NAFTA, TPP, Detroit... Shame On Us All...

[WillyT]

Michigan Central Station - Detroit's main train station, opened in 1913, has not been used since 1988.


William Livingstone House - Constructed in 1893 in the once elegant Brush Park neighborhood, this home, designed by architect Albert Kahn, was moved from its original location several years ago by preservationists who hoped to maintain it. It was demolished last year.


St. Margaret Mary School - Many of the city's Catholic schools have been closed, though the churches they are affiliated with remain active.

David Broderick Tower - One of the city's most prominent skyscrapers, this 35-story tower once housed the offices of many doctors, lawyers and dentists. It has been virtually empty since the 1980s. Developers hope to convert the building to residential units by 2010.

More: http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089_1850973,00.html



That's TWO major cities WE have abandoned (so far)... hope you don't live in the next one.



Plus...

Upon visiting Detroit today it can be difficult to imagine it was once the wealthiest city in America. Once the fourth largest city in the country, with a population of two million, Detroit is now nothing more than the poster-child for America’s deteriorating economy. Its streets are lined with vacant houses and rows upon rows of dilapidated structures: old apartments and long-abandoned factories and warehouses. In fact, about a third of all Detroit has now been abandoned, and the population of two million has plummeted to a mere 714,000.



Detroit’s alarming decline can be attributed to the crippling effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the flood of foreign-made cars into the United States. Under NAFTA, manufacturing in America has all but been eliminated. In order to compete, Detroit’s automotive companies were forced to lower costs by outsourcing their operations to Mexico. Essentially, NAFTA made manufacturing cars in the U.S. too expensive. As a result, Detroit factories closed down and jobs were lost. The hard-won wealth of Detroit disappeared to make room for “free trade.”

Link: http://economyincrisis.org/content/how-free-trade-agreements-crippled-detroit

[Hoyt]

1. That is sad. Too bad our big, gas guzzling cars couldn't compete with foreign cars beginning long

before NAFTA.

[Romulox]

3. Real people live here, asshole. nt

[Hoyt]

6. Yes they do, and many made good money producing gas guzzling, poorly designed

cars. Are we supposed to protect them by isolating ourselves from the world?

As to "asshole," tell it to the people who failed Detroit, the USA, and the world.

[Romulox]

7. Our government picks the winners and losers. Our banks are utter failures, bailed out by regular

working people. You were more than willing to protect them, and isolate them from failure and international competition.

So your laissez-faire bullshit falls flat. It's just not borne out by the facts. No. Just as sure as our policies saved the banks from their own idiocy and greed, our policies sacrificed the entire industrial midwest at the alter of "free trade". It destroyed vast swaths of the country and the people who live there.

[Hoyt]

9. No I'm not willing to protect them or corporations who don't act in the world's best interests,

like our auto companies of the 60/70s that produced gas guzzling, polluting, and generally crummy cars for American consumers who demanded bigger, gas guzzling cars.

[Romulox]

11. And yet here we are, and that is EXACTLY what happened. So what *are* you defending? nt

[X_Digger]

79. Wait, you're the one who was rah-rah-rah-ing TPP's patent protections extending to 3rd world..

.. drug producers, denying life-saving drugs to poor brown people who can't afford first-world prices.

Make up your mind- you can't have your cake and eat it too.

"world's best interests" my ass.

Typical.

[Hoyt]

80. Fortunately, drug companies don't charge first-world prices in poor countries. Check it out

like you would research a new gun.

[Ken Burch]

13. It was the auto executives who failed, not the autoworkers.

The UAW called on the Big Three to switch to making the kind of cars Japan and Germany were making, but ther Big Three refused to stop churning out gas-guzzlers.

The autoworkers themselves were blameless.

And Woody Guthrie would probably punch your lights out (and write a killer song about it) for dissing workers.

[Hoyt]

14. Woody Guthrie cared about workers worldwide, listen to Deportee.

I'm not dissing workers by saying auto companies couldn't compete, that's a fact. Execs -- and unions -- were fine with the gas guzzlers and crummy cars as long ad they were lining their pockets. Nobody wanted to kill the goose . . . . . . until it was too late. That's a shame.

[Ken Burch]

15. I'm for workers worldwide, too(none of whom ever win in these trade deals).

But it wasn't the UAW resisting redesign in the early Seventies. Douglas Fraser was fighting for it. It was management who refused to listen.

[Hoyt]

17. Management or not, it's a fact. I do not remember unions putting anything on the table

early enough to do any good. But, I will read any links or comments.

Management was clearly shortsighted. But I don't remember unions saying this has to change right now, either.

It does seem Fraser tried to help, but probably too late by then.

It really us sad what had happened to Detroit, New Orleans, and lots if other places. But, isolation and protectionism, would at best have been a delaying tactic.

[merrily]

24. Yet, you went straight to a huge management decision as the cause for Detroit's woes.

Now, you're backpedaling in a misguided effort to make sure unions/labor get blamed for Detroit's failures.

News flash, management may have to negotiate with unions about wages and the like. They don't have to negotiate with them about product design, nor is product design an area in which union leaders are supposed to have expertise. Your trying to blame unions or labor for car design is certainly laughable and transparent, though not surprising.

[Hoyt]

32. Whoever is to blame, our crummy, noncompetitive cars were the problem.

[DonCoquixote]

78. which were only being made

on the orders of the same rich idiots that wrecked the whole eocnomy, despite the fact that the unions wanted to make better cars.

Proof: the 40 mpg cars that now keep ford and chevy alive were only made once Obama, in a rare good act of socialism, had GM taken over by the government. Now that they are free, they want to build SUVS and trucks again.

[MichMan]

82. Customers not interested in them

Short sighted or not, the sales of Hybrids and electrics has plummeted while full size truck sales are surging. The big 3 automakers are in the business to sell cars which ultimately provide good paying union jobs.

[DonCoquixote]

83. Funny, the smaller cars do seem to sell

You can ask Ford why the Focuses are flying out the door. You can ask Fiat why it is selling, or Mini.

But let's get beyond that, the only reason those cars came back is because the Saudis realized they were getting competition, once they have the good old boys hooked on their trucks, they pull the rug, and then our economy goes down thanks to the price of gas affecting every little thing.

Sorry, but if you are to the left of Rush Limbaugh, the old "Whatever is good for GM is good for America" line is dead and gone, and good riddance to it, because that line was used to screw Detroit and it's workers, like it or not.

[MichMan]

92. Laid off one entire shift

Focus and C Max are not flying out the door . The Wayne Assy plant adjacent to Detroit has just announced that the Third shift is laid off indefinitely due to poor sales

[LondonReign2]

43. No, not surprising in the least

True colors eventually show through

[WillyT]

4. You're Wrong... The Toyota Celica Started Beating Detroit In The 80's.. But...

My question for you is...

How much pain, how many foreclosures and ruined lives, are you willing to promote to gain global "equality" ?

[Hoyt]

5. I'm not willing to protect our auto companies of the 60/70s that produced gas guzzling cars.

Sorry. However you look at it, NAFTA wasn't the culprit .

[ucrdem]

8. Datsun 510s arrived here in 1968 . . .

The Datsun 510 was a series of the Datsun Bluebird sold from 1968 to 1973



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datsun_510

. . . lonnnnnnnnnng before NAFTA. Toyota Coronas and Carollas started arriving in serious numbers around the same time.

[Hoyt]

10. Exactly. Back then, progressives shunned Detroit's gas, guzzling chromed monstrosities.

[ucrdem]

12. Yep. There's plenty of blame for what happened to Detroit but NAFTA is the wrong target. nt

[merrily]

25. Ah, so the energy/environmentally prudent left is to blame for Detroit. LMAO at the

one who posts on behalf of limousine neoliberal philosophies.

[Hoyt]

34. Who said that. The big, clumsy, gas guzzling, noncompetitive cars were the problem.

So-called "Hippies" wouldn't be caught in one of those crummy cars. Now, suddenly, you are in love with them and the big corporations that make them. What happened to the let them die movement?

Good thing some of the foreign car companies have built plants here, providing good jobs to areas of the country left out.

[NCTraveler]

90. The poster is making the exact opposite arguement you are claiming.

Truly the exact opposite.

[merrily]

91. I think he's tried to smear a few groups with blame for the demise of Detroit, but

I appreciate your interpretation of his remarks.

[gollygee]

40. Hmm that's not what I remember

I'm from Michigan so maybe things were different here, but progressives here were mainly labor supporters, and they refused to buy foreign cars. No one in my family would ever buy a foreign car, but then, after NAFTA, the huge GM plant in my town moved to Mexico, and any loyalty American car companies had died. So maybe nationwide that was the case, but here in Michigan anyway, American car companies lost loyalty after they moved due to NAFTA.

[LondonReign2]

45. So far you've managed to blame unions and progressives for the fall of Detroit

You must have earned a nice little pat on the head from your masters

[Hoyt]

46. Did you live back in the 60/70s? If so, what cars were the "lefties" driving?

[LondonReign2]

50. Oooooo, "lefties" in quotes. The trifecta!

Why bother pretending you are a Democrat?

[Hoyt]

51. I was one of them. Are you trying to be obtuse?

[LondonReign2]

55. Over the years I've merely realized that it is useless to argue with Republicans

[Hoyt]

60. I'd agree with that, but would add obtuse people on either side.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

63. Vans were real popular.

[Hoyt]

65. VW vans, especially. Good times.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

66. That's because they ran on bong water.

[Hoyt]

67. LOL, many of us did.

[Hoyt]

49. Nope, I've blamed auto companies, Nationalists, Protectionists, anyone who thought the gravy

train would last, etc.

[merrily]

18. The people who were responsible for putting gas guzzling, planned obsolescing cars on the market are

not the ones suffering in Detroit now.

What a tasteless comment on this tragedy.

[Hoyt]

35. Those photos are mostly related to well-heeled folks.

Detroit is suffering because we didn't compete in the global economy where other countries were producing better cars.

I feel terrible for the poor left in Detroit and the policies that failed them. But blaming it on NAFTA gets us nowhere.

[Romulox]

2. They did this to Detroit on purpose. This was the fucking Arsenal of Democracy, and they trashed it.

The impoverishment of Detroit was the result of concerted National policy choices.

[ucrdem]

16. That's a logical conclusion from "let Detroit go bankrupt" but don't forget the corollary

which is that Obama saved it:

[merrily]

19. No. By the time it go to the "Let Detroit go bankrupt" stage, the damage was done.

At least as far as many thousands of laborers.

[ucrdem]

20. A lot was yes but I was commenting on the intentionality.

Mitt's infamous comment seems to confirm it.

[merrily]

22. No, you were just doing you usual bit.

[jwirr]

74. Saved the auto industry but too late to save the city. There is a difference.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. Go to Google Earth. Pick random spots in Detroit....

Then go south to Windsor and pick places at random.

What you see in Detroit is PUNISHMENT, plain and simple. It started in the 70s when Detroit elected a black mayor and it's continued to this day. It is a textbook example of "white flight".

[merrily]

23. Detroit was once a shining example of union strength creating a middle class and

"Made in America" success.

Race may well have been a factor. However, I have to wonder if Mayor Ben Carson or Mayor Michael Steele would have brought punishment down on Detroit.

[Fuddnik]

26. They tried the same thing, at about the same time, in Cleveland.

Back in the '70s, when Kucinich was Mayor of Cleveland.

Cleveland had a small, city owned electric company, that provided electricity to parts of the city an much cheaper rates than the electric monopoly, CEI. The monopoly tried for several years to force Cleveland to sell its utility, but Kucinich refused.

The President of a major bank back then, Brock Weir, of Cleveland Trust, also sat on CEI's board. Cleveland Trust also owned a substantial stake in city bonds, and Weir delivered Kucinich an ultimatum. Sell Muny Light or the bank would refuse to roll over the city bonds, demand payment in full, and put the city in default. Kucinich told them to stick it up their ass. He wasn't giving in to blackmail.

Cleveland Trust forced the city into default and the talking point of the day was Kucinich bankrupted the city. Not true, but they tried to recall him and failed.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

27. It's the same thing all over the planet....

The "owners" (as Carlin put it) don't like a "man of the people" because he can't be bought.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

64. He used a light bulb in his campaign for congress.

[gollygee]

29. +1

See post 28 for how it's worded. "Corrupt city government" as if there were more corruption in Detroit than in any other big city. It's always blamed on people of color by white people here in Michigan.

[MichMan]

58. Much worse than other cities.

Last edited Tue May 26, 2015, 03:24 PM - Edit history (4)

Dog whistles? The former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is currently in jail for corruption and many of his staff have plead guilty or been convicted. Conspired to rob the city of millions in kickbacks from city construction projects with contractor Bobby Ferguson. Still owes millions in restitution and taxes.

Former City Council President Monica Conyers was just released after a bribery conviction. Apparently being the wife of an iconic congressman and a powerful politician in her own right didn't pay enough. The next Council president abandoned the position and fled the state after pedophilia accusations. There is a lot more than that as well concerning the pension funds.

I have no toleration for public elected officials who steal from the people they are elected to represent. City residents deserve much better leadership.


There was a lot of white flight after the 67 riots. Whether justified by self preservation or racist doesn't change the fact that it occured. A lot of the exodus to the suburbs has also been POC who want a better life for their families. Some of that is coming back and hopefully the new administration can use the bankruptcy to turn things around in the right direction.

NAFTA was a terrible trade agreement, but to lay the decline of Detoit on that ignored a lot of other factors

[Quayblue]

84. amen from a Detroiter n/t

[MichMan]

28. A lot of other factors were responsible

This is a very simplistic view as there were a lot of other factors more responsible for the decline. I have lived in the metro Detroit area most of my life.

The 1967 riots, incompetent and corrupt city government, racial animosity, high murder and crime rates etc. I could go on and on.... NAFTA is far down the list.

[gollygee]

30. I'm not going to alert on this

because people not from Michigan might not know that these are dog whistles, so I don't think this post would get hidden.

[etherealtruth]

31. I am from metro Detroit and I hear the whistles loud and clear

...but, you are right, if you are not from the area the post has a ring of sincerity (I am from Macomb County ... these were de rigeur in county politics for decades)

[RiverLover]

33. You just described present-day Chicago and its still standing.

Bottomline, NAFTA took the jobs from Detroit & the city is dying. If Detroit still had jobs, it wouldn't have lost 1.4 million residents. People have to work, they go where the jobs are. My cousin is one of them. He now helps Raytheon build bombs in Dallas instead of engines for Chrysler in Detroit.

(Just fyi, Raytheon's business is booming. They're working now to fill an enormous order from Saudi Arabia. Life is good for those in oil & war profiteering.)

[ucrdem]

38. The permanent war economy is a legacy that TPP seems intended to repair.

As I read it the focus is on trade in everything BUT oil and weapons.

[RiverLover]

39. Maybe not, but its making fracking's natural gas a key component.

...Passage of the agreement may signal a dramatic increase in LNG exports as tariffs on energy products are slashed. Additionally, the agreement would streamline the current U.S. Department of Energy export facility review process. The Japanese market in particular has been eyeing the United States as a growing source for LNG imports. In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan shut down its nuclear power facilities and has increasingly become dependent on coal and LNG imports. As of 2012 it was the world’s largest LNG importer accounting for 37% of world LNG trade. Currently, Japanese companies hold stake in three of the first four LNG export terminals the U.S. approved.

The U.S. is already on track to become a net exporter of natural gas by 2018 according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and LNG export facilities have overwhelmingly received government approval. Currently, there are seven LNG terminals that are operating or have been approved, and there are over 50 applications currently awaiting government approval. Additionally, the Department of Energy is considering exporting up to 45% of total US gas produced.

However, the possibility of increased LNG exports has many in the environmental community concerned. According to a statement released by the Sierra Club with the passage of the TPP, “the DOE loses its authority to regulate exports of natural gas to countries with which the United States has a free trade agreement that includes so-called ―national treatment for trade in gas. The TPP, therefore, would mean automatic approval of LNG export permits—without any review or analysis—to TPP countries.” Additionally, a higher demand for LNG exports could cause increased fracking, a practice seen by many in the environmental community as ecologically dangerous.

A key provision of the TPP is that it allows additional countries to join the agreement at a later time. So, in addition to the LNG prospects with countries currently part of the agreement there is the potential for other Asian markets to join the TPP at a later time.
http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/what-the-trans-pacific-partnership-means-for-lng

It was happening anyways, but the TPP will expand our LNG exports. We need the jobs though right? We need them because we quit making things here & opted to have them made by virtual slaves, many of them children, in other countries. And its the "environmental community" howling in the wind, because while we put all our eggs in the basket of a FINITE natural resource that poisons water, land & air, it's also just another fossil fuel that is slowly killing life on earth.

The TPP is bad in so many ways, its difficult to sum up in posts here. But it will go through, and our age of greed & short-sightedness will continue until it is too late, most likely.

[ucrdem]

42. Okay but apparently the treaty itself doesn't say anything about fracking, just LNG,

which has its own potential hazards as I understand it (like blowing up), and as you say is going to happen one way or the other. But I've noticed that a lot of bad things imputed to TPP are not actually in it:

a higher demand for LNG exports could cause increased fracking . . .

p.s LNG = 'liquid natural gas' which is basically frozen gas.

[RiverLover]

44. Everything about it is "could" because it isn't in place yet. And logically, with reduced tariffs,

its a safe assumption LNG exports will increase. Just like LNG implies fracking because that's how we extract it now.

[ucrdem]

47. Sure but there are as many POTENTIAL bad effects as the imagination will allow

and there seems to be an awful lot of imaginative activity attached to these scare stories.

[neverforget]

56. How is the TPP going to replace "the permanent war economy"?

Is the TPP going to give us new peace loving leaders to go along with the "most progressive trade deal" in history?

[ucrdem]

59. by incentivizing growth in other sectors.

More here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026720037

[neverforget]

62. That document says a lot of things but if you think that the TPP is suddenly going

to take away the "permanent war economy", I want whatever your smoking.

[MichMan]

61. Auto supplier jobs now in suburbs

There are still a lot of auto supplier jobs in the Detroit Metro area, just not many within the Detroit city limits. Now they don't always pay high wages which can be blamed on NAFTA.

[Romulox]

69. The vast majority of mom-and-pop machine shops and the like have closed in Metro Detroit

over the last 15 years. Supplier jobs are way down, and pay $12/hour (no bennies) through a temp agency.

[pampango]

36. Tariffs on imports from Mexico averaged 4% before NAFTA.

It is doubtful that removing a 4% tariff is what caused Detroit's downfall. Detroit's auto industry employment was at its highest in the mid-1970's with a sustained decline after that along with mini-recoveries in the mid-1980's, mid-1990's and in the past few years. It is doubtful that NAFTA caused the 40 year decline in Detroit's auto employment.



https://web.duke.edu/soc142/team1/employment.html
https://macvandam.wordpress.com/fall-of-the-automotive-industry-2/

[ucrdem]

37. NAFTA seems to have improved employment in Detroit

as elsewhere. If I'm reading your first chart correctly auto employment continued to rise after NAFTA (start of 1994) and basically collapsed after Bush and Cheney took the reins. That's the same pattern I've noticed in other data -- NAFTA worked until Junior broke the economy.

[Romulox]

71. The steep, downhill trajectory? That's not "improvement". nt

[Romulox]

70. NAFTA is one cause of many. Detroit has seen a *precipitous* decline since its passage.

As your charts so amply show.

[pampango]

75. Unfortunately since long before its passage. From 250,000 in the mid-70's to 150,000 in early 90's.

Detroit-area auto employment improved to about 175,000 during the 1990's then lost 100,000 again to around 75,000 from 2000 to 2009 before recovering some 15,000 jobs from 2009 to 2013.

[Romulox]

93. Nonsense. It saw a precipitous decline AFTER its passage. Your cite stats to prove it. nt

[pampango]

95. The drop from 250,000 to 150,000 BEFORE its passage was not a "precipitous decline"?

At the pre-NAFTA rate of decline, auto-related employment in the Detroit area would have hit zero by now. I would call that pretty 'precipitous'.

Perhaps 'precipitous' is in the eye of the beholder.

"NAFTA is one cause of many."

[sufrommich]

41. NAFTA had nothing to do with the fall of the Detroit auto industry.

I know it's soothing to pretend that Detroit was doing OK before NAFTA,especially if you're driving a non union made foreign car around, but lets not pretend that a trade deal did it. Americans choose to kill that industry and along with the auto industry went the steel industry,way before NAFTA.

[BuelahWitch]

87. First company I worked for sent its PC board mfg to Mexico

starting in the late '80s. By the early '90s they had laid off almost everyone and cleared out two of the buildings in the campus. Only the one doing gov't work was left. I blamed Reagan for all of it.
Not that I'm a fan of NAFTA, but I do remember massive layoffs before it came about (and in Utah, not the midwest).

[fredamae]

48. An interesting article:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/26/1387749/-Gaius-Publius-Hillary-TPP-the-World-of-Money-and-the-Center-for-American-Progress

[samsingh]

52. kick

[hack89]

53. "NAFTA made manufacturing cars in the U.S. too expensive."

Last edited Tue May 26, 2015, 04:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Not too expensive for Toyota, Honda, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia and Volkswagen, all of which have opened manufacturing plants in America.

[Romulox]

68. In non-union "Right to Work" states, every one. Race to the bottom! nt

[hack89]

73. I know. But it has nothing to do with NAFTA. nt

[Romulox]

94. Wrong again. It's of a piece. The constituent suppliers for cheap labor southern industry

are largely in Mexico.

[FreakinDJ]

54. Silicon Valley will be next

[Romulox]

72. It's going to be sweet to see. In my lifetime, I guarantee it. nt

[KamaAina]

77. Doubtful.

Even if tech were to go completely bust, the area would simply revert to its former role as a collection of SF bedroom suburbs.

[AzDar]

57. K & R

[orpupilofnature57]

76. More to come .

[beaglelover]

81. I proudly bought a Cadillac recently, made in the good 'ole USA. My first American car

and it rocks!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

85. That's the Cadillac Division that moved out of Detroit?

Leaving a couple more empty offices in its wake?

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/detroit-auto-show/2015/01/14/gm-asks-employees-move-cadillac-nyc/21787893/

Anyway, yes, they're nice cars. Someday, maybe ...

[beaglelover]

88. Only a few hundred employees....the cars are still built there....

some of them anyway....lots are made in TX too.

[PeteSelman]

86. I bear no shame for this.

I didn't vote for Reagan, I wasn't old enough.

[NCTraveler]

89. Train wreck of a local government.

Too many eggs in one basket. Too much corruption. Complete lack of trust. Complete lack of open debate for decades. The people, government, and corporations viewed economic booms as playtime.