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Post by blueneck on Dec 18, 2007 22:13:54 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Dec 19, 2007 6:08:51 GMT -6
More garbage and alternate reality from the Heritage novelists. Below are a couple of passages:" In an exercise of political demagoguery reminiscent of Ross Perot's prediction of a "giant sucking sound" resulting from adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), presidential candidates are starting to suck common sense and economic rationality out of the 2008 election debates. At the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on November 15, the candidates unleashed a torrent of anti-trade rhetoric that ranged from Senator John Edwards' description of trade agreements past, present, and future as "a complete and total disaster" to Senator Chris Dodd's (D-CT) call for a moratorium on trade from China "for eternity."" It certainly is good news to see Dodd and Edwards are taking these positions. But this is about the only "good" thing in the Heritage myth. They go on to regurgitate the following:" NAFTA itself is the perfect example. According to reports issued last month by the Department of Commerce, the U.S. economy grew by 50 percent during NAFTA's first 13 years.[3] Contrary to Perot's gloomy predictions of job losses, the U.S. economy actually added 25 million jobs during this period. The average unemployment rate since NAFTA has been only 5.1 percent, versus 7.1 percent during the prior period. U.S. manufacturing output rose 63 percent during NAFTA's first 13 years, compared to only 37 percent in the period before. Compensation for manufacturing workers increased 1.6 percent annually during NAFTA, versus 0.9 percent annually before.[4]...As usual, the Heritage propaganda is nothing but half-truths and outright lies. From December 1994 through November 2007, the U.S. economy has created a total of only 22 million jobs, not 25 million. This is not enough to keep up with the growth of the working age population. We need to create at least 160K jobs/month to keep up with population growth (keeping unemployment and employment-population ratios the same.) That would be right around 25 million jobs. The 22 million jobs tjat were actually created leaves a job deficit of -3 million.
And this trend has become much worse under the Bush idiot-ocracy. There have been 9 million jobs created since December of 2000. In the 83 months since that time, the number of jobs needed to keep up with working age population growth would have been 13.3 million, leaving a job deficit of -4.3 million.
According to the BLS, manufacturing wages have increased 41.8% since December 1994. The Consumer Price Index has increased 40.3% over the same period. That means real manufacturing wages have increased only 1.5% combined over the entire 13 years of NAFTA. That's an annual real wage increase of roughly 1/10th of 1%, or 0.1%. This is a far cry from the "annual 1.6%" claimed by the liars at the Heritage Foundation. Below are some of the links verifying this.
Total Employment data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?&series_id=LNS12000000
Consumer Price Index data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?&series_id=CUSR0000SA0
Manufacturing Wages Hourly data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?&series_id=CEU3000000008
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