By ENGR101.com Staff
Published January 24, 2012

Three questions to ask every candidate for high public office in 2012 are (1) “Are you a NAFTA advocate?” (2) “Will you work to abolish NAFTA? and (3) “Will you work to audit and then abolish the Federal Reserve?”

Millions of people are being foreclosed out of their homes. Many are simply walking away from the debt. And who can blame them? As foreclosure of homes began, bankers holding the loans had to ask themselves “what if the underlying value of the collateral on those homes is zero?”

Why are so many Florida homes worthless?  Why should so many houses be abandoned and demolished?  The reason is that by using NAFTA protections, China was able to sell tons of dangerous drywall to American homebuilders who used it for the walls and ceilings of tens of thousands of homes throughout Florida and elsewhere.  Trying to replace the defective material costs more than the house is worth.

Probably everyone has heard about, or been adversely impacted by, the bursting of the US housing bubble, the economic collapse, the loss of jobs; and the resulting financial trauma inflicted on the nation’s economy as a result of the subprime mortgage loans that were packaged and sold through Wall Street brokerage firms and investment banks.

It was those bad loans that resulted in the Federal Reserve and President Barack Obama working together to bail out the financial elites, the New York banks, the international banks and AIG to the tune of trillions of dollars.  (For the brief documented history on how Pres. Obama, Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and others were involved in those illegalities, read Chapter 13 of the new book “Ron Paul is Right: Rick Perry is No Conservative.” )

Why shouldn’t the gamblers who bought and sold those loans be made to pay instead of the taxpayers?  After all, a gambling contract is legally unenforceable in most states.  For that matter, why shouldn’t the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank with vast sums of money and resources it confiscates worldwide, be required to pay back the money it wasted in other countries, to the US treasury, from its own assets?

Another idea being floated around the construction and real estate industry is to force China to pay the U.S. Treasury for the junk building materials that China has imported into the United States.  That money could be used by the US government, at no cost to taxpayers, to slice principal and suspend interest payments on houses in Florida and other states to stabilize the local housing markets and make homebuyers nationwide threatened with foreclosure “whole again” with positive equity.

Where necessary, it could also be used to buy out the mortgages from the homeowners, let people leave with no blemish on their credit, and the houses then be demolished.

The proponents of such an idea note that it is an example of true capitalism: Take a risk with selling junk to suckers and then get sued, or otherwise sell a good product that people will buy and have no reason to sue.  If China wants to engage in the capitalistic system, it must also suffer the consequences of selling junk products, including building products, to suppliers in the United States.  And the homeowners, states or federal government would not even need to file a lawsuit against China.  Just use the claim to offset much of the debt that the US owes to China.

According to Homeowners of Texas, beginning in 2004, Florida building product distributors bought NAFTA-cheap Chinese drywall by the shipload for use in housing construction. The gypsum mined for use in drywall also contains sulfur.  US companies filter out the sulfur; but companies in China, Mexico and elsewhere do not — in order to maximize profits at the expense of public safety and the environment.  NAFTA forbids US engineers and architects from specifying “buy American” standards and allows US companies to buy dangerous and junk products from other countries.

American homebuilders, trying to shave as much expense as possible off the cost of a new house, particularly in Florida, paid little attention to the dangerous Chinese drywall they were installing in new houses. Chinese drywall corrodes metal and makes homeowners sick. Sulfur gas given off by Chinese drywall has been blamed for foul smells, health problems, corroded copper pipes and wires, and depreciated home values.  Corroded copper pipes can cause plumbing leaks and corroded copper wiring can cause electrical fires.  And if the gas can corrode metals, consider what could be happening to human lungs and health.

Building material retailers Home Depot and Lowes say they have verified that they never bought any Chinese drywall, so the problem seems to be isolated to big volume builders that bought the material in bulk – by the rail car or shipping container.

There are an estimated 100,000 homes in Florida and over 300,000 homes in other states that apparently have no value whatsoever as a result of the use of Chinese drywall. Mortgage holders now recognize that the value of the land is their only real security, and that value can be realized only after paying the costs of scraping the house from the land and transporting the materials to a permitted dump site.

China continues to ship their dangerous drywall to Mexico from where it is trucked into the US and continues to be used in construction.  Under NAFTA, the Chinese get special privilege over US suppliers in that China’s manufacturers do not have to pay taxes.  Other non-US manufacturers take advantage of this loophole as well.  Meanwhile, suing in international courts is expensive and slow, and foreign governments such as China will not enforce damage judgments reached in U.S. courts.

Chinese trade policy involving Chinese drywall has resulted in billions, perhaps trillions of dollars in damages imposed on US homebuyers and lenders.

The US is trillions of dollars in debt to China.  Offsetting the damages caused by China’s dangerous drywall, from the debt the US owes China, would permit the US government to assist those homebuyers victimized by financial fraud on the part of their lenders; and would also go a long way toward alleviating the suffering in Florida and other states.  And this assistance would be at no additional cost to the US taxpayer.

In 2012, the American voters should frustrate the self-serving NAFTA-friendly politicians and “experts” that use the mainstream media to promote their foolish babble that “America will never have a manufacturing economy again.”  The American voter should vote for a new Congress in 2012 willing to abolish NAFTA. Abolishing NAFTA would not eliminate trade.  It would bring about “fair trade” and would help bring about new manufacturing, millions of new jobs and a rebirth of American ingenuity.

In addition, in order to really expand America’s horizons and future, the American voter should also elect a new president who advocates auditing and then abolishing the Federal Reserve.  That person, as most everyone in the US already knows, is Congressman Ron Paul.