What are you trying to wake India and China up to? "Hey, India and China, I'm sorry you've got a new middle class with tens of millions of young entrepreneurs and engineers! Hey, India and China, I'm sorry you now have hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty! Wake up people! Wake up!" I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. The only evil is trying to keep a country from emerging to becoming a global superstar. Let India and China and other countries rise up and become the important global neighbors that they should be.
Poverty they were put into their own corrupt leaders manipulated by Western interests. It's your own history, and you do not even know it. Now they are throwing you a bone at the expense of US workers & product quality. Sorry, but the work produced by your entrepreneurs is dog sh*t, and the cost savings disspear into CEO pockets. And did you even know that some of the offshoring trade between US & India violates SEC regulation and Security laws? How about activists from your own communities who are fighting this because they see their communities fall apart and become nothing more than corporate controlled resources? Meanwhile China is becoming number one human rights abuser of the world and a total environmental mess. The majority have stepped up from meager substinence to sweatshop slaves. Why don't you go look up Free Trade agreements and try to explain how your own country's law against patenting life, drug, seeds & genes was overrun by WTO. Better yet, how about Europe's law against Bovine growth hormone meat was overrun the same way. People saying they do not want steroided beef in their supermarkets or restaurants, a very legit request that has no bias toward any country, was overrun. How is that for free trade? Or the best one yet, Guatemala's UNICEF debacle, do some research on that. It's great, babies dying of diarhea, but hey, it's the cost of free trade because in the end, we all benefit, we just don't know it. These examples are not the exception, they are the standard. But hey, if you actually wanted to exercise the so rare human trait of critical thinking, you might, just might, actually read some of these free trade agreements & WTO guidelines. Because of the almost 20 parts that they usually consist of, only one or two actually have to do with trade. Everything else is focused on corporate protectionism, such patents on genes, life, seeds, controls over social laws, environmental laws, human rights, how tax revenue is spent, etc. Interesting take on "Free Trade" huh? You might also try to join the WTO as a small businessman or entrepreneur, but then, they won't even consider your request. It's not an open forum, it's only meant for large corporations. Yeah, that's some real free trade. So while you rationalize this away as "mistakes" & "little problems", more sweatshops will be established with corporate protectionisms. And while you focus on the "emerging middle class", a much larger middle class will be dying off here, along with product quality. It's ok though, globalism is about making it uniform throughout the world, so I'm pretty sure we are all destined for a nice surprise of riches beyond our wildest dreams. The whole trend of a growing disparaity between 5% of the population & everyone else is just an anomaly. Honestly, a debate is nice, but at some point it's obvious that one side is not willing to let go of an ideal, especially when money is involved on their side of relatives & friends. A man will fight to the death that "2+2=5" if his paycheck depends on it. The info is out, it's in print. Free Trade, a concept that originated in 17th or 18th century England, is not what WTO, NAFTA or current Free Trade Agreements are about. If you ever take the time to research & read, instead of relying on media rhetoric, maybe you will see what goes on behind the veil. Regardless, the masses will get what they deserve and have only themselves to blame.
why? Do we have sweatshops here? Well, probably a few. But, in general, our nation has moved past the Sweatshop Era. Why can't the rest of the world do the same. And you keep ignoring something that I've said about 3X: these countries now have a large and growing middle class. A growing and thriving middle class is the antithesis of your sweatshop theory. I feel that you keep ignoring the fact that corporations need good workers, many of them middle class. They don't just need mindless minions toiling in the onion fields and factories. Again, how can you argue against an increase in lifestyle for hundreds of millions of people?
Hydro, you make me want to become american. A citizen I mean. very informed fellow. Good to know you. You too shoeshines. These freetrade agreements are not "free" since people with nothing pay with blood sweat and tears. Legit govts are toppled and losers are put in positions of power in order to carry out such mandates. They accept a large amount of money from the US, while a "counselor" makes sure they can never pay back. Accroding to the agreement, the money does not have to be paid back if their natural resources are surrendered over in place of the money. So the natural citizens of these countries not only work for no pay but they have their land stripped of anything worth anything. The terms "freedom" and "democracy" and "freetrade" sure sound good, but this is called hegelian dialectic. In which the terms used have different meanings to the masses vs. the elite. Some of my family is from el salvador where a civil war had drove my family out of the country. Suposedly, there was a "war", a fight, between "democracy" and "communism". There was never some such thing. It was all part of this agreement. Kids were trained by the national army to kill their families. After looking into it, I found the same things happened in cambodia, earlier china, many parts of africa(still happens). These are not a bunch of terrorists from many little groups in many different countries. They are all from a centralized unified terrorist league. Even an illegal coup detat was staged in chile by kissinger in order to remove the democratically elected salvador allende from power in order to, well, re the OP. But well, thats me in the spotlight and I am losing my damn religion.
But why does the govt have to get involved? In other words, if a mine wants property rights, why not just bribe a few officials and go quietly about your business? Why get the CIA and a bunch of covert money messing around with it all??
WINNER!!!! Hydroblunt, well read my man, well firggin read. we definitely should get together and blaze one. This man is a true egalitarian, a jeffersonian. A free man for real. But you know as well as I do it is not others fault if they are not exposed to the same material we are. Why dont we now speak of the "boston tea party" and what was brought in that load and by which company. You will find the british were looking to infest our shores with opium and make everyone crackheads. Until a few "freemen" decided this was not in our best interests. These agreements spanned the globe and opium was used to fund the british trade deficits with china. If you would like to know how much a kilo of opium is going for in china just look to see how much an ounce of gold is going for. They had never trusted these people to pay them for drugs with their fiat currency so they set the price at one ounce/kilo. They must have tons and tons of gold the masses have no idea even exist, and believe me, the drug trade is alive and well. In this sense, ingnorance really is bliss. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_East_India_Company
Modern free trade agreements open up trade for virtually everything, not just "the opiates of the masses". Monopolies and restricted trade don't work intra-country. Why would they work globally any better?
shoeshines, the CIA is only a company and really has nothing to do with keeping peace or keeping a watch for freedom. That is YOUR job. Their job is to serve the elite and make sure their policies become realities. It makes alot of sense and quite smart if you ask me. Why bribe anyone when I can just pistol whip them and make them submit? Or better yet, why not just give them some money, as a debt, "aid" , and when they cannot pay back they just hand it over? much better than taking it no? Get this, we bribe the nigerian minister into inflating the price of his sweet crude, which is standard for oil since it is so light it needs no refining. The price of oil skyrockets. Then we go to the saudis with our new "price" and tell them since they will be making all of this new free money, to invest it on our shores, in our companies, creating an "economic boom" driving our markets to astronomical highs. We take their money put it into "holding companies" and then have the these companies lend their money (the saudis) to the third world nations of south and central america. When they go into default and cannot pay back the companies then become insolvent and presto. We now own all of their natural resources and when the saudis come looking for their money we just appologize with the ole, shit happens. Dont take my word for it I heard it from this guy who used to do this for a living. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8&feature=related
The Nigerian leadership has no control over the price of crude unless they throw the country into a civil war so that supply may be disrupted.
Changing the price of oil by 10% isn't going to give the Saudis significantly more cash than they already have. They already are awash in cash and a 10% increase isn't going to make that much difference in their ability to invest.