US Chamber Of Commerce against Made In USA provisions

[Joesunionreview]

Full story at http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2009/02/us-chamber-of-commerce-against-made-in.html">Joe's Union Review

The concept it (US Chamber of Commerce) fails to grasp is that there already is a trade war and the United States is being severely beaten.-Craig Harrington from video

The US Chamber of Commerce is a private group and is not a Federal agency, they lobby for the needs of the largest US corporations.

Besides being completely anti-union and staunchly against The Employee Free Choice Act, the US Chamber Of Commerce is one of the biggest lobbyist of unadulterated free trade. It is very unfortunate because the idea behind the Chamber of Commerce would be a good one if they just weren't trying to rape the American public and workforce. This is in no way a slight to the more favorable regional Chamber's who's members are local businesses, but on the top, the US COC, the needs of the Wal-Mart's, the McDonald's, the Home Depot's and their like minded ilk are priority number one.

Video is from an article at Economy in crisis entitled "http://www.economyincrisis.org/articles/show/2393">Chamber of Commerce Leading Congress Astray"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFSXtWrZGEg&eurl=http://populistdemocrats.blogspot.com/2009/01/chamber-of-commerce-leading-congress.html">Video Link for my text readers

The economics policy institutes adds in "http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/big_business_lobbies_for_importers/#When:17:58:37Z">Big business lobbies for importers":

Multinational companies such as http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012804002_pf.html">General Electric and Caterpillar, and their allies in the Chamber of Commerce, are attacking “Buy American” provisions included in the economic recovery bill passed by the House on January 28th. They claim that these provisions will provoke a “trade war” with foreign governments, but foreign governments have long histories of supporting their own domestic companies. These companies are self-interested, simply wanting unlimited access to imports, many of which are illegally subsidized and unfairly traded. U.S. and foreign multinational companies (MNCs) were responsible for nearly two-thirds of all U.S. imports in 2006, as shown in the chart below. U.S. firms led the way with $678 billion in imports, 36.4% of all U.S. goods imports. Foreign MNCs pulled in an additional $482.4 billion in goods, 25.6% of the U.S. import bill.

Companies like Caterpillar, which will benefit from billions of dollars of infrastructure spending in the stimulus package, want unfettered access to cheap steel from countries like China, which poured more than http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/energy-subsidies-in-china-jan-8-08.pdf">$15 billion into energy subsidies into that sector in 2007 alone. http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/steel_industry_hit_hard/">Chinese steel imports more than doubled between January and November, while U.S. steel production fell nearly 40%. http://www.uschamber.com/issues/priorities/govtcontracting.htm">The Chamber of Commerce, which also opposes further “Buy American” provisions, represents the interests of U.S. companies like Caterpillar and IBM as well as foreign multinationals like Toyota and Siemens, all represented on its board of directors. Congress has finally realized that what’s good for big business is not always good for America, and that new rules are needed to rein in runaway corporations. That’s real progress.

You can read the rest http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2009/02/us-chamber-of-commerce-against-made-in.html">here <-Joe's Union Review
and read more about the topic at http://www.economyincrisis.org/">Economy In Crisis

[terisan]

1. I think a buy American requirement is needed at this point. nt

[myrna minx]

2. The US chamber of Commerce ran a huge, sleazy campaign against card check and Al Franken

this past year. It was rather shocking. K&R.

[safeinOhio]

3. The only fair trade is balanced trade

Sell a dollars worth of goods to us, buy a dollars worth of goods from us. That would force others to pay a living wage to their workers in order to develop their own markets for goods. Every one wins, except multinational corporations. Too bad for them.