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Old 08-27-2001, 04:38 PM   #11
Moridin
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Join Date: March 1, 2001
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 1,735
Sorry, must have missed this post…reply below

Quote:
But I think that individuals can take their own small steps away from globalisation, and towards supporting their own local economies.

One such step might be to buy from local producers wherever possible – where I live in Brighton, for example, and over much of the UK, it is possible to order boxes of fresh fruit and veg in season from local farmers, rather than stuff that has been shipped from the US, or New Zealand. Certainly there are many products that cannot be produced here, mangoes and pineapples for example! we don’t see many of those growing hereabouts, and it makes sense to buy these luxury goods from where they come from. But to buy US potatoes when they are growing locally, that seems like madness to me. (Not to mention environmentally a disaster!). With other products - well, if I'm confronted with apples in a shop, then I'd always rather buy the UK ones than those from far away. Same goes for almost any product, really, unless the one from far away really does have a strong reason to buy attached to it
What does buying from your local economy have to do with globalization? Globalization is not about the destruction of local economies, it is not about running ma & pa shops out of business, it is not about replacing all locally grown and manufactured products with foreign products. Globalization is about making any product, no matter what it’s point of origin, available to anyone, anywhere that wishes to purchase it. Take for example my state of Minnesota in the US. We produce a lot of beef, much more than we can eat locally. Therefore we export much of it, not only in the US, but also to places like Japan and Taiwan. In this case, globalization has helped the local economy, not hurt it.

Naturally people will purchase produce which is grown locally, merely for the fact that it is fresher. It seems like you are for globalization, but do not realize it. What would we do if there were no globalization? Would we have electronics plants in every county to produce our radios and tvs, would we put a car manufacturer in every town so we could buy local cars, what about oil, gas, plastics…you cannot be against globalization and then turn around and in good faith use the products that are only available through globalization.


Also can you point out to me what the ‘environmentally a disaster’ refers to?

Quote:
if it's fairly traded, for example. Fairly traded foodstuffs usually can't be produced in the UK anyway - bananas, coffee, tea etc.
Before you go out and purchase that next bunch of bananas perhaps you should read the article at the following link
Banana Trade
Very good example of the misinformation of the public on these issues. Be careful about how you use the words ‘fairly traded’!



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Old 08-27-2001, 06:17 PM   #12
Silver Cheetah
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Moridin, thanks very much for your response to my post. If I reply to all your points at once, this will be very long indeed, so I’m just going to reply to a couple for starters, - hope that’s ok with you!

First of all, your point that ‘GATS IS NOT business oriented!’. What is it then? Some quotes on the subject, from some of the people involved in making GATS happen, as follows:

David Hartridge:, director of the WTO Services Division ‘Without the enormous pressure generated by the American financial services secor, particularly companies like American Express and Citicorp, there would have been no GATS.

Department of Trade and Industry: ‘As a major global exporter of services, second only to the US, the UK strongly supports the GATS negotiations’.

The European Commission: ‘GATS is not just something that exists between governments. It is first and foremost an instrument for the benefit of business’.

Peter Mandelson: ‘Negotiatiating positions on GATS must reflect business priorities’.

ESF – The European Commission represents all EU members at the WTO. It is in regular consultation with the European Services Forum, a business lobby group which supports and encourages the movement to liberalise service sector markets throughout the world, and to remove trade and investment barriers for the European services sector. Members include BT, Barclarys Bank, M&S, Price Waterhouse Cooper. ESF head Andrew Buxton says the membership comes ‘from those companies where the CEO has realised that the WTO process is one in which they should take a close interest.

You say that ‘GATS is set up to allow free trade in services between member nations’ – ok, agreed. Exactly what part of that is not about making money for Northern industrial nations? An article in the Guardian at the beginning of this year put the value of worldwide trade in services at $1,000 billion last year. (I can email the writer to ask him where that figure originates from, if you like.) The article also mentioned that GATS has been described as the ‘Heineken’ of trade deals – taking the free market into areas that other trade deals have failed to reach.

Re the level playing field (I’ll have more to say on this later) - how likely is it, do you think, that the developing nations will be queuing up to supply Britain and the US with services, making a handsome profit from so doing? Well, they won’t, will they? Essentially, they aren’t in a position to compete. Many are in the WTO primarily because they are hoping that it will open up goods exports markets for them. However, it’s hard to compete against huge multinationals when you’re just a small concern, struggling to stay afloat in a competitive world.

For example, recently, the US brought a case against the EU over its support for small Caribbean banana producers, with the US claiming that such support was unfair. Bizarre as it may seem (how are bananas classed as services?) the case was brought under GATS, as the US argued that bananas, though goods, had to be distributed, which meant they came under services. (With that as a precedent, pretty much anything and everything will potentially come under GATS, it strikes me!) Anyway, the WTO ruled in favour of the US, and sanctions were placed on the EU in respect of the US, covering a range of products, including Roquefort cheese, and Scottish cashmere.)

My question here is: How can small companies in developing countries compete effectively with rich multinationals from the industrialised nations in the supply of goods and services? (Such companies are rich in information, in technology, skilled labour, (like lawyers who know the law inside out and can exploit loopholes for all they’re worth) and so on.

Big corporates, rather than small concerns from developing countries, will do well out of GATS. Many of the big US multinationals have reached saturation point in their domestic markets, and are out looking for more. GATS will open up service markets for them all over the world, partly because the developing counties are often trade naive.

Certainly, many parts of the developing world need proper, decent, functioning services. But I do not believe that GATS is the best way to provide those services to them. Big companies tend to be oriented towards supplying people who can pay for their services – no pay, no service. This probably doesn’t seem like quite such a big deal to Americans, who are used to paying for water supplies, health care, education and so on. In a country like Mozambique, things might look a little different. Traditionally, when services are privatised, those who can’t pay, lose out. When the services are as basic and fundamental as water, they may die.

Recently, the Bolivian government, under instruction from the World Bank, attempted to privatise the country’s water system, with a UK water company taking a major share. All of sudden, low income families found that water cost more than food. To collect water in roof top tanks, all of a sudden you had to have a permit. The citizenry rioted. They couldn’t afford the costs. Hundreds were injured, and six killed, by soldiers. Eventually, the privatisation decision was reversed, and water control was put in local hands. (This wasn’t under GATS, I’m just using it as a pertinent example.)

There are numerous examples such as the above. If you’d like some more, I’ll be happy to supply them. Some books you might be interested in ‘Hungry for Trade – John Madeley (about how the poor pay for free trade. This is about trade liberalisation in general, i.e. both goods and services. There is a very interesting section entitled Trade Liberalisation and food security – the evidence). Another excellent book is entitled ‘Inside the Third World’ – by Paul Harrison, (on development philosophy, strategy and practice),

Back to the idea of ‘an equal playing field for member countries’ – the one country one vote argument. The truth is, of course, that there is no equal playing field between North and South. A point worth making, I think, is that during the recent Geneva negotiations, developing countries had far fewer negotiators than countries such as the US. In addition, such countries often lack technical experts in international trade law. As a result, many are getting into negotiations which they assume will benefit them, without knowing what to ask for, or what to offer. You can bet your boots the US and the UK know what to ask for.

(By the way, re one country one vote. That was supposed to be the way when countries recently voted at the International Whaling Commission in July, on the setting up of a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary. The proposal was sunk by Japanese buying of the votes of some of the Caribbean countries that are dependent on Japan for aid money. One country, one vote. Not always.)

There’s a lot of your post I haven’t replied to – I will answer your point about GATS not removing power from governments in my next post. There are a number of points I want to make on that front, and it’s a complex issue. ) I look forward to continuing our discussion very soon.

PS. A question for you: GATS is about removing barriers to trade. Would you like to list those barriers for me, please?


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Old 08-27-2001, 07:33 PM   #13
Silver Cheetah
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When you say globalisation is not about running ‘ma and pa’ shops out of business – that’s not our experience in the UK. Nowadays, most shops are either supermarkets, chainstores or franchises of one sort or another. There used to be far more small stores around, run by local people, serving local people. Unfortunately, they can’t compete with the big stores, so most of them close down, sooner or later, which is everyone’s loss, if you ask me. Towns are pretty boring these days, pretty much look the same, same shops, same brands, same miserable shop assistants stacking shelfs and serving hundreds of customers who come to their till. There are still local stores, of course, but
they are few and far between.

I compare this with Italy, where I lived for a long time. They don’t go for supermarkets much over there, they really like the tradition of interacting with people, buying good food from people who are experts in what they are selling, and who they also know as friends and neighbours. Shopping in Naples or Rome, (the ordinary districts, not the tourist areas) is a great experience, and the quality of the food on offer is superb. Most of it is Italian, local mozzarella, cheeses, italian salamis, Italian pastas, hundreds and hundreds of them, fabulous vegetables and salad. Gorgeous.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with the idea of producing goods locally, - why on earth not? It makes sense in lots of different ways, not least, that you don’t have to transport stuff all over the world when you can produce it right next door.

And when I say environmentally a disaster, I mean two things. Firstly, shopping centres are increasingly taking shopping away from our homes into centralised sites which are geared to car owners. Doing your shopping at small local shops near home saves transportation costs and fuel. Secondly, the burning of fossil fuels has serious environmental consequences. Airplanes and goods lorries burn significant amounts of fossil fuels, whilst moving massive amounts of product around the world. As I already said, when things are really not available in the home country, then ship them in if there’s no alternative, but for lord’s sake, why ship fruit and vegatables that are available locally half way round the world? Doesn’t it make more sense to support local growers and nix the pollution?

There is another point here. When the oil and gas runs out (take a look at the oil companies own figures on how much fossil fuel is left in the earth – enough for 45 years at present rates of consumption – highly unlikely that rates of consumption will remain stable, given that population is increasing at a rate of knots, and developing countries are using fossil fuels more and more) ... as I was saying, when it runs out, or starts to run out, we’ll be in a fine state, will we not, totally dependent on goods that come from half way across the world. Personally, I’d rather make sure that my country can produce its basics right here, thanks, and I would think any forward thinking country that doesn’t just have short term profits in mind would be thinking along the same lines.
But it looks like the penny is starting to drop in some quarters, and hopefully the development of sustainable energy sources will get kick started in time to avoid any real big horror scenarios, (although most unlikely if the big oil companies, such as Exxon Mobile, have anything to do with it. Profits of 17.9bn dollars last year, and not a single dollar put into developing clean and sustainable energy. A shining example of a big corporation with a community spirit, a social concience, and a concern for the planet that we all live on, but some exploit far more than others.

I won’t bother going into global warning here. After the recent figures released by the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change), even the most hardened sceptics have finally been convinced, except for those who have fallen victim to the Exxon Mobile misinformation campaign. (Some people will do anything to earn a dishonest buck....) If you want more info on the multi-million dollar Exxon Mobile campaign to discredit the concept of global warming and undermine the Kyoto Protocol, I can direct you to it, no trouble at all.
Lastly, a bit puzzled by the link to the article on fair trade bananas. What point were you trying to make? My point was although I don’t see the point in buying products from far away countries that are produced right here, bananas are not one of those products, and I buy fair trade.
Basically, the article is talking about your usual dollar bananas, the kind normally sold in those supermarkets you’re so fond of! It says some pretty nasty things about big transnationals and the WTO, incidentally. Why did you link to this? It kind of trashes your argument. I’m puzzled.

PS. By the way, I do put my money where my mouth is. (Perhaps I should explain that I don't drive a car - I ride a bicycle or walk. I put my shopping in the panniers of my bike. Works a treat! and keeps me fit.... Of course, this means I can't do a weekly supermarket shop, - I have to shop pretty much every day, but that's ok. I hardly use supermarkets anyway, maybe every couple of months if I'm passing.... shelves full of major crap full of additives, fillers, gums and god knows what. I like to cook fresh!, that way I know what I'm getting.)

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Old 08-27-2001, 07:56 PM   #14
Moridin
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Silver Cheetah--thank you for your reply. Like you I am not going to try and address everything in one post, as I do not want to put you or others to sleep

**This is a short one to answer your question

Quote:
PS. A question for you: GATS is about removing barriers to trade. Would you like to list those barriers for me, please?
Not sure if you specific barriers placed on varying nations…that could be long and ugly or do you want a list of general barriers to trade?

Here are general barriers to trade that most countries resort to:
Tariffs: basically a tax on imports
Quotas: basically a legal limit on the amount of a good or service that can be imported
Export Subsidies: basically a payment by the government to an exporter so that the exporter does not bear the cost of the above two

These are the basics and usually will cover about 90% of most trade barriers. You can consider anything that impedes free trade as a barrier! It can be something like a cap on the amount of foreign investment to a delay in permit approval for a foreign company to sell a product or set-up a business. Simply put, anything that allows an unnatural advantage in the marketplace for domestic businesses is a trade barrier.



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Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig
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Old 08-27-2001, 08:06 PM   #15
Fljotsdale
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Join Date: March 12, 2001
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Well said, Silver Cheetah! I don't know the subject even remotely as well as you do (so Moridin can 'put me down' if he likes ) but but you clarify my rather vague fears and objections about GATS. Keep posting. I'm interested even if I don't say much for fear of letting my ignorance show!

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Old 08-27-2001, 08:18 PM   #16
Moridin
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OK Silver Cheetah, before I respond to anything else, let's get some things out in the open!!!!

Read some of my previous post before you start generalizing about my thoughts and actions, just because I beleive in free and open trade does not mean I am a corporate fat cat, that lives in the suberbs, commutes 40 miles one way in my SUV, only buys from big TNC's, and doesn't care about the environment!!

I am quite aware of the situation of global warming and its implications (see the thread I started on it from months ago), I too think that large corporations like ExxonMobil need to spend much more on renewable energy and alternative fuels. (btw they did spend money on renewable energy sources last year, I posted on it a few months ago and will find either that post or the data to support it later)

I am not 'fond' of supermarkets. If you really must know, I live in downtown Mpls, shop at places that are within walking or biking distance and if our mass transit was worth a damn I would take it to work, but the way it is now it would take 1 1/2 hours and three transfers, but that is a moot point b/c the reason I moved where I did is b/c in 2 months my department is moving to within 6 blocks of my house!

I hate the large supermarkets as much as you do. We have a nice little term here for our nice suberbs...'generica'...where everything looks like a little cardboard cutout of everything else and if it weren't for the city signs, you wouldn't know which suberb you were in.

I too cook fresh. I live 2 blocks from our local farmer's market and I go there every weekend and purchase my fruits and vegetables for the week (what I don't buy my potatoes from Ireland...NO!)

I don't think we are that different in our views on the majority of issues. In the future please do not attack me or presume to know my views on issues that I have not discussed. Thank you!

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Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig
I've got to admit it's getting better, it's getting better all the time
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Old 08-27-2001, 08:19 PM   #17
Moridin
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fljotsdale:
Well said, Silver Cheetah! I don't know the subject even remotely as well as you do (so Moridin can 'put me down' if he likes )

This is the same reason I tried to stay out of your and Yorick's Trinity thread


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Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig
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Old 08-27-2001, 08:50 PM   #18
Moridin
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Quote:
First of all, your point that ‘GATS IS NOT business oriented!’. What is it then? Some quotes on the subject, from some of the people involved in making GATS happen, as follows:

David Hartridge:, director of the WTO Services Division ‘Without the enormous pressure generated by the American financial services secor, particularly companies like American Express and Citicorp, there would have been no GATS.

Department of Trade and Industry: ‘As a major global exporter of services, second only to the US, the UK strongly supports the GATS negotiations’.

The European Commission: ‘GATS is not just something that exists between governments. It is first and foremost an instrument for the benefit of business’.

Peter Mandelson: ‘Negotiatiating positions on GATS must reflect business priorities’.

ESF – The European Commission represents all EU members at the WTO. It is in regular consultation with the European Services Forum, a business lobby group which supports and encourages the movement to liberalise service sector markets throughout the world, and to remove trade and investment barriers for the European services sector. Members include BT, Barclarys Bank, M&S, Price Waterhouse Cooper. ESF head Andrew Buxton says the membership comes ‘from those companies where the CEO has realised that the WTO process is one in which they should take a close interest.
First of all, I think I did not phrase that properly. I meant to say that GATS is not just an issue for businesses, it also represents an opportunity for the governments and individuals of member nations.

As to the above quotes, it is hard to argue against these. It is easy to pull five quotes, that support your argument, for any hot issue. I could just as easily pull five quotes that support the idea that GATS will benefit government and individuals too.

GATS will benefit businesses, since businesses will be supplying and demanding the resulting trade. But it is not just about large TNC’s reaping profits from underdeveloped nations. Your first quote about AmEx and Citicorp pushing for a GATS agreement is simply b/c their main business lines are services, not goods. There is a GATT agreement, and therefore they thought that there should be an agreement made for services also. They are not pushing for GATS b/c they want to drive up profits, they are pushing for GATS so they can be competitive in foreign markets. Why should a company be punished because they reside in the US, UK, Germany, or Japan. And why should the people of underdeveloped countries be punished, by not having the same goods and services that we enjoy in our industrialized nations?



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Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig
I've got to admit it's getting better, it's getting better all the time
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Old 08-27-2001, 09:09 PM   #19
Fljotsdale
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Join Date: March 12, 2001
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Age: 87
Posts: 2,859
Quote:
Originally posted by Moridin:
[BThis is the same reason I tried to stay out of your and Yorick's Trinity thread
[/B]
LOL! I'll just shut up and go away, then, shall I?

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Old 08-27-2001, 09:23 PM   #20
Moridin
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Join Date: March 1, 2001
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 1,735
Quote:
Originally posted by Fljotsdale:
LOL! I'll just shut up and go away, then, shall I?

No, no! I wish more people would come in...if for nothing else just to say 'yes' or 'no'!



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Um. Suggest you have a look at Silver Cheetah's GATS thread. Interesting. Fljotsdale General Conversation Archives (11/2000 - 01/2005) 20 08-29-2001 10:23 AM


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