Posted on 03/09/2006 10:42:42 AM PST by navysealdad
Dubai Ports Worls to divest itself of all American interests
Also i was refering to a specific group not all people who oppossed the bill on the merits. But there is a significant number of freepers here that dislike Bush greatly and were quite excited this failed
One final clarification. If it wasnt 3:20 in the morning I could get all this out in one response. I have to think even if one opposed the deal that the way this was shot down was horrible. We were in the middle or act day 6 of a 45 day review to where all the facts were supoose to get out. However a Republican of all people put a rider against a port deal on bill that deals with supporting our troops. That is far left Dem behavior not something we do. The propoents were just starting to get their side out. I think thats the reason besides a play for a cheap vote. However the process of how this was shot down is a seperate issue besides the merits of the bill itself. Thats not how good govt is suppose to work.
And your NAFTA cars are constructed completely in the US? Nay, Ford and GM are failing even with NAFTA parts and labor becuase they build crap designed to fail which is designed to sell more cars and repairs. I don't want failure - my cars run 200,000 miles without major repair - NAFTA cars can't and will never do that - there's no short term profit in it for their greedy shareholders and expensive DNC controlled unions.
On that we can agree. But IMHO our government and media both stopped working as they should a long time ago.
MM
I have to agree.
No one except maybe the UAE, who plays a huge part in maintaining the US Navy, in basing US forces, and in world trade and finance...M
Oh well,
Populist demagoguery has been served.
How about giving a company from Denmark a few terminals.
"We'll still have intel. It may even be better intel now that it won't be filtered by a so called ally that turned their back on America over a business deal."
Our spies can not get the kind and volume of intel that we have gotten from cooperation with UAE.
One other point. When someone stabs me in the back, I turn on them also. UAE was stabbed in the back by Congress. Not when Congress demanded an investigation, but when a committee in Congress, after getting agreement on a 45 day investigation, added a deal killer to the supplemental spending bill for our military and victims of hurricanes. That is dirty politics any way you look at it.
Global Economic Units (GEU) are marketing units of the future. Companies that sell to the world's population. They can be any place on Earth and can sell at any place on Earth. These are where the jobs of the future are located. G W Bush is aware of this economic development and is trying to get Americans their share of the game. Stupidity is working against him.
And people tend to forget this:
http://www.ussliberty.org/
(Before anybody starts flaming me, I'm not anti-Israel, just think a lot of people don't know about the Liberty)
No one except maybe the UAE
Is there any indication at all that the UAE is considering retaliatory measures, let alone whether such measures would actually hurt us more than them? I hear a lot of accusations of fearmongering and chickenlittle-ism being leveled against opponents of the ports deal, but then I see statements like the one above, and it makes me wonder a little.
However, the UAE has been pretty solidly on our side and apparently already services most of our navy in the region.
They have as sophisticated a banking and business structure as can be found outside of the major western countries and in that manner have much to lose from the spread of either backward looking fundamental islam or the crises it has engendered.
They do have radicals in their society, just as does Canada and most of europe; there is virtually no place on the globe that can guarantee that no one can buy a rubber boat and load it up with explosives.
Immediately prior to what I consider a near criminal vote in congress we saw growing evidence that this was a business deal - not a national security issue.
We've also seen that both mainland Chinese and other islamic states already have very similar access ('ownership') in US ports.
We know that 'security' is largely a matter of controls at the ports of origin - including the UAE.
This was a business deal and the UAE is a business oriented assembly of smaller (presumably more homogeneous) entities.
It is THEIR interpretation that is now critical - how should they react to an openly anti-muslim turn of events between them and a western power that they have been building trade ties with & which many of their regional neighbors are just as overtly at war with?
Finally, it's for darn sure that others in the area will eventually use this 'insult' as a means to pressure UAE and to stir up both overseas & local islamists...lots more significant than a couple of cartoons.
"So you're going to use tariffs to raise the costs of Chinese goods so that they cost as much as American goods. What are you going to about the very significant amount of inflation that would create?"
The raising of tariffs would have to be gradual, to give time for companies to re-invest the massive profits they're currently earning into manufacturing and support here in the US. I don't believe the inflation would be much more significant that one is already occuring.
"What are you going to do when foreign countries retaliate?"
That'll depend on how much balls our own govt has. Since we'd have to withdraw from most, if not all, of the trade treaties first a lot of retaliation threats by foreign nations would consist of nothing more than bluff. They know damn well we could damage them far more than they can damage us, and if they were convinced we'd push it that far they wouldn't even try.
"To produce them we're going to need import a lot of raw materials. We're going to need to import a LOT more oil. We're going to need to produce a lot more energy. That's not necessarily bad if it helps us grow our economy, but we're going to need to trade with other countries to get those things, and our increased demand is going to drive up prices."
With the American trade dollar fueled increases in demand from China that'll happen anyway, it might as well be us with the long-term benefits of the industry and infrastructure improvements that'll come with it. Especially if a lot of it is investment in nuclear power and coal gasification/liquefaction, shale, etc....
"To keep ourselves living in this lifestyle, we're going to have to import a lot of materials."
Which is what trade treaties directly and individually with source countries is for. Also, it could spur more interest in space exploration with the goal of determining what resources the moon has, and how to exploit them where it would be more cost-effective than dealing with other nations (as a long-term goal).
"You can use tariffs to deal with small differences, not with large ones."
Yes you can, especially if it's done gradually. If it's done too large and too suddenly, it's like switching a car into reverse on the freeway instead of slowing down, getting off, and then back onto the lanes going the other direction.
"If you use large tariffs, you're basically cutting yourselves off from the rest of the world."
Didn't happen before, won't happen this time either. You mainly will be switching around where people will be investing.
"I work in the military avionics industry. We export far, far more military hardware than we import."
Most of that avionics contains components that are only made overseas within Chinese MRBM/cruise-missile range. Without them there is nothing to export.
"Honda uses a higher percentage of American made parts in their car than most American car companies."
Now that's a quick way to send a shudder up my spine! The last part of the sentence, not the first.
"China isn't just growing because of our trade policies."
Just because, no. Mostly yes. I'd say no less than 75%.
"We are becoming more and more like the EU. Protectionist policies, too many worker "protections", to high of taxes, too much government interference."
Yes, but not due to protectionist policies, but definitely due to the last three.
"It's questionable how long they can continue to embrace free market principles while still maintaining their tight control over their own people."
That's why they make sure they keep control of who has the guns. And that's another advantage of a large population. You can kill a lot of people and still have lots left over to run your economy.
"Growing evidence" is all well and good, but what Bush failed to explain is why, if this was not a security issue, the security organs were involved in vetting it. We needed to hear less bland assurances from him that the UAE is a good ally, and more explanation as to what really is at issue with these port deals. If, just assuming for the sake of argument, someone who ran these port operations really wanted to do us harm, would they be in an enhanced position to do so?
If the answer is no (as some have alleged), then that would settle the issue. If yes, then we really need to be scrutinizing the UAE a little more. Their decision to cooperate with us in certain areas could be purely tactical. I'm concerned about their refusal to recognize Israel, and to even refuse admission to people with Israeli visas on their passports. I want to know why they were one of only a tiny handful of countries to recognize the Taliban. I also want to know why the place seemed such an attractive hub for terrorist operations.
When the President doesn't want to get into these issues, preferring instead to just talk down to us and say that they're good allies, and expect everyone to take that at face value without question, then he only has himself to blame for the failure of the deal.
"Really? It would seem as if reality contradicts this assertion. After all, China is most certainly protectionist and they seem to be rapidly moving in the direction of superpower status even though their trading partners (us) have been quite naive about our trade policy."
I'm not sure if you meant to direct that comment at me, or the person I took that quote from that you posted (untrained skeptic). In one of my replies to him I explained how China is practicing protectionism at home while feeding off of American free trade policies which acts as a tremendous turbo-booster to their economic growth because of the large American market and the considerably larger purchasing power of the US dollars raked in from that market.
Life goes on.
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