Evidence for why Bolton should not be confimed

So we are the ultimate world force that is beyond rebuke?I think a more current terminology would be 'developing countries' as opposed to '3rd world', but what makes you so convinced that the US can and should stand unquestioned as THE dominant world force ?That is so egocentric."In what amounts to a stinging rebuke, the United States has been voted off the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva."The Patriot Act was grounds enough for that.

Exactly. And we don't want some ham-handed bully representing us there. Reagardless of your opinions of the UN, Bolton is a bad choice for the USA. The job calls for someone with diplomatic skills, capable of building rapport between dissenting factions etc. You don't send a "kiss-up, kick down" guy to do this kind of job. His selection epitomizes the policies of Bush and his administration - lets put (perceived) US interests first, suck up to the interests of our confirmed supporters, and everyone else be damned.This message has been edited by EZscience, 05-16-2005 05:04 PM

Yes. Share the technology, but limit the greed.Its entirely analagous to where we decide to put the fulcrum of balance between capitalism and socialism. I must admit I am also for preservation of what I have materially.
But I would contend if we don't assist social development in poorer countries they will be more likely to produce our suicide bombers of the future than become formal allies.But I really would like to address your point about our standard of living decling relative to that of other countries.
Hasn't it been more than a fair bit higher for some time?
Don't we still have the highest per capita energy consumption of any country by a factor of 4 or 5 to 1 ?So if any country were to improve their standard of living, our standard of living would have to decline relative to theirs.But forget relative - let's talk in absolute terms.
If we don't establish some improved international economic relations in a hurry, the worst case scenario is this:Our currency could continue to decline in value, the cost of money (i.e. interests rates) could rise, current over-confident consumer borrowing would abruptly cease, employment levels will fall as a result, and a far more serious recession would begin.
It sounds like a house-of-cards scenario, but it is entirely possible.If the European Union consolidates economically, we will risk losing the dollar as the international currency standard. All it would take is China and Japan to back them up.
After all, they own almost 1/3 of our national debt between them, and we have to hope they keep buying our paper, or else it is going to cost us a lot more to service that debt.Does anyone still think we can afford to send a bozo like Bolton to the UN just because he appeals to the superficial agenda of the current administration ?

I am not even religious, but I will say "Amen" to that.

I should have specified *compared to developing countries".For example, using data from your link,
in 2001 the US had 2.54 x the pc energy consumption of Spain,
almost 15 x the consumption of Albania and Phillipines,
17 x the consumption of Peru
and 24 x the consumption of Senegal. So we shouldn't participate in trying to improve it?
How else are we going to establish the alliances we need to secure our international interests ?
What are you suggesting we do - start from scratch to create a new international council of nations ?
Our ignore it and simply impose American policies unilaterally around the world ?
Even if you don't care much about how we are viewed by other countries, don't you think that would adversely affect our already elevated national security concerns ?

I would agree with your assessment that our economic prospects here in the US have declined substantially during the tenure of the current administration, and there is little reason to suggest they will improve in the short term.The Bush administration tries consistently to divert attention toward national security issues (which I don't think they have done well on either), but the fact remains that we are losing international influence both politically and economically and the two are intrinsically linked.It's not a question of 'caring about' Western Europe, its a question of dealing effectively with them. The EU is growing, adding countries and becoming more powerful every year.
And on this side of the Atlantic, we can't even seem to make a simple NAFTA deal work properly with our two closest trading partners, thanks to all the protectionist attitudes of the right wing.We are still trying to impose import tariffs on vegetables from Mexico and wheat and softwood lumber from Canada (ruled unjustified by the WTO - but Republicans will probably thumb their noses at them as well) just to satiate small groups of heavily subsidized producers who happen to have well paid lobbyists.Consumers, a much larger, if less-well organized group of the public are the ones who deserve more representation from government, and they have everything to benefit from allowing these cheaper imports into our markets.The recent retreat by the Bush admin on the steel import tariffs is portentious of things to come.
Why should everyone be forced to subsidize a handful of steel workers in Pittsburg when their technology is so out of date they are not even producing the grades of alloy steel in demand today?
It just puts up the price of steel for all Americans who need to buy it.Americans need to realize that there will ultimately be a heavy economic cost to pay for the devil-may-care, go-it-alone, sentiments seemingly espoused by Bolton and the current leadership.
It's an outdated 'cowboy mentality' that plays well in the red states, but it won't serve the nation's best interests.

My point is that economic protectionism almost always favors producers over consumers because thay are an organized lobby group and are far more capable of swaying political action. On the other hand, consumers represnt a much larger segment of society with less representation when they should have more. This is a complex issue and a valid concern. But I would argue against espousing protectionism for the sole purpose of preserving jobs. I know it is sold that way, but it is not an effective or sensible approach long-term.Remember in the 60's Japan started to produce radios and cars cheaper and better than the US? We couldn't penalize them for this because we still had a vested interest in ensuring their economic recovery after WWII. Over a period of about 20 years they became so successful, they became the 2nd largest economy in the world. As a consequence, standards of living and wages improved to the point they are in the same boat as us now. To remain competitive, corporations are farming out all their lower level labor to Malaysia and Indonesia.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. Now you know I didn't mean that.
Every American who bought a car or a refrigerator or anything with significant steel content over the past 20 years has been paying more for that steel to support the American steel industry.This message has been edited by EZscience, 05-18-2005 06:19 AM

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

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

Sure it's valid question. I agree that we need community effort to assist with the relocation of displaced workers, and that their former employers should contribute to this process. The question goes deeper than that. It touches on whether jobs should be preserved for their own sake, as opposed to because they are relevant and needed by the current economy.If I take a devil's advocate approach and answer 'yes' to this question, then we have a problem. Because then no job can ever become obselete, regardless of how redundant or outdated it is. One can think of plenty of examples. Should we have kept all telephone operators employed indefinitely despite the fact that their job is now done, faster, better and more cheaply by computers?Agriculture provides another exhibt. Only a tiny fraction of people still work on farms compared to a century ago. With farming a 'big business' heavily-mechanized operation, they just aren't needed. And yet there still exists a large grass-roots movement to preserve the family farm 'way of life' that many Americans value deeply. But it is simply nostalgia, without economic justification. This is the dilemma: economics, not social ideals, determines the society's overall prosperity.

I make no such value judgement. I am NOT a fan of large agribusiness. But it is a simple economic fact that more efficient means of production will always be able to out-compete less efficient means. That is the free market system and is dictated by the law of supply and demand. And they are probably much better for the environment in the net balance of things. But they still have to make money to survive. Here in America 'organic' local production is a specialty niche market for discerning consumers. However, most people buy the cheapest food they can find and don't ever read a label. You and I are not typical American consumers, or maybe there would be more small-scale, sustainable agriculture in the country. Well I am also against tax breaks for the largest companies, but we have to be very careful before we start advocating 'government support' (= subsidies of some form or other) for any form of agriculture. It usually doesn't tend to encourage very wise agricultural practices and it has led to the current cycle of international escalation in agricultural subsidies that now *everyone* is trying to roll back. It has led to an international competition to see who can afford the most inefficient, although superficially bountiful, agricultural production.But this is aside from the issue of preserving jobs for their own sake. Job descriptions have to be dictated by society's needs and change with them, not by the nostalgic image of the job itself or the fact that a bunch of people don't know how to do anything else.