The President said the Korean Trade Agreement will...

[SHRED]

...assure more USA made cars are sold in South Korea yet on the nightly news they talked with a Chevy owner in Korea who said they do not have the parking space for these larger cars and trucks.

Who's correct here?


---

[Wounded Bear]

1. When in doubt, believe the foreigner...

I hate to say it, but it works for me. The foreign press is much more reliable than ours.

Obama has been a disappointing apologist for the PTB amd corporatists.

Sad. Really sad.

Besides, should GM want to sell in Korea, they will most likely build in Korea. I can't imagine there are any America-friendly clauses in the agreements.

[Harmony Blue]

6. Agree entirely

foreign media is actually more reliable now.

[Exilednight]

2. The Korean is. Try driving a military HUMMVW (known as a hummer to civillian) thru the streets of

South Korea. If you get two of them going in opposite directions, they won't fit side by side on most of the roads, especially in more rural areas.

[PETRUS]

3. It almost certainly will not...

...result in more US cars being sold in South Korea. The trade agreement does nothing to combat South Korea's byzantine protectionist policies (putting imports in very high insurance brackets, frequently changing standards for imports that impose prohibitive costs on manufacturers, etc.). I couldn't tell you about the size of parking spaces, but there are plenty of other barriers in place.

[FarLeftFist]

4. Chevy makes plenty of small and mid size cars.

[Poll_Blind]

5. House Rep. Peter DeFazio covered the parking space issue as well as others in this video at DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x624441">DeFazio on the South Korean Free Trade Agreement The video is just 2 minutes long. Worth watching!

It's not just a matter of parking spaces, there are lots of other issues which are in play.

Still not convinced? Check out when Senator Bernie Sanders had to say on the matter. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x624243">Sen. Bernie Sanders: A Good Deal for Kim Jong Il

This is just another way to get cheap goods into our country, tariff free. The Korean Trade Agreement is a joke. It's probably going to generate more jobs in North Korea than it is in the US- watch the Sanders video! It's abysmal.

PB

[SHRED]

8. Why does the President talk to us as if we are children?

Does he not realize we figure these things out?


---

[Poll_Blind]

9. I can't answer that one. But I can say that DeFazio and Sanders tell it like it is!

Those links are very much worth the (combined time) six minutes to watch.

PB

[teddy51]

11. Yes they do tell it like it is and those trade deals are not pretty for the US.

Why does this President keep selling the middle class and poor in this country down the river? He talks about creating jobs, and then pulls this shit off that is going to kill many more jobs in America.

[Poll_Blind]

19. Simply put: The President views most everything through the lense of "Help the corporations and...

...they'll help the people". Really. Think about so much of the legislation he's promoted. So much of it has an element of not helping the people directly but helping corporations on the absolutely incorrect assumption that they'll "pass on the savings".

To call this viewpoint and the resulting legislation which comes from it "flawed" is far, far to kind. Just think about the Bank bailouts, for instance. The idea there was that if we bailed out the banks, why, they'd turn around and lend that extra money to American citizens. That's simply not the case. They're sitting on Trillions, along with corporations. They have no intention of "passing on the good cheer" down the line.

Want to help Veterans? Give tax credits to businesses who hire them. And so on and so on. Everywhere you turn you get this recurring pattern of thought from the President.

Unfortunately for everyone, it's completely bunk. It requires that the corporations play along, which they generally don't.

Beyond feeding the corporations, the President is simply not all that interested in promoting more direct remedies.

I feel pretty strongly that the above, in a nutshell, is why he does about 80-90% of the things he does.

PB

[SHRED]

13. thanks for those links

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. And with a very condescending attitude, at times. Reminds me of *

:shrug:

[Poll_Blind]

20. Well, in the world view of the President (see reply #19) you're not a corporation, not a...

..."job creator" and so are inherently less important to the rotating Pistons of Industry than those "super-citizens" are. Again, it's wrong-headed. Workers, citizens are the pistons that drive the industry of this country.

PB

[court jester]

23. because there are more serfs that love to be ruled rather than be troubled by the truth

any truth, sometimes every



It's a percentage thingy

USA USA USA

"When the Wants and the Desires of the Royals outweigh the Will of the People, the Royals Win Every Time"-- you can take that to the Bank Of Timmy Geithner

[PETRUS]

12. Also

The agreement extends US patent protections on prescription drugs - the poor South Koreans will almost certainly see their costs for medicine skyrocket.

[obxhead]

7. The fact that the obstructionist Republicans broke to pass

these trade deals should tell you more than enough about what it will do for America in the end.

[SHRED]

10. Yep...I posted about this regarding Columbia Trade Act:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2121697


---

[WhiteTara]

14. So 50 years later Detroit will finally make a small fuel efficient

vehicle for another country.

[teddy51]

15. Yeah, except they will never be able to sell it in another country due to

tariffs etc. The cost will be prohibitive to being able to sell it over seas.

[WhiteTara]

21. bu..bu..bu..but I thought that was what this great

trade deal is all about?!?!? Opening the markets, lower tariffs, etc. That's what they said on the teevee!

[pampango]

22. Apparently the UAW thinks they will. Korean car makers seem convinced too.

They are lobbying the opposition party there to delay a ratification vote.

[WinkyDink]

17. Gee, let me guess.

[FLAprogressive]

18. Chevy already builds a lot of its cars for the Korean market in Korea.

This is just claptrap BS.

[bvar22]

24. Yeah, THATS gonna happen,

...just like the renegotiation of NAFTA, and EFCA becoming the Law of the Land!

NAFTA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LtbLEKHsi0&NR=1

EFCA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMNVIQqatyU

It is not MY fault that I no longer believe.



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their promises.

Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[swilton]

25. The other problem with US cars in Asia

(believe it or not) is their fuel emission standards....The fuel emission standards in China are higher than those in the US - therefore, China did not want to purchase US made cars.

I base the above on graduate political science courses I took at the University of Maryland - the course was Environment and Development....Sorry but I do not have a specific reference but I took the course in fall, 2007.

Unfortunately, I have learned to take the president's promises with a grain of salt...and I tend to go along with the nightly news.

The US auto manufacturing industry has misguided judgements about what the public and what the world wants...Again, this is anecdotal, but as a 2004 Prius owner I have watched with interest how the US automobile industry (even before Obama) has been unable consistently to read the tea leaves...and invest in fuel efficient or small-size cars...Remember that since my Prius, I've watched the US auto industry invest in the gas guzzling SUVs and heard the CEO's of those organizations proclaim that fuel efficient and small cars were just a passing phase.....I would guess this was around 2006 - I recall discussing this in my political science classes, (Technology, Resources & Foreign Policy).....Sorry again to be basing this on hear-say, so to speak.

[ThomWV]

26. Actually what he said was "he HOPES" Chevy and Ford will sell more cars

I watched it on CSpan, I was dumbstruck when he said it. What he said was 'Kia and Houndai (sp?) will sell more cares in the US and I hope the Koreans will buy more Chevys and Fords'. And I thought to myself, how can this man act like such a fucking fool and why on the face of god's green earth did I vote for him?