Axekick's Blog

Yet according to you, you're going to vote republican. You must not be too disenfranchised about the country being destroyed, according to that theory. And you're defending Clinton. What a paradox of ideas. It makes my head hurt.

NAFTA is a good thing (and I lost two jobs in the furniture business and one in the textile business). I would think you'd like it if the nasty furniture industry died. I imagine if they were making huge profits you'd want to tax them into oblivion anyway.

Check out the prices of most goods twenty years ago. The price of technology, clothing and almost all manufactured goods have plummeted. This is due to NAFTA and other low-tariff policies.

The reaction to the Stock Market crash of 1929 was to raise taxes and tariffs. This deepened the Depression and led to horrific unemployment for a decade.

The US ran a trade surplus during the Depression. Whoop-de-do.

bleechers
You will not find anywhere where I have said that NAFTA was a good thing I was merely pointing out the origin of NAFTA and the geniuses who thought it was a good thing, by posting the voting record. You like most so-called conservative republicans have a tax fetish when it comes to holding corporations financially responsible. I remember when the government took on Ma Bell and broke up that old boy network it made many new millionaires in the process and made it possible for the consumer to pick and choose their phone package and it made the industry compete for their business so in that retrospect government involvement was a good thing. Now look at the government’s involvement in Microsoft if they had not stepped in the consumers would be at the mercy of Bill Gates when it came to parts and components for computers again sound government involvement. It will take the same government action to stop the oil companies like it or not call it a tax if you like but as soon as someone finds out how to charge for the use of the sun then republicans will get on board with solar power! Good night Irene.

PS... I just noticed a couple of things... (A) NAFTA has nothing to do with China and (B) Bill Clinton certainly supported it. He went so far as to publicly thank Rush Limbaugh and Al Gore went on Larry King is Barely Alive to debate NAFTA with Ross Perot. They were 100% behind it.

As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the few things I liked about them!

I was not making a correlation between NAFTA and monopolies, I was making the case for government intervention when huge companies with huge profits have a strangle hold on the masses. Since our government has mandated that the auto industry make more fuel efficient cars maybe it’s time to place some mandates on big oil!
NAFTA went wrong like everything else the United States comes involved with, (group orientated) the free whether it is trade or security or humanitarian relief means we the tax payers foot the bill we get the drain while others get rich.

The oil industry is not Bell (your example), neither is it MS (your example). For the second time, the government stepped in in those cases to PROMOTE competition. It did not seek to destroy them through regulation and taxation.

Exxon is not a monopoly. It doesn't even control its own raw product. It is restricted by the US government from seeking ways to lower costs by finding domestic sources and by refining the oil domestically.

Say the government taxed ONLY Exxon. How long would they last? They could not compete on price because of the tax burden. Raising its prices would put them beyond the market and keeping its prices competitive would not satisfy workers or investors.

Explain how taxing profits industry-wide would lead to lower prices and greater innovation?

Free trade and free markets have always and will always be the best way to ensure freedom and create wealth. Socialism has never and will never work. That is why monopolies like Bell were not consumer-friendly and why a government monopoly over anything (read: healthcare) will not work.

The government just needs to get the heck out of the way. It intervened in your examples to promote the free market... that is what you correctly support.

I'm talking about the industry as a whole not just Exxon if you all think it is good sound practice or the free market at its best well so be it. When the oil companies have lobbyist which in most cases are retired senators pumping big money in on the system well that is a monopoly, when it comes to building new refineries or developing alternative sources of energy. Hope you all can handle 7$ a gallon gas cause its coming! All is good on Walton’s Mountain!

Nope
NAFTA went south and every other direction but toward the US. I was not for it when it was even considered a good thought by some and certainly now you would really have to speak in tongues for me to even consider a belief that it was good for this country. I would agree that it was good for a few, but not the whole.
Jobs continually lost from the USA to other countries, once gone they are gone. Replace them. Forgive me; I should be thinking green and how we are going to replace these lost jobs with Green Jobs.
Of course we have to think globally now, don't we? I guess I am just not a global type of guy. I guess I rather know security and jobs begin and stay at home. I am quite sure the behind closed door meetings Bush is having with the leaders of Canada and Mexico have my best interest as a citizen of the USA at heart. Right? NAU, SPP and the NAFTA super highway along with who knows what else they are planning and we are going to pay for. We are going to pay for all of it. One way or the other, we will pay.
Keep on thinking NAFTA, CAFTA, and CAFTA DR are good things. Trade surplus numbers are funny things. They are like other numbers as you can bend them however you want. Bottom line is that down home on the farm the meat and taters look a bit different than they used to. Or maybe the table is just smaller.
Think what you want about oil companies not being an oilnopoly. I pay pretty much the same price from pump to pump. I do not have a choice. I seem to recollect I did not have a choice with MaBelle either. Times have changed, but rigging prices has not chan

Hey, Axe....check out Caddyboy's Blog, 7th and 8th entries by Sagebrush.....see whatup?.....Tell Bloghand -

Don't know 'bout this BLEEP.....