Posted on 03/12/2006 3:41:52 PM PST by mr_hammer
In a break from his past, President Bush now embraces the idea of globalization and speaks against the dangers of isolationism... Developing...
That explains much. Thank you, raybbr - you've given me something to think about.
This has been on a limited scale. Not a global scale. I don't buy it.
Let me give you an example: I have a neighbor that provides scaffolding for nuclear power plants. He has decided to go to China for his parts. It saves him about 20% percent on material costs. He went there and paid off the locals. He was wined and dined and provided prostitutes.
Since he has done this the company that used to provide the parts here in the U.S. has lost his business.
A company in China is paying for some real cheap labor. The kicker is that he got about 85% of all the contracts. He had no real competition.
Now you have about ten or so boats in China being raised but only one here. Let's not forget the great tips he gives the prostitutes, either.
They throw out "isolationism" so they can box a strawman.
I agree with getting control of our borders and enforcing immigration policy. But people who look at globalization as the end of the world just sell our country short.
agreed, but we must insist that trade be mutually benifical and not so lopsided as it is with China.
Human rights violations, ecological disasters, currency minipulation etc, etc, etc.....yes?
A bumpable point worth remembering.
His CAFTA/NAFTA shtick isn't "we-are-the-Borg" type collectivism. It's more about Park Avenue robber barons/baronesses and other rent-seekers buying up public infrastructure cheap on five continents, using "access", and then charging "all the traffic will bear" ("capitalism" done Orren Boyle's way, to invoke an Ayn Rand character from Atlas Shrugged) to rent back to us systems and assets we and others previously owned.
It isn't "ethical" or "radical" entrepreneurial capitalism, Ayn Rand's way. It's more like the access/crony-capitalist, wealth-storage SOS that kept the Middle East a flyblown pile of camel-dung for 5000 years, and until recently graced the economy and society of Nicaragua under the Somoza family.
Tell that to your mortgage company and the utility companies, after your income falls to $8,000/yr in the "equalization" NapkinUser was talking about.
They won't care. Neither will Manhattan money managers.
Charlie Rose interviewed the CEO of GE the other night. Guy expressed disappointment that people who don't have health insurance are socializing their costs successfully and getting treated. He sounded annoyed. Guess they're supposed to refuse ethically, as an offense against the rules of the market, to seek treatment, and to die with dignity instead.
He really owes it to himself and/or his stockholders, to learn to chisel the Chinese prostitutes, too. After all, they have no market power.
How would a Harvard B-School professor say it? He needs to "harness his leverage against cost factors" a little better.
Similiar discussion thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1595299/posts?page=1
Well, it’s been more than forty years since I had econ 101 and by gosh they’re right. Economics has changed.
Capitalists have become partners with Big Government.
The father of modern capitalism is Bill Clinton. (Third Way?)
Big Government helps build a "cheap" labor country’s infrastructure, either directly or through the World Bank for example.
Then Big Government holds their capitalist partners’ hands and gently urges them to build modern factories in and relocate to "cheap" labor heaven. Exporting from there to America is more profitable than making it here, you see. Big Government provides the risk insurance. Not to worry. Then thousands rush to become modern capitalists.
What of paleo-capitalists, those ignorant of modern capitalism?
They will continue to engage in traditional free trade, produce goods and services for export and for sale here, invest "over there" when they can sell "over there," and as usual they are our future. Period.
Oh, and this, modern capitalists.. fat chance you'll collect on that risk insurance when your "cheap" labor finishes stealing your stuff and running you out of business. The American taxpayers won’t stand for it. You had to know that Clinton was a flimflam man.
Historically, is this about the fourth time that one-world, one-village ideologues have tried to force globalization?
"In a break from his past, President Bush now embraces the idea of globalization"
Surely he meant "In keeping with his past, Presidente Bush continues to embrace the idea of globalization"
Open borders, and import cheap foreign labor to fill those jobs that can't be outsourced to China. We are the world.
Hmm.. to a degree.
Capitalism if not restrained or ruled by some moral principles is little better than Communism, when all is said and done.
If profit is God, greed becomes the guiding principle, to the detriment of many.
Maybe Drudge is talking about this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1605019/posts
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