Not Much is Fair About Free Trade
By the Milwaukee Journal

Tax consequences are far less for foreign countries

There is a big difference between "Fair Trade" and "Free Trade". Free Trade means that China and others pay substantially less in taxes to do business in the U.S. than American companies.

It means they are free to use the strength of the dollar to close our manufacturing facilities and put millions of workers out of work. It means they are free to ignore patent and trademark laws and protections. Free trade means that China and others are free to ignore the environment and dump toxins into the water and air which soon will affect our air and weather and eventually our coasts. And free trade means foreign competitors are free to disregard trade agreements by closing their countries to U.S. products.

"Fair trade", on the other hand, would equalize the tax burdens of our domestic producers and competing imports. It would price the dollar at its fair trade value. It would enforce trademark, patent, and environmental laws and enforce trade agreements.

Fair trade would reward those companies that innovate, cut costs and invest in productivity. Fair Trade would achieve all the goals that Free Trade advocates espouse.

Until we ensure Free Trade is also Fair Trade, we are putting our economic future in peril.  (More)

Summitville Tiles
Source: Summitville.com
The Summitville Story dates back to 1912 when a share of stock in the company sold for 50 dollars, when shale and clay were dug by steam shovel, when beehive kilns were loaded by hand and fired by coal…and when the offices of the Summit Brick Company were housed in the old abandoned C & P Railroad Station.

 F. H. Johnson came to Summitville in 1920 and converted operations over to the manufacture of face brick. Soon his Summitville Face Brick Co. was flourishing…well known for its deep red colored bricks known as “Summitville Reds”.

 Following World War II, a second generation joined the company. And by 1947, Fred and Pete Johnson renamed the company Summitville Tiles and began to produce quarry tile in a wide variety of colors and shapes. A second quarry tile plant was purchased in 1965, doubling the company’s output.

In 1980, Summitville Laboratories was launched to produce a full line of tile installation materials…from latex mortars and grouts to chemical resistant epoxies and seamless epoxy floor systems, and more!

A third generation of the Johnson family took the reigns of the company in the mid 1980’s and today brothers Bruce and Dave Johnson are at the helm.  Under their direction, the company is refocusing itself back to the core product lines for which the company is best known: premium grade quarry tiles, acid-resistant industrial floor brick, precision-cut thin brick and installation materials that go with these product lines.

Efforts are under way at the company to modernize and expand the output of kilns, to enhance the shade control of the tile and brick products before they are fired and to increase production flexibility…all to better serve the customer.

And new product lines are in development…such as a new line of frost resistant ceramic roof shingles, with all the trims.  In conjunction with the development of this new product line, Summitville has supplied roof shingles for a number of installations…from the 1850’s Victorian home of Senator Mike DeWine to several dormitories at Berry College near Atlanta, Georgia.

Summitville Tiles will celebrate its 95rd birthday in 2007…making it one of the nation’s oldest continuously operating tile manufacturers and the only surviving charter member of the industry’s national trade association, the Tile Council of America.  Summitville Tiles has withstood the test of time.   And, it is poised for a bright future.