Was NAFTA beneficial for the United States or not?

the way the economic conversation is so focused on "jobs" rather than productivity/efficiency/distribution is dumb; the things that ought to be done ought to be done regardless if they require human labor (in fact, it's better if they don't) and the things that don't need to be done ought not be done even if that allows sustenance to flow to people because you could just directly deliver them sustenance

would you rather have thousands of automated factories in the U.S. which at least have to be maintained by minimal staff and skilled engineers, who would still have jobs
or
lose all jobs and economic output when all factories move to Mexico to be made in the same manner as before except by poor Mexicans.
>muh post industrial economy
it's a myth. there is no post industrial society. only society's who decide to export their industry to someplace poorer.

no one disputed that we still do this.
we just now have almost zero manufacturing industry to speak of.

From an economic standpoint it really makes no difference. The product is still owned by the US regardless of where the factory is, and a huge numbers of people are still out looking for new jobs.

Unironically more proletarian; it feels dirty being a parasite instead of a producer, and it might lead to consequences when communism comes about. If a "bourgeois country" was cut off from its supply chains and labor due to revolutions in them it would be completely fucking wrecked, which would translate to material consequences to me personally.

That ownership only is valid given US hegemony still exists; if it didn't, there would be absolutely nothing stopping the workers from halting the delivery of the product they make to the parasites who own the factory in the US.

This is a retarded opinion to hold.
it impoverishes huge segments of the U.S.
Think of it this way.
You own a nice house. Would you rather the other houses in your neighborhood also be nice or poor shanties.
Economically you still own the same product in both situations, but more goes into life than what is reflected in economic models.

Plenty of countries other than US outsource. Of course the workers can do that, and the owners can move the factory back to country of origin and warn others not to open factories there, and then who's fucked?

They are impoverished in both scenarios because the jobs are still lost. You analogy does not hold up at all.

the difference is the entire neighborhood turning into a burnt out ghetto or only part of it.

Laying off ten thousand workers and keeping 150 engineers who can probably find employment anywhere else on the planet is not going to have much of a positive impact on the community.

>good for corporate profits
They would have lost those jobs anyway. A company that falls behind technologically or in relation to cost controls gets fucking eaten up and some other Chinese factory would be dumping their goods here at half the cost.

And yet those companies who decided to pick up their factories and move them to Mexico are still in business. rly makes me thikn.

>not going to have **much** of a positive impact on the community
okay. so agree it will have **some** positive impact and we just disagree about the magnitude. Good to know.

Yes because they adapted to the circumstances. What the fuck is your point? Should we all be steel mill workers using 50 year old equipment making lower quality steel at ten times the cost?

>positive impact
Deindustrialization is a natural part of economic maturation.
You don't see Americans clamoring to return to textile manufacturing.

Don't act like a cheeky cunt. It's fairly clear what I said.

The problem with NAFTA isn't whether US profited. It unquestionably did. The problem is that corporations pocketed those profits rather than reinvesting it into the economy and opening new jobs in profitable fields. What the US desperately needs is a new wealth redistribution mechanism.

>parasitism
You really need to get the fuck off my board and go back to /pol/ or /leftypol/

Yes, everyone benefited. Free trade is good and economics isn't a zero-sum game.

t. Homas Sowell

The best wealth redistribution mechanism is employment.

nice strawman. I'm saying I would rather have 10 Americans with middle class engineering jobs maintaining automated manufacturing equipment than 100 Mexicans using the same outdated manufacturing equipment for what would be starvation wages in America. Roughly par cost, roughly par quality.

NAFTA made the latter happen, when it would be preferable to have the former.

The other 90 Americans who lost their jobs would have to find other work, but that is preferable to 100 Americans losing their jobs while also increasing shipping/distribution costs and moving massive factories and industry bases to unstable impoverished corrupt countries.

Of course not. Not beneficial for Mexico either. We subsidize the agricultural industry which employs all of the illegals. As I saw it summed up somewhere, with NAFTA Mexico destroyed our factories while we destroyed Mexico's farms.

Deindustrialization is part of the maturation to a shit tier service economy. All those Starbucks baristas powering the economy when they could have worked in a Ford plant for 55k.

I

>Was NAFTA beneficial for the United States or not?

No, it only benefited a tiny parasitical minority on Wall Street.

Outsourcing American jobs to Mexico only resulted in the loss of American jobs, while the imported products were of a lower quality and no cheaper, (and more often than not, cost more) with the elites simply pocketing the difference in profits.

Free Trade© only benefits the people when the trading nations are on more or less equal footing.

>Free Trade© only benefits the people when the trading nations are on more or less equal footing.
This.
Anglo Sphere when?

but srsly, would a: US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand FTA benefit everyone or would America just destroy the local industry of the rest?

...

Canada at the very least gets fucked by free trade because an export economy only benefits the people who own resources to export. 99% of Canadians don't see a dime from our enormous reserves of natural resources. I hope the downfall of nafta causes us to start producing things again, but that's too high a hope to hold considering how shit every one of our political parties is.

Brainlet

Brainlet

Brainlet dickrider

Maplenigger - a fucking leaf

canada gets boned by american free trade you dipshit sharter.

>ford plant for 55k
when the rest of the world was a bombed out wreck.

lol. when you literally have no argument, that you just have to spam insults at everyone who disagrees with you.
Veeky Forums is so great for revealing which arguments are supported by literal brainlets.
molymeme.jpg

>a high level of discourse is expected

No. The USA got poorer and the other two's national security weakened.

In terms of absolute productivity free trade is unambiguously beneficial. However we have to consider the distributional effects of free trade. The gains from free trade tend to be small and broadly distributed or otherwise returns to capital while the losses from free trade tend to be large and acutely distributed and tend to affect labor most harshly.

We should also consider the uplifting effect that free trade has on developing economies it we want to have a full moral picture.

Dear history, why is it good to have mutally beneficial trade agreements with your closest neighbors??

Dear peeps, if you have all the stuff and i want it then,how else am i supposed to get it if i cant buy or trade for it?

Also is benefial for reigonal influence, security, diplomacy

>t. Brainlet

Look up ford assembly worker salaries for the United States. I know you won’t, but the info is out there.

>free trader “”””argumentation””””

Lmao shut up commie. More countries than the US, including China, are committed to the global economy. Workers halting delivery would not be allowed by pretty much any country.

yes dumbass, and manufacturing abroad is cheaper which is why the US car industry went tits up in the 70s.

And you think they could extend that salary to every Starbucks barista as well?

no, he thinks that if manufacturing remained in the US everyone would be making 55K a year assembling cars.

That's what I meant, if they closed down every Starbucks and all the baristas got jobs at Ford factories.

Benefited some at the expense of others.

Mexico made out like banditos

You have no arguments that accounts for rises in productivity and cost savings as a result of free trade. You only care about "jobs" for rustbelt scarabs that are useless welfare mouths in the modern economy and should have been forcibly relocated years ago. You can't bring back enough jobs to raise the living standard enough to make the consequent rise in prices worth it.

If those factories hadn't packed up and moved to Mexico then they would have eventually gone under because they couldn't compete against factories producing the same goods but at cheaper price. So instead of Americans losing jobs and Mexicans gaining jobs, nobody has a job.

Seriously take a Macroeconomics class. People like you bitch about third world countries taking manufacturing jobs but the reality is that if they didn't, most manufacturing jobs in the US wouldn't exist because the high cost of domestically produced materials and parts would make US manufacturing firms uncompetitive.

>productivity and cost improvements by moving to Chinese sweatshops where workers kill themselves

Really made me think. Try to contain your derision for people who aren’t neoliberal technocrat nerds with power fantasies.

>Americans losing jobs and Mexicans gaining jobs

That’s the thing; we don’t give a fuck about Mexicans. Nations look out for their own self interest. If it’s so great then give up your job so some third worlder can become middle class. No country on earth would altruistically give up jobs for “muh global gdp”; something ideologues will never understand.

If the economy says it's more efficient to produce a widget with X units of human discomfort and Y units of environmental damage than with

>b-but muh gdp! Somebody think of the corporations!

And what you don't seem to understand is that nations are looking out for their economic interests by engaging in free trade agreements. You think companies give a shit if they have to layoff a certain chunk of their workforce in exchange for better opportunities and higher profits? That's not even a choice for them.

>No country on earth would altruistically give up jobs for “muh global gdp”; something ideologues will never understand.

There's no altruism about it. If goods can be produced cheaper elsewhere why not do it there. There are winners and losers in the market, if you want job security then you should have tried harder in life to get a good career. The world owes you nothing and doesn't need you. You think politicians give a shit if a couple of blue collar workers lose their jobs? No, because those who have little economic power have no voice worth hearing.

It killed the midwest.

>altruism
yes, because cheaper consumer goods in your own country is not a good idea. Having other countries invest in your economy is not a good idea.

>lose your job to outsourcing
>but goy we gave you cheap smartphones! Everything worked out in the end

Yes all those countries with service economies powering the world. China became 2nd largest economy just through fast food places.

If you love third worlders so much then adopt a couple and let one take your job.

>if you aren’t rich fuck you
>corporations r great

>neoliberal “””””ethics””””

Christ I’m not even a socialist but you make 1917 look better everyday

>If those factories hadn't packed up and moved to Mexico then they would have eventually gone under because they couldn't compete against factories producing the same goods but at cheaper price
Only thanks to NAFTA, hence the reason for this entire fucking thread.
The entire point of this fucking thread is basically: Is protectionism worth it?
No shit, a corporation with essentially zero in labor costs beats the same corporation even if they use automation to reduce labor costs to the same level, because in the latter they also have expensive machinery to maintain.
But if you don't allow for unlimited Free Trade, you can keep some manufacturing jobs in the country, even if they are only fraction of the jobs that there used to be.

Fuck everyone in the country, so long as I get muh materialisms for a few pennies cheaper. Everyone knows the cost increase for the individual would be fucking minimal, because the cost is spread across the whole local American and American export market.
keep yourself safe, bud.

essentially.
at least we still have our agriculture and actually create something of value, unlike the completely parasitical coasts.
t. midwesterner

Not an argument

Shameless emotional appeal

>muh corporations
You know where your 401k and discretionary investment portfolio put your money in? Stfu. Either you stay competitive or you don't.

>t. Jefferson

>throwing your middle class to the dogs for 2.5% growth and $5 t shirts

Hmm

I think socialism is fucking retarded but if the future is neofeudslism under corporations like this then Marx might have had a point

>The average consumer in the US and CA also benefits slightly because products like a Fender guitar or Ford fiesta can be purchased for a lower price than the US made version of the product.
That doesn't offset the tremendous hit the American middle and working classes took after the manufacturin industry vanished.
>YOU ARE NOW 75% POORER BUT AT LEAST YOUR BASEBALL CAPS ARE 50% CHEAPER LMAO

>implying Jefferson was wrong

>wanting the government to baby dying industries and keep prices high

Protectionists can get bent.

The coasts subsidize the rest of the country. You're the parasite here, bar maybe the approximately 2 million upper middle class businessmen who grow all the food (while getting billions in subsidies).

t.

Nope. Manufacturing output never stopped rising.

Another left wing (or is this right wing now?) lie. Chinese people enormously benefit from so-called "sweatshops." Ask any Chinese person who actually lived through that time.

I don't believe this.
It was probably made by a coastie.

money is numbers in a computer somewhere that don't mean anything, what actually matters are material goods, and guess where they come from (within the US; yes, largely they come from the third world and all of us are massive fucking parasites but some of us are less parasitic than others)

>I don't believe this.
Not an argument. The taxes and federal subsidies received by each state are publicly accessible, not something you can actually lie about.

>Money is numbers in a computer

You may be actually retarded.

> If those factories hadn't packed up and moved to Mexico then they would have eventually gone under

Absolute nonsense, the market for the products doesn’t somehow disappear because the do-nothing parasitical Wall Street investor class is making a smaller profit.

> because they couldn't compete against factories producing the same goods but at cheaper price.

They can’t “compete” because the products aren’t being sold in the dirt poor third world nation where they’re being produced, they’re being shipped to the U.S. where wages (for now…) are much higher and the parasitical Wall Street investor class can make a huge profit.

Without “Free Trade”, the U.S. market would still exist and the products would still made here in the U.S. while the dirt poor third world nations would continue to not buy the products because they can’t afford them, just as with “Free Trade”.

The ONLY ones benefiting from “Free Trade” is the do-nothing parasitical Wall Street investor class.

>money is numbers in a computer somewhere that don't mean anything, what actually matters are material goods, and guess where they come from
It comes from the coasts. The interior produces nothing of value (again, besides those 2 million upper class businessmen and their machines) as the United States economy is post-industrial.

>money is numbers in a computer
It's really inspiring that Veeky Forums is so tolerant of the mentally disabled.

>it impoverishes huge segments of the U.S.
And enriches huge segments of Mexico.
Now deal with it.

>post industrial

Enough with this meme. What you really mean “we sold out our middle class for muh growth so we turned into a neoliberal technocracy with a ruling class and massive inequality”.

The same liberals who bitch about inequality can’t get enough of le nerds running the economy. Corporate bootlickers like you are just cheerleaders for companies boosting their profits by harming the citizens of the countries they do business in.

I don’t want Mexicans to be rich; I want my country to be rich. I don’t give a shot about cheap t shirts if no one has a job.

>while the dirt poor third world nations would continue to not buy the products because they can’t afford them,
Meanwhile in reality, Chinese wages rose six-fold after the US-China trade agreements and the majority of Chinese people have cell phones and computers.

Yes and the Chinese government makes them buy Huawei and Hongqi instead of apple and Ford.

>What you really mean “we sold out our middle class for muh growth so we turned into a neoliberal technocracy with a ruling class and massive inequality”.
This. Industrialization created real wage growth and more economic equality, post-industrialization destroyed it. Service economy is poverty economy.

>Enough with this meme.
Ah, I forgot simple terms you learn in Econ 101 offend parasitic brainlets.
>Corporate bootlickers like you are just cheerleaders for companies boosting their profits by harming the citizens of the countries they do business in.
You have never talked to an old Chinese person in your life, have you?

>Chinese wages rose six-fold after the US-China trade agreements

And yet they don't buy the Free Trade products and will never be the market the U.S. is, because their wages and quality of life will always be substantially lower.

Again; only Wall Street is benefiting.

>United States economy is post-industrial
And that's a mistake.

I’ve been to China twice, actually. I don’t give a fuck about Chinese people. They can starve. I grew up in a Chrysler town and watched it die precisely because of NAFTA. At least cheap plastic trinkets are cheaper now! And the stock price went up! People like you only see numbers, and not the substance of an economy. You’d automate every single person out of a job if it could make your metrics look better and then sell your shit overseas when no one here could buy it. Corporate bootlickers like you are the cheerleaders for neofeudalism.

>And yet they don't buy the Free Trade products
Apple is the third most popular phone brand in China.
> because their wages and quality of life will always be substantially lower.
Their wages are still rising, and are incomparably higher compared to where they were just three decades ago where they were literally worse off than the average African peasant.

I'm going to venture to guess you've never taken a 200 or up Economics course in your life, is that right?

>good-producing workers
Ah, what a very convenient way to exclude a huge portion of the population being promoted to the manager class! And "wages," another valuable weasel word to exclude non-wage compensation that makes up over a third of the average Americans' pay.

Meanwhile in reality:
youtube.com/watch?v=fHm7P4TA97U

They can buy apple because the government forces them to place a certain amount of plants there a d essentially let Chinese firms steal technology. They do this with car companies too. Same reason Coke is so cheap in China-you buy from the Chinese bottling plants.

If you have such a hard on for third worlders than adopt 3 and give your job to one.

>everyone not in the manufacturing industry in the US is a manager!
all of my kek

>manager class

Another neoliberal weasel world. They count McDonald’s managers in the same category as middle management.

>I’ve been to China twice, actually. I don’t give a fuck about Chinese people. They can starve
Okay, then I don't give a fuck about Midwest parasites. They can starve. I mean they won't, because pretty much every one in the country is better off than they were a couple decades ago, I won't care if they do. All they do is produce nothing of value, demand government gibs, and then complain about the people giving them gibs.
> Corporate bootlickers like you are the cheerleaders for neofeudalism.
Speak for yourself parasite, I'm distinctly upper class.

>my parents are rich and liberal

FTFY. There are many parts of the country that are worse off than before. Compare millennial economic stats with their predecessors. Compare what kinds of jobs people have today versus 15 years ago. Oh but we have cheap iPhones!

Bootlickers like you only see a GDP metric, not the substance behind it.

Parents are lifelong conservatives actually. Registered Republicans from a county that voted Republican in 19 of the past 21 presidential election cycles. And they're not rich, just comfortably upper middle class.
> There are many parts of the country that are worse off than before.
Statistics say no. Sorry, but the plural of anecdote is not data.
> Compare what kinds of jobs people have today versus 15 years ago.
I see a substantially fewer number of work-related deaths, and real compensation far higher than it has ever been.

Neoliberal jews like you need hanged

>N-no it’s cool bro all we have left are shitty white collar service jobs that pay 35k but our consumer goods that we can’t afford now are 25% cheaper

Stay mad, Cletus.