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To: wu_trax
what are you talking about? as far as i know the market is pretty much open.

I'm sorry but you are naive.

a) It is almost impossible for any American company to set-up a business that just imports stuff into France (even boutiques). There is no "law" against it, but you will simply not receive the required permits unless there is French co-ownership, employment guarantees and/or guarantees of using French suppliers.

b) Germany is easier, but I suspect any large importer of manufactured goods competitive with German products will face a lot of similar pressures as in France;

c) EU countries offer enormous subsidies to attract certain manufacturing sectors (like chip production) that are in danger of going extinct in Europe or because they figure it's better for the government to pay 50% of someone's employment cost than 100% of their unemployment benefits;

d) The Japanese and the Chinese play the same games;

There is virtually no other industrialized country that as as open a market as the US.

21 posted on 12/06/2004 9:02:11 AM PST by pierrem15
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To: pierrem15

"has as"


22 posted on 12/06/2004 9:02:59 AM PST by pierrem15
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To: pierrem15
if you want to complain about subsidies you should also take into account the whole taxation.
governments here like to tax a lot and then give back the money. that makes them look like they do something for the economy. so if you take real costs + taxation + social security madness + general bureaucratic madness - subsidiaries you still end up with costs that are a lot higher than in any sane economy.

sure there are some more subsidiaries for eastern Germany, but if the us should ever unite with a country full of insane socialists who think the state should solve absolutely every problem they could possibly run into, that is about 50 years behind in industrial development and that is about 1/3 - 1/2 of the size of the current us, i promise you, we wont complain.

also, there were quite a few cases about us-subsideries in the last years that you lost at the WTO, like those tax-free exports for example.
23 posted on 12/06/2004 9:18:37 AM PST by wu_trax
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To: pierrem15
just wondering:
do you have no support at all for the structurally weaker regions in the US? i would imagine that there are poorer and richer states in the US, even if the differences are not as dramatic as within the EU-25
24 posted on 12/06/2004 9:22:30 AM PST by wu_trax
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