afransen
Senior Member
China is starting to suffer offshoring, too. Now more and more manufacturing is moving to other, cheaper places such as India and Vietnam.
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Time to demand Fair Trade!
- Thread starter Glen
- Start date
Brandon716
Senior Member
The problem with extremist "free traders" is that they hold a double standard. They believe we should trade with nations like China on the basis that we not create any tariffs on imports, but while our manufacturers have to pay market prices and fair wages with benefits, the Chinese manufacturers not only get to abuse workers through tough work conditions, low pay, few benefits (if any), they also get subsidized for doing so.
Instead of calling it free trade, it should be called corporate trade. Corporations that make the deals, buy our government laws, and force us into a system where we can't even make our own clothing or building materials or anything really are people who are ruining the economy for everyone. And for what? A short term gain that isn't sustainable in the long term.
Manufacturing has to be maintained in all nations, not just collectivized in a few worker-suppressed states like China who abuse workers, pay people insanely low amounts, and subsidize the industries they seek with fixed currency and prices to boot.
There's nothing "free" about our current world trade system.
I always get a kick out of clothing tags. One rack will have various pieces from Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, Egypt, and China, and while they may charge $50 for the jeans, I wonder if the worker who did the work even gets $.25 cents out of that $50. There is nothing sustainable about western life right now, and it makes me wonder if the suppressed conditions alone aren't helping seed extremism against certain nation-states and pushes desperate workers into terrorist groups as an alternative. Especially considering how much clothing is now manufactured from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Egypt. There has been a notable increase in imports from these nations in the United States since 2000, and if anyone walks into a store its easily visible.
Trade is as much a part as the "war on terror" as bombing any nation-state, IMO. Until we start balancing the world's economy and treating people fairly, no one wins.
If you grow up in an economically depressed state like Pakistan, you're taught fundamentalist religious ideology that the infidels are ruling the world, and you can't afford your own place working 10 hours a day getting paid .02 cents (USD) per piece of clothing you make, it sounds ironically understandable that it would leave a lot of people so frustrated that they would rather just spend all their free time hating the United States or other western nations and be willing to join groups against the western world. Understanding hate is key to conquering hate.
Until people get it, we're never going to win this so-called "war" because its not a war and the west isn't against a nation-state anymore.
Instead of calling it free trade, it should be called corporate trade. Corporations that make the deals, buy our government laws, and force us into a system where we can't even make our own clothing or building materials or anything really are people who are ruining the economy for everyone. And for what? A short term gain that isn't sustainable in the long term.
Manufacturing has to be maintained in all nations, not just collectivized in a few worker-suppressed states like China who abuse workers, pay people insanely low amounts, and subsidize the industries they seek with fixed currency and prices to boot.
There's nothing "free" about our current world trade system.
I always get a kick out of clothing tags. One rack will have various pieces from Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, Egypt, and China, and while they may charge $50 for the jeans, I wonder if the worker who did the work even gets $.25 cents out of that $50. There is nothing sustainable about western life right now, and it makes me wonder if the suppressed conditions alone aren't helping seed extremism against certain nation-states and pushes desperate workers into terrorist groups as an alternative. Especially considering how much clothing is now manufactured from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Egypt. There has been a notable increase in imports from these nations in the United States since 2000, and if anyone walks into a store its easily visible.
Trade is as much a part as the "war on terror" as bombing any nation-state, IMO. Until we start balancing the world's economy and treating people fairly, no one wins.
If you grow up in an economically depressed state like Pakistan, you're taught fundamentalist religious ideology that the infidels are ruling the world, and you can't afford your own place working 10 hours a day getting paid .02 cents (USD) per piece of clothing you make, it sounds ironically understandable that it would leave a lot of people so frustrated that they would rather just spend all their free time hating the United States or other western nations and be willing to join groups against the western world. Understanding hate is key to conquering hate.
Until people get it, we're never going to win this so-called "war" because its not a war and the west isn't against a nation-state anymore.
Dichotomy
Banned
Many economists will point to successes in states like Japan, Taiwan and others where their economies were based on exporting cheap manufactured goods and now those countries have joined the 'developed' economies of the world. Those economists feel that by offshoring our jobs to emerging markets, like China, India and Brazil that we can somehow 'drag' those countries up to our standards of living and, therefore, their workers will demand similar pay and similar work conditions, resulting in a new state of equilibrium between their labor costs and ours.
Have any of those so-called economists visited any of those countries? Have they any clue of the sheer size of their cheap labor forces? Of the utter worthlessness of the value of labor in those countries? Japan was already a modern economy, set back by its follies in WWII. How can these experts seriously expect 1.3 billion Chinese or 1.4 billion Indians to acheive parity with the West in terms of labor value with their outrageous birth rates? The supply vastly outstrips the demand we have for cheap consumer goods.
That is the flaw in their argument.
Have any of those so-called economists visited any of those countries? Have they any clue of the sheer size of their cheap labor forces? Of the utter worthlessness of the value of labor in those countries? Japan was already a modern economy, set back by its follies in WWII. How can these experts seriously expect 1.3 billion Chinese or 1.4 billion Indians to acheive parity with the West in terms of labor value with their outrageous birth rates? The supply vastly outstrips the demand we have for cheap consumer goods.
That is the flaw in their argument.
Glen
Senior Member
Absolutely! Especially insofar that it really only applies to the manufacturing sector. I cannot hire a lawyer from India or a dentist from China etc., to come here and work for me cheaper. Yet we see no problems with hypocrisy when it comes to manufacturing.
Free trade, in its current bastardized form, was nothing more than a means for corporations to behave elsewhere in a fashion that they could not here.
Glen
Senior Member
Dichotomy,
If you ever decide to run for public office, you will have my support. Both morally and financially.
If you ever decide to run for public office, you will have my support. Both morally and financially.
Glen
Senior Member
Fundamentally, if you sell yourself as the lowest bidder, and predicate growth on that, you must remains so. As dichotomy pointed out, there is little shortage in the world of cheap labour.
afransen
Senior Member
Why are you guys so opposed to the Chinese subsidizing goods for us to buy? It means we can get goods that are cheaper than what they cost to produce.
I do take issue with countries that don't capture externalities that affect the rest of the world. One example is CO2 emissions. If we put a price on CO2 emissions, I would definitely support an equivalent tariff on goods from jurisdictions with laxer laws, at least in energy intensive industries.
I do take issue with countries that don't capture externalities that affect the rest of the world. One example is CO2 emissions. If we put a price on CO2 emissions, I would definitely support an equivalent tariff on goods from jurisdictions with laxer laws, at least in energy intensive industries.
Glen
Senior Member
1. It is unfair
2. It distorts demand
3. It exports inflation
4. Its positive effects, the liberation of capital, is temporary.
5. Jobs are unnecessarily lost here.
.........
need more?
Brandon716
Senior Member
China is emerging and is no longer as cheap and abusive to workers as they once were, that's the only good news in this entire charade called free trade.
But as China emerges in certain areas, it still has trade policies that are anything but "free trade". There's nothing free and fair about subsidized workers that get forced to work longer hours and poorly paid hours with fixed currency.
Free trade is a slogan, not a reality.
I believe very strongly in trade, without it our world would be economically stale, but to call what we have right now free and sustainable trade is anything but honest.
urbanfan89
Active Member
What I hate the most are silly westerners who think that poor countries either don't deserve to prosper and develop, or should depend on charity.
I have news for you: the only country that has gone rich by donations is the Vatican. That includes Europe and North America, where not so long ago there were ghastly things in the workplace. It's even been said that one man entered the Empire State Building construction site every time a body bag exited.
Yes, even European economies have promoted export-friendly policies in the past. It's the inherent process of modernization which only Luddites have opposed.
Yes, there has been an excess of labour as a result of outsourcing, and the government should address this issue. But there has been even more unemployment created by more efficient technologies.
Perhaps we should bring back the typewriter in order to create typist jobs, and the telegraph to create telegraph jobs. Just a thought.
And don't think that globalization can be reversed. It's been ongoing for the past 5000 years, so what can make it stop now?
Besides, Chinese workers are far, far, far better off now than they were 30 years ago. Even those who spend 12 hours a day sewing jeans.
In fact wages are soaring over there as the cheap labour is running short. Same thing of what happened here 70 years ago.
Perhaps instead of chasing cheap jobs that can't exist here (unless the minimum wage is abolished), we should look for high valued jobs. Like what the Germans have.
Just a thought.
I have news for you: the only country that has gone rich by donations is the Vatican. That includes Europe and North America, where not so long ago there were ghastly things in the workplace. It's even been said that one man entered the Empire State Building construction site every time a body bag exited.
Yes, even European economies have promoted export-friendly policies in the past. It's the inherent process of modernization which only Luddites have opposed.
Yes, there has been an excess of labour as a result of outsourcing, and the government should address this issue. But there has been even more unemployment created by more efficient technologies.
Perhaps we should bring back the typewriter in order to create typist jobs, and the telegraph to create telegraph jobs. Just a thought.
And don't think that globalization can be reversed. It's been ongoing for the past 5000 years, so what can make it stop now?
Besides, Chinese workers are far, far, far better off now than they were 30 years ago. Even those who spend 12 hours a day sewing jeans.
In fact wages are soaring over there as the cheap labour is running short. Same thing of what happened here 70 years ago.
Perhaps instead of chasing cheap jobs that can't exist here (unless the minimum wage is abolished), we should look for high valued jobs. Like what the Germans have.
Just a thought.
Brandon716
Senior Member
Its not a good argument to say that the Chinese are better off sewing jeans 12 hours a day for a few dollars today than they were 30 years ago.
To make that argument means we shouldn't question the WTO or any trade policy, its simply a cop out and hurts everyone.
We can have trade and have fairness in the system at the same time, and that fairness only comes from those who are in nations with power to exercise that power for fairness. To not exercise the power we have is not just laziness, but its going to come back to bite the west.
To make that argument means we shouldn't question the WTO or any trade policy, its simply a cop out and hurts everyone.
We can have trade and have fairness in the system at the same time, and that fairness only comes from those who are in nations with power to exercise that power for fairness. To not exercise the power we have is not just laziness, but its going to come back to bite the west.
urbanfan89
Active Member
So sewing jeans for 12 hours a day making $1000 annual income is worse than being a peasant who at best can make $300?
Of course few people believe the WTO is fair. What's the argument? That Indian people deserve nothing more than western charities?
Right now no nations are with power. At least not absolutely, which is something GWB learnt the hard way.
Brandon716
Senior Member
In order to make trade more fair and better for everyone does not mean you have to make people in less developed societies dependent upon charity from the civilized world.
On the contrary, fair trade would raise standards for people in these nations thus even lessen the need for "charity" as you see it.
Its a faulty argument, and its a trade argument that is thrown around too lightly.
On the contrary, fair trade would raise standards for people in these nations thus even lessen the need for "charity" as you see it.
Its a faulty argument, and its a trade argument that is thrown around too lightly.
urbanfan89
Active Member
Who's you to say which countries are "civilized" and which aren't?
So by sending those millions of Chinese factory workers back to the farm making $300 a year, you're improving their lives?
I'd like to see an alternative to the status quo, but no country has ever developed without a period of dirty and cruel industrialization. Except Iceland, but now they're paying the price.
Brandon716
Senior Member
If I would have said industrialized would that make you feel better? I mean come on... And nowhere did I say send Chinese workers back to any farm. I'm saying lift them up by pressuring China to increase worker standards! You're making a false argument without even considering what I'm saying. If all you are going to do is ignore what I say, and speak on my behalf and force words in my mouth, so be it.
The reality is that I support trade, and without it think this world would be a sad place. We need to intermingle, share cultures, and trade goods and services. Our world is simply better off with exchanges of all kinds.
But the laws we have on the books right now need to be highly edited and greatly altered. We can lift people up in the 3rd world, in developing nations like China as well, and also continue trade at the same time. There doesn't have to be this fake choice between no trade and totally corporate controlled trade laws that are really anything but free.
I mean we're talking about dealing with fixed currencies, highly questionable product quality, etc. I think the least we can do if a nation is going to fix its currency is to apply a fair tariff on any import to match the currency fixing. Free trade isn't free when one nation fixes its currency and the others are on a market that adjusts fairly.
I think revenue via tariffs for products coming from currency-fixed states is a great way for government to get much needed revenue, balance trade, and avoid taxing consumers incomes so strongly. Many, many years ago governments around the world received more revenue from tariffs than any other method, and there used to be virtually no income tax on many people. Today we're pro-corporate and anti-individual. I'd like to see us place some emphasis on human rights for a change.
I don't agree with the false argument that we have to choose to abuse developing nation's workers or not trade at all. There's a better way that doesn't fit into this box the extreme corporate traders have created. The debate has other points of view to be considered, and its obvious you're not someone who is willing to consider another totally valid viewpoint.
The reality is that I support trade, and without it think this world would be a sad place. We need to intermingle, share cultures, and trade goods and services. Our world is simply better off with exchanges of all kinds.
But the laws we have on the books right now need to be highly edited and greatly altered. We can lift people up in the 3rd world, in developing nations like China as well, and also continue trade at the same time. There doesn't have to be this fake choice between no trade and totally corporate controlled trade laws that are really anything but free.
I mean we're talking about dealing with fixed currencies, highly questionable product quality, etc. I think the least we can do if a nation is going to fix its currency is to apply a fair tariff on any import to match the currency fixing. Free trade isn't free when one nation fixes its currency and the others are on a market that adjusts fairly.
I think revenue via tariffs for products coming from currency-fixed states is a great way for government to get much needed revenue, balance trade, and avoid taxing consumers incomes so strongly. Many, many years ago governments around the world received more revenue from tariffs than any other method, and there used to be virtually no income tax on many people. Today we're pro-corporate and anti-individual. I'd like to see us place some emphasis on human rights for a change.
I don't agree with the false argument that we have to choose to abuse developing nation's workers or not trade at all. There's a better way that doesn't fit into this box the extreme corporate traders have created. The debate has other points of view to be considered, and its obvious you're not someone who is willing to consider another totally valid viewpoint.