4 ms·
I'd say he was right: "We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can mo
by influx 7y ago
I'd say he was right:
"We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, ... have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
... when [Mexico's] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.[1]"
Perot ultimately lost the election, and the winner, Bill Clinton, supported NAFTA, which went into effect on January 1, 1994.
- pessimizer 7y ago> the winner, Bill Clinton, supported NAFTA, which went into effect on January 1, 1994. Which ultimately ended up damaging Mexican wages, too, because we showered Mexico with heavily subsidized corn (and other agricultural products) forcing rural Mexicans into the cities and the maquiladoras.
- mieseratte 7y agoI’ve heard it argued that NAFTA set the stage for that increased immigration North as well.
- cycrutchfield 7y agoIf you can build a car for cheaper elsewhere, why wouldn't you? If your goal is to keep people gainfully employed, well how about working on improving their skills so that a laborer in a developing country isn't more productive than they are?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- melling 7y agoThe workers in the cheaper country don’t need to be as productive. If you’re paying them 5x less in total compensation, and they’re half as productive, you’re still better off with the cheaper labor. No healthcare, no pensions, no environmental laws will save a company lots of money.
- unethical_ban 7y agoAh, you confused productive with cheap.
- mrkurt 7y agoAre you asking why a corporation wouldn't build stuff cheaper elsewhere, or why we as a populace might want to prevent it? Because those are two different questions with two different answers.
- mensetmanusman 7y agoBecause if it is only cheaper because of hidden costs (tragedy of the commons in game theory, environmental disasters in this one), then the game is rigged, and only the wealthy are benefiting while they poison the unwashed masses.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThe bill was left for Clinton to sign as a strategic move so that Republicans wouldn't get any blame for the bill that they crafted, enacted, and was supported by their man in the oval office who would have signed it too if he had won.
- Perceval 7y agoClinton campaigned on signing NAFTA. It wasn't just dumped on him.