12.03.2007

Link Dumping is Easier Than Writing

I don't really know enough about NAFTA to formulate an opinion on it one way or another. I don't think I'm alone here. It's pretty difficult terrain.

So I read today's Washington Post editorial criticizing Democrat candidates for denouncing NAFTA with an open mind. Maybe I'll learn something!

Oh, silly me.

The American Prospect
(h/t Ezra Klein) rips the piece to shreds. It's absolutely shameful. The piece fails to adjust for inflation when looking at Mexico's economic growth. This is indescribably crazy. (Shame on me for not immediately catching this.) Worse yet, this goes beyond incompetence of the Post's editorial board. This is dishonesty.

As Ezra points out, "remarkably the editorial gets worse from there, cherrypicking poverty statistics, ignoring GDP growth, sidestepping distribution, and so on, and so forth."

Now, I don't really care about NAFTA. I mean, I care about the American worker and all that jazz, but NAFTA doesn't fire me up as much as it should. If NAFTA supporters and detractors want to go at it in the comments, by all means go nuts. My issue is with a newspaper with a national presence being so irresponsible and resorting to a variety of half-truths. I'd almost prefer they go back to writing about eagles.

9 comments:

  1. Well at least we can all still unite against Iran and their nukes.

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  2. NAFTA was one of the main reason's for the collapse of the peso, and thus the reason for the crazy influx of undocumented foreigners. The way to solve our immigration problem is to strike it at it's source. Not by building a giant fence and hoping they don't have wirecutters in Mexico, but by withdrawing from NAFTA.
    I find it funny the article doesn't even mention Kucinich, who says the first day he's in office he'll call up Mexico and Canada and tell them it's over. Oh yeah, he's a second tier candidate! Why bother?! [/sarcasm]

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  3. "NAFTA was one of the main reason's for the collapse of the peso."

    Right, Ron Paul. Because the peso was going so strong pre-1990's. NAFTA was't in effect until 1994. The Mexican peso was already undergoing a crisis at that point.

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  4. Rick, you're way way way way way off buddy. The peso is, was and always has been fucked. I grew up in Texas and trust me, the peso has always been fucked and the immigrants have been coming from Mexico for a long time now. Longer than any of us have been around, I'm sure.

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  5. mal-

    And if not Iran, then at least we'll always have North Korea. I mean, if Kim Jong-Il's hair can't keep us united, then what will???

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Nick: The little I read of your documentation shows that the Mexico's economy was never ideal in the first place. Did NAFTA make a bad situation a little worse? Perhaps. But there is no way that NAFTA, in and of itself, is to blame for all of the peso's woes. Still not buying it buddy. We can just agree to disagree.

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