Sleeping-Bag Maker Tells Obama Job Creation Depends on Import Protection

[brentspeak]

It shouldn't just be sleeping bag production that should protected, though it's unlikely Obama will deter at all from his continuation of the White House's past 35-years' Wall Street-directed trade policies.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-05/sleeping-bag-maker-tells-obama-job-creation-depends-on-import-protection.html

By Mark Drajem - Aug 5, 2010 11:44 AM ET

Alabama sleeping-bag maker Harry Kazazian says President Barack Obama should live up to his pledge to help small businesses by making an exception in his simultaneous push for freer trade.

Kazazian says his company, Exxel Outdoors Inc., will add 50 jobs at its Haleyville factory in northern Alabama, provided the U.S. lifts an exemption that lets sleeping bags come in from Bangladesh without paying a 9 percent tariff. The Obama administration turned him down in an initial ruling, so Exxel is seeking help from Congress, where legislation to overturn the ruling was proposed today.

“I’m baffled by it,” Kazazian said of the administration’s position in a telephone interview. “Why should an American worker be put at a disadvantage to a foreign one?”

[ibegurpard]

1. perfect example of how they say one thing and do another

[Triana]

9. Exactly. They say *this* and DO *that*

Pretentious bullshit. I don't give a damn what they say - esp. Obama - but I AM looking at what he DOES. I'm not impressed and am hoping someone - an actual progressive or even someone near one, will run against him in 2012 - not holding my breath and given no other choice (ie: no other choice than a damn Repugnant) I'll vote (reluctantly) for his butt again. But I won't like it.

Costa Rica is looking better all the time.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. I guess the White House is concerned about losing all those exports

of american made goods to Bangladesh!

By the way, weren't we supposed to be doing a brisk export trade with China & Mexico as a result of free trade & NAFTA too?

[grantcart]

3. Perhaps because we want to keep high paying high skilled jobs selling

high value exports to Bengladesh

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSDHA11051320080315


Bangladesh to buy 8 Boeing planes for $1.265 bln


DHAKA | Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:24am EDT

DHAKA March 15 (Reuters) - Biman Bangladesh Airlines signed a deal on Saturday to buy eight aircraft from Boeing Co (BA.N) worth $1.265 billion, a company official said.

"Senior officials of Biman and Boeing authorities have signed the deal at Biman's headquarters in Dhaka today" Mahbub Jamil, Chairman of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Limited, told reporters.

Boeing had offered to supply eight planes -- four Boeing 777-300 and four Boeing 787-8 by 2013 and 2017 respectively -- to the Bangladesh national carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines Limited.

Biman will fund the purchase from its own resources and through bank loans, another official said.

[ibegurpard]

6. Oh is Boeing going to retrain and hire all the people

who've worked in industries such as these in this country?
Got enough of those high paying jobs for all of us?

[Hello_Kitty]

12. Oh didn't you know? Boeing hearts H1b visas.

[pampango]

4. Damn that FDR and his GATT->WTO! Reelect Smoot (R-UT) and Hawley (R-OR)!

They solved our problems once they can solve them again. ;)

"Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican, proposed legislation today that would help the company by cutting sleeping bags out of a program permitting duty-free imports from poor nations such as Bangladesh" (that sure sounds like a Democratic program, not one repubs would have come up with).

“Competition with low-wage countries is tough enough,” Sessions said in a statement. “We certainly don’t need to give foreign manufacturers any additional advantage.” (Jeff, you don't even want free trade with the EU where workers make more than they do here. The EU has a free trade agreement with Mexico and is negotiating one with Canada. Canadians and Europeans don't seem to be as afraid of the poor people of the world as we are-perhaps because they take care of their own people better than we do.)

"Per capita income in Bangladesh is less than $500 a year, according to the World Bank, making it one of the world’s poorest nations outside Africa. China accounts for 98 percent of U.S. imports of sleeping bags, valued at $64 million in 2009, according to the U.S. trade office. Importers from China must pay the 9 percent duty." (But it is the 2% that come from Bangladesh that Exxel can't compete with?)

[Hello_Kitty]

13. No one who has done a modicum of reading believes the Smoot Hawley b.s. eom

[pampango]

18. Not sure what "b.s." you're referring to exactly. They were both repubs, as was Hoover.

FDR campaigned against it in 1932, dismantled it when he was president and made sure it didn't come back after WWII by pushing the GATT to promote international trade.

[Hello_Kitty]

5. I see the race-to-the-bottomers have shown up. eom

[pampango]

8. But not the make-the-world-go-awayers.

Ain't labels grand. ;)

[w4rma]

10. Do you fit the description of a race-to-the-bottomer? (nt)

[pampango]

14. Do Europeans and Canadians? When people start using labels, it's harder to discuss

what works in other parts of the world or what has been tried before and didn't work.

Do I fit the description? No. Have I been called that? Sure, but labels are pretty easy to throw around and require no proof. (I wonder if all the "open borders-free trade" progressives in Europe get called that, too, by the right wingers who want to close borders and reinstate tariffs?)

It's a lot easier to label a poster than it is to respond to content, so that's often what happens.

[Hello_Kitty]

15. When people have drunk the Milton/Tom Friedman koolaid it's impossible to discuss.

Those of us who haven't drunk that koolaid can see what's going on pretty easily. The elites who run the world want all the money to themselves and for the remaining 99% to be living in hovels eating dirt.

[pampango]

16. Now a "drink the koolaid" post? Don't think Europeans want 99% living in hovels

and they trade more than we do. They apparently know how to distribute the benefits of trade more fairly in their societies than we do in ours. Trade can be beneficial (or Europeans with their public health care, strong unions, high taxes and strong social safety nets, wouldn't want more of it), but the benefits don't automatically accrue to everyone unless a society makes that happen.

You're entitled to your opinion (as I am to mine) - and I promise not to accuse you of drinking anyone's koolaid. :)

[Hello_Kitty]

17. Pampango, the elites want to fuck Europe's shit up too.

They want to fuck you, they want to fuck me.

The top .1% with all the money and everyone else living in in hovels eating dirt.

Sorry, I'm just not in the mood for Pollyanna Mary Sunshine Up Your Skirt bullshit today.

[pampango]

19. Finally, we agree. I'm sure Europe's elites want to screw them, too, but the people don't allow

them get away with it. Their elites are no more inherently altruistic than ours are. Any society that relies on altruistic elites to make life great for the average person is in a world of hurt in the long run. It is not the elites in Europe that have fashioned progressive societies it is the people who have insisted on it.

[Hello_Kitty]

11. Ain't plutocracy grand? eom

[Brickbat]

7. So fucking frustrating and disappointing.

[Vinca]

20. Harry ought to have his sleeping bags sewn in Alabama, hire more Americans

and charge a few bucks more per bag. Note to self: don't buy this guys Bangladeshi sleeping bags.