Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	4/12/2005

Local Triad Honchos Set Up to Pump CAFTA

Sorry for the late notice but none of the Triad area chamber of commerce types I know got an advance notice on tomorrow's North Carolina Manufacturing Summit: A Call to Action confab at the Koury Convention Center. Since the event is sponsored by NAM and our state affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce who are on a national campaign to quietly badger US Congressmen in to voting for CAFTA, I am not surprised.

I could not find any promos for this high dollar 9:30-3:30 event at the N&R website, but I am certain one of their reporters has been set up to come out and get the NAM/US Chamber party pitch on why CAFTA is important to North Carolina manufacturing. I predict quotes from Gary Smith at Cone Mills or Alan Gant at Glen Raven Mills claiming, "A vote against CAFTA is a vote for China."

Some of the same people who pushed spending hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to bring Dell to the Triad are now going to be explaining why US companies need similar deals in Central America...except that because the people down there are too poor, the subsidies will again come from US taxpayers.

Sidebar:

Oh, by the way did I miss all the articles on how Dell disapointed local suppliers the other week in their local area supplier conference with the news that our local suppliers will get no preferential treatment for the sourcing Dell plans to do to support their new plant? (In fact, since local suppliers are the ones subsidizing Dell they may in reality be at a disadvantage versus their competitors from outside the area.)

That was actually not the biggest disappointment however. The biggest disappointment was (shock) Dell basically only needs local suppliers for lawn care and toilet cleaning services. No chip manufacurers, no hard drive manufactures, basically no manufacturing period. Just a few suppliers that make the packaging and boxes all the imported components will be shipped out in.

UPDATE:

Well, no "A vote against CAFTA is a vote for China" comments. The event was low key on trade issues other than to point out that those against "Free" trade agreements are protectionists and Governor Engler as Pres of NAM asking that trade agreements such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement be passed. (He avoided saying CAFTA I think because it rhymes with NAFTA. The US Chamber of Commerce people have observed that many people's eye's roll back in their heads when they hear the word NAFTA.)

Actually, it was rather difficult to understand just what the purpose of the event was. At least there was certainly no clear "Call to Action" as billed in the promo. The only message I seemed to be able to pick up was that more money should be spent on the State Department of Commerce and on our government school system but that the large corporations looking to locate in North Carolina should be given waivers (incentives) on having to pick up their share of the tab for this...It's how we stay competitive.

7:19:21 PM

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