KILL NAFTA AND WE'LL ALL BE RICH!

Brietbart fills us in on a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which clearly demonstrates that South Carolina has lost a third of its manufacturing jobs since NAFTA's signing in 1994.

Clear as day, isn't it? See Breitbart article HERE. Go read it, but please come back.

It's NAFTA!

And what's more, heavy-handed regulations on the part of EPA, OSHA, and the IRS.......Obamacare, labor unions, prevailing wage laws, double taxation of foreign profits, racial and gender quotas, legal hamstringing of employment application processes, affirmative action, high corporate income taxes, irrational product liability court decisions, along with entrenched subsidies to favored industries, Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley, and the massive anti-capitalist funds supporting the vilification of commercial progress and NIMBY anti-construction movements in the country.........have absolutely nothing to do with the loss of South Carolina manufacturing jobs since 1994.

And South Carolina is one of the more business-friendly states in the union.

Nope, it's NAFTA, and it's NAFTA alone.

There was a time when cheap labor was the primary driving force, but today, labor cost is far down the list of reasons for a domestic manufacturer to move production to another country. Additional shipping costs and training costs nearly completely obliterate the benefit of lower labor expense. Mexico and China both have huge hoops for manufacturers to jump through in order to produce on their soil, and in recent years their labor costs have been increasing exponentially. It's just that the USA has become, to put it kindly, inhospitable.....ok, no.......downright HOSTILE to business in general, and manufacturing in  particular, in this country.

I'm not saying that free-trade agreements don't have trade-offs, and yes, Donald probably could have negotiated a better deal, but we've identified a bit player here, our problem doesn't speak Spanish or Chinese. It speaks English.

"Giant Sucking Sound"? Sure, there's some vacuum. But the suck is minuscule in comparison to the BLOWING GALE from the epicenter in Washington DC.

We've BLOWN OFF our jobs with egregious environmental and financial regulations, resulting in the siege-like strangle of corporate decision making, a paralyzing punitive legal smog, and the pervasive ill effects of creeping liberal social engineering.  Hey boys, you can make stuff here, but don't get anything dirty. And if you do get through this intentionally red-tape-filled gauntlet we have for you, we want you to put up a bunch of trees and shrubs to hide your ugliness! You need to use water?  Really? You'll need a separate permit for that. You're going to move dirt too, so we'll want to see some impact studies. Of course, you'll have to pay for those. A smoke stack? You mean, with smoke coming out of it? We're going to really have to tax that.

We could not do a better job of making our manufacturers feel more like the declared enemy of tax and regulatory policy, and they'll never tell us the real reasons when they hit the door, as they have to deal with the feds long after they make the decision to leave. Can't afford to ruffle Big Bird's feathers any further.

CEOs get it from both sides now. Cheaper costs mean cheaper prices for consumers? Who cares about the consumer? We still have Walmart. "They'll just move and then increase their margins". In the complete absence of competition, yes they will. Liberals have their reasons too.

The candidate for President who has the best grasp of the immigration issue and the problem with Islam is saying we should tax Mexican-built Fords. There are better solutions Mr. Trump. Actually some of the solutions are in his tax plan, and those of other candidates. Reduce regulations, reduce corporate taxes, ditch Dodd-Frank, Obamacare, Sarbanes-Oxley, and rein in or eliminate the alphabet corporate predator agencies, then we'll be focussing on the big blow, instead of the little suck.

For extra credit:

Who can name a country in the world more inhospitable to manufacturing than the United States of America in the year 2016?

Ok, maybe Venezuela.