Evidence for why Bolton should not be confimed

I agree with you there.
Working in agriculture, I am all in favor of seeing fresh produce labelled for country of origin.
I like to buy local not just to support local production (that helps pay my salary) but also because I think we waste a lot of fuel shipping food all over the place. Well if you really mean 'world', as opposed to just the USA, then we need to oppose economic protectionism because it distorts the free market system to favor our own producers unfairly. That doesn't mean you don't have a right to buy preferencially according to origin of production. It only means we make a sincere effort to level the playing field for everyone.Besides, protectionism is very much a Republican agenda -
you're not turning Republican on us, are you ? Not sure if you saw this, but I left you some feedback
here

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Well if you really mean 'world', as opposed to just the USA, then we need to oppose economic protectionism because it distorts the free market system to favor our own producers unfairly. That doesn't mean you don't have a right to buy preferencially according to origin of production. It only means we make a sincere effort to level the playing field for everyone.

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So, we have these trade agreements with places like Mexico and Indonesia which have very cheap labor.US corporations move their production to those countries, thus increasing their profit margin.You say that the consumer in the US can then "choose" the country of origin for their purchases, but because they have lost their jobs and/or have been forced to take a drastic pay cut, they can only afford the cheaper, foreign-produced goods, so it is really only an illusion of choice. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of stuff in a WalMart, but the range of quality is very narrow, and the country of origin of most of the stuff is probably limited to a few like China, Indonesia, Vietam, Mexico, etc.It's not at all the case that we either have to choose between a completely free free market system and total protectionism.Indeed, neither scenario is desireable.We can, however, create trade agreements which do not reward corporations for relocating jobs out of the country, for using child labor, for not paying a decent wage, and we can also require the other countries to purchase some American made goods.As it stands now, it's only the corporations which really benefit in the long term.I remember an episode of Michael Moore's "TV Nation" around the time NAFTA was in the news in which he went to Mexico who says he is considering relocating the production of his show there. He was being driven around with a member of the local chamber of commerce-type, and Moore asked him about the typical wages of a local worker at a Whirlpool plant where they made washing machines.The exchange went like this: Now, turn that on it's head.If American workers see an erosion of their wages and benefits because the jobs are relocating to other countries, they are less able to afford the goods, because the huge savings the corporations enjoy on labor are not being transferred back to the consumer in the form of drastically cheaper goods. The savings is being pocketed by the corporation and it's shareholders.

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Besides, protectionism is very much a Republican agenda -
you're not turning Republican on us, are you ?

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Maybe 20 years ago Republicans were potectionist.They are all about the freest of free trade now.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 05-19-2005 09:00 AM

I would say you are mostly right, and I agree we need trade legislation to make corporations act more responsibly. However, corporations are only going to benefit so disproportionately in the short term.The reason is that, longer term, these countries will not remain bastions of cheap labor forever. As their labor forces gain in economic importance, locally and internationally they will gain bargaining power, and then wages and standards of living will gradually increase, just as happened in Japan between 1960 and 1980. It also happened in Taiwan in the 70's and 80's, causing many exploitative multinationals to move their operations to mainland China once the Communist government there embraced a free enterprise system.I like Michael Moore and have enjoyed a lot of his work.
I have also been to Reynosa a number of times and have many friends across the state of Tamaulipas (andale !), some of whom own 'maquiladoras' along the border like the washing machine factory.Do they pay their workers a decent wage yet? No.
Are a few reaping most of the profits? Absolutely.
But ask any of the workers if they are better off now than before the factories opened and they will say yes.
The system still needs more checks and balances to become fairer to the workers, but I suggest that improved worker standars are a virtual inevitability over time.No one wants to see jobs exported, or local wages decline.
This is a period of economic dynamics unlike any other in history and we have yet to feel the full impact of globalization here at home. No one is sure where it will all end, or who all the winners and losers will be - but there will be losers. Major adjustments will be necessary for many people - there's just no escaping it. Absolutely, and there are *many* economic incentives and disincentives that could be legislated to deter job exportation *other than* applying trade embargos and tariffs to imports, IF we had a government with the 'cojones' to stand up to big business. We obviously don't. In fact, I strongly suspect they are merely puppets of big business pretending to represent the interests of the people who elect them, but acting to protect the business interests of those who supported their candidacy. But that would take us over to your other thread on facism. Only when it comes to exports - not when it comes to imports.
(added in edit: I should say import of commodities and raw materials, as opposed to import of cheap manufactured goods made abroad by American multinationals)
And we we can't have it both ways for ever. For example, Canada is our biggest trading partner in volume of goods and a huge treasure-trove of raw materials for our economy, yet we tax, tariff and block entry of everything Canadian from wheat to lumber. Like we have so many trees left to cut down that we need to think about preserving jobs in the logging industry ? And you're not seeing any jobs exported to Canada are you ?The consolidation of bigger and bigger trading blocks like the EU is going to seriously erode our power to negotiate favorable export markets for American products, markets that are already in trouble. And we think our imbalance of trade is bad now ? If we really want to look at the big picture, we need to think about ways to form strong trade alliances with other countries in the western hemisphere as soon as we can, not just Canada and Mexico. It won't be without cost, but the payoff long term will be worth it. We can only succeed at this by bargaining in good faith and eliminating sources of tension like unilateral tariffs and penalties. So I say, legislate the corporations - not the goods and commodities.This message has been edited by EZscience, 05-19-2005 09:41 AM

I don't agree. The future of American export demand is where there is going to be demand for capital goods (most American manufactures are now capital goods), and that is in the Pacific Rim. The EU is not where the action is going to be, with a declining and Islamifying population. Not a bad idea, but there needs to be an encouragement of capital goods demand in those countries. Bring on the foreign competition. Look at the auto industry. General Motors and to a lesser extent Ford are in trouble...and Toyota, Honda, Nissan and their suppliers are building plants in the US, and they aren't maquiladoras in wages or working conditions.

Okay, I'm open to statements that the EU economic outlook can change based on certain disparities or debts, but the above reason seems pretty odd.What do you mean by a "declining" population? And how will that affect production? One interesting point is that certain services and technologies are primarily stationed within the EU, and its doubtful they will be picked up by the US whose educational system is going down the tubes.What does an increasingly Islamic population have to do with anything? Islamic nations used to be the forefront of technology and knowledge. There is absolutely no inherent connection between Islam and poverty, or deficiency in creating wealth or goods.That's like saying right after WW2 that anywhere the jews would go would depreciate in value, and be nonproductive, isn't it?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Here is a link to an Economist article on the topic that might prove interesting:Half a billion Americans? | The Economist The only case I can think of off hand where European firms have a substantial advantage is passenger rail technologies (and Japan is a player there). What others did you have in mind ?It is interesting that the presence of some Christian obscurantism would lead you to a conclusion such as "the US ... educational system is going down the tubes", whereas the presence of larger scale
Islamic obscurantism (such as observed in the Netherlands recently)would be ignored in favor of such statements as... About eight centuries ago. The recent record has been less than encouraging. Granted, such trends are not necesarily permanent; but they change rather slowly.

Cellphone technology. And that's just the northern Fenno-Scandinavian area. Nokia and Erikson are two of the largest cellphone firms in the world.

Thank you, yes it was interesting.I guess I'd be more interested in a strict economic explanation/analysis of how the projected future would result. I do have some bit of knowledge of demographics (from my sociology background) and was not wholly convinced of the validity of the projections in general, and (worse for me) not seeing the connection they were making between the demographic outlook and the economic results.Not to pretend like I am saying they are wrong, I did see some holes given the nature of the article... it is old. Since the writing of that article the EU has expanded (many more people and different overall birth rates), and the change in economic fortunes between the dollar and the euro mean the people in the US are no longer as rich as they used to be.That last point has hit home for me personally, and I think it is something that I and schraf (her discussing effects on business) have been trying to suggest as a real problem. I went from being able to live like a king in Europe, with foreign currency looking like monopoly play money, to scrounging like a miser to keep every penny I can... and switch over to euro as much currency as possible so that it stays high and stable. At this point the dollar looks like toilet paper and the euro real currency.That can't be good.I would like to see a revisit of those predictions, given the real changes which have occured since its writing. Certain hi tech areas, including shipping, salvage, and water (and oil) resources have been pretty solid as European leadership. I believe the same is true for certain wireless technology. I am sure someone could refute me and that would be fine, but from what I understand these are strong areas which will only get more important as time goes on.Some might argue that auto tech is also a pretty healthy European market... I would add so is beer (well any liquor), cheese, bread, and chocolate for anyone with a real sense of taste. You have read something into my position which is not there. I do not blame Xian fundies for wrecking the educational system (though I may believe they are doing their own damage). If anything, I would be arguing that American attitudes towards education and a wrecking of the educational system has led to the rise in Xian fundamentalism.The US educational system, or perhaps I should say the products of the US educational system, are slipping because of a rejection of real world knowledge as something important. Now I am not one to confuse a degree with "education". That is a society could have less people in school yet everyone be educated and productive, or everyone in school and getting degrees yet no one getting any know how.When I was in science (including some teaching roles) just ten years ago, Americans were a dwindling minority. When I went into the professional world they appeared even more scattered. We are importing intellect, and we are farming out jobs oversaes to foreign intellect.One could almost view modern US practices as that of the Romans or Spartans living off the hard work and knowledge of the others around them, and slowly losing interest in understanding what they need to stay in control of things. You might explain to me how they have effected science and tech capabilities within Europe. The big question I have seen here is whether they will effect changes in public culture, not in reducing the education or productivity of the nation. Smaller nations are worried about being swamped given already existing unemployment issues, but that is not the same as suggesting Islamic citizens are putting a crimp in productivity or level of education. My point was not that midEast nations are ready to be the forefront of technology and production, nor that all midEast immigrants are well educated and ready to advance whatever nation they move to. I am well aware of the gap in time between when Islamic nations and their peoples were at the height of culture and knowledge and where they are now.My point was that your suggesting Islam has any relevance to tech, knowledge base, or productivity, specifically regarding effects from Islamic immigration, is to make conclusions that are a bit far fetched.Islam is a religion. Right now most Islamic nations are poor and undereducated. But that does not mean it was a result of Islamic belief, nor ensure that immigrants from such nations will be poor and undereducated.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I was thinking of Holmes' discussion, i.e. technologies in which European firms totally dominate and US firms are effectively shut out
of the market. This does not appear to be the case for cellphones. Nokia has the largest market share, but Motorola is 2nd. Asian firms like LG and Samsung are also major players.Then there is the whole CDMA vs. GSM game...I'll have to look into some of Holmes' other examples when I have more time. He's probably right about the beer, but I think a bit of personal research may be necessary on that one...just to verify my impressions of course...I sense a bit of topic drift, where's Bolton in all this ?This message has been edited by paisano, 05-19-2005 06:33 PM

It works the other way, too. (Remember those weapon inspectors? Probably the only reason that Iraq didn't have the weapons they said they did.)At the very least, it keeps those countries at the table. If you think that the solution to the world's woes is for everybody to leave the discussion and hole up in their own little corner - isolationism, in other words - well, I'd like to see you defend that position. Because it's stupid on the face of it.Of course the UN is fairly corrupt; the nations that constitute it are fairly corrupt. (How come when all these Oil-For-Food millions come up in conversation, nobody mentions the tens of billions of dollars of Iraq reconstruction money that our government simply can't account for?)

Actually I was not meaning to advance where Europeans totally dominate and effectively shut out the US. I was more discussing where they had a lead and so serious competitive edge which is unlikely to be lost. Thus I did think the Nokia example was appropriate (and which I was suggesting by "wireless technology").It seemed to me you were arguing the US and Pacific Rim would for Europe out, but I didn't see why that would be true (or could be true) in certain tech areas, given their current lead.I readily admit I am not in any position to say that any nation totally dominates any market... oh wait yes I can. I can tell you right now that the Netherlands totally dominates in the marijuana markets as they are the only one with an actual market (unless black is counted. Also, Europe dominates the US in prostitution and bestiality video markets. I'm sure that's not very impressive, but the US gets spanked in it. Oh yeah, maybe spanking (S&M) porn too. Perhaps right where he should be... nowhere to be seen on such topics.This message has been edited by holmes, 05-20-2005 04:12 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Holmes,Sorry about the wait, been a busy week. It is not counterfactual, Iraq defaulted on resolutions right up to the end (weapons inspector access).If (for example) WI access is so serious that it warrants a chapter seven resolution that implies the use of force in its support, then why wouldn’t force be used after a decades worth of sporadic, systematic non-compliance? Nothing has changed, the rationale in 02/3 is as good as in ’91. They were serious enough about it to threaten force at the time, shouldn’t the threat have been realised when the specific points of the resolution were defaulted upon? If not, why not?They were bluffing, obviously. It would have been nice to have let the US/UK coalition know this, don’t you think? If diplomacy is meant to avert war, why threaten it? This seems hypocritical. You have it about face, the UN acted within the spirit of the UN resolutions, everyone else bucked their responsibility. At the very least, my statement is as valid as yours. Hang on a second, on one hand you are telling me I am nave in not understanding how diplomacy works, on the other hand I’m calling people hypocrites when they say one thing & do another? You can’t have it both ways. Either they ARE bluffing & deserve the title, or they are not. They don’t become non-bluffers just because others do the same in the name of realpolitik. Again, what has changed with the situation regarding weapons inspectors from ’91 to 02? Nada. The reason for using force in ‘95 is as good as in ‘03. The arguments against the use of force should have been made before a chapter 7 resolution took place, or at the very least a nation shouldn’t be voting for the thing if it is a chapter 7 resolution & they have no intention of supporting it. Yet this never happened, & they did vote for it. Iraq defaulted time & again up to ’03. No-one wanted to do what they implied they would.That they were right is irrelevant. The resolution threatened force if the inspectors were not given unfettered access, which they weren’t. Whether there were WMD’s present is neither here nor there. So that bit about backing it up with force was a bluff, then? There really is no reason to threaten force if you are not going to use it if you aren’t bluffing. Make a chapter seven resolution that threatens force if it is defaulted upon, then resolutely refuse to use it. The means justifies the end? How am I using an ad hominem by pointing out the truth that they were bluffing? Unfortunately, in the future the threat of UN force is going most likely cause a split side from all the belly laughing. Potentially hundreds of thousands, millions even, may die because of the impotent ambiguity of previous UN threats/resolutions. It is demonstrably accurate, Iraq refused point blank to allow UN inspectors access to presidential palaces (for example), then later allowed them in. Time & again UN inspectors were left hanging around at the gates of sites after being denied entry.That he dragged his feet & obfuscated is a default on a UN resolution that requires total & immediate compliance. You have an extremely non-quotidian definition of success, if you think the threat of force resulted in Saddam towing the line regarding UN resolutions. A decade after they were written he still flouted them. What would a failure entail, one wonders? I never said he was hiding anything, I did imply he was in defiance of UN resolutions, however. I am being steadfast with evidence. Saddam was in defiance of UN resolutions a decade after they came into force. The UN threatened force as a result of non-compliance & failed to actualise it.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

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I am being steadfast with evidence. Saddam was in defiance of UN resolutions a decade after they came into force. The UN threatened force as a result of non-compliance & failed to actualise it.

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False - the UN never threatened fo0rce. It threatened "serious consequences". When a move was made to submit a 2nd resolution that would contain the correct wording to indicate the use of force, France and Russia indicated they would veto any such resolution becuase of the "automaticity" of the resort to force. In the face of this opposition, the resolution was never submitted.It is factually wrong to claim that the UN threatened force and failed to actualise it. Furthermore, Saddam is now known to have been in complience. Third, many states including Israel remain in defiance of the UN for years.None of this was remotely relevant to the hawks who wanted war.

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I am not defending the social responsibility of this tactic, but we either have a free market system or we don't.
If we do, then eventually the playing field levels for everyone, consumers benefit, and developing countries have a chance to develop.
To put boundaries on trade to protect a small job sector is politically popular, but it is not sound economics. But of course it's a hard pill to swallow if your job is one affected. This raises another question: Do any one of us have a right to expect our particular job description to be carved in stone ? I am not going to take sides on that one, but it is really a valid question.

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Actually, it is not a valid question.The supposed dichotomy between preserving existing jobs and off-shoring them is a false one. There is an alternative - proper support for those workers compelled, through no fault of their own, to find new work. And indeed, it seems reasonable to me to expect the company who gains in profitablity to bear most of these costs.I fully agree it is a hopeless finger-in-the-dyke strategy to simply refuse off-shoring and maintain production of a non-economic good. (and btw Schraf, China has been out of the low quality mass market for some decades and is easily capable of producing very high quality goods). But eqaully, you cannot just boot workers out and leave them destitute and expect this not to have repercussions.Appealing to the abstract principle of the free market is not an adequate answer. That may be an adequate explanation for why we find outselves with this problem - but it is not an answer to the problem.

i think it's about time i made another post listing all the islamic nations...guh. i really don't want to have to look it all up again. google searches are starting to get difficult and laden with crap.