Lost Or Unrecognized Multi-National Economic Principles And Slavery

Robert L. Kocher ^ | October 27, 2002 | Robert L. Kocher

[Indie]

Most coherent explanation of " the shell game voodoo economics of 'free trade'" I've ever read!!

[HiTech RedNeck]

The "shrewd nasty competitors" coterie gets smaller and smaller by the day. America is dissolving in decadence. This is just part of the fallout.

[HiTech RedNeck]

He dissed Bush once too often.

[HiTech RedNeck]

What I meant with my "creating something from nothing" comment was that many of the products and services we create and sell didn't even exist not too many years ago. A few examples are computers, software, CNC machines, pharmaceutical drugs, genetically modified plants, etc.

While there are certainly many fine, ethical people in China, there is also a significant band of thieves located there which their government either can't stop, won't stop, or even worse in in cahoots with. Know how the RIAA is screaming about bootleg music downloads eating their lunch? This is where our technical advantage is headed, courtesy of said band.

[Puddleglum]

ping to myself to read later, and probably later again. Very good article.

[PGalt]

bumping again. Just finished reading what was started yesterday. Thanks for the ping, thanks for the article, thanks for posting it. Interesting and informative.

[LeGrande]

What we are talking about is War. It may be economic warfare but it is just as serious and might be more important than regular warfare.

Yes the Chinese certainly aren't playing fair. They bootleg not just music and movies, they steal and copy everything we send over. I know many people who are getting crushed by the competition from China. That is what happens if they are competing on commodities with a competitor who is being subsidized by their government.

Everything we purchase from China is being subsidized by at least 25-30%. That is because the Chinese government is artificially holding their currency value down. As the dollar declines it gets more expensive for them to peg to the dollar. The question is how long can they afford to sell at a loss?

Right now the American Economy is in a sweet spot. Our currency is cheap which makes it tough for the Europeans and Japanese to compete and yet we still have access to cheap goods from China.

The Countries that need to worry about becoming "Third world countries" are many of the European countries. They have no population growth, high taxes, entrenched bureaucracies, high currency valuations, in short no hope.

China is certainly an economic competitor and threat. But they will not be able to maintain the current subsidies. They are beggering themselves to try and get into the 20th century. When they give up, or get too expensive, we will just find some other countries to make cheap commodities for us : )

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

he's still gone. got banned just a couple of days ago.

http://www.freerepublic.com/~rlk/

[HiTech RedNeck]

The question is how long can they afford to sell at a loss?

If this loss is only 30% or so as you say, they could eat it and still undercut anyone in the Western world.

[freedumb2003]

Long?? Naah!

Really though, this is beautiful -- but too long for on-line reading. But what I did read was full of wonderful nuggets. The following was stupendous:

Those who conform best, and show the least amount of disturbing creative individuality that threatens the socialistic herd, become leaders, insuring perpetuation of the condition. This pattern is also noticeable in academia.

Tell me that is not a quotable quote, beautiful in its simple truth.

The rest will have to wait until I can find an unterrupted day or 2 to complete it...

[Elliott Jackalope]

"These people aren't building airplanes or anything else. They are basically a breed of incompetent useless bullshitters who don't want responsibility for serious concrete production, who have found a place to hide and are making quick profits from destroying the economy needed to maintain the company. The bullcrap part of the business will be kept here while substance will be let go. This entire nation is on the way to being gutted of substance."

An excellent quote from an excellent article. This article is a trip to the woodshed for the current generation of "free trade uber alles" promoters. Thanks for posting it.

[Elliott Jackalope]

"It would need to be musical comedy, actually."

Oh, man. What a great idea. I'm sitting here, trying to think of how to make this article comprehensible for the average Joe Sixpack, and then you post that comment.

It's been said that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent persperation. You've provided the one percent part. Now I'm going to have to sit down and turn this into a musical comedy. Oh boy, my keyboard is going to be pounded into the wee hours working on this one.

Since you came up with such a great idea, I don't suppose you have a name for this production?

[William Terrell]

"Uncle Sam's Cabin"?

You're shitting me

[Elliott Jackalope]

I've already got a couple of key scenes in mind. One is where the CEO of GlobaCorp is sitting in his office, lamenting the fact that he is only worth half a billion dollars. The song is set to the tune of "What kind of Fool am I" but the song is called "What kind of Man am I". Some of the lines talk about how he is only worth one-hundredth as much as Bill Gates, therefore he is only one-hundredth the man that Bill Gates is, and how outsourcing jobs is the only way he can hope to catch up.

One of the final scenes is of a former factory worker who is now working the counter at Burger Hut, set to the tune of "Ring Christmas Bells". The lyrics go "Ding, fries are done, Ding fries are done, I used to work in factories, now I sell fries, and apple pies. Now I sell fries, now I sell cokes, repeat myself, until I choke. My job has gone, to India, my life has gone, in tha' dumpah. Ding, fries are done, ding, fries are done."

No, I'm not kidding. I'm working on the libretto as I write this. It's gonna be GREAT! But it needs a better title...

[William Terrell]

You inspired me to come with a framework and basic plot.

He may need to be the CEO of a large firm, which turns printed documents into searchible and linked presentations, in a small town and employs over half the townsfolk.

He may be the son of the owner, pitched in to sink or swim by his daddy, on a shakedown cruise for his entry into management. Moving the operational aspects to foreign shores is his breaking-in task. Daddy really doesn't agree with these new ways of doing things, but has no choice. He has spies reporting the young man's every move.

The citizens hear the company wants to move the jobs they do overseas to stay competitive, and volunteer to do it for same price less company's normal employee expenses. They need to pay bills and are willing to tighten their belts than be Out Of Work.

The son has had a long experience of the tactics of daddy in college and other venues and is overly confident, but sincere in the noble cause of his fellow local inhabitants. And a couple of old high school acquaintances who can be seen from time to time smacking their fists into their palms.

Out of the sight of the old man's reporters, he enters into a binding contract with his own workers to this effect. Daddy is not pleased. But there's nothing daddy can do about it.

Events flowing outward from that approach will get the attention of the M&D insurance firm which had a lock on the group insurance needs of company for some years. They send an agent to investigate.

The agent of course is young, beautiful, and slightly overzealous in her support for global distribution of the workforce (her job, of course, of investigative agent, can't be done overseas). Her attraction to a global economy would be based on the security such a interdependent world could bring about.

Standard malarkey follows with resolution toward concepts of prosperous independence learned by all.

A couple story lines about the experience the local merchants have and the effects on their businesses. Several of the local business have small accounts with the same M&D dealers.

The owner of one such would have to be an old flame of the investigator lady. They hate each other, except for the single area of global economy, he for his reasons and she for hers.

They work toward thwarting the company's approach to the problem, while romantic relationship blooms between investigatrix and (shakily probationary) CEO.

I don't know about songs. I'm not musical.

[RussianConservative]

By the way, in Russia it is not to take 20-40 years, but since Putin arrive is taking closer to 10 years of real economic restructure, protectionist economic policies of Tarrif use and major tax/government down size....by end of this year, by PPP Russia should be larger then Italy, Britian and France...only after Germany on Europe continent.

Free enterprise always alive in Russia, even Soviet Union, it just called Shadow economy. Problem of Yeltsin years was aid of Clinton in creating oligarch class that then given everything and pass on share to West supporters.

[RussianConservative]

By the way, last thing...no worry ever of Communism or Socialism in returning to Russia...it was imposed through Civil War, backed by Kaiser and US/British businessmen, not simply accepted to Russians...Russians destroy it, well in own way it destroy itself...though many good ideas and invention do come out during Soviet Times. Anyways, it will never return.

[RussianConservative]

Tell him, take business and move to Russia. It practice protectionism of own economy...he can produce there for local market with minimum of Chinese competition.

[RussianConservative]

Economic order easy: managed protectionist capitalism, to insure no monopolies, constant competition and trade only on level ground with equal demographic/economic partners. For US trade only work with: EU, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Canada, Japan, Australia...to be fair. US can trade with smaller nation but that not fair to them. China/India can trade with each other or destroy each other, either way, no one in above group can afford trade with those 2.

[Colorado Buckeye]

This appears to be a very good article but it's a rough read in a web browser. I suggest that you format it for easy reading and then create a pdf file. You could post a link to the file and we could copy and print it.