[Michael Shappell]

[Rennie Klymyk] “Complex agreements like NAFTA will always have those win some-loose some scenarios but geographically we should be looking at the positive values NAFTA offers us in our corner of the global village.”

Positive values? I can see where a Canadian or a Mexican could say there are positive values in NAFTA, but as an American worker there isn’t much positive that can be said about it. Nearly all of America’s auto industry has moved either into Canada or Mexico and very little of it is left in the USA.

With NAFTA and all the positive values it’s brought to the US market, our money is now worth about the same as the Canadian dollar. At the rate it’s falling, we’ll be on parity with the Mexican peso soon. Viva la NAFTA!

You can suggest that all this is a Bush-era occurrence but these forces were well into play in the second Clinton White House, where simple things like milk, butter and eggs nearly tripled in price from what they’d been when he took office in his second administration. Bush is a bumbling idiot but his predecessor was no paragon of brilliance himself. Thanks for NAFTA, Billary.

You can’t ship all of a country’s manufacturing to other countries and not pay the price eventually. Nearly all of the USA’s heavy industry is all gone today. This industry may be made up of service trades but no country can build nearly all its future on service trades. Well, unless you are Luxembourg.

At least McDonalds has regular job openings, so my degree won’t go totally to waste.

M. Shappell