Cafta

[Dazeal]

CAFTA(Central American Free Trade Agreement): Bush said Congress needs to ratify the Central American and Dominican Republic free trade agreement because it "is a good deal for American workers and farmers and small businesses." He said it would "level the playing field by making about 80% of American exports to those countries duty-free" and will open up a market of about 44 million consumers to U.S. products.

What are your feelings on this in our Industry?

I know this is old news, but I heard something today I thought I'd share with you. PF is waiting for this to developed and will, in fact, be shipping al their product from a farm, from Latin America. I suspected this awhile back.

Epic is doing some testing out of Columbia right now. There is a third party corporation who contracts through the government and US customs who checks the good in Columbia and ships them direct to an address in the US. This company is set up at the foreign airport, you guessed it, right next to FedEx/UPS.

I feel sorry for US farmers and wholesalers. Kind of like the beef industry in the late 80's and Brazil. Ahhhh capitalism.. keep eating your tail.

Please do not attack Bush or his administration, this isn't to point fingers, I'm sure any president we had would of done the same or something similar. So please don't turn this into a political flame war.


P.S. I wonder how we will regulate products that use DDT on the flowers down south. I know is is illegal to use it in the US, but we sure do make a lot of it and send on down south. But the more I think about it.. how do we regulate it now? I wonder how many roses I get in have had DDT used on them. Anyone have any % facts?

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

DDT is....

illegal to use in the US, but, I don't think there are any rules against importing product that contains/or has been treated with it!!
On a side note.....there has been a dramatic rise in deaths amongst florists across North America, along with a major rise in importing directly from south and mid America's.....any correlation you think??....

 

[hcflorist]

Looks like even the little foreign governments have figured out that it's a whole lot cheaper and more profitable to "buy" our politicians than to try to fight us on a "level" playing field. And it's working. We've got the best government that money can buy. Only bad part is, Americans are being outbid right and left.

And anybody who thinks getting us on a "level playing field" with third world countries (or any country, for that matter) is a good thing is either "bought and paid for" or nuts. In the case of the current crop of politicians in D.C., I'd say it is rather obviously more of the former than the latter.

We'll NEVER be on a level playing field so long as we're represented by politicians who're finding it more profitable to represent other countries than to represent their own constituents. Other countries have "tariffed" our products to protect their own industries for years. Have we done them same? Nope.

The ONLY "level playing field" I'd be in favor of would be tariffing all incoming products to a level equivalent to what the cost of manufacture would be in the U.S.A. with OUR workers' needed standards of living, OUR environmental laws, OUR OSHA laws, OUR labor laws, and OUR tax systems. Until and unless we do that, we'd better advise our children to look forward to a LOT less than what we've had. Cause we and our children are being sold out and legislated out by "our" politicians right and left.

 

[hcflorist]

He said it would "level the playing field by making about 80% of American exports to those countries duty-free" and will open up a market of about 44 million consumers to U.S. products.

44 Million impoverished people in Third World countries will NEVER be a market for U.S. products. Unless their governments and their corrupt officials can bribe our politicians and our corrupt officials into continuing to reduce us to below their levels, that is.

Simply put, this is nothing more than an attempt to capture a cheap "slave" labor source for big national and multi-national businesses who want to avoid our bureaucracy and it's costs of production while fattening their own bank accounts at the expense of America, it's taxpayers, and its workers.

It's nothing more than a thinly-veiled additional source for "oursourcing".

 

[ROBSWF]

It's nothing more than a thinly-veiled additional source for "oursourcing".

Agreed!!! and it's called corporate Greed!!

 

[Kristine]

Simply put, this is nothing more than an attempt to capture a cheap "slave" labor source for big national and multi-national businesses who want to avoid our bureaucracy and it's costs of production while fattening their own bank accounts at the expense of America, it's taxpayers, and its workers

So true, but it is the American consumer who wants and buys cheap products from companies like WalMart and that fuels the engine.

Many of the plant producers (ecke, fischer, goldsmith etc) that produces your blooming plants now are doing most of their cutting production off shore. Much cheaper to pay Juan pennies than John dollars for the same work. But of course they needed to cut costs because of cheap pricing by the box stores and their refusal to grant growers a living price for their product.

Hope we all like to eat beans and rice

 

[Dazeal]

Great posts Charlie! See we agree on some things