NAFTA

[DDT]

There's definitely a LOT of "politics" with the highway deal (haven't heard anything lately)
There's already a highway that runs the route it''s just not an "interstate" and would need widening & such (like bypasses around towns with narrow downtown streets) and it was about 3-5 years ago it was like a "done deal" going to come right through here. Now they are planning on building an entre new highway, having to buy the property, build bridges & such ---it's pure stupidity but somebody got the whole deal changed to a new route about 30 miles (less in some places) than the existing highway from Mexico to Oklahoma (there's Interstate from there thrrough Kansas, after that I don't know) but nothing is happening except like other posts the second largest employer here (mainly code welding, good pay) moved their production to Mexico just kept the offices here.

[Rich]

Yep, NAFTA has delivered nothing on it's promises, just another government screw-up.
Same here only on a smaller scale, but town's second-largest employer sent over 1/2 their "working class" jobs to Mexico. People here had the audacity to expect OSHA compliance (and they did lots of stuff that required breathing protection etc.) and they were skilled workers who thought $10-$12 an hour plus benefits was a "living". Now they get it done by people breathing who knows what in Mexico for that much a day or less.

And it was supposed to be a boon for the Mexican economy and create all these great jobs down there...then why are more illegal's than ever coming over the border (and getting free healthcare, education, etc. from my tax dollars)? 

[JimJack42]

you should see first hand what NAFTA did to the furniture business here in NC. Over 25k people laid off within a 50 mile radius of me. Good working folk who worked for 20, 30, 40 years never hardly missed any work because they thought they "owed" it to their company to work sick or miss their kids ballgames.

[Rob]

Why does it mean lost jobs here if we make it easier to send stuff to and from Mexico and Canada?  I think it will mean lower prices and more jobs for everyone. 

[ChicagoRy]

Anybody have any thoughts on the NAFTA "Super Highway?"   If you don't know what it is, basically google "NAFTA SUPER HIGHWAY" and read up on it for yourself.  I have not reallly seen anything objective about this program/idea, except a lot of propaganda from both sides, for and against it. 

Some people think that a new 16 lane highway is being built stretching from Mexico to Canada, but this appears to be not true. 

The people in charge of planning this claim they have no control over the building of any roads and are planning to improve the roads that already exsist, once again, seems a little too innocent to have so many resources devoted to just "improving roads."

I just wanted to get some thoughts about it, but my general opinion on this right now is that the people in charge of planning this want a faster and more efficient way to get goods from Mexico to the US and to Canada, and back.  It makes sense since those two are in our top 3 of trading partners.  The only thing is, with more efficiencies, there will more than likely be jobs lost, so how can we justify killing off jobs for a program that a majority of the population probably deems "unnecessary?"

To those that say "get out of Iraq, we should focus on things at home, like poverty, healthcare and such" this may be as close as  we're going to see under this administration, vast improvement in transportation which could lead to cheaper and more of a variety of goods.  We shall see, this has been in "planning" phase for something llike 10+ years, and while far left websites claim that construction begins next year, I see no firm evidence so far to prove that.