Hey i'm all about standing up for right and wrong, but these TSA scans aren't so black and white. I seriously doubt they've caught even one terrorist in 9 years, but the logic is sound.

Also the system is set up to screw you. Take the WTO summit in Vancouver (i think it was this year) They charged hundreds of people with felonies. Pretty scary no?

Anyhow if you do stand up, comb your fucking hair so they can't call you schiz.
cheers!

also why is it these meetings, and WTO summits are always happening in places where anarchists are known to run rampant and there is lots of shit to destroy? they might as well have it in eugene next. or greece. shit.

like, if they had it in like kansas or something the "security risk" would be reduced by half.

It amazes me how many people hate the World Toilet Organization. All the WTO wants to do is make products that eat the poopoo.

Crazy people against the Federal Reserve / WTO / IMF system??

Are you fucking insane??

Imagine if we had a gold standard and actual secured and backed monetary policy?
We wouldn't all be poor in a few years. Everyone is going to get fucked over hard by IMF and central banks, learn history and how the Great Depression was made 10x worse by this magical bank of yours.

Our govt doesn't even have any oversight over the federal reserve or their decisions and you might want to google and find out what country the Fed actual resides in.

so was this like a protest-fake-presentation to show the evils of WTO?

>> ^ShakaUVM:
>>And Eisner is a liberal, because all good liberals pay Haitians 28 cents an hour.
@<A rel="nofollow" href="http://www.videosift.com/member/rougy" title="member since June 3rd, 2007" class="profilelink">rougy: You are so ignorant, I don't even know where to begin. I'm honestly puzzled. Are you confusing "conservative" with "capitalist"? That would explain why you think it impossible for a liberal (translation: communist?) to exploit the poor. Or do you think that being a liberal has nothing to do with, you know, actually being a liberal? I posted a reference demonstrating enough as such - I note you have nothing but baseless statements on your side.
>>Wow, conservatives give more pennies to the poor.
Even the poorest conservatives tend to give to charity. But even the richest liberals tend to not. Look up how much Obama gave before the public spotlight was shined on him.
Have you ever actually studied capitalism in the 3rd world? Idiots like you (who come in fighting for a "living wage") are universally detested by the actual people you are trying to "help".


And you're the one who's saying that more of the same corporatist bullshit that had 48% of Samoans living without enough food to eat is a good idea.

You're the one who equated Disney with Eisner.

You're vomiting the bile force-fed to you by some emasculated econ professor in some effete business program.

Your examples and metaphors are so obtuse that to even respond to them is an exercise in futility.

You have never bothered to look at this on your own; you're just saying what you've been taught to say by authority figures who had agendas of their own.

I'm with Chavez, da Silva, and Morales all the way.

Structuring a society around the demands of corporate power will lead to, and maintain, poverty faster than any other economic method we know.

Corporations do not "invest" in countries in order to help the people there; in fact, institutions like the IMF and the WTO invest in countries for he purpose of undermining the people there and exploiting their resources, period.

That's your opinion coming from a pro capitalistic viewpoint, almost all these industries themselves pressed for government intervention and consequentially benefited massively from protectionist policies (see big 3 auto industry case vs Japan auto industry in the 70s oil crisis), the government representatives benefit because the states where these firms are based would vote with their jobs and lively hood. So on a economic standpoint you can argue its wrong, but not from a social one, an economist would allow GM to fail but we live in a society that needs to support its workers.

Such collusion is not the fault of the government, because they way you phrase it you make it sound like its a government initiative, when in reality its the industries themselves that consistently press for protectionist policies to distort the market for their own benefits and profit. The EU farming fiasco right now taking place in France is a clear example, the agricultural sector is pressing for a return to a quota system to allow prices to rise artificially, Brussels has stated it will take no such action as right now agro prices are completely out of sync with world prices and this only benefits the minority agricultural sector.

Am sorry but your opinions fail to ever encompass reality of the situation. Rather you simply have a pro-right beef with what you call government growth, because its a buzz word of the republican right wing. You rail against taxes and government spending without ever thinking that government spending in the 40s and 50s has built up the very infrastructure right that connects America with roads and telecom systems, government subsidies in cases like Canada have allowed the sprouting of a telecom network in its early years because no profit orientated firm would ever dream to lay down telecom networks because its a cost loss.

Its just like when I watch C-SPAN and see republicans complain about stimulus and subsidy packages when i know full well their state presses for the same stimulus and subsidy packages year on year to support their state industries.

Is there hope? Yes? Does it take years? yes Smoot hawley put into effect one of the largest protectionist drives in the world post great depression it has taken 80yrs for GATT, WTO and other international incentives to return to a trade freedom that comes somewhere close to pre-1930 levels. The system of protectionism and industry subsidization takes years to unravel because industries influence government policy more then government policy influences industries.

^ Psychologic
I agree with you that it wouldn't be possible to pass a single payer bill now, as the senate would destroy any bill put forward.
However, my speculation is that I don't think Obama wanted a universal healthcare bill to pass in the first place. At least that's what all of his tactics have suggested as well as his closed door deals with the pharmaceutical industry last month.
I'm not out to bash Obama in and of himself, I just notice that his actions are a continuation of a long run series of policies.
for instance the US stopped with praise close to 40 million dollars in aid to Honduras, and at the same time with little press gave over 130 million to the IMF to go towards Honduras. Also while we're having these g20 talks towards re-regulating the finacial markets, which are non binding, the US is still going through, with Timothy Geitner at the helm, with the binding WTO measures to further deregulate the markets. The key measure to that WTO agreement is that the size of the financial institution cannot be descriminated against.
Anyway maybe I'm rambling, I guess my point is that the evidence suggests that the executive branch is fully representing high end financial institutions.

The CFR (Council on Foriegn Relations) is a think tank whos members comprise basically every prominent US politician, central banker and mega corp executives. They have a publication called Foreign Affairs that propagates the kind of thinking they're developing.

Trilateral Commission is much the same with international members spanning different countries in Europe and Asia.

Bilderberg group is secretive to the point of armed guards, people claiming not to have been there/know about it when it is provable that they do, etc. It seems to have many of the same members, however it is more selective than CFR/Trilateral, so probably at the top of the power structure (if there is one).

Combining these three groups, you've got perhaps the most powerful 500 people meeting in secret which are all then connected to the CFR and Trilateral commission. Both are extremely influential groups in the Foreign Policy arena, with the ability to effectively create cases for things like trade agreements that undermine national sovereignty, world food regulation by the WTO, and potentially their goal, a global central world government ruled by them, the most powerful people.. the elite.

As far as I can see it, the CFR in particular is the mouthpiece for this ideology and it happens that Obama's actions seem to fit in quite nicely with it.

The incentive for most firms to fight against union activity is foreign competition from states like China that have very few worker rights let alone unionization.

I think this was the crux of the argument in the recent Detriot collapse where instead of decades of poor thought out planning and investment, the entire collapse of the big 3 was blamed on the evil union workers and their attempts to make a decent wage! GODDAMN SOCIALISTS.

I used to believe that platforms like the WTO and IMF were created to spur fair and beneficial economic activity but in many countries they simply exaggerate income inequalities and empower employers over the employees. While this could be argued for in the short term growth period with price reductions for consumers in the west, the price decreases seen in manufacturing have not applied uniformly, yes electronics are cheaper due to economics of scale and larger production. But the same is not true of textiles and clothes, I think year on year I pay more for the things I wear then I reasonably should.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
It's certainly true that the U.S. economy has been shifting away from making stuff over the last 50 years, but it's still the case that most cities and towns in the U.S. are completely dependent on their local manufacturing base.

Oh yes that is true, that is a factor I forgot about, small scale suppliers providing for larger multinational firms. But I wonder how many of these jobs have started to be outsourced and will eventually be outsourced to places like China?

Do you think that eventually a manufacturing base in the US is sustainable in the long run?

But that doesn't change the fact that hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people in the U.S. are employed in the agricultural business. Again, I was just using it as an example of producing stuff. Perhaps this points out a fundamental flaw of using GDP as a measure of a country's economic strength.

I agree that yes you have a significant population in the agricultural business, I just simply disagree with subsidization of this industry by the government. I mean post 9/11 they wanted to enforce a renamed act called something like Food Security Act that would increase subsidization of the agricultural industry in certain key states. Since most of the voters are part of those, there is large political pressure to sustain them.

Really? I was under the impression it was more the other way around, i.e., the third world nations were begging the west to stop their subsidies and "level the growing field".

Yes third world nations beg but its the first world nations that have the larger political and legal expertise in WTO negotiations, its a form of bureaucracy, so you have nations that have litte understanding of the paths or argument points that need to be made. Not to mention that the first world is always more keen about its own objectives then the development of the third world to which they are more keen to send a few million dollars in USAID. Sorry I have this big thing against western nations, aid and Africa where I lived. But its a whole another topic.

That I just have to disagree with. It is only because of political realities and labor costs, not farming practices or technology (i.e., true efficiencies). There is no way that it is more efficient to grow corn in Zambia than it is in Iowa.

But do the cost benefit analysis, third world nations that are wholly dependent on agricultural industry, have larger real estate and much lower costs of production then America. Efficiencies in the US come from economies of scale and mechanization, something that is simply lacking in other nations. But you look into FDA rules, the lax rules towards food quality, the large penetration of manufactured foods, the chicken farms that stack chickens in cages one after the other. There is a seeming problem in this. Notice how its only the first world that so far has had problems with regards to food contamination problems.

The subsidization I talked about creates further ramifications further down the line, a certain supply level is reached but the subsidization increased keep going on, you have over supply, with over supply you start dumping this production into the global market. The reason that even in Kuwait we get US apples, bananas and other exotic fruit. It's hilarious.

Ultimately, that's how a company should be run, but how many companies do you know of that have that kind of long term vision. (This is really worthy of another conversation on the ethics and ultimate sustainability of commerce. Too much to handle here.)

Oh of course, you can never expect altruistic behavior from companies, but their profit motive is an easy to read incentive. But you have the IMF which already dictates nation policy to nations to allow for better free market behavior, and yes there is exploitative behavior, but there is enormous room for growth and market formation. The reason I pretty much am planning to come back to Kuwait eventually after University, its an untapped market.

I believe that with IMF, ILO and other NGOs giving good solid economic policy advice we could have FDI into developing nations without exploitative behavior taking place that is still cost efficient to foreign companies. We haven't had much of that mostly due to that fact that these NGOs sometimes expect market knowledge and legislation to magically pop out of thin air instead of being advised.

There is already trade exploitation when you can get EU and US products in the developing world, we got Kellogg and OMO and so on. The problem I see in the developing world is that its this no possible development outlook by both citizens and firms, while the reality is that there is not motivation for FDI in these nations. Africa is always seen as this war torn cess pit of corruption, but thats media for you.

It's a complicated issue, but I still believe that there is avenues for large growth, because the more nations that become developed the more benefit is there for world wide trade as a whole. When I was in Zambia it was a perverted picture, alot of companies and NGOs entered and provided highly technological solutions to very basic problems, shock growth I would say instead of embryonic growth. You don't give powered water pumps to a nation that has no electrical power grid. You don't lie down phone lines and so on. The development profile has to be totally different for example mobile market exploded in Africa because deploying mobile towers and phones is cheaper then laying land lines. I worked with a NGO called Engineers without borders that provided basic technological solutions to problems, real bronze age stuff that could be easily built and more importantly kept up by local populace. This transmission of information is very important. But am a idealist here as well. I want to see the developing world progress, especially Africa which has seen GDP decreases since colonization ended.

I have twice personally "bailed out" close friends. I doubt it was complete ignorance, but there was certainly a lack of understanding of just how much it would cost to run up large amounts of debt.

I agree. But there is alot of access to seemingly low credit and very little knowledge being passed on about controlling run away debt. Consumerism is pushed at the American public at far higher rates then anything else, sophisticated marketing and advertising is far more alluring then sensible financial behavior. It's this consumer pressure that I disagree with, the constant psychological pressure that buying something will make you feel good, the buying for the sake of buying not because its a good product that you need. But am an idealist like that.

Of course you're right that true and fair globalization (as opposed to exploitation) is the best solution. How much luck have you had convincing your neighbors? I haven't had much.

Almost none. Its a hard topic to explain because it requires a very wide macroeconomic viewpoint instead of a localized view. I mean would say 90% of the people I knew in University on one hand wanted development in the third world but were against the implications that developing the third world would mean a short term loss of certain industries locally. But its going to happen eventually. We can't all be growing bananas.

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
Regarding the points you raise. The companies you mentioned are multinationals, focus on technology and R&D and are in markets that have high costs to entry (being it market capitalization, research or technology). For example Boeing's only other competitor is Airbus and they fulfill demand orders on a international scale. I think overall they constitute a small percentage of US economy because their operations are so spread around the world, problems in the US economy would affect these firms very little.

It's a bit ironic that you picked Boeing as the exemplar. I live (part time) in Huntington Beach, CA, where Boeing has a substantial presence. A couple of weeks ago, they laid off about 50 workers in this city of about 200k. But that also results in the loss of jobs in every single company that serves as a local supplier to them (tens of companies, hundreds more jobs). More to the point, I named a whole bunch of large, easily recognizable companies that make stuff, as opposed to providing services, just to point out that manufacturing is alive and well in the U.S. It's a well propagated myth that the U.S. doesn't do manufacturing anymore, which Jake bought right into. Trust me, I've lived in a half dozen cities across the U.S. over the last decade, and every single one of them had a substantial manufacturing base. It's certainly true that the U.S. economy has been shifting away from making stuff over the last 50 years, but it's still the case that most cities and towns in the U.S. are completely dependent on their local manufacturing base.


Agriculture is a thorny issue

The thorniest. Twenty thousand years ago when humans first started domesticating plants, that's what they fought over. And we still do. The only thing we fight over more now is decayed plants.

since much of it both in the US and EU is sustained via massive subsidization and are controlled by large firms which enjoy massive economies of scale. Their lobbying towards the US government means they have favorable market conditions in the states, they price their products higher then the world market and the US consumer ends up paying for that.

But that doesn't change the fact that hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people in the U.S. are employed in the agricultural business. Again, I was just using it as an example of producing stuff. Perhaps this points out a fundamental flaw of using GDP as a measure of a country's economic strength.

Many of the trade disagreements brought up in the WTO by 1st world nations focus on suppressing 3rd world agricultural markets because the western world cannot compete on price and cost.

Really? I was under the impression it was more the other way around, i.e., the third world nations were begging the west to stop their subsidies and "level the growing field".

It's simply cheaper to produce agriculture in the 3rd world. Globalization must be pushed to happened in this sector strongly as right now it penalizes the consumers, sustains an inefficient producer (when looked globally) and suppresses growth in the third world which wholly depends on Agriculture.

That I just have to disagree with. It is only because of political realities and labor costs, not farming practices or technology (i.e., true efficiencies). There is no way that it is more efficient to grow corn in Zambia than it is in Iowa.


This is why you have all those "Free Trade" products being sold all over the place, like coffee beans for example. I would love to see a globalization effort on behalf of large US manufacturers through foreign direct investment in third world economies.

Woah - now you're scaring me. That sounds like multinationals moving into local areas to exploit local resources - fresh water access, etc. I'm pretty sure I know you well enough to know that's not what you mean. But dig deeper - you are suggesting that profit motivated companies would somehow be interested in the welfare of the residents of the local areas in which they operate. Ultimately, that's how a company should be run, but how many companies do you know of that have that kind of long term vision. (This is really worthy of another conversation on the ethics and ultimate sustainability of commerce. Too much to handle here.)

I totally agree on personal debt problems, there is too much runaway consumerism while the middle class has been diminishing, you have too many falling down in the lower classes and not many coming into the middle class. Now republican usually state that tax cuts would elevate this but I disagree, there is very little financial advice and a general air get rich quick behavior in the US, especially leverage and bombardment of the consumer through what seem like seductive credit card offers that have huge monthly payment penalties and interest rate increases. I mean you can get a credit card from almost anyone now in the US. There is a lot of predatory lending behavior in the credit card industry and not enough good information on the topic. I think some sort regulation and institutions that normalize run away debt is in order.

I disagree with you on some of this, and completely agree otherwise. Rampant consumerism is not the problem. Nor is even ridiculously available credit (at least until recently) the problem. It really is an issue of education. As you say, most people in the U.S. (and I think probably most people around the world) don't understand the first thing about finances. And I'm not just talking about average joe. I wasn't fooling around when I said on Joe's blog that I have been privileged to know some of the smartest people on the planet. I really have - and a few of them could barely balance a checkbook. Seriously. I know that sounds absurd, but it's true. I have twice personally "bailed out" close friends. I doubt it was complete ignorance, but there was certainly a lack of understanding of just how much it would cost to run up large amounts of debt.



But again there are so many layers and layers of complexity with any of these topics and some time your viewpoint really depends on your economic background and beliefs, I am a strong believer in world trade and globalization. I do admit there are lots of growing pains and problems in its implementation. It's easy to say the US economy needs to focus more on services and R&D but its not possible. I remember one woman I debated about agricultural markets got offended when I said that farmers in Canada are inefficient and are holding back agricultural market development in the developing world.

No doubt the layers of complexity are lost many folks. It does almost require someone who is independently wealthy that can spend a lifetime studying these topics to really get a handle on it. But, of course, if you are one of those people, you are instantly labeled an elite, out-of-touch, ivory tower geek. Can't win for losing, eh?

Of course you're right that true and fair globalization (as opposed to exploitation) is the best solution. How much luck have you had convincing your neighbors? I haven't had much.

Thanks Jonny.

Regarding the points you raise. The companies you mentioned are multinationals, focus on technology and R&D and are in markets that have high costs to entry (being it market capitalization, research or technology). For example Boeing's only other competitor is Airbus and they fulfill demand orders on a international scale. I think overall they constitute a small percentage of US economy because their operations are so spread around the world, problems in the US economy would affect these firms very little.

Agriculture is a thorny issue, since much of it both in the US and EU is sustained via massive subsidization and are controlled by large firms which enjoy massive economies of scale. Their lobbying towards the US government means they have favorable market conditions in the states, they price their products higher then the world market and the US consumer ends up paying for that.

Many of the trade disagreements brought up in the WTO by 1st world nations focus on suppressing 3rd world agricultural markets because the western world cannot compete on price and cost. It's simply cheaper to produce agriculture in the 3rd world. Globalization must be pushed to happened in this sector strongly as right now it penalizes the consumers, sustains an inefficient producer (when looked globally) and suppresses growth in the third world which wholly depends on Agriculture. This is why you have all those "Free Trade" products being sold all over the place, like coffee beans for example. I would love to see a globalization effort on behalf of large US manufacturers through foreign direct investment in third world economies.

I totally agree on personal debt problems, there is too much runaway consumerism while the middle class has been diminishing, you have too many falling down in the lower classes and not many coming into the middle class. Now republican usually state that tax cuts would elevate this but I disagree, there is very little financial advice and a general air get rich quick behavior in the US, especially leverage and bombardment of the consumer through what seem like seductive credit card offers that have huge monthly payment penalties and interest rate increases. I mean you can get a credit card from almost anyone now in the US. There is a lot of predatory lending behavior in the credit card industry and not enough good information on the topic. I think some sort regulation and institutions that normalize run away debt is in order.

But again there are so many layers and layers of complexity with any of these topics and some time your viewpoint really depends on your economic background and beliefs, I am a strong believer in world trade and globalization. I do admit there are lots of growing pains and problems in its implementation. It's easy to say the US economy needs to focus more on services and R&D but its not possible. I remember one woman I debated about agricultural markets got offended when I said that farmers in Canada are inefficient and are holding back agricultural market development in the developing world.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
the US economy has become ...

Wow, very nice. I was writing a response to Jake's comment along much the same lines, but it was not nearly as coherent or well informed. Thanks. I'm glad I abandoned my response, but I think there are a couple of things you left out.

Jake, first great comment.

What the US economy has become is a fundamental symptom of globalization and liberalization of trade markets, historically nations shifted from primary (extraction of raw resources), to secondary (manufacturing) and into tertiary (services and R&D) economies. The UK is a classic example of this shift in economic structure, moving from coal extraction, to textile mills to now financial centers over a large time span.

You are correct in pointing out that the US economy is now mostly a services, consumer and I would add R&D based economy. Now this is not a bad thing from a economics viewpoint for two reasons comparative advantage and trade liberalization.

Nations cannot be self contained and produce everything for themselves, various nations around the world have tried this and failed. Inherently there will be some things, for example, America (entertainment) will be good at and some things that Cuba (cigars) will be good at, the best case scenario is then for both nations to trade between themselves. This is called comparative advantage and it can be in R&D, manufacturing and services and so on.

When the great depression hit, nations around the world imposed large tariffs and trade restrictions that essentially killed world trade, reduced comparative advantage trade. The last 80 years of General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO) have been working at reducing the trade restrictions that didn't exist prior to the great depression.

Essentially at the very core, what the US economy has become is the consumer and services dynamo of the world, China has become a large manufacturer and both are dependent on one another for the continual economic growth of the world. Due to trade liberalization and comparative advantage. This is globalization at it's most simplified level.

This is why the bailout is essentially created to loosen the credit and allow consumer expenditure to increase through transmission of economic projects throughout the economy at a fiscal level. We are trying to increase consumer spending, and consumer confidence not to simply rebuild Detroit and let car manufacturers burn through credit.

Now there is alot of complexity and problems that arise at almost every sentence I wrote down, but this is the basic restructuring of the world economy that is taking place and its beneficial for the world as a whole, because interdependence on a trade and economic level would mean increased productive efficiency, use of scarce resources and security.

Yes it is possible it will emerge as a social contract, but what are the alternatives?

Protectionism will essentially undo everything the last 80 years have built, and there were moves for this in the bill which are now being stricken because of a fear of trade war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7871219.stm

Drastic realignment and change in government structure or what I like to call the Ron Paul effect is not political viable in any way, it would necessitate the utter change in government structure and national security profile (since major components involves withdrawal and draw down).

I think the problem is more rooted in the malfeasance of the Federal reserve and its stance towards regulating derivatives and sub prime market mortgages, we had a massive repackaging of toxic debt that was then marked favorably by the very agencies that are supposed to mark out risky packages. There was further failure in the SEC when it came down to clamping down on illegal activities, especially when it came to catching the Maddoff scandal.

I don't believe we will have a massive devaluation in the US dollar as China holds the largest US foreign reserves at this moment, as well as foreign debt along with nations like Japan. They will not want to make America default and collapse as a economic power as the repercussions will directly and severely effect them as well, a key part of globalization.

What is needed is essential CPR to the US consumer sector, but tax cuts alone will not work if people don't have jobs. So consumer confidence and consumer spending must be stimulated through other means, like the federal bailout that is being discussed right now. However I don't think it goes far enough in increasing credit in the economy, you must allow banks to start giving out lines of credit and drive economic activity.

We will see how this situation develops, I think its a hard sell either way and the next few years will be hard not matter what plan is imposed.

Fuck Le Pen.

He hates immigrates, gays, abortionists.

That's why no one is listening and everyone is booing.

Immigration is the price of globalization, if Europeans didn't want so much immigration maybe they would think twice about taking policies that directly damage economies of developing nations. See CAP policy and how it affected agricultural based economies, see WTO regulations between Europe and Developing nations.

But shit it's Pprt posting so why am I not surprised.