🚀 go-pugleaf

Lane Wimberley wrote:

> Danny Low wrote:
> >
> > David............ says...
> > >   Thompson Electronics is the owner of RCA.  They are moving because
> > >they are losing money trying to compete with other companies that are
> > >using the NAFTA agreement to import their less expensive TVs into the
> > >USA.
> >
> > Thompson Electronics is a French company that has been in financial trouble for
> > many years due to bad management and French government restrictions intended to
> > maintain employment in France. It is highly questionable to blame NAFTA for
> > this move as the company was losing money due to many other causes. Indeed,
> > without NAFTA it is reasonable to assume that they would have simply shut down
> > the plant or moved it to Asia. With NAFTA some of the money is coming back to
> > the USA in the form of Mexican shoppers. The NAFTA plants are all located just
> > across the border and the workers frequently shop in the USA because there are
> > more shopping centers in the USA and they can afford to shop in the USA.

> To what extent has their competitiveness been hampered by
> EPA retrictions in the U.S. -- was this the primary reason for
> the move?  If so, I hate to imagine what's happening down there
> along the Rio Grande.
>

For what it's worth, there was a segment on the TV last week, ABC News if I recall
correctly, but it seems that the soft-coal-fired powerplants across the Rio Grande
from the Big Bend National Park have so fouled the air that the visibility is less
than in Los Angeles on a smog-alert day. The local residents, a far-scattered and in
general hardy bunch, have at last banded together to petition the Powers That Be to
pressure Mexico to do something about the horrific pollution, which in the Big Bend
region at least, is the premeire export from Mexico - not tourist dollars, not
produce, not cheap appliances... just daily tons and tons of sulfur dioxide,
fly-ash, and other airborne particulate emissions.


> --
> Lane Wimberley
> Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation
> Austin, TX