AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage, the state’s economic development commissioner, academic recruiters, business representatives and others are taking off for China this weekend for a week-long trade mission aimed at developing a market for Maine products in the world’s largest nation.
The State of Maine Trade Mission will be LePage’s first overseas trip as governor.
Representatives from the medical device, biotechnology, seafood and other sectors will be part of the delegation, according to a news release from the state Department of Economic and Community Development.
Recruiters from Maine schools and universities will also participate. According to the Department of Economic and Community Development, about 1,000 Chinese students are currently enrolled in Maine schools, mostly at the high school level. A small, but growing number of Chinese students are enrolled in Maine universities, according to the department.
The delegation will begin the week-long trip in Hong Kong and travel to Shanghai on Sept. 12.
Probably really going there to see what jobs he can ship to them to save money for big companies here in the US and Maine..
Read my mind as soon as I saw the headline
Betcha he’ll tell the Chinese what he thinks about them and their trade policies. Then he’ll come back and introduce Chinese working conditions to Maine businesses as the only way to get things done.
Great, embarrassing Maine throughout the United States wasn’t bad enough, now LePage is taking the show to the international stage. Can we just apologize to the people of China now, you know just a blanket apology to cover whatever LePage does or says that will show how much of a (insert favorite word for LePage here) he is?
”
Can we just apologize to the people of China now”
Mr. President? is that you?
Sean Hannity, is that you?
Hey Ancient, would you please post a link that shows Obama using the word “apologize”, or any other word that conveys an “apology” when speaking about America’s foreign policy?
Your arguments would be more persuasive if they were at least a little factual……
Hello
Rachel Maddow ….
Hi Rush,
Thanks for joining in. I knew you wouldn’t want to let the chance of spreading a little disinformation go by.
Why don’t YOU post that link that I asked Ancient to post.
He doesn’t seem to quite be able to find it.
I’m just interested in being factual.
Are you?
So please, find and post that link, OK?
And if you can’t put up, then maybe you should………….
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-23/asia/world_asia_afghanistan-burned-qurans_1_nato-troops-qurans-afghan-officials?_s=PM:ASIA
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-23/asia/world_asia_afghanistan-burned-qurans_1_nato-troops-qurans-afghan-officials?_s=PM:ASIA
So, you chose the U.S. troops burning all those Qurans as your example.
Is that really the best you can do?
Nice try at deflection, but we all know that what you were referencing in your original post was the tired accusations that Obama apologized for events that happened BEFORE he held office.
But if that’s the only lame example you have, and you insist on using it, then I wonder if you will constantly reference and criticize General Patraeus who also apologized for the same incident, or Gen. John Allen, supreme commander of NATO who also apologized for the Quran burning. Plus many other military and state department VIPs.
And if you are going to include apologies that occur for events that take place during the current term of a president, then don’t forget GW Bush apologizing for the Abu Ghraib incident or when he apologized when a US soldier used a Quran as target practice. Or Clinton’s apology to China when the US bombed their embassy in Belgrade. Or Reagan’s apology to France for winging their embassy when we bombed Libya.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2012/0228/Obama-apology-to-Afghans-for-Quran-burning-All-forgiven
Indeed if you check, you will find that all US presidents have had to apologize for something that has occurred DURING THEIR ADMINISTRATIONS.
But I’m sure that the only President who you criticize is Obama.
Why is that I wonder?
But if you’re looking for an apology that Obama gave for something that occurred BEFORE he took office, something that you conservatives have been asserting for 4 years – good luck, ’cause it NEVER happened.
you sound upset…
and in the article i referenced it clearly stated that he apologized.
you asked for proof, voila! proof.
Again, nice try at deflection.
How is that deflection?
you said:
“Hey Ancient, would you please post a link that shows Obama using the word “apologize”, or any other word that conveys an “apology” when speaking about America’s foreign policy?”
the link i posted says exactly that.
derp.
in case you didn’t know how to follow links though:
“Obama apologizes to Afghanistan for Quran burning”
what more do you want?
there’s the proof.
nice try at weaseling your way out of what you said. lol.
Wrong again. No weaseling going on here.
But deflection yes.
And you know it.
lol, you have yet to refute the evidence i posted, so it’s not deflection. you’re trying to negate the proof.
and you know it.
On that you are correct Ancient – I can not refute the “evidence” you posted.
But I do refute any claim that you even remotely were referencing THAT “evidence” in your original post.
Be honest, Mr A. What your original comment was about was that tired Republican accusation that we’ve been hearing since the 2008 campaign that Obama “apologized for America”.
My reply and challenge was for you to find “evidence” that supports that 4 year assertion, not something that happened 6 months ago.
The idea that you were actually even aware of this headlines existence before you stumbled on to it, is ludicrous.
But you present your “evidence” as if it in some way represents your original intent.
We both know it did not.
That is the deflection.
The Republican Governor of Maine, Paul Lepage, is sponsoring a trip by big business, industry and education to China to beg for ….. (you fill in the blank). …
Hey … what about the rest of us? Why do they go to the head of the line? I suppose we just call the Chinese directly if we’ve got something to sell or offer them… O.K.
Thanks for setting the precedent, Mr. Republican Governor of Maine.
Where were you and the other libs when Baldacci made that same trip?
To achieve and to accomplish, one must possess brains and
ambition: lacking both, they will continue to whine.
Pursue policies that keep a tight lid on anything that resembles economic growth and then demonize business for not hiring and keeping unemployment high.
Don’t come back Governor.
PLEASE STAY THERE
How dare you! How dare you inflict LePage on the Chinese people. Regardless of what anyone thinks of them one way or the other, they deserve better than LePage.
Send Eliot Cutler !
I just can’t wait to see how much intellectual property Paulie goes and gives the Chinese access to in the name of economic development. What Paulie needs to do is bring TO MAINE both production and purchase contract’s, not just promise’s and agreement’s to ‘further relations leading to more meeting’s’. It’s bad enough that the Chinese got a ton of information out of us a year ago regarding the building of timber and log home’s that hasn’t benefited Maine. All the Chinese did was play us for sucker’s and took the information and ran. Now they’re building, with our plan’s and technologies and method’s, and Maine hasn’t seen dollar one from that deal aside from the transfer fee’s and export liscense’s. Maine needs a lot more and expects more. Whether Paulie and his circus caravan can deliver is the real question. And that question is going to go a very long way in the upcoming State election’s, not to mention the Country as well.
A first! the words intellectual and Paul LePage used in the same sentence.
Used, yes. But also abused since that’s all that Paulie seems to be able to do to Maine as far as his supposed position is used for. Maine has huge amount’s of intellectual property and business methods here. The mere thought of LePage taking some of Maine’s most important resource’s to a country that has a history of stealing any idea not nailed down or made iron-clad proprietary under contract law is enought o make me go looking for an airline ‘baggie’. Maine already got the shaft last year and yet we are dumb enough to go looking for it ? China must be licking their chop’s at what they see as easy picking’s coming to them. The only question now is how much damage is this trip gonna do and how much are we as a State gonna have to pay to fix it ?
Yes, but note that intellectual applies to property (IP) and not necessarily to LePage.
So, we have become so desperate here in Maine that we need to solicit business from a COMMUNIST nation? Or does anyone even care anymore? Is communism good or bad these days? I can’t keep up. Do we need anymore proof of how low we have sunk?
Republicans continue to completely ignore how corrupt it is at the top of the corporate ladder, how politicians are bribed, how democracy is destroyed, and how we don’t live in anything at all like a free market, not even by Adam Smith’s standards.
Maybe the biggest accomplishment of Big Business is how it has successfully become Big Brother by harnessing the anger of white males and channeling it into rage against the poor–meanwhile continuing to fleece the middle class, which is rapidly disappearing, even as the wealthy have quadrupled their wealth.
Yup, the people will be laughing inside in China…….yet another overweight American. What would he possibly believe he can accomplish there besides a free trip at our expense? They don’t want to buy products from us except for our land and investments. We should all just buy American made products. Support your country even if it means a few extra bucks. Hit them where it hurts.
… along with the anger of women. I was talking to an elderly woman today who is raging against the poot. I asked her if she had thought about the scores upon scores of types of jobs that no longer exist; she had not. She mentioned seniors living on a “fixed income.” I asked her to consider that a whole lot of people live on “fixed” incomes of $5,000, and more per month. And, it is one thing to be living on a “fixed income,” and own your own property and dwelling, as opposed to those who worked every job they could get because it was a job, did it well, and are trying to figure out how to buy groceries and pay rent.
NAFTA is your answer…………………
The governor would be the first one to call labor unions a bunch of commies, now he is going to canoodle with a bunch of commies! lol. Have a safe trip, comrade.
I hope he can keep his mouth closed and refrain from saying anything damaging to either Maine or the US.
I hope they really mean “trade” as in the exchange of goods, not as in the outsourcing of jobs. The last thing we need to see traded are more American jobs.
People have a right to earn a living wage. Perhaps you favor the philosophy that regards workers as expendable, with little more worth than slave labor.
Uh, governor you’re still running in reverse. China doesn’t buy from us, we buy from them. Where have you been for the last couple of decades?
hence the point of the trip.
to get china to buy our stuff.
With all his money he must not shop at walmart=100% made in china
He must think the Chinese are having a huge “scratch and dent” sale for when he resumes his private sector business in another two years.
Maine exports to China:
https://www.uschina.org/public/exports/2000_2011/maine_2011.pdf
Yes, a sizable increase since Obama took office…
It actually starts with the beginning of the LePage administration. Interestingly, the same and even better trend can be noted with the start of the Haley administration in South Carolina.
https://www.uschina.org/public/exports/2000_2011/south_carolina_2011.pdf
Being open for business is a common slogan among the “return to business” governorships in this country.
Incidentally, what do you think Obama did to cause such a boost in exports to China?
This data is interesting, but entirely incomplete. Rather than marveling at the millions they import from Maine it would be far more interesting to see this data plotted against how much the US imports from China that was once produced in our state. Would put this data in the proper context. I suspect we would see what we all already know – that the imbalance is staggering.
That would be interesting but it would not diminish the significant increases in exports we have been seeing the past couple of years.
True. But that significant increase likely does not even put a dent in the significant loss of jobs and security for countless families in Maine. On balance we have been on the loosing side of this equation and likely will continue to be until the playing field is more level.
You might be hard pressed to put all the blame on China for Maine’s woes.
True. Our free trade policies have helped lots of countries at Maine’s expense.
Can you support that assertion? How many jobs have been lost in Maine due to foreign imports?
According to the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AMM) Maine has lost 9,545 jobs to China since they entered the World Trade Organization ten years ago. The AAM attributes job exportation to China’s unfair economic subsidies, labor exploitation and currency manipulation. The organization reported that nearly 1.5 percent of Maine’s job losses were the result of trade with China.
I suspect without too much difficulty I could also find substantiation for trade inequities that have favored Canada as well.
I am not 100% sure, but I believe even Romney believes our trade policies need fixing to address employment. Didn’t I hear him say in his acceptance speech that fixing American trade policies was one of his key points in his plan to create 12 million jobs?
I’m not arguing against trade balance policies. I argue instead for increasing exports to China which Maine is doing. That dramatic increase over the past couple of years creates or makes existing jobs in Maine more secure. Maine’s biggest export product is pulp and paper. The challenge now is to explore other areas of the economy that can provide export shipments to grow this balance.
edited to add: The AMM is one of their own worse enemies. We lost a significant part of the steel industry in this country because of antiquated work rules and excessive labor cost.
Lets see, how do you get your people to work for 25 cents an hour with no benefits? Please tell uncle Pauli.
Why would they buy anything from us? They can make anything they want.
Hope he stays there for the rest of his term… Just like he moved to CANADA to avoid the Vietnam draft…
ROMNEY / RYAN 2012 !!!
You probably had to laugh when you read this very astute comment posted below:
“Lets see, how do you get your people to work for 25 cents an hour with no benefits? Please tell uncle Pauli.”
When GWB became president and very cleverly started wars and got serious about helping his rich friends loot our great country, I tried to build some solar hot water panels and solar photovoltaic panels because I knew the price of oil was going to go through the roof.
Now, because we have been told that the Chinese government has been subsidizing the Chinese solar photovoltaic industry, it is much cheaper to install a solar photovoltaic system than it was 6 or 8 years ago and the price seems to be dropping every day.
Although I’m pretty handy with my solar hot water heating system, which is now even warming my cellar floor, I know nothing about solar electricity.
Some homemade photovoltaic panels that I made, along with some I bought from a friend for $230 (which are still leaning on the henhouse wall because in several years I haven’t found anyone either willing or able to plug them into the CPM grid), can now be bought factory made brand new for a hundred bucks or so.
Many people got into trouble buying homes for $150,000 that quickly dropped in value by half, even as they lost their jobs. So if you didn’t buy a house then, you could pick up some bargains now, although the former home owners are broke, jobless and out on the street.
By the same token if you didn’t put in a photovoltaic solar system 4 years ago, we hear that, thanks to the Chinese government’s subsidy to Chinese industry, it costs much less to install a photovoltaic system here today. Although we don’t want anything to do with the evil communists in Cuba, most everything we buy in a store today has been subsidized by a communist government that will eventually have your job — unless you are in Congress or are working in a fast food restaurant.
As the solar technology improves, even though the oil companies in particular and corporate America in general deprecate the use of free solar energy and are doing everything they can to curb the science, research will continue in progressive countries which means that the initial cost of going solar and getting free heat and electricity from the sun is very likely to keep dropping.
Because at least half of our friends and neighbors believe that our oil and coal will last forever and that investing in solar technology is a waste of taxpayer money, don’t expect to see too many
solar related jobs created here. You and I have seen people stand up and cheer when solar related companies fail in this country because just mentioning “solar energy” pushes all kinds of buttons, depending upon your political orientation.
Too many rich Americans want us to buy everything from the companies they own in China.
“Lets see, how do you get your people to work for 25 cents an hour with no benefits? Please tell uncle Pauli.”
The humble Farmer
Buy American made everybody!!
What is the cost of the entire trip? Also, there is no need to recruit foreign students; there is no shortage. But how much does this expense contribute to the cost of tuition and expenses for Maine, and other U.S. citizen students?
Too, the potential for cultural gaffs here is mind-boggling, as others have said.
Somehow, despite the headline, I find myself doubting that Governor LePage took actual businesses with him on this trip. Businesspeople, maybe.
Good news, He can’t speal chinese and will have an interpreter to spealk for him.
This is all quite ironic. Lepage hates the Chinese. He blew a tube when he was told that the company that bought the mill in Woodland were from China. He thought they were from Japan. He made the statement that he did not want them in Maine. Well, lets see how this time bomb of a visit goes! Any bets how long it will take him to create an international incident?
I hope they have media coverage here of his visit. His diplomatic behavior would be interesting to see. Like when they give him monkey brains for dinner.
Great…we’ll be at war with China by next Wednesday.
We can’t fight them. We gave them the manufacturing that built most of our weapons. We would have to place an order for more first.
Oh so true. Just go look at the HUMMER production line’s that the Military has to order thru. Is it a wonder why the Israeli’s didn’t order from Limestone when they had the chance ? Who’s going to give them a better price ? And Paulie think’s he can negotiate with these people ? Someone please get him a drug test before this group goatrope festival goes any further !
I wonder who’s paying for this trip to visit our good bedfellows, The Communist? They have already gotten most of what Maine has to offer. Of course, we can trust LePage…yah…right.
Hope he can bring back some of those jobs the lefty candidate for governor sent over there.
The Chinese will no doubt view LePage as a primitive barbarian.
Well lt us look at it this way, which is more positive. For the next week the stench that comes from Augusta will be reduced to zero and may have a positive affect on us all!!!
Whatever The Great Gov is peddling over in China, it will certainly not bode well for the average Maine wage earner, or the poor, or the retired Mainer on SS, if you do not have a portfolio of at least 200,000.00, you basically are not welcome in Maine.
Recruiters from universities going, Oh Gawd, is Botman on this trip??
I remember Nixon’s ping pong diplomacy, I wish it had never happened.
How much is it costing the taxpayers for his China vacation?
Here’s hoping that LePage bought a one way ticket!
This trip to China is not okay. NOT. It is time we all join together in USA and create the jobs needed here…… The unions have to be more cooperative if this was to take place. I go out of my way to not buy anything made in China. Gov. should stay here and save our tax money and use that travel expense voucher to start creating jobs in Maine.