World Trade Organisation chief warns global deals are ABOUT TO TANK The World Trade Organisation head Roberto Azevedo has warned that the first potential global deal in over 10 years – which deals with issues like tariffs on goods, food security and faster global trade – hangs in the balance after talks in Geneva. Azevedo said that negotiations had been held up in sight of the finishing line …
Governments: Reluctant because "MUH TAX REVENUE REDUCED!!"
Unions: Reluctant because "MUH JOBS OUTSOURCED!!"
Greens: Reluctant because "MUH ENVIRONMENT DESTROYED!!"
Anti-globalist cretins: Reluctant because "MUH EXPLOITATION OF DA POOR WORSENED!!"
Anti-capitalists: "MUH POWA OF MULTINATIONALS INCREASED!"
Mercantilists: "MUH TRADE BARRIERS REDUCED!"
Nanny staters: "MUH HOMELAND QUALITY CONTROL!!!"
Marxists: "ISN'T ECONOMICS A ZERO-SUM GAME??"
The Fletcher Memorial Home still accepts applicants.
Keep spouting your ideology. Because of course the US plans of only domestically manufacturing financial derivatives and having Asia produce everything else have done wonders for our soft power in the world. Great for the yacht owners who could give a crap about nations but few others.
Yay! New agreements to twist, tear, mutilate and spindle!
Trade isn't going to speed up because of this, even if it's successful. International trade isn't hampered by bureaucracy between nations as much as it is hampered by the 153 different groups that 'process' and charge, for each little step in between points A & Z. If I want to send $20M of finished robots to say, Brazil, the government part of the process takes a few minutes as I fill out the forms and sign a few checks. It's the zillion other things that add zero value, but increase the costs and timelines exponentially.
There's no reason that my products need to sit for 90 days inside a warehouse at both ends of the trip while the ship to carry them is moored 60 miles off the coast waiting on the OK from another party, not involved in any part of the transaction, to enter the harbor. It isn't the governments doing all those things and many more. It's countless private parties who have weaseled their way into the process and who get to charge for doing nothing other than breathing. It's really fucking stupid and we as consumers are the ones that pay for it, pay a lot for it too.
The WTO can have all the big circle-jerks they want and it won't make a jot of difference to anyone except the largest importers/exporters who already get streamlined treatment. Pisses me off. "Poor people are still going to be poor if we don't give big commodities brokers a cut rate deal". Yeah, fuck you. Just be a man about it and straight up say you want to give large trading interests better deals. Don't put it on poor people who can't afford your corn, beef, cotton, flat pack furniture and oil anyway, jackasses.
Trickle down economics is a perfectly sound model as long as everything is based around fairly labor intensive production. When we decided that the best way to make money wasn't by producing things, but by playing numbers games on stock markets the model fell down. There is no reason to tie your money up in actually accomplishing something when it's far simpler and cheaper to dick around with millisecond trades, wonky derivatives and bizzaro world arithmetic. Besides, there's little risk, if you place your bets poorly you can sue everybody and/or get the government to cover you.
So while trickle down does work, that isn't what we're doing. It's an outright lie for government and big banks to say that we are.
So in other words, a "world government" ... ruled by the Yanks, naturally.
Sorry, but no, I'm not especially keen to become a subject of the fascist American Empire. I like Blighty's borders just the way they are, thanks.
Oh, but "think of the poor".
Yes, I am. The Yanks have demonstrated quite unambiguously how they regard the poor: as cattle.
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