I disagree that free markets are highly prevalent in modern economies.

One tenant of a completely free market is the lack of asymmetrical information, that both the buyer and seller are aware of all other buyers and sellers.

In your example, the parent would know of all other kids competing for money to mow the lawn, the kid is aware of all parents seeking his services and at what price point.

This is just a small local example, this can be taken further on international levels, where it gets even more complicated as we factor in protectionist trade policy, trade agreements, trade restrictions, trade quotas and so on.

For example in the 70s, the Japanese auto industry was decimating the local auto industry in the US, the Big 3 lobbied the government to do something about it. Through negotiations the Japanese agreed to a voluntary quota system, they would import only a limited amount of their more efficient cars, this drove up their price artificially in the market, allowing them to gain alot of profit by re-branding their cars for a luxury car market known today as the Lexus.

The Big 3 gained via continued dominion of the US auto market, the Japanese gained through a new luxury auto market, while the consumer lost because market efficiency was not there, the cheapest model cars made in Japan were not available to the US consumer.

International trade fails free market ideals in many ways, since a lot of first world nations do not allow third world nations into their markets especially in terms of agriculture. In the 1920s to 1950s, there was highly restrictive trade as various international economics locked off their markets to rebuild their economics, this took over 70 years to slowly unravel via the GATT and the emergence of the WTO. However there are a lot of barriers, the G8 also have larger influence and bargaining strength over third world nations, they also understand WTO legalese better.

Now think of something that holds a large control of the market like Wallmart in the retail industry, in some areas they are the sole superstore thus this is already not a free market, everyone is forced to purchase their products at one place. This doesn't stop the seller to change their price because the consumer is dependent. This is where we can say no free market exists due to regional monopoly.

The closest we come to a free market is the stock market but only on price, all sellers and buyers know the price however not everyone knows profit forecasts, insider information, business conditions, corporate structure and so on.

Kucinich's Ten Key Issues:

Universal Health Care
International Cooperation: US out of Iraq, UN in
Jobs and Withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO
Repeal of the "Patriot Act"
Guaranteed Quality Education, Pre-K Through College
Full Social Security Benefits at Age 65
Right-to-Choose, Privacy, and Civil Rights
Balance Between Workers and Corporations
Environmental Renewal and Clean Energy
Restored Rural Communities and Family Farms

>> ^spoco2
I'm not in a position to really state whether any of that is true, but if it is, and the Republicans have been in power for the last 8 years... then surely it'd be stupid to vote in more of the same leadership?
No? And if you're going to try to suggest that all the problems are because of a democrat being in office in the 1930s... please, respectfully... f ck off.
If your chosen part has been in power for the past 8 years and has done nothing but help your country sink into its own financial abyss, then have the bloody balls to accept that, don't pull some shit about someone 70 years ago causing the trouble now.
That's some serious blinker you have on there.


Though it sounds like quantum doesn't really understand what he's parroting, to those learned libertarians in world who understand the problem, he's actually kind of right and it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. It's entirely a matter of socialist big government policies that have been building over a long period of time, just waiting for someone highly corrupt to abuse them. Are you aware of the benevolent dictator argument? The idea that just because it's possible to have a benevolent dictatorship for a certain period of time, the costs of that system ultimately catch up to it because as long as those highly centralized powers EXIST, they WILL be abused by an eventual regime change and destroy the country. This is why we embrace constitutional limits on government and a system of inefficiency in which it is (supposed to be) extremely difficult for any political group to do this. Those limits started to get ignored at the turn of the 20th century and are almost all violated in some fashion today. It doesn't matter how convinced you are that your candidate is telling you the truth, some powers shouldn't exist. The system should not come down to who can pick the best dictator, and then being left with the consolation of "I told you so" when the people finally screw up and elect the wrong guy. Because there are actually two ways to do harm: through stupidity or through deceit. It's perfectly possible to be a well-intentioned, charismatic guy that is just plain wrong or ignorant how to best solve a problem. It's also possible for someone to promise to do one thing to get elected, and do the opposite once elected. People on this forum are educated enough to see #2. They're not seeing #1.

Bush is a highly corrupt individual, no question about it. But to restrict the debate to a choice between liberalism and neo-conservatism is to restrict the debate to socialism, because that's exactly what both of them are with minor differences. This population needs to understand libertarian principles, and fast. Because make no mistake, these socialist enablements and crises and scandals have plagued politics in general over the years and it was bound to come to a head sooner or later. We are in the late stages of socialism, there is nothing "regulatory" that can be done about something that is inherently fraudulent or corruptible. You simply have to understand that markets are merely individuals making mutually agreeable transactions with one another. Government's main functions are very simple, it is to make sure rights are not infringed with police/fire/national defense, and to provide a system of courts for recourse and the settlement of disputes. It is not to have its hands in every part of the market to regulate "greed," this is a nonsensical statement that assumes politicians with privileged power to forcibly appropriate money are not themselves greedy. This is the kind of idealist thinking that enables lobbying, corporatism, etc, and it's stunning that people haven't figured this out yet. The only way a person or a company can turn a profit, without infringing on people's rights, and without colluding with government-specific powers that they do not have (see:below), is to create a product/service that people will want to improve their lives with. That's it. It doesn't matter that the primary goal in a business venture is to make money in a truly free market, because the only way to make money in that system and keep it is to meet the demands of someone else. The EFFECT is that both parties benefit, even though the goals are both driven by self-interest. People are also very generous and are more apt to give excesses to charity under this system, charity was at its highest in America in the late 19th century. Because we didn't have inflation and we didn't have an income tax. Here is a short list of things that have brought us here and Ron Paul was the only one talking about any of them.

1. Centralized price fixing of interest rates by the Federal Reserve System: sends the wrong signals to investors to prevent politically inconvenient recessions, incentivizing massive misallocations of capital investment. Enables catastrophic insolvency, market scapegoating and further socialist interventions. This is THE root cause of the two market bubbles which are now collapsing, as well as the bubble that formed in the 20s and crashed in 29. This one spanned both Clinton and Bush presidencies, started with the easy money policies of the 90s that led to the tech stocks collapsing, then the inflation was filtered into real estate by Greenspan's 1% artificially low interest rates in 2000 (he also egged on the market for years, completely oblivious to what he was doing), and finally the inflation is coming home to roost in basic commodities. Borrowers are walking away and banks that invested heavily in the housing mania with are now left with mortgages that are nowhere near worth the price that they could actually sell the home. The housing market mania was so intense that people were buying homes to flip them to other people who were buying homes to flip them, until eventually, all that was left was speculative sellers with no one buying to LIVE in them other than idiots with bad credit who bought with no down payments.
2. An unconstitutional, non-market determined money: easily manufactured at no labor or material cost by the banking industry that controls it, transferring purchasing power from those who have to work for them to the recipients of this free money in wall street and in the government without asking the working man. Morally reprehensible and enables bailout legislation to deal with the insolvency that #1 causes.
3. Fractional Reserve Banking: government enables the banking industry to fraudelently loan out credit many times what it actually has in reserves and earn interest off of it. The effect cascades as a result of successive deposits of this phantom credit between banks and enables bank runs and extremely unstable leverage, creating an environment that all but necessitates an FDIC and central bank to be lender of last resort in the event of a run, which of course leads to the creation of #1.
3. Heavy subsidization: enables corporate lobbying for government handouts of forcibly appropriated money as an anti-competitive advantage
4. Income-taxation, a direct tax on production, very difficult to enforce without intimidation tactics, enables special tax credits as an anti-competitive advantage
5. Anti-competitive regulation: who's regulating the regulator? Idealist FDA powers to ban products from being chosen on the market have led to anti-competitive bans such as Stevia, resulting in health repercussions unbecoming of an agency that is supposed to protect it. Special legislation such as NAFTA, a 100-page "free-trade" agreement acting as a pretense to lower tariffs to get the WTO to raise tariffs
6. Nationalization of industry: enables predatory anti-competitive takeovers for the largest institutions of smaller institutions, enables government monopoly in industry financed by forcibly appropriated money.
7. Medicare, SS: Unsustainable, government run ponzi schemes purporting to be welfare measures. New investors paying old investors in real time, continually increasing tax rates to prolong solvency, continually changing rules about retirement age to prolong solvency. Trust fund anually tapped by congress to spend the excess by replacing them with government promises of future dollars (bonds). CPI-adjusted payouts, allowing government to underpay by understating real inflation.

And after listing all of this shit, it should be obvious to see why I'm so incensed by simple little quips like charliem's that get rated up: "unethical" loans. You want to talk about ethical lending? You think the government doing the things above under either party gives one bloody shit about ethics? Lending money is a gamble, it's a gamble you implictly allowed that bank to take by giving them your money to gamble with. Banks aren't a free storing house for money, they immediately take the money you give them and loan most of it out to someone else at interest, that's how they pay YOU interest for keeping it on their books when you could otherwise put your savings in a lockbox for a fee. But seeing as how people are cheap, ignorant bastards that have no idea how fraudulent the current system is, they will continue to ask politicians to coo-coo them with "ethics reform" and other nonsense that do nothing to solve the fundamental problems.

And let me make this dirt simple if I haven't already: you can't "regulate" or "oversee" these activities any more than you can "regulate" or "oversee" murder. It is fundamentally fraudulent to loan out something you don't have, price fixing of interest rates creates shortages of capital when people otherwise would save it, and an easily inflatable currency is nothing more than legalized counterfeiting for government and anyone who colludes with them. Wake up already.

>> ^blankfist:
China is a different monster altogether. Apples and oranges. Their constitution isn't the same as ours nor is their Republic. That aside, I think we should trade with all countries. I don't see a need for Nafta or Cafta or a WTO. Why do we care so much about regulating trade if there wasn't money or political advantage to gain. Look at the silly embargo we placed on cuba. What right do we have to do that?!


I probably wasn't clear in my question. Given that China is a totally different animal than the US, without safety regulations, labor laws, or a minimum wage, do you think that Americans should "compete" with that directly?

If so, how do we compete? Build our own sweatshops?

I believe in securing our borders. That does not mean I'm racist and I hate immigrants. And I certainly do not think unsecured borders will allow Al Qaeda to sneak into this country. I believe in immigration! I don't like illegals gaming the system because they can and because we allow them, and I certainly am against having to pay for others... period.

China is a different monster altogether. Apples and oranges. Their constitution isn't the same as ours nor is their Republic. That aside, I think we should trade with all countries. I don't see a need for Nafta or Cafta or a WTO. Why do we care so much about regulating trade if there wasn't money or political advantage to gain. Look at the silly embargo we placed on cuba. What right do we have to do that?!

To quote the dude wearing the baklava and glasses...

"I'm here because I heard 50,000 other people were gonna be here, and I figured even if they're out here protesting in a way that I don't like advocating reform or abolition of some particular institution, at least they're 50,000 people that really care and are worked up about something."

"The problem with the WTO is the same problem that all the institutions that fill our lives are guilty of, that people other than ourselves are in control of our lives. They just keep getting further and further away from us and more and more powerful. I don't care whether they're making decisions that I like or which I hate, the fact that their making those decisions is unhealthy and unnatural."

It's a great documentary. I don't agree with everything said, but the remarkable thing is that the folks who made it are the same folks who were there on the ground organising this thing, yet they include opposing points of view from the many different factions of the anarchist group, and even those opposing the group as a whole.

Like bcglorf said... What do want? Independent media! When do we want it? Now!

I try to have an open mind about these things, but aside from the accusation of "shadow government" which you could level at any one of these so-called "think tanks", I'm not sure what's so wrong about participating in an international governmental body.

I'm also curious, is Bush part of CFR?

How about European nations, are they?

Are the U.N., WTO, ICC, all hotbeds of CFR activity?

My problem with this whole line of thinking is that while Bill Clinton and Bush agree on the necessity of NAFTA, they disagree on the way they respond to the UN, WTO, and ICC. Bill Clinton, and Bush 41 liked 'em, Bush 43 despises them. McCain talks pie in the sky about replacing them with new organizations with more limited membership, and a more NATO-like bent. Long story short, if all these guys are all marching to CFR's orders, why have their policies toward international governing bodies differed?

Personally, I see changing NAFTA into NAU as a good thing, since it'd temper some of that capitalistic exploitation with a regulatory body that would make the playing field equal between all three countries, like with the EU. I wouldn't mind changing from the dollar to an "Amero" if it's a strong currency, especially if the dollar is gonna keep racing for parity with the Yen.

I hear Hillary Clinton and Obama making minor noises about "renegotiating" NAFTA to move slightly in this direction (and that's probably an exaggeration at that), but McCain says it's fine as is, and should just be expanded to Central America, too.

I may be a fire-breathing liberal, but free trade should be the policy, so long as there are protections for consumers, workers, and the environment. Protectionism ultimately stifles the economy to everyone's detriment, even if in the short term it can be beneficial.

Rage against the machine music notwithstanding, I don't see anything sinister about a group that sees a global governing body as being a necessity for globalization to work properly. I think we're being hit now by the problems of not doing that while still happily globalizing away (e.g. lead paint in toys, jobs moving overseas, stagnant/shrinking wages, etc.).

AIPAC or PNAC on the other hand, those guys are just out to screw with us.

This is a great advert but it's a gross over simplfication of the South African 'problem'. It pushes the black/white dichotomy that has very quickly become irrelevant in the current socio-economic climate and does nothing to advance any meaningfull discourse.

It feels to me like it's promoting the idea that subversive racism is still the large cause of the many problems in South Africa, which is clearly not the case. The imagery is effective in communicating the largely unchanged landscape of the 'new' South Africa, but I never get the impression that it's trying to get its audience to question why the structures haven't changed. This kind of imagery is only going to further aggravate the prejudice that is alive and well in S.A. You have to be practical about Sabc 1's target audience as well. It's very much youth oriented, and imagery like this is not going to be put into the broader context that it deserves.

It's this kind of systemic oversimplification that has lead to issues like the current xenophobic violence and it's a scary indicator of things to come.

How about questioning the GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution) strategy that the government has employed since 1996 (Privatisation, Open markets, etc etc. Sound familiar?), or the negative influence the WTO and World Bank have had on South Africa's economic environment. How about discussing the fact that the new government has had to deal with around 343 billion rands worth of debt incurred by the previous apartheid government, and how this has effectively crippled their ability to implement substantial change, forcing the government to sell off many nationalised assets at one point to cover the payments. Add on top of that the loss of control of the South African reserve bank, corrupt and inept politicans, badly thought out black economic empowerment programs, rising unemployment, etc etc etc and it gets pretty complex and messy very quickly, and that's why simplifying it down to race is disengenuous and incredibly damaging.

My fear is that this xenophobic violence weve started seeing is the first expression of the economic climate that is developing in South Africa due to a cocktail of the broader worldwide economic crisis and the lackadaisical economic programs employed by the current goverment. And with imagery like this being promoted, I wouldn't be suprised if it spills into overt racial violence at some point.

This story is all too true.. the IMF and World Bank using imposed WTO Agreements has severely undercut 3rd world markets. *humanitarian

Fahad,

I understand the benefits of reciprocal anti-tariff agreements. If that was all the WTO did it would be fine. But the WTO goes far beyond that in imposing regulations on member countries, and these, for example, both usurp the role of the FDA and make countries adopt draconian copyright law.

It uses the threat of economic loss from tariffs as leverage to coerce countries into joining and adopting all sorts of unrelated measures (analogous to the IMF's loan "conditionalities" that require privatization of everything regardless of the will of the people)

There is a severe misconception when it comes to discussing the World Trade Organization. Very briefly I will try to clear some things about what the WTO does...

The WTO negotiates trade agreements on the global level between governments for trade standards, it succeeded the General Agreement on Trades and Tarrifs (GATT).

Trade is one of the most important factors of economic development, if one country is good at producing one specific item it would trade with another nation that is good at producing something else, both parties benefit in a fruitful trade environment. This is important because trade creates what is called comparative advantages, e.g. Germany is good at producing beer, Russia is good at producing vodka, the both trade to gain benefits. Basically some countries are better at producing goods A and others at goods B, both trade and both expand and benefit as such.

Before the great depression and both World Wars, trade between nations was fairly open, nations would freely allow the movement of goods from one point to another. However post these economic shocks protectionism entered, countries started to close borders and introducing tariffs, import restrictions, quotas and variable import restrictions. This is problematic, some countries would not say have the infrastructure for heavy industry so cannot efficiently produce cars, other countries don't have the labor for cost efficient agricultural development. So there is a economic opportunity cost when investment takes place in industries that the benefit has no basis or advantage in, for example in my country they opened a computer factory during soviet times even though we were so far behind in development and software. There is a waste of scare economic resources then.

With GATT and WTO afterwards it, many of the trade restrictions have fallen the world over, leading to the cases we see of economic development in areas like South East Asia (China, India and the Asian Tiger economies).

However there are problems.

- Both WTO and IMF represent private corporate interests, siding with larger economies over smaller ones, so private interests in Western Nations can dictate the terms to smaller ones.

- Larger players possess the legalese and knowledge to push charges against smaller players, e.g. in the form of dumping charges (country A is dumping goods at below cost of production to penetrate the market to country B). For example the South East Asian economies are commonly accused of dumping their goods to the western world, when in fact its simply comparative advantages such as larger labor poll and such.

- Since trade barriers were existent already, large areas were already protected via political interests, the biggest being agriculture between 1st world and the 3rd world or smaller ones like timber trade between US and Canada.

An organization like the WTO is needed in that its a common form for discussing trade on a global scale, but it does not represent the interests of all fairly or provide a platform for such, one glance of their website will show you how many nations the US accuses of unfair trade advantages because its protections local interests.

However this is illogical, no nation can possess all production assets, due to scarcity, and the global economy is tightening year on year and becoming interdependent, which is a good thing, its very hard to bomb someone if your and theirs economies are connected through trade, this is happening between the US and China.

Its also presentative of the different rearrangement of economies over the long term, take the case of the UK a country that has went from primary industry, secondary and now is almost purely a services economy. China is now the worlds producer of simple secondary goods, the US is now a bigger R&D developer. The third world if it was allowed could feed the whole world and so on and so forth.

The economies are now interdependent as well, take your average laptop, the technology was probably developed in the US and Japan, the semiconductors were made in Malaysia and South Korea, and it was all put together in China.

Its not a perfect system by a long shot, however looking over the ages, economics is far better at leveling the playing field and brining together nations then idealistic statements and or anarchy which is common seen at WTO/IMF/G8 meets.

Of course there is a million other issues to consider... but I said this was a *cough* very brief description.

watched some. i'll read up a little more, and come back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Alimentarius

she certainly appears to know what she's talking about.
and i already don't care for the WTO.

Here's a start....
Burning Man WTO

"Next year, an effigy of the worlds economy will be erected in Brussels, using the bodies of CEO's and Presidents of Petroleum and Pharmaceutical companies, and launched into the upper atmosphere, using a battery of V2 Rockets, lashed together by hippies using environmentally-copasetic recycled products."

This won't change anything, we are all still going to eventually kill ourselves, but it will help to control the population of assholes on the planet.

The biggest hurt on creating a commodities based market with regards to agriculture in Africa is the unfair trade factors working against farmers in Africa, and dumping of surplus agricultural products, every time a famine or drought strikes the region the developed world throw undue amounts of food aid into the nation (USAID).

While this is of course necessary for the short term, this doesn't translate into a long term strategy to develop and or recover an agricultural market in the region, farmers thus go back to grow to self sustain only. What happens is that the aid becomes a commodity in itself, how could a struggling agricultural market compete against something basically offered for free? This is due to the fact that aid resides for far longer, there have been countless reports of aid being ceased and then resold by unscrupulous people who pick up aid to redistribute it but then instead resell it for certain price, or simply stock pile to reinject back into the market in another region. Oh yeah and those clothes you 'donated' to help Africa? They are bought up then resold as well. There is just simply no mechanism in place to watch over how aid is distributed its all done on faith that it will be done ethically.

At the same time the agricultural market in the west is sustained perpetually via high subsidies from the government (see EU CAP policy and US Food Homeland Security Act), which also reflects in world agricultural trade (see WTO and agricultural trade petitions), effectively agricultural products from the west are dumped on the world market below cost of production undercutting any developing agricultural markets in the developing world.

This is of course rather unfair given that while only a small percentage of the West's economic activity resides in agricultural markets whereas its nearly 70% to 80% of the economic activity in developing nations since industrialization and services based industries depend on a developed agricultural market first.

There are other issues also, borders between African nations are most usually closed, there is a lack of infrastructure to allow free movement of such commodities between nations. The continent should be able to respond to member nations crisis, but that mechanism is not there, and reflexively asking for aid from the west usually also brings large paychecks and Mercedes cars to corrupt leaders in power. You know all the problems would be solved if we just kept throwing wads of cash at them without any accountability, you been to LiveAid? bought that crappy white band for Make Poverty History? Do you have any idea what happened to that money? I thought so...

If the west wanted to help the developing world in it's problems with regards to agriculture it would stop subsidization, stop depressing world food prices, help and developing a self sustaining agricultural market in Africa through education and good practices (scorch and burn is still a widely used agricultural practice in Africa). However this comes at the cost of upsetting farmers in the west, though that doesn't exist anymore, its usually large corporations holding huge tracts of land, lobbying the government (look at the powerless FDA) for protectionist trade policies (to benefit themselves not the consumer), producing at above cost sustained by subsidies from the government.

i am still really 50/50 about globalisation.

all i can tell you is that freedom of travel in the EU is great, and that i think it would be much harder for any "dark forces" to control us if we mingle more.

my current guess is that the higher ups like globalisation because it makes trade easier and less of their profit goes on bureaucracy and crap.

also consider this example: i am in lithuania. i have a young musician friend in poland from the internet, he wanted to come to lithuania to play in one of my parties, but he couldn't because of problems with his passport and an alcoholic father. Now thanks to shengen he can come without a passport. i think that's good.

living in europe (not uk or usa) i have got much more confident about man's ability to retain his own culture while mixing with others. also i think the cultural gene pool NEEDS mixing.

i am more worried about google world domination than anything else.

just interested what you think on that.

:

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Yes, it's a scary time, because the Executive Branch is acting outside the powers given to them by the Constitution. The President cannot make treaties with other countries without the Senate's approval. Currently, these deals between the US, Canada and Mexico are being passed off as trade agreements, not treaties. But a dissolution of our borders is not a trade agreement.

Welcome to the sift, by the way.

In reply to this comment by Jordass:
Wasnt endorsing Globalization just wanted to know more. Thanks for all the information, it was very informative and more people should familiarize themseleves with the organizations you metioned

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Well, the reason for the US Dollar losing it's value is a separate issue, altogether, and we don't need a North American Union to increase its value. That aside, this debate really comes down to whether you'd prefer to remain a sovereign nation or not. The borders between Canada, the US and Mexico will effectively disappear if there's a NAU, because the NAU goes much further than just currency and trade. The purpose of our Declaration of Independence was to claim our Union of States' independence. The NAU will render that document obsolete, and shortly thereafter the Constitution would be obsolete, because it cannot exist without our DoI. This isn't something to shrug at, because the changes won't come hard and fast, and most likely the general population would never notice their liberties and freedoms being taken away.

If you'd prefer the notion of a one world government (the true end to the globilization means), then you should be for the NAU, because that is step number two. Step number one was the EU, and next will be the Asian Union, then the African Union. Eventually, all of the "Unions" will probably become a one world union. And, if you still think all the nations that used to be sovereign would retain their "current governments" or "identities", as you put it, then I don't know what else I can say to you other than support globalization because, boy oh boy, does it sound nifty.

Take a little time to research the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA), and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). While you're at it, research the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and see how many of the current candidates are part of the CFR. If, after all of that, you still don't see how globalization is a bad idea for our sovereign nation, then, well support globalization. Support a one world government. A one world police force. Oh, what a happier utopia this world will be.