[ThomCat]

12. Of course he was right. That's why he had to lose.

The invested powers that be could never allow him to win as long as he kept speaking the truth like that. Politicians are only supposed to speak "truths" that placate the public and keep everyone docile.

He dared to speak real truths, about real issues, with the intent of letting people have informed decisions. That could not be allowed.

:(

[Enthusiast]

13. Today I would not make that mistake again.

I would vote for Ross Perot.

[PerpetuallyDazed]

15. So did you vote for Nader? n/t

[Enthusiast]

23. No, but today it might be different.

I would liked to at least seen the real winner of the 2000 election take office. Who knows, Gore might have been a good president. They didn't steal the election with good intentions. Now we are the victims of Free Dum.

[B Calm]

16. The republican introduced NAFTA bill was a huge mistake. But

for Ross Perot to predict the future, it wasn't a big deal. Actually before the time that NAFTA was passed, (by the vast majority of congressional republicans and a handful of traitorous democrats) they were already sending our jobs away. Thanks to Reagan repealing a lot of the tariffs that protected our US manufacturing jobs.

[pampango]

19. Reagan raised as many tariffs as he lowered. Only 2 FTA's - Israel (1985) and Canada (1988).

From the WSJ in 1985:

On taking office, the President installed officials who pay lip service to free trade while seeking every opportunity to have the government restrict and manage international commerce. Rationalizations built around the causes of “reciprocity” and “fair competition” fail to disguise such efforts to retreat from the life-serving worldwide division of labor and comparative advantage.

The administration has eliminated import restrictions only once since taking office: When the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) recommended that quotas on shoes from Taiwan be continued, Mr. Reagan disagreed and ended the quotas. But lest people draw the wrong conclusion, presidential spokesman David Gergen cautioned, “I would not read it as a way he would come out on any case.” It may only be a coincidence that a major congressional advocate for the U.S. shoe manufacturers is House Speaker Tip O’Neill.

In recent months the administration has accelerated its provocation of trade warfare with the European Economic Community over steel; with Japan over autos, airline service and high-technology products; and with the Third World over sugar and textiles. Mr. Reagan has even extended quotas on imported clothespins, citing the national interest. This is the consequence of the administration’s sensitivity to privileged business and union interests and its lack of appreciation of the people’s freedom to choose.

Also, in late December, the U.S. and 50 other countries agreed to extend for five years the Multifiber Agreement (MFA), the legal framework governing world textile trade. Textile and apparel imports have been under quotas for 25 years, refuting arguments about temporary relief. During MFA negotiations, some American manufacturers feared the administration might push to liberalize trade. They needn’t have worried.
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What Reagan did do that hurt our economy big time was break unions (starting with PATCO), gut progressive taxes and weaken corporate regulation.

"In April 1942, just a few months after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt asked Congress to enact a 100 percent top federal income tax rate, in effect a "maximum wage." No individual, FDR told lawmakers, should be taking home, after taxes, over $25,000 - the equivalent of about $335,000 today.

Not until 1964 did that top rate start dipping, down to 70 percent. In 1981, the newly elected President Ronald Reagan would make gutting that 70 percent rate his first major White House priority. By 1986, after two Reagan tax cuts, the top rate on the top income bracket had shrunk to a mere 28 percent.

In the middle decades of the 20th century, the steeply graduated progressive income tax that actor Ronald Reagan so detested operated marvelously well as just that sort of check. America's super rich - our top tenth of 1 percent - saw their share of the nation's income drop precipitously in those years, from nearly 12 percent before the Great Depression to under 3 percent by the 1970s. The top 0.1 percent share in 2007, right before the Great Recession? Over 12 percent. The rich, in other words, have come all the way back - and more."

http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=8864
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Europe has thrived with free trade with its continental neighbors (including the poor ones in the East), but then they have heavier and progressive taxes, strong unions, effective safety nets/health care and good market and industry regulation. Trade is not the problem. It's our lack of all these progressive policies that has harmed us.

[B Calm]

24. Never fails. . .

[Hello_Kitty]

25. Again, those progressive policies should have been in place BEFORE we traded the jobs away.

Because now they have even less chance of coming to pass because Americans are getting increasingly desperate for work.

BTW, how are those progressive policies coming along in those countries with the sweatshops you have told me you are okay with?

[RegieRocker]

17. That isn't rocket science

[Dappleganger]

18. Yes, he was nuts but I voted for him.

It was all about NAFTA for me at that time. From what I recall he was the one candidate who stood up for the American worker and American jobs.

[xchrom]

20. Recommend

[Angry Dragon]

22. K&R

[Safetykitten]

26. He was correct.