Tsunami-hit Thais told: Buy six planes or face EU tariffs

The Scotsman ^ | January 19, 2005 | Frazer Nelson

[leadhead]

TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry.

While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft.

[leadhead]

The dark underbelly or other parts) of International Trade.

[JohnShipley]

Dark? No. Protectionism has long been an accepted yet misguided policy. Protectionism only hurts the consumers. Of course, everybody is a consumer. Thus everybody is hurt via protectionism. There is a marketing campaign for protectionism called 'fair trade'. Fair for who?

No. As long as the EU uses methods like protectionism to meet it's social agenda, the United States will continue to pull ahead. (At least in those industries which it engages in free trade; not like shrimp.)

[danamco]

The dark underbelly or other parts) of International Trade.


"Food for Oil" program all over!?!

[floridarolf]

When Israel El Al wanted to buy Airbuses the American Government intervened and they went Boeing. It's everywhere the same.

[Cobra64]

Some need to take a basic pre-prime English class. Then move on to Economics, Finance, Accounting, and Statistics classes. Perhaps a bit of Political Science, and some History.

Fair for who?

Fair for whom.

[ONETWOONE]

Whom did you mean?

[explodingspleen]

Well, as long as we're going to nitpick, class subjects should not be capitalized unless they happen to be accompanied by Roman numerals (i.e., "calculus" and "Calculus II" but not "Calculus" unless that is somebody's name).

Admittedly, no more grievous an error than neglecting an 'm'. :)

[leadhead]

The EU wasn't the only protectionist mentioned in the article. The US puts a whooping tariff on imported shrimp too.

And, for an external/internal protection scam, research peanut agriculture and distribution.

[DTogo]

EU to Thailand: Let me help you up with my one hand, and sucker-punch you with the other.

[commonguymd]

Ahhhh, so this is where the donations and the money is going for Tsunami relief. I am getting skeptical about all this rush for donations and government assistance for the Tsunami victims.

[Cobra64]

I am the Communicator. There is a corporation that has facilities in rochester ny. it is called international business machines. i worked on a multimillion dollar project for sony music of america. the goal of the assigement was to stress test a 5 million dollar as400 system for sony music; in order to ascertain if there were sufficient data transaction thoughput. the client rented this rochester facility at international business machines at a billing rate of USD 5,000.00 per day.

in case you may have not discerned of whom the project team corporate members consisted, folllowing are some names with which you are familiarl: IBM, SONY Music, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Oracle.

I ran that project.

[patj]

Statistics classes.

Are you kidding? Never in a million years.

[momincombatboots]

I agree. Mandatory statistics classes would allow people to see for themselves what 98% effective truly means to them. It would also reveal MSM gross misinterpretations and data collections.
I know it was an eye opener to me.

[duckman]

'..Accounting, and'
Since we are being pickey, no need for a comma prior to an 'and'. BTW I prides myself on spull chucking all of my respuncs.

[jphawkins]

I think that the Thais want to fish in European waters.
The EU is forcing the Thais to buy airbus as a quid pro quo for fishing for tuna and other game fish in their waters.

[jphawkins]

Ever since the breakup of ATT we have been giving advantage to protectionist nations. Now we are doing the same to the EU which has over 360 million citizens. The new airbus was given billion of Euros in aid for development by the EU.
Imagine the uproar and threats of trade sanctions if the US did the same for Boeing?