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Originally Posted by politicophile
Free trade benefits all the nations involved.
The imported rice is obviously cheaper than the domestically produced rice, or nobody would buy it. Thus, despite your true but misleading claim that import costs rose, the consumers in Haiti need to pay less to buy their rice, which is a staple.
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Yeah, it's cheaper. You know why? Because the Haitian rice farmers had to compete against the U.S. farmers who are subsidized by the U.S. Govt to the tune of 40% of their profits. Not really fair competiton when a giant country with the largest economy in the world, the most efficient science and technology in the world, make the little guy cut their subsidies when we use them ourselves. But we control the WTO so if people don't like it they can bite us, right?
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Originally Posted by politicophile
On the down side, all the Haitian rice farmers go out of business. In countries where agriculture is the major source of employment, this kind of undercutting can be devastating. In the short term, farmers will lose the means to support themselves. In the long term, Haiti will begin to produce a different sort of good that is comparitively advantageous.
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Yeah, I know about comparitive advantage. Too bad that's bullshit, because the IMF and WTO don't allow that to happen. The structural adjustment programs make these countries extremely exploitable by multinational corporations, and all domestic industries are wiped out until nearly everyone is working in sweat shops. When a country depends on imports for ALL it's staples, and foreign investment for ALL it's labor demand, they've got no independance, and therefore no bargaining power, and in capatialistic environments, that means you get abused.
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Originally Posted by politicophile
The end result will be that the output of Haiti's rice industry will be replaced with goods imported from another country that were made more efficiently. Haiti will develop a different export that they can manufacture with comparative advantage to other nations. Thus, using the same resources, more goods are produced and the consumer receives them from lower prices.
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See the last thing I said.
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Originally Posted by politicophile
And as for the NAFTA riots, there will always be liberal college students who don't take economics courses. White American college students always seem to know what is best for people living in third world countries.
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YOU are the one who knows nothing about how real economics work. In an ideal capitalistic environment, yes, the things you speak of would theoretically work. However the United States and other economic super powers are in a position to control the policies of the people they trade with through the WTO and IMF which are under their control. Therefore, there is a totally unfair advantage which is exploited due to a blatant conflict of interest.
Hey, you ever heard of Argentina? Menen implemented ALL of the IMF policies he could, all at the same time, and the economy of Argentina went into a nose dive which they're still recovering from. Explain that to me.
You talk about comparitive advantage like it's people making apples instead of oranges because they can make 3 bushels of apples per hour but only 1.5 of oranges. That's not the case--this is neo-colonialism, where most third world nations only have one or two major outputs, which are raw materials. They focus all their energy on this and become completely dependant on it--if the price of their export drops then all of a sudden all of their imports are so much more expensive...it's completely unstable.
I would really like to see what you have to say about those Michael Yates articles. You've been pretty quiet since I posted them.
Put up some rebuttal or shut up with your condescending pompous attitude.