The big problem in your argument is in what we export; most of it goes through pipes and wires. There is all this noise about our manufacturing, but that's a pittance compared to our resources.

Anybody who thinks that Free Trade is free should try to bring a few cases of their favourite hooch across the border.

BTW, Free Trade was never about trade. It has always been about moving capital to where the labour is cheapest and the regulations fewest.

[ 07 December 2003: Message edited by: Cougyr ]

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the world market dictates

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I approve of the term "dictates".

A market, even the world market, is a distribution of wealth. Goods are produced to respond to the purchasing power of that market.

The market reflects "needs" if and only if those needs have monetary resources at their disposal; otherwise, they do not count.

Those who think the market ought to dictate the availability of everything in the world are those who think that the world distribution of wealth is fair and equitable.

quote:

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Originally posted by Catus:
Conway, that is called the law of Supply and Demand. If the supply of labour is increased (via free-trade in this instance) then wages go down.
But what about the consequences of not having free trade?

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Exactly. The so-called free trade agreements were not really about trade. They are investment-protection agreements, and about protecting capital in its search for cheap labour.

"the world market dictates."

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But what about the consequences of not having free trade?

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What exactly do you suspect these consequences are, Catus? I'm not being flip here, I'm just curious.

I take issue with a few of your points. That competition breeds quality is not a truism. In countries (many South American countries for example) where the World Bank necessitated that national industries be sold off to private interests, and that industry regulation be severely rolled back, the result was not competition but monopolistic ownership. In such an environment, competition is choked.

Secondly, one only needs to look at the big time economic collapses (Asia, Mexico) of the past 10-15 years to see that the un-regulated flow of foreign investment does not mean market certainty. If anything, the developing markets that survived panicky crashes of the 90s were the ones that regulated foreign investment (Chile).

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Look at the airline industry, for example, or public utilities.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SHH:
While there’s some debate as to the extent de-regulation lowered prices (versus, technology, eg) there is general agreement that airline travel prices are lower and De-Reg had something to do with it.

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Lower, my foot.

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Therefore when they experience their sought after improvements they set about the task of convincing us that it's an improvement for us too.

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:

And in a desperate attempt to cut costs to make up for the losses from their ill-conceived predatory strategy, they have of course trashed the workers. As usual. A relative of mine who's a flight attendant working for Air Canada has been utterly stressed lately by the awful working conditions, worsening schedules, and the minor proportion of her work for which she actually gets paid. Apparently while much of the work involves the preparation and the making sure everyone's in their seat and all that jazz, they only get paid from when the plane leaves the ground to when it touches down.

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Funny. Why do Businesses then engage in advertising? Why do they perform product research? Why did Chevrolet kick Ford's ass inthe late 1920s?

I hate to say this but allof you are economic, monetary, fiscal, budgetary numbskulls.

Back inthe not-so-magical landof Reality business ownders do not live in a vacuum where money pours in no matter if poor decisions are made or if consumers like the product.

And Conway, wages do go down, but so do prices. or do you think prices should be strictly regulated as well? I am serious. You seem to ascribe to malarkey dogma rather than simple facts.

i suppose we should stop letting third world nations attact our businesses. That would save us. oh wait, no it would not. it would trap us in a stale economy with overly expensive goods ( look at the EU's CAP, and Japan's price of rice). it would burden consumers with higher prices, and would severly curtail productivity.

And yes, Competition does breed excellence. Anyone who tells you different is an absolute moron, a liar, and a fraud. lets look at Canadian healthcare that literally SUCKS compared to US healthcare. Canada is behind in everything when it coems to medical care. Why is this? lackof competition and over-regulation by the government. England has to rely upon third rate doctors and spends the majority of its healthcare dollars on elderly care.

Lets look at nations that do not embrace free trade. Pick any central African nation. Poor as all get out. Why? Two reasons: government involvement in business and lack of open markets. hell, the Richest nation per capita, in median income and highest life expectancy in South America, Central America, and Sub-Saharan Africa is not Venezuela, or Brazil, or even Beautiful Cuba. It is Chile.

If you like starvation, old technology, death by disease, and other horrors that closed trade visits upon its practicioners then feel free to support Government Regulation and protections.

or maybe you could look at the Baltic States. They have so throuroughly embraced Free trade they were told by the EU they would have to curtail their success just to join!

Closing your market, regulation, and protectionism does not aid your economy. It has short term successes, sure enough, but inthe long term your shooting yourself inthe foot.

Do poor nations get scrwed by opening up to international trade? No, you can't even seriously make that argument.

Even UN statistics show that it is the least open nations that suffer from the most severe famines, suffer with the lowest growth, the worst technology, the weakest economies.
Naomi Klein might disagree but then again what the hell does she know? She thinks brand names are bad things

Third World nation's economies that open their markets grow from between 6 and 8%, wher as those who retain idiotic anti-liberty regualtions on trade grow at below one percent.
yeah, those Rich Business men sure are makinga killing but then again, so are consumers ( on prices) and employees (on wages).

when a certains ort of job disappears in an affluent nation and is shipped to say, indonesia, the indonesians get richer, have jobs, no longer have to heat their homes with Wood ( save the trees!!) can afford to send their kids to school etc. now our unemployed do not remain unemployed for long. Typical turnaround being about 6 months. They often move up the pay ladder ( proven fact, most people inpoverty typically end their lives in the to 20% of earners).

quote:

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Originally posted by Oliver Cromwell:
I think many of you are making the 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc' mistake of confusing timing with causality. If you want to demonstrate that NAFTA was the cause for the increase in a certain measure for income inequality (BTW, there are many, and none command universal aceptance), you'd have to show that nothing else that has occurred since NAFTA could be a possible cause. Same thing for airline deregulation and ticket prices. You have to show that there is no other potential explanation for an increase in ticket prices.

This requires careful statistical analysis and a rigourous theoretical framework. A laundry list of unpleasant statistics is not enough.

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Yeah right!

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Originally posted by Catus:

So keep preaching your anti-liberty religion, me, I will stick ot facts, reality and rationaility.

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If you're going to do this, then please backup

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lets look at Canadian healthcare that literally SUCKS compared to US healthcare. Canada is behind in everything when it coems to medical care. Why is this? lackof competition and over-regulation by the government.

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I got mine fixed free, and also got free rehabilitation.

He paid $6,000.00 US.

It was a huge blow to his annual income, and led to cutbacks in lots of other domestic areas.

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where exactly does the US have superiority to Canada in medicine?

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Originally posted by DownTheRoad:

A spinoff benefit of this for US residents is that access to specialists, new treatments, and advanced technology is much greater than in Canada.

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Ah here's the rub: The benefit is only for those lucky US residents who can afford it.

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The benefit is only for those lucky US residents who can afford it.

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1) Sensibily regulate the insurance biz to prevent "cherry picking" customers and disallow exclusion of necessary treatments. Healthy people would pay a bit more than now, and those with medical problems a lot less.
2) Make health insurance mandatory, same as car insurance.
3) Subsidize health insurance for those of modest means.

End of problem, and no government healthcare monopoly.

[ 08 December 2003: Message edited by: DownTheRoad ]

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Medical research is one area where the US is vastly superior. The National Institutes of Health receive over $20 billion/year in funding from the federal gov't.

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Medical research is one area where the US is vastly superior.

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a blanket statement like Catus's is not very perceptive or useful

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1) Sensibily regulate the insurance biz to prevent "cherry picking" customers and disallow exclusion of necessary treatments. Healthy people would pay a bit more than now, and those with medical problems a lot less.
2) Make health insurance mandatory, same as car insurance.
3) Subsidize health insurance for those of modest means.

End of problem, and no government healthcare monopoly.

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True, but it often seems to me that blanket statements are all there is to the healthcare debate in Canada. "Socialized medicine is evil!" screams one side. "For-profit US-style healthcare is evil!" screams the other.

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Posted by Hinterland:

what in this list is essentially that different from what exists in Canada right now?

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Posted by JTT

Where is the good in the for-profit model?

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Mainly that universal access is achieved through regulation of the insurance function rather than by direct government ownership and/or control of the entire healthcare system.

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The government doesn't own the entire healthcare system, although it controls and regulates it. To tell you the truth, I put more faith in an accountable government apparatus (..such as it is, and this DOES need work) than I do in unaccountable private corporations (..who have no obligation to explain anything to you truthfully, until of course, you take them to court). I'm not sure changing from the single-payer system is going to make any real difference; if anything, I'm convinced the bureaucracy would be worse.

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Let patients choose their service providers.

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Don't we already have choice? I can go to any doctor I want to, I can even choose the hospital I go to (..can I still do that? It's been a while), but this issue of choice gets to the heart of the matter. As a wise woman once said (...Edina on AbFab), "I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!". Seriously, this issue of choice is an alarm bell when it comes to healthcare (..and other other public goods). Over time, those with means gravitate to the better services (...offered at premium prices) and the services for people with fewer means are increasingly abandoned by the general public. And we get two-tier, or multi-tier public services, health care being a very crucial one for everybody. This contradicts the basic principles of the Canada Health Care act and I'm pretty sure the egalitarian values of a lot of people in this society.

Not-for-profit partnerships in health care delivery are useful avenues to look for change, but I'm pretty sure that's already happening.

[ 08 December 2003: Message edited by: Hinterland ]

The National Institutes of Health is 100% government owned, government-funded research. It gives money to private industry to help their drug research - again, this is government sponsorship. You know... socialized 'n' subsidized.

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I put more faith in an accountable government apparatus (..such as it is, and this DOES need work) than I do in unaccountable private corporations

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So, uh, a really good government-run program proves the benefits of private industry how?

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I think they'd be better off finding ways to get good coverage for the uninsured and poorly insured than by moving toward a Canadian style system.

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Whatever model the Americans choose, its up to them to decide. As far as we're concerned, the broad issues of this debate were mostly settled back in the sixties, and I think introducing for-profit healthcare into our system is not the first place we should look in trying to solve any of the current problems.

Canadian healthcare more egalitarian? i suppose, though the Rich and financially able come to the US for healthcare.
if you were actually interested in eglaitarianism why not require everyone to dive teh same car or live in similar houses? Or have access to the same food?

now i do agree, the American ssytem if alling apart, but not due to "predatory for-profit medical enterprise" (what a bunch of demagoguic rhetoric). The primary problem with American medical care is third party providers (yes, Virginia, getting medical insurance from your employer is bad).

When someone else pays for a product you want to consume you......CONSUME MORE!! This has lead to insurers raising premiums to cover the skyrocketing costs of claims. If you bought your own insrance and saw the fiscal outlays from your own pocket you would be more reluctant to just "go to the doctor" you would shop around, you would think twice about dropping by the Doc when your nose runs, etc.

The hospitals get paid only when they file the laimand then onlya small amount (I forget the fomula they use but it is in the great book "Patient Power") , thus they are constnatly forced to raise prices to to increase revenue.

Now in Canada there is no "Free" healthcare as some idiot posited. You paid for that broken wrist. Unless you are impoverished, in which case some CA or Tory voter likely paid for your clumsiness.

Canada is very proud of its 9% of GDP bs the US 13% of GDP going towards healthcare. Canada claims its healthcosts are cheaper. Well yeah, of course they are, Canadian healthcare is quite a bit shoddier as well.

The US has far better machinery, far more machinery per capita, and far better doctors and far more doctors per capita than Canada.
This means that if you suffer with Kidney Stones in Canada you pass them through your ureter while they are still relatively large. inthe US you just have Lithotripy done and you piss them out with little to no pain.

the only reason Canadian Health Costs look preferable is because Canada Health cuts corners. Nurses. Doctors and emergency personell are often put on wage holds to save money ( in Quebec). Drugs are kept in limbo or denied altogether when the budget wont allow for the costs. Technology is held back to cut on costs.

This has lead to long lines, shipping patients across the border ( in Windsor), and a brain drain of your best and brightest forcing Canada to rely upon less well trained doctors.

Not to mention setting prices causes shortages. What do you think caused Soviet famines? It wasn't mother nature, it was Government regulation.

In any case, lets get back to the horrors of FREE TRADE!!!!!

what a boogey man that is!

Now I know everyone here thinks the fraser institute is an agent of evil Globalists but they published some interesting facts

Listing the world's nation's economies in quintiles, from least free to most free, they found an overwhelmign correlation between liberized trade and economic growth, Living standards, and life expectancy.

David Dollar and Aart Kray, of the World Bank ( an institution I disagree very much) found that economic growth (already heavily linked with free trade) benefits the poor at the exact same rate as it benefits the rich.
The same two researchers found that the GINI coefficient actually decreases with Economic growth.

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Surely Food and exercise (or lack of) account for many modern day maladies. Perhaps both of these areas could benefit from central planning.

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Perhaps they could. Or perhaps not. I would say it's worth a try, but how can you convince a fanatical ideolouge like yourself to try new things?

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why not require everyone to dive teh same car or live in similar houses?

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Now you don't really think this is equatable with receiving the same quality of healthcare, do you?

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Or have access to the same food?

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Everyone should have access to the same range of basic staples. Why do you figure that some people shouldn't have the same access to food that you do? Who doesn't get to eat in your little paradise?

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Now in Canada there is no "Free" healthcare as some idiot posited. You paid for that broken wrist.

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Of course, nothing is free. Single-payer is all about value for the money you pay, which is clearly higher for society as a whole in our system than the US's (remember society?).

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Canadian healthcare is quite a bit shoddier as well.

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You keep claiming this, but have yet to prove it. But then, that seems to be a thing with you.

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The US has far better machinery, far more machinery per capita, and far better doctors and far more doctors per capita than Canada.
This means that if you suffer with Kidney Stones in Canada you pass them through your ureter while they are still relatively large. inthe US you just have Lithotripy done and you piss them out with little to no pain.

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If you are rich, there are machines, and doctors, and Lithotripy. If you are poor, you just suffer and die. Ever hear the story about the cancer victim who held up a bank and then went outside to wait for the police? In prison, he could get treatment, so he had to get arrested to save his own life. This is the system you are defending.

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Canada Health cuts corners. Nurses. Doctors and emergency personell are often put on wage holds to save money ( in Quebec). Drugs are kept in limbo or denied altogether when the budget wont allow for the costs. Technology is held back to cut on costs.

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There are two main reasons for this. One, Martin bled the health care system dry with his cuts, while hiding huge surpluses. We now spend less, relative to GDP, on healthcare than we have in decades. Two, the use of brand-name drugs, which is the only part of healthcare expenses to have risen over the past ten years, and risen significantly. Generic brands would save the system millions of dollars. Both of these problems are political and have political solutions. They have nothing to do with the merits of single-payer healthcare.

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Listing the world's nation's economies in quintiles, from least free to most free, they found an overwhelmign correlation between liberized trade and economic growth, Living standards, and life expectancy.

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You're mixing your causation here, my dear catus. Strong economies (which became strong through protectionism) favour free trade because it allows them to beat up on smaller economies more effectively. And, of course, they have better living standards and life expectancy. They're already leading the pack, otherwise they wouldn't be favouring free trade. On the other hand, the world bank itself has admitted that in every country where the IMF's economic reforms have been initiated (read, imposed), precisely none of them have shown economic improvement. Liberlising trade is a major plank of those reforms, but it doesn't seem to be working too well.

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David Dollar and Aart Kray, of the World Bank ( an institution I disagree very much) found that economic growth (already heavily linked with free trade) benefits the poor at the exact same rate as it benefits the rich.

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Funny then, that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing world-wide, not shinking, even as free trade expands. Funnier still, that the few countries that have shown the most improvement in eliminating poverty are not big on free trade at all, such as China. Methinks these guys are fudging their numbers.

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Just let me know whenyou want to break away from your superstitions.

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What political solution is there to using brand name drugs vs generic? This sia serious question. Are you proposing patent violations or just more reliance on legal generics?

You call me an ideologue yet stand firm whenyou claimthat Strong countires beat up weak ones. Unfortunately that line is not too uncommon, fortunately it is not true. Since you provide no exampels its hard to refute whatever you might be talking about.

Now we both agree, the IMF/WB is a silly idea, but for different reasons, I am sure.

By the way, the IMF does not force any nation to do anything. Any nation is free to tell the IMF to screw off. They can do this either prior to accepting the loan ( all loans have certain requirements that the borrower nations are aware of) or after they default on the loan. there are no military incursions following defaults nor any sort of armed reprisals for telling the IMF to take a hike.

now the IMF/WB loans tend to allow countries to keep on protecting their economy with IMF/WB finances. it just prolongs the harm the protectionism does and puts a halt on liberlisation. the fact of the matter is that South Korea, Japan, hong Kong, Singapore,a nd other nations went from impoverished mud hut dwelling people to rich technologically advnaced people ina matter of years once they liberalised trade. Granted, only Singapore is a good example of overwhelming Free trade but it was exactly market liberlisation and global trade that enabled such nations to make the jump.

I challenge you to present oen economy that has benefited from protectionism and regulation in the long run.

France is suffereing, Sweden is suffereing (and embracing more and more market reforms) the USSR and its satellite states were failures, China only started making an economic impact once it adopted Free-trade zones, the DPNK is a failure, mugabe's regime has led to financial ruin, De Silva is quickly impoverished Brazil, Chavez, despite his poularity, faces severe economic harships unknown under previous administrations.

Put aside their politics and think only about their economic reforms ( which were made for political reasons rather than economic ones)

The gap between the rich and poor is not growing world wide. This is an out and out fabrication. Look at nations who liberalise trade vs those who don't. The GINI coefficient is much higher in Protectionist economies than in those who embrace Free Trade. In 1968 the GINI for the world, as a whole, was at .6, in 1997 it was a .52. The closer to "0" the GINI coefficient gets the more evenly income is distributed.
the UNDP HDI figures reveal that living standards are growing fastest in the poorest nations that have liberalised trade!!

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now the IMF/WB loans tend to allow countries to keep on protecting their economy with IMF/WB finances. it just prolongs the harm the protectionism does and puts a halt on liberlisation. the fact of the matter is that South Korea, Japan, hong Kong, Singapore,a nd other nations went from impoverished mud hut dwelling people to rich technologically advnaced people ina matter of years once they liberalised trade. Granted, only Singapore is a good example of overwhelming Free trade but it was exactly market liberlisation and global trade that enabled such nations to make the jump.

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I find the suggestion that they lived in mud huts incredibly ignorant and racist. I have lived in both Korea and Japan and can assure you that your gross stereotypes are dead wrong and detract from what little credibility you had left.

Secondly, Korea's and Japan's economies were both built on protectionist policies, which I will list if you dont know. Hence the trade deficits that the Americans allowed so that they would have some counter weights and bases in Asia.

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? i suppose, though the Rich and financially able come to the US for healthcare.

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You call me an ideologue yet stand firm whenyou claimthat Strong countires beat up weak ones. Unfortunately that line is not too uncommon, fortunately it is not true. Since you provide no exampels its hard to refute whatever you might be talking about.

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I'm afraid I hadn't understood the depths of your delusion. What I am "talking about" is all of human history. If you can't admit that strong countries beat up on weaker ones, then I can't imagine what sort of dialouge it is possible to have with you, quite frankly. Should I bother? let's take Africa as an easy example. It is locked into trade deals and "structural adjustments" by virtue of its crippling debt to the first world such that it is royally fucked forever more. It has a built in trade deficit that it cannot overcome without rewriting its current relationship with the rest of the world. A hard task for the most impoverished continent on earth. Despite all the aid that pours in (most of it is used to pay loans to the very aid-giving countries), more money comes out of Africa every year than goes in. Under the global status quo, it will always be that way.

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I challenge you to present oen economy that has benefited from protectionism and regulation in the long run.

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now i do agree, the American ssytem if alling apart, but not due to "predatory for-profit medical enterprise" (what a bunch of demagoguic rhetoric). The primary problem with American medical care is third party providers (yes, Virginia, getting medical insurance from your employer is bad).

When someone else pays for a product you want to consume you......CONSUME MORE!! This has lead to insurers raising premiums to cover the skyrocketing costs of claims. If you bought your own insrance and saw the fiscal outlays from your own pocket you would be more reluctant to just "go to the doctor" you would shop around, you would think twice about dropping by the Doc when your nose runs, etc.

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I can just see the right wing think tanks pushing the agenda:

Employer funded insurance is killing our medical system. We are going to end up with a third world medical system if we don't put an end to employer funded medical insurance! (The sky is falling! the sky is falling!).

Look, we can't have people going to the doctor for nose runs (unless they can afford to pay for it out of their own pocket - like cosmetic plastic surgery, liposuction, Botox).

If people paid for their own Insurance they'd certainly be careful about how many of the resources they used (of course, if you can afford it you should be able to use up all the medical resources available at the expense of those who can't afford it, or in a pinch, can't afford as much as you).

------------

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As many of you probably know i enjoy slapping these morons around. They do not even demand evidence (nor use any of their own) but i figure alter on today i shall flood them with both logical arguments and plenty of data.

But what Difference will it make? Zero I presume, but it will serve to make me feel better. I think I might be a bully.

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On edit: I didn't see Scout's post before...based on this, Catus, you are so *plonked* that the light coming from plonked with take 3 billion years to reach me.

[ 09 December 2003: Message edited by: Hinterland ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Catus:
By the way, the IMF does not force any nation to do anything. Any nation is free to tell the IMF to screw off. They can do this either prior to accepting the loan ( all loans have certain requirements that the borrower nations are aware of) or after they default on the loan. there are no military incursions following defaults nor any sort of armed reprisals for telling the IMF to take a hike.

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HeeheeheeHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!

HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHAWHAWHAWHAWHAW... oh my god, I haven't had such a good belly laugh since one of my IRC buddies accidentally said he wanted the Anal Avenger instead of the Avid Avenger video game.

No reprisals? Hel-LOOOOOOOOOO?

What happens when a Third World country experiences a financial crisis is that it is informally recognized that the IMF has to put its stamp of approval on a country before any banks or any other industrial nations will agree to lend money again.

No IMF approval, no loans. That's not a military reprisal, but it's just about as devastating, because without hard currency to get the government (and in some cases the economy) back on an even keel, you can forget about stability in the short run as a government with next to no money tries in vain to get it, and can't because the IMF's imprimatur is what is needed.

Buddy, I need your rose-colored glasses and that acid you're using to trip for a lifetime, because life must seem really rosy to you if you think Third World countries face an honest, uncoerced, choice about whether or not to accept IMF loans and their dictates in a crisis situation.

[ 11 December 2003: Message edited by: banquosghost ]

http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2002/070202.htm

or this:

http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2003/021003.htm

[ 11 December 2003: Message edited by: Oliver Cromwell ]

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Your ideas are at best highly controversial, at worst, snake oil.

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For me, the motives and record of the World Bank and IMF can be found among the starving masses, the bloated abdomens of babies, the dust filled fields as trucks carry off the water, the dead and dying from treatable disease.

One day, history will look back at the misery wrought by these two institutions with the same eyes it now reserves for such crimes against humanity as the holocaust.

Where ever the World Bank and IMF travel, poverty and cruelty follow.

[ 11 December 2003: Message edited by: WingNut ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Oliver Cromwell:
You might want to check this out, if you haven't already seen it:

http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2002/070202.htm

or this:

http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2003/021003.htm

[ 11 December 2003: Message edited by: Oliver Cromwell ]

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Borrowing money is fine. Borrowing money when you cannot pay it back is asinine.

But as our friend pointed out, foreign debt is bad. You know this, I know this, so why don't nations that wich to borrow know this? If they do know it then why do they insist on borrowing.

Now as I said, I am anti-IMF, but for wholly different reasons. The IMF, despite its desire to open economies actually helps countries keep protections. This is what occurred in Russia after the fall of the Wall. the Russian policos made just enough changes to make the IMF regulators happy but did very little to make russian business competitive. I say Ditch the IMF. It actually promotes protectionism.

ok a little scenario. A company Hamilton makes multi-geared Bicycles (to better navigate the hills) while a company in Toronto makes Single gear bikes. The Hamilton bikes sell like hotcakes in Hamilton and the comapny is looking to export to other cities. Toronto is a good starting point. It is near by and has a large market, and happens to share a similar terrain. The Toronto Bike company comes to the City government and demands that something be done to save the jobs of the 100 people working in Toronto.

What do you suggest they do?

Get an education cactus. The IMF and World Bank forces countries to grow export crops for first world markets at the expense of domestic production. The end result is subsistence farmers are forced off their land into slums or refugee camps where they starve.

quote:

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Originally posted by WingNut:
[QBThe IMF and World Bank forces countries to grow export crops for first world markets at the expense of domestic production. The end result is subsistence farmers are forced off their land into slums or refugee camps where they starve.
[/QB]

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And your question? Which question do you mean? This one?

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ok a little scenario. A company Hamilton makes multi-geared Bicycles (to better navigate the hills) while a company in Toronto makes Single gear bikes. The Hamilton bikes sell like hotcakes in Hamilton and the comapny is looking to export to other cities. Toronto is a good starting point. It is near by and has a large market, and happens to share a similar terrain. The Toronto Bike company comes to the City government and demands that something be done to save the jobs of the 100 people working in Toronto.

What do you suggest they do?

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This is an irrelevent scenario that will just lead down a non-productive route. The problem with your thinking is that you ridiculously assume that because people say that protectionism is not always bad, they must agree with it in all cases.

Let me ask you a question. A government enters into trade deals that allow another, much richer country unlimited access to their markets. This other country's businesses immediately move in, and with their capital advantage, threaten to run all the domestic industry out of business, undercutting their prices, and buying them up wherever possible. Concerned citizens appeal to the government. They don't want all the profit generated in the country to siphon out to foreign shareholders of foreign businesses.

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Originally posted by Catus:
no one can counter my arguments. Well maybe you can, but you refuse to.

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Wingnut. Your assertion is a lie. a flat out bald faced lie. The IMF/WB NEVER EVER has that much control over economic structure in any of its borrower countries. Why do you think Ethiopian children are the classic case of distended bellies due to lack of protein intheir diets? Could it be the Soviet supported communist statism of Mengistu Haile Mariam. hell yes, of course it was.

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For you to assert that the IMF/WB does not exert such control when they make such "structural adjustments" conditional on their loans demonstrates a) your complete ignoarnce on the issue and b) your own commitment to lies over truth.

Today, thanks to the "structural adjustments" of the IMF/WB South African children can now also fear death of thirst or filthy water due to the privatization of water delivery so rich white guys can get richer selling water to those who can't afford it.

But that is not the reality. In fact under the guise of free trade any aspect of mutual need and collective benefit, reciprocity among communities based on need, is destroyed. Everything has a price tag and is part of some deal.

The other aspect of things like deregulation and privatisation is based on an idealised concept of human social relations. I say idealised because I am being generous, of course. It is a conservative anarchistic idea that human beings, if left to their own best instincts would make things right. If you read Proudhon and I have been a little lately, you get the idea. But in the keft wing version all "property is theft". In the right wing version it is the entitlement of being "free".

I don't really understand how this creates the idea that collective solutions to problems is a type of necessary unfreedom. People find their liberty within the context of some social organization to greater and lesser extents. To better resolve that they confer benefits on their "members". Free trade basically makes this drive to practical freedom virtually illegal outside the corporate boardroom - an it does it all in the name of "freedom".

"Competition" is another misused word. The dynamics of two companies vying for market share
is really just a struggle for dominance. In the end one company may win but the consumer will lose because that company will then have a "nitche monopoly". Competition in Darwinioan terms usually means the ability to adapt to changing environments and to acquire a nitche by being able to live within those parameters. But in capitalism the idea of nitches is destroyed by the fact that all corporations feed on teh same thing - money. Hence there is in effect only one nitche and every corporation is in a death struggle to be the dominant possessor of that nitche.

The only thing that prevents the autodestruction of this mode of social relations is human agency. Human beiongs revolt against the system that reduces everything to capitalism and they do it on many levels. That is they revolt against a system that is seeking to abolish competition and community diffrerences "nitches" if you will. Yet the apologists for free trade say that they are doing it all in the name of competitiveness.

Tackabary, Free trade has no structure. Similar to "capitalism" it is what happens when human beings are free to act in their own economic self-interest without coersion.

I beleive the structure you are referring to is the result of a Keynsian Bretton Woods agreement. I agree, the GATT/WTO and IMF/WB are silly useless institutions that result in more harm being done than anything else. But ridding the world of them would not suddenly make trade any different. What changes the structure of trade in personal proclivities.

most of you seem to support tariffs and subsidies and anti-dumping rules. i wonder if you want the US and the EU to lower their farm subsidies or softwood tariffs? It has been proven that such subsidies are what wreaks havoc on third world economies. Where do you stand on protectionism?

Boinker, you are close. Free trade is when you give products, of your own volition, that you possess to others. You both come upon an amenable price ( whether it is in currency, bartered goods, labour or otherwise) and you both think you got the better of the deal.

That is free trade in a nutshell. its totally fair because both parties believe they are the winner and both are happy with their purchase ( or else neither one would have agreed to the trade).

There is nothing wrong with collective solution, so long as force is not involved. So far force has nearly always been involved. Communes such as oneida and others are pretty much the only places were force was not used, or is not used. Even the Anarcho-Syndicalists of pre-Franco Spain used force.

So long as a person is not unduly harmed by deciding to not join or deciding to later leave a collective or commune then I and other free-traders have little interest in such arrangements.

You perfectly define the term "competition" then go on to undermine it. Why?

Monopolies rarely exist without government aid. In fact most monopolies are wholly or partly owned by the government.

you seem to think that the economy is a zero sum game, that there are limited resources, limited buyers and limited dollars chasing products. This is completely untrue.
Companies compete with one another that is true, but not to end up being the sole winner. money is in limitless supply, not becuase of the printing press and government fiat, but because there are endless needs and desires that some enterprising person would like to fill, for a price.

Abolishing competition would actually abolish prtty much everything we have or could ever have. Without money you have no idea how to distribute goods, what goods to create, how many to create and so on.

ok, Well I would like for everyone to read this essay. It is not long nor filled with arcane formulas. I know most of you will skip the article to battle over my points laid out above but for those few, thankyou.

The basic shape it takes does not actually depend on fixed exchange rates, but fixed exchange rates would stabilize trade flows by stabilizing the cost structures importing and exporting firms face within nations.

We are, for example, taught in international trade theory, that the "terms of trade" determine whether or not trade is beneficial. While the examples cited in macroeconomics texts are often based on barter (ie. so many bushels of potatoes for so many bales of cotton, and it turns out that the terms of trade favor trade if the opportunity cost of giving up x amount of domestically produced goods for y amount of imported goods is less than that for doing the same thing domestically).

The exchange rate substitutes for the terms of trade, since money, not barter, is the basis for most transactions worldwide. In this context, a fluctuating exchange rate can introduce distortions by altering the terms of trade on a daily basis. I hasten to add that if firms could instantly and painlessly adjust immediately to a change in the exchange rate such that firms at the margin would close down or open up with no initial adjustment period, then a floating exchange rate really poses no problem in that respect.

However, in real life, a change in the exchange rate is not immediately responded to. So firms at the margin whose cost structures may be uncompetitive at 73 cents per US dollar, but competitive at 72 cents, may, on the basis of uncertainty about their future revenues, choose to continue production even if the exchange rate moves to, say, 74 cents per US dollar.

Thus, I state that there will be lesser distortions under a fixed exchange rate regime, because firms at the margin at the time of changeover will see the rate set in stone, and re-adjust their production goals accordingly.

The lesser distortion is that the dynamism of the economy may sag somewhat, as the fixed exchange rate in turn imparts less instability into the rest of the economy, which in turn may impart some stasis into the decisions of firms.

Contrary to the gushing of business executives and their hangers-on like Andrew Coyne et al, hyperinstability where one takes advantage of every jiggle in every indicator is not really a preferred goal for the bulk of the population.

I was asked about the appropriateness of the Japanese Yen as an example of a country whose currency was nailed at a certain level for twenty years.

I might note that many nations were part of the Bretton Woods fixed-rate regime, and, for example, Sweden, which clearly suffered no damage in World War II, also had its exchange rate nailed at 5.17 Kronor to the US dollar for twenty years.

[ 13 December 2003: Message edited by: DrConway ]

1) Fixed exchange rates are not the only way to avoid exchange rate risk; there are lots of financial instruments that are designed to do precisely that.

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WingNUT your name is appropriate.

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Consider you are espousing a blind faith in "free trade" which is neithetr defined nor even understood by you. It is lke trying to selll me on the concept of martyrdom for seven virgins in heaven.

I need only look out my window to see the failings of trade. The poor, homeless, those scraping by on minimum wage.

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Boinker, you are close. Free trade is when you give products, of your own volition, that you possess to others. You both come upon an amenable price ( whether it is in currency, bartered goods, labour or otherwise) and you both think you got the better of the deal.

That is free trade in a nutshell. its totally fair because both parties believe they are the winner and both are happy with their purchase ( or else neither one would have agreed to the trade).

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The point is that is it socially fair, Catus?

If you have a wealthy classes that wants to pay less for cars and other goods and services at any cost then there are problems. They buy the cheaper South Korean labour resulting in job losses in the local community.

This practice takes advantage of the world's misery so that the wealthy can save money. Is that "fair"?

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Shouldn t we rejoice at such an absurd policy of suffering severe losses by subsidizing us, the American consumers? And shouldn t our response be: "Come on, Sony, subsidize us some more!" As far as consumers are concerned, the more "dumping" that takes place, the better.

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- from you article Murray N. Rothbard

But isn't there a huge amount of irresponsibility inherent in this idea? Robert Bateman the naturalist painter has a good article in today's Globe & Mail on the nature on "conservatism" and what it means to him.

"I am a conservative, I conserve"

Free trade destroys communities and countries even. The most vulnerable to it are countries like South Africa where people are in great need of assistance but in order to get help they must ingest the poison of capitallist monetarism.

Can you imagine how the water utilities dealt with people not paying their bills due to social assistance cuts? They installed coin operated water pumps! Thsi is progress and reciprocity, a benefit of free trade? I DON'T THINK SO.

[ 13 December 2003: Message edited by: Boinker ]

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The exchange rate substitutes for the terms of trade, since money, not barter, is the basis for most transactions worldwide. In this context, a fluctuating exchange rate can introduce distortions by altering the terms of trade on a daily basis. I hasten to add that if firms could instantly and painlessly adjust immediately to a change in the exchange rate such that firms at the margin would close down or open up with no initial adjustment period, then a floating exchange rate really poses no problem in that respect.

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The problem with this theory is that, put simply, if the Canadian dollar loses value then you need to spend more of them.

Secondly, there has to be a relatively even playing field for free trade to work in any meaningful sense. Slave labour is a function of market forces but chinese workers producing $170.00 nikes for $1.00 a day is not going to raise living standards around the world.

I was positing that in an ideal world under ideal circumstances, a floating exchange rate, like a free market, works perfectly. See the trend?

Oliver Cromwell:

Fixed exchange rates take the risk of currency fluctuations off private businesses/individuals and socializes that risk so that those entities can benefit from stable rates.

Furthermore, just because the rates are fixed does not mean "set in stone". Yes, I admire the fact that under Bretton Woods, rates could be, and were nailed in place for twenty years. However, that having been said, adjustments in the par values should take place a bit more often than that.

I would have a renewed Bretton Woods Currency Exchange Committee (no, not the IMF. They've outlived their usefulness) be required to meet once every year and really discuss par values. Not give them a whitewash, but to really work out if they'd need changing, and if so, to change them.

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I was positing that in an ideal world under ideal circumstances, a floating exchange rate, like a free market, works perfectly. See the trend?

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But this is a pointless type of argument. So what? The world is not perfect. Globalization masquerading as "free trade" is not elevating lifestyles democratically at all. This is not a function of the "distortions" of currency exchange. It is a function of simple exploitation.

North American garmet workers could not protect their industry through unionization and collective approaches to resisting the imperium of Capital. Capital just went elsewhere and bought the labour at a fraction of the price.

Boycots work only when there are garments (or anything else for that matter) that can be bought for approximately the same price. Once labour is under assault by the big money it must give concessions simply to preserve entire industrial sectors.

I suppose that down the the road in 50 years or so the ability of Capital to contain the expectations of the third world working class will be lessened. But these expectations are often driven by the North American standard which is unsustainable. Some better world standard needs to be developed. It needs tio be imbued with social and human values.

Fiddling with economic levers is not going to solve any of the real problems we face, Doc.

[ 13 December 2003: Message edited by: Boinker ]

So far as I can tell every poster on this message board is an ideologue. Perhaps it is your way to say, "You are a stupid person".

An article about Africa that might be of interest.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20030813.shtml

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What African countries need, the West cannot give. In a word, what Africans need is personal liberty. That means a political system where there are guarantees of private property rights and rule of law. It's almost a no-brainer. The "2003 Index of Economic Freedom," published by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, lists Botswana, South Africa and Namibia as "mostly free." World Bank 2002 country per capita GDP rankings put Botswana 89th ($2,980), South Africa 94th ($2,600) and Namibia 111th ($1,700). Is there any mystery why they're well ahead of their northern neighbors, such as Mozambique 195th ($210), Liberia 201st ($150) or Ethiopia 206th ($100)?

The lack of liberty means something else: A nation loses its best and most mobile people first. According to the 2000 census, there were 881,300 African-born U.S. residents. They're doing well in our country, and many are professionals sorely needed back home. While in attendance at a Washington, D.C., Nigerian affair, some years ago, I listened while the Nigerian ambassador admonished the mostly Nigerian audience to come back home. At the table where I was sitting, my Nigerian hosts broke out in near uncontrollable laughter.

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So far as I can tell every poster on this message board is an ideologue

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That would include you too then, Catus?

Capitalism is not about freedom and liberty. It is about money. But what is money? Money is a consensual form of exchange voucher supported by the authority of the state.

Thus to equate liberty with affluence and wealth is to equate it with that same authority. To say that "making money" accumulating wealth, etc., is natural is to deny the fact that it depends on state power. State power, logically, comes from the ability of a state to control large numbers of people, goods and services, to provide some sort of formality to the social network. Ask anyone from a country where state power is diminished by other nationalistic and transnationalistic powers,(the US boycott of Cuba, for example) and you will quickly see what I mean.

It is not an ideolgical statement to say that capital accumulation depends on an alliance between state power and industry and the full range of enforcing and coercive techniques these two social institutions can utilise...

[ 14 December 2003: Message edited by: Boinker ]

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Capitalism is not about freedom and liberty. It is about money. But what is money? Money is a consensual form of exchange voucher supported by the authority of the state.

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the Free-market is very much about freedom. Its about the freedom to do with your property as you wish.
money need not be supported by the State. Gold certainly wasn't. "Money always emerges out of barter. The difficulties of finding trading partners under barter systems results in the emergence of commodity monies. Durable, portable, and divisible commodities, like gold and silver, typically fit the bill as money best. Money and related institutions emerge as an unintended consequence of self interested trading" (thankyou www.mises.org).

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Thus to equate liberty with affluence and wealth is to equate it with that same authority. To say that "making money" accumulating wealth, etc., is natural is to deny the fact that it depends on state power. State power, logically, comes from the ability of a state to control large numbers of people, goods and services, to provide some sort of formality to the social network. Ask anyone from a country where state power is diminished by other nationalistic and transnationalistic powers,(the US boycott of Cuba, for example) and you will quickly see what I mean.

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State power in Cuba has been diminished by the US's embargo? Although I disagree with the embargo, I see no weakness in the State apparatus of Cuba (other than what is typical in socialist and communist regimes).

Liberty has zero to do with affluence. Affluence just happens to be a long term result of liberty. Government intervention at the expense of liberty (which typically results in the impoverishemnt of other people) can create affluence but only for a select few, or it can equally impoverish everyone in the name of "fairness".

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It is not an ideolgical statement to say that capital accumulation depends on an alliance between state power and industry and the full range of enforcing and coercive techniques these two social institutions can utilise...

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Industry is not a "social institution". It's an investment vehicle that is usually the property of an individual or a set of investors. Industry, in a Classical Liberal model does not define society nor dictate social roles. Industries have no particular needs aside from those that your typical citizens needs. Sure, those that own industries would love to recieve largess from government coffers, but so would every citizen.
Despite what one might like, taking from one person to give to another is highly unethical, whereas, freely giving of yourself to other in needs is the essence of morality.

Coersion, whether by an individual, a group or the Government is reprehensible. In a free-market nothing is coerced, everything exist in a contractual form. the inviolability of the contract ( verbal or written) is protected by the Government.

It's one thing to believe that opponents of free trade are mistaken on certain points. It's quite another thing to expect them to change their minds after calling them stupid. If the argument is a good one, it will stand or fall on its own.

[ 14 December 2003: Message edited by: Oliver Cromwell ]

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Industry is not a "social institution". It's an investment vehicle that is usually the property of an individual or a set of investors.

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Then how you explain something like "sputnik", Catus? Soviet inegenuity and industry - communism where there were no investors and bourgoise individuals - built it.

How did the soviet union in 50 years of bureaucratic dictatorship catch and excede all the ingenuity and creativity of US entrepreneurship?

The answer is quite simple. The so called free market is not free at all.

Test this out yourself.

Go to any Ford dealership and ask them why they are listing in the doldrums of anarchronism and backwardness when they have the prototype of a hydrogen powered completely clean automobile road ready but for the OK from the financiers.Everyone knows that once introduced it would sell like hotcakes. Go into any dealership annd ask a salesperson why there are none for sale. There answer, Catus, is "the market".

Innovation is thusly bound to the market "unfreedom", is, in fact, a slave to it and to the capital the bourgoise consumer is bound to serve.

I don't say a certain amount of healthy jousting among relative equals does not spur people on to do better. But war for money is not the same thing at all. It is market tyranny.

[ 14 December 2003: Message edited by: Boinker ]

Curious Boinker,

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Then how you explain something like "sputnik", Catus? Soviet inegenuity and industry - communism where there were no investors and bourgoise individuals - built it.

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Usually the Left tries to persuade others that the USSR, quite probably the most repressive regime to ever exist, was actually communist. Glad to see someone is willing to admit it.

By 1965 the Soviet Union had fallen so far behind the US the Dumas and the KGB knew that they had lost.
Sputnik was not the result of freedom or communist ingenuity but rather the capture of Nazi scientists and operable Jet Planes.

You need to look at what central planning did to Kazahkstan, the Caspian Sea, the Ukraine, East Germany to see the result of Communism.

The market is bound, not to investors, but public demand. This is what is referred to as the "Dictates of the Market" If a large enough group of people desired hydogen cell cars and could buy such vehicles then they would, most assuredly, be made. In communist countries you see little if any innovation ( the Yugo) because such innovation does not pay the inventor.

The Soviet Union was so far behind the Western world, and even farther behind the USA specifically, that it is a farse to assert that Bolshevism resulted in quicker aquisition of technology, a greater number of goods, a great spread of prosperity, or even a happier populace. Capitalism, on the other hand, provides allof that, and is an expression of liberty.

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The Soviet Union was so far behind the Western world, and even farther behind the USA specifically, that it is a farse to assert that Bolshevism resulted in quicker aquisition of technology, a greater number of goods, a great spread of prosperity, or even a happier populace. Capitalism, on the other hand, provides allof that, and is an expression of liberty.

NEXT!

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... not so fast there sunshine.

State planning and the marshalling of resources by the state authority brought the Russian economy into the industrial age. Russia was far ahead of the United States in rocket booster technology and no doubt used german science to help out. But wait a minute the society that gave us those german scientists was even more oppressive and unfree that the USSR. So how do we account for that if "free markets" are the source of all advancement? And didn't the US use the same scientists? Have you never heard of Werner Von Braun?

The USSR provided for greater prosperity than is currently being provided by the modern capitalist regime. The problem there is that the population is exhausted with the utter frustration of their society being unable to stable system that is not fraught with chicanery and fraud.

The United States is in a terrible state after 200 years of "free enterprise". You can exclude 45 million poor Americans who have no healthcare coverage and then say their coverage as a nation is better. Even on those grounds I would dispute what you are saying. It has exploited entire nations of people, despoiled the environment, and destroyed many of its natural heritages all in the name of "free enterprise".

Democracy is so weak in the United States that it is only the Supreme Court that had the guts to say you ought not to be able to buy political parties with campaign contributions.
Read this thread

Just for the record I do not condider the USSR a communist state either but it was a communist form of economic managemment that brought it its great successes. The failures are just as easily atrtribted to totalitarian and homicidal behavior of the dictator, Stalin.

Of course there were many central plans that were not effective but as in China under the Mao dictatorship and under Rumsfeld in Iraq the horrors were almost directly the result of the lunatic fringe getting to run the show.

If the US democracy were more truly democratic it wouldn't have viewed the Russian revolution as such a threat and ganged up on it with the other European powers. It was the US ruling class that saw the Soviets as a threat. And it is they who were sucessful in overthrowuing the revolution and installing their version of a capitalist Russia.

In many ways it was the slow realization that an empowered working class would grow the economyu and make capitalsin more productive that resulted in the gradual emancipation of labour in thetwentieth century. Commie propoganda both hindered and helped the movemnent and still does.

I'm surprised you're still here, Catus, after dodging my question so completely. Do you have a suggestion for my hypothetical nation? No, I doubt you do.

You keep wailing about all your evidence and numbers, and yet you provide neither of these things? Are you having a whole different argument in your little fantasy land? You whine that no one is countering your arguments, but I see plenty of countering, which you just choose not to acknowledge. I won't speak for anyone else, but you haven't made a sustantial response to a single thing I've written to you. I'd like to see you show me where you have.

On second thought, don't bother. I finally bow to the wisdom of the board.

[ 22 October 2005: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

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It is indeed the case that profits earned with foreign capital will be sent back to its foreign owners. Just who would be concerned by that? Not the workers - foreign capital provides them with employment possibilities that they didn't have before. The only people who would be complaining would be local capitalists who want to return to the days where they didn't have to compete for workers or for consumers

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The problem with thesis is that it makes the worker no different than the local capitalist. Ultimately you have a situation where the worker would be left completely exposed to the whim of Global Capital. More importantly the worker is not just a little commercial mondad sucking at the teate of commerce. The worker is a person and part of a community. He or she has a particular set of values and attitudes a sense of place and on...

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When capital arrives, it needs workers to produce output. If any domestic industries are driven out of business, it will be by the labour of their own fellow citizens. Some new jobs will have been created.

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I'm not sure what relation exists between capital arriving and domestic industries being put out of business by the labour of their fellow citizens.

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So some workers win, some lose. Are there more winners than losers? Yes. Since capital inflows must be exactly equal to the trade surplus (no, I'm not making that up), the poorer country's level of production must be more than it was before - it's supplying a foreign market as well as the original domestic market. And since the arrival of new capital means an increase in the capital/labour ratio, productivity and wages will rise (no, I'm not making that up either)

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I don't think you're making anything up. But the above doesn't make a lot of sense.

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It is indeed the case that local capitalists will lose out. But it's important to remember why they were so profitable in the first place: few employers + large number of job seekers = easy money. If the only reason they can stay in business is by having a captive labour force, then few tears will be shed if their power is broken by the arrival of foreign employers.

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This I understand. But apparently, the arrival of foreign employers, in this globalised economy, does not mean more employers and fewer number of job seekers. It actually means more moolah for the capitalists (..quite often local, and more egregiously, foreign). Job seekers themselves shift from one subsistence economic activity to another, with no real gain in overall quality of life.

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It is indeed the case that profits earned with foreign capital will be sent back to its foreign owners. Just who would be concerned by that? Not the workers - foreign capital provides them with employment possibilities that they didn't have before. The only people who would be complaining would be local capitalists who want to return to the days where they didn't have to compete for workers or for consumers

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No, sorry. The workers you're refering to here were involved in an economic activity before the foreign capital arrived...it just wasn't the kind that's valued in a global economy. By the way, local capitalists never complain or even comment about competition or consumers (how odd, eh?)...providing they're on the winning side of
of the equation. The ones who run uncompetitive, inefficient and corrupt businesses might try and complain, but those aren't the ones who really matter.

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What should the government say to these concerned citizens? Tell them to get used to a life without special treatment.

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That is in fact what they're saying. What is your point here?

[ 14 December 2003: Message edited by: Hinterland ]

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I see no weakness in the State apparatus of Cuba (other than what is typical in socialist and communist regimes).

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I am talking about the dollarization of the Cuban economy. The peso is virtually worthless because of the embargo and in this sense state power is drastically weakened.

This same strategy was deliberately employed in order to bring Germany and Japan out of their WW2-era devastation, by fixing their exchange rates at levels low enough to make imports attractive in price compared to domestically produced US goods.

In retrospect, I would have encouraged a different strategy - fixing exchange rates, to be sure, but encouraging the nations rebuilding to stimulate strong domestic markets, characterized by high competition in all sectors, in order to fully employ labor while companies within the nations which were rebuilding would sell predominantly to a domestic market.

In point of fact, Japan did exactly this prior to 1975. It engineered a rebuilding miracle, even though its goods were not of the best quality until the late 1960s, but these goods were, for the Japanese, usable and useful, while avoiding the waste of incurring transportation costs trying to export their products to any other country.

After 1975, Japan turned to a strategy of generating trade surpluses to assist in paying for their energy requirement, and this is a sign of unbalanced demand, since supply exceeds demand by the amount of exports, and if for any reason external demand (which, in the importing nation, means demand exceeds supply) should falter, this would have adverse effects on the surplus nation, and Japan has already felt the pinch from recessions in the US or in Europe.

The fun part starts when you try and connect the real estate bubble with the adoption of a western conception of space. Especially if you can link that conception of space to the purchase of western style and sized goods. Because an economist said hey, we have to sell this stuff domesticly too...
But I haven't finished my research.

[ 14 December 2003: Message edited by: Tackaberry ]

I'm not sure what relationship there is capital arriving and domestic industries being put out of business, either, but it was part of J22's question. But if it does happen, the foreign firm must have hired local workers to do so.

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I'm not sure what relationship there is capital arriving and domestic industries being put out of business, either, but it was part of J22's question. But if it does happen, the foreign firm must have hired local workers to do so.

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I actually know the partial answer to that (...sorry, it's long). It's the conformity of Western consumerism that has made local economic activity undesirable. We tend to dismiss emotions and attitudes as being irrelevant to a "hard science" like economics (...ha ha ha), but this conformity is in fact what's happening in the Third World.

Traditional econonmic activity, such as farming (...the big one) but also a whole host of other economic niches such as butchers, tailors, seamstresses, milkmen, knife sharpeners, household helpers, etc. etc. are being devalued (note: not obviated) by multi-nationals who propose to do something similar, but more cheaply. What they don't tell you, however, is that they also intend to do it with far less quality (..I'm talking faaaar less quality), to the point were you don't even bother trying to get such a service, ever again (in a similar way, here at home, when was the last time you got a butcher to French cut a rack of lamb?...my parents tell me that that was usual when they were young). In the branding of such multi-nationals, the message of evolution, worldliness, sophistication and modernity is inescapable. What they don't tell you honestly is that you'll be as miserable as North Americans and Europeans.

I've lived in the Third World. No one wants to be considered backward and primitive, but that's the message that is sent when Taco Bell opens in the middle of a village (that doesn't have adequate roads or sewage, to say nothing about schools and health care), puts all the local food stands out of business and which is touted as progress. Some progress. Who exactly is better off? Certainly not the people who were put out of business, certainly not the people who are no longer getting reasonnably nutritious food, and certainly not the workers at Taco Bell who are engaged in the mind-numbing exercise of loading the Fries Bell Grande Machine (tm). The only one who's better off is the local franchisee or the shareholder.

I fail to see how this is progress of any sort.

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: Hinterland ]

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Originally posted by Catus:
I challenge you to present oen economy that has benefited from protectionism and regulation in the long run.

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Ummm... how 'bout, like, all of them?

I challenge Catus or anyone else to name a single country that has actually achieved successful development thru the tear-down-the-borders, bend-over-and-let-the-global-marketplace have-its-way-with-us strategy that they advocate for Third World countries today. Not one of the existing industrial economies ever pursued that route; the US, England, Germany, Japan, every single one of them engaged in some kind of mixture of protectionism and subsidization of domestic infant industries. (For that matter, they're still pursuing such policies today.) Now we refuse those same strategies to those coming up behind us. Bloody hypocrites.

Boinker, why is Cuba so weak? It can trade with every other economy in the world except for the USA. Does US trade lead to prosperity? Even if that were the case since we are advocating further protectionism would it matter who the US deemed worthy of free-trade status?

Also of the 45 million Americans without healthinsurance most forgo insurance willingly, they value things other than health insurance

State plannign can work wonders ina short amount of time but unfortunately over the long haul communism does not work.
I can force someone to build a car for me but without just compensation what do you think the mechanic will do next time I try to force him? Even if I possess the power to force the mechanic to do my bidding over and over again (this is EXACTLY what ALL communist regimes to date have done) the mechanic will not be inspired to create a better automobile. He will work more slowly and less fruitfully.
The disasterous effects of statism are readily apparent. Germany was a free-market under the Weimar Republic but failed, not because they were at the whims of those greedy capitalists but because they had just emerged from a war that left them destitute, without morale, without direction. The Nazis succeeded economically because those things were given back to the people but no doubt exists that the economy would have been anything near a power house after years of secret police, the exodus of its best and brightest, and the near constant warefare such a regime engendered.

Jacob, you refused to answer my question so I figured that must be the board tradition. Who am I to question tradition?

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Also, the majority of innovation in the last thirty years has been created with public money through public research. It's just stolen by the private sector, or should I say, pirate sector.

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I would think fixing the peso at *below* a 1 to 1 par value would be the way to wipe out poverty in Cuba, given the existing distribution of wealth in the world.

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Yes that sounds reasonable but the pesos is already below rock bottom and is virtually useless as a means of exchange. That is the currency supply in Cuba does not represent the inherent wealth of the nation but has been detached and is a useless commodity/exchange unit at present.

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Boinker, why is Cuba so weak? It can trade with every other economy in the world except for the USA. Does US trade lead to prosperity? Even if that were the case since we are advocating further protectionism would it matter who the US deemed worthy of free-trade status?

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This part of your post is something close to real argument, but why should anyone bother to answer your questions when you'll just ignore whatever they say? What's the point?

Beluga's post above yours marks the third or fourth time that you have steadfastly ignored the challenge that all strong modern economies achieved their status by pursueing trade strategies involving protectionism and subsidisation.

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Jacob, you refused to answer my question so I figured that must be the board tradition. Who am I to question tradition?

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When you leave the playground, this sort of logic becomes less convincing. Something to keep in mind in case that ever happens.

But I didn't ignore your question. I quoted it in my post, said that I thought it was a poor analogy for the trade problems that we see around us, and gave another scenario that I thought was more relevent, which you only now even acknowledge happened, after I made two other posts pointing it out. Why should anyone bother discussing anything with you, when you act like this?

(Oliver's response was appreciated. I can't respond now as I'm at work and don't have time. I'll try later)

And, of course, the rest of your post was a standard rant with strong assertions proving nothing and only marginally related to the topic at hand (when was anyone talking about communists? I thought we were discussing free trade?). You kid yourself that these are responses, but really they are only a means of avoiding responding. Try dealing with people's objections to your dogma, rather than covering your ears and shouting your mantras.

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I would like some evidence and, if it is not to much to ask, some analysis.

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Really, why should I bother? You've proven amply in this thread that this just rolls off your back like water off a duck.

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Boinker, why is Cuba so weak? It can trade with every other economy in the world except for the USA. Does US trade lead to prosperity? Even if that were the case since we are advocating further protectionism would it matter who the US deemed worthy of free-trade status?

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It can but the United States is a huge market right next door. Shipping produce and goods abroad to faraway countries makes it nonprofitable and there is no reason to do so.

But that is only half of the story. If the United States were to open its doors to Cuba as it has done to many other dictatorships, like China, Chile, and yes even Iraq and Saudi Arabia then Cuba would flourish. It's progressive socila policies would spread throughout Middle and South America. If the United States were so confident in the free market they would risk competing with socialized medicine and education that Cuba could provide.

They are not that sure however and not that confident. They do not want to let go of the militaristic past and the idea that brute force solves all problems. I have no doubt that within a few years of the lifting of the trade embargo the neoStalinist dictatorship would give way to a democratic socialist multiparty democracy. And that is why the US "Liberators" are against it.

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This part of your post is something close to real argument, but why should anyone bother to answer your questions when you'll just ignore whatever they say? What's the point?

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