



I. GM Expands Texas Hiring




Arlington Plant
Arlington, Texas SUV plant. [Image Source: GM]






II. Bailout Benefits Finally Being Realized?


GM data center workers




Source: GM

Comments     Threshold


RE: Better here than in China
By wordsworm on 9/7/2012 9:39:47 PM , Rating: 2
Are you referring to the government or the general population, or both?

I remember that before FreeTrade with the US, folks at the grocery store made about $15-17/h. Now, they make less, but back then you could buy a house for 1/6 of what it costs now. Free trade was the worst thing the Conservative government ever did to Canada.

RE: Better here than in China


RE: Better here than in China
By mugiebahar on 9/8/2012 9:14:41 PM , Rating: 2
while your right from w perspective , its a little more difficult then that. Free trade is not what people say it is, in that being a great thing but there was no choice. The world changed in the late 70's early 80's on the other side of the world. Cheap labor came in and communism was falling. Free trade allowed company's to access capitol that wasn't available before and compete in other markets as well (there is he'll of a lot more but that's diverging more) also interest rates were 20% and more in the early 80's. You couldn't buy a house for 400,000 with 20% and pay for it. The key to cheaper houses is higher interest rates (but you must factor in inflation as well) but doing that kills the automotive industries as you can't sell cars with high %interest. That's why you drove cars longer and 1 per house not 1 per person. Keeping us out of the world markets would have left us 15 years behind and exponentially more as time goes on. Young people would have left to go abroad and there goes the economy because old people don't spend like young materialistic people. So while yeah the rich get richer the poor would have become worse. Only because the whole world went that way. Its not necessarily right morally encouraging materialism but young people are what they see on tv. That's why we had no choice.

RE: Better here than in China
By Ringold on 9/9/2012 10:20:21 PM , Rating: 2
$15 to $17/hr for light, brain-dead menial labor is insane. For the zero skills and experience it requires, the US federal minimum wage is just about right, perhaps a dollar higher. Aldi's pay starts at $10.

And those wages don't fall out of the sky. You pay for it in your bill. If you feel they should be making more, nothing stopping you from tipping them a couple bucks every time you're at check-out. Put up or shut up, comrade.

Further, free trade has squat to do with what people at a grocery store make. Think about it. It's impossible. That labor is local and, until robots are cheaper and more effective, impossible to replace with workers elsewhere. People in Jackson, Mississippi can not bag you groceries in Canada, and thus can not compete with a bid down those wages. Economists would call it a non-tradeable good or service.

Exceptions: Free trade caused drastic, depression-level unemployment, pushing down the wages across the nation. That's not what anyone has ever claimed, though. Another exception: if millions of Americans cross the border to do low-wage work in Canada every day. Again, zero evidence of this.

Sorry to say, but if you don't know the reasons why free trade is a net positive, you don't understand the basics of economics. A great deal of even liberal economists like Paul Krugman are also free-trade advocates, it's only a minority on the left that's stuck in an uneducated 17th century view of the world and economics that still advocates otherwise, plus some 'green' types that would like to destroy global trade as a tool to weaken and isolate humanity more broadly.

