Our economic isolationists will be happy, AP breaking that trade talks in Geneva have collapsed

[RB TexLa]

without agreement.





Marathon talks in Geneva aimed at liberalising global trade are reported to have ended without a deal.

The talks reportedly collapsed after China, India and the US failed to agree on how to reform farm trading rules, trade officials told Reuters and AP.

Earlier, European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said a stalemate was an appalling prospect.

World Trade Organization delegates are trying to ease international trade and boost global economic growth.

An official statement is expected later.

The negotiations had floundered as trade officials gathered for a ninth day.

Repeated failure

This round of trade talks initially started in 2001 with the aim of remedying inequality so that the developing world could benefit from free trade.

They have repeatedly collapsed as developed countries have failed to agree with developing nations on terms of access to each others' markets.

The US and the European Union want greater access to provide services to fast-growing emerging countries, including China and India.

Meanwhile, developing countries want greater access for their agricultural products in Europe and the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7531099.stm

[Bonobo]

1. Count me in as an economic isolationist. Good.

We need our industries back. We need to circulate our money in our own economy. We need jobs.

What's so complicated about that?

[malaise]

3. The Washington consensus model is crap

IMF, WB and WTO. They have fugged up the entire planet. Good riddance.

[ljm2002]

2. Wow, name-call much?

I have always argued that globalization in some form or another must happen. Modern communications, media, and travel all make it inevitable.

The only question is what form it will take.

Right now, the form it takes is whatever suits the huge multinational corporations. They are beholden to no country, nor to their own workers, but only to their executives and their own bottom line. What we see as a result is more oppression worldwide, exploitation of labor, environmental disaster, and less power for governments to benefit their own people -- not to mention creeping fascism worldwide.

Whereas, it could take another form. It could encourage trade between smaller entities. It could demand reasonable parity of wages, environmental protections, health care, etc. etc. But this would require some acknowledgment that what we have now is destructive and does not serve the people, but rather views the people as a commodity who must serve the machine.

If that makes me an economic isolationist in your book, so be it.

[The2ndWheel]

8. You need a global government to regulate global corporations

You can't have different governments all acting in their own interests. That's why corporations have as much power as they do. They're multi-national. They exist in the 21st century. Governments, at best, exist in the 20th. Government only works because of its monopolistic concentration of power.

"I have always argued that globalization in some form or another must happen. Modern communications, media, and travel all make it inevitable."

The standardization of life for the purpose of maximizing productive efficiency(aka, globalization) has been around for a long time. Modern communications, media, and travel only increase the rate of globalization. It doesn't have to happen, and it's not inevitable.

[ljm2002]

10. Well, if you define "globalization"...

...as "the standardization of life for the purpose of maximizing productive efficiency", then no, it is neither inevitable nor desirable.

I was using the term more in the sense that we are becoming more able to travel and communicate globally, and therefore we are more one world than ever before, and inevitably so given that even us little people now routinely communicate with and meet folks from all corners of the globe. My argument is that this changes things fundamentally -- not just in the sense that it accelerates things that already exist.

Sorry, I didn't realize that the term had been co-opted so completely, to refer only to trade, and only of the big corporate variety. My mistake is in trying to think creatively -- given that change is inevitable (which I believe, based on experience), and given that global travel and communication do contribute to that change, how might we harness that change in good ways rather than just going along with the entrenched interests of the world.

Honestly, I think that the new technologies also enable trade and communication between the small folk. I think that they can enable localization also. I realize there are also factors like oil and carbon footprints and such that may dictate less movement of goods, not more. The question, as I said in my first post in this thread, is "What form will it take?" To the extent that we fail to come up with alternatives, we are simply allowing the current forces to continue on their way, IMO.

Not to pick on you, but dayum, people around here are getting really good at shutting down discussion these days.

[Joanne98]

4. YAY

[hogwyld]

5. Excellent!!

We need our people working, with good wages. As long as companies have a choice of paying an American a living wage, or paying some chinese peasant $1 a day, the workers will lose.

[El Pinko]

6. What a tragedy!!!

My god. What with all those horrible trade barriers, it's almost impossible to find cheap, imported goods anymore.

:sarcasm:


And what with the worthless dollar, I've heard that foreign countries might actually be thinking of locating some of their manufacturing HERE.

Can't have any jobs being created here! I think the US Should pay tarriffs to the FOREIGN COUNTRIES on the stuff we import.

That should finally make the importation of plastic foreign crap profitable for Wal-Mart, once and for all. And if it doesn't the government should subsidize them so that they can keep providing those great slave-wage jobs.

:eyes:

[gatorboy]

7. Think of the dollar stores!

They have feelings too! :(

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. Great news! The WTO is total bullshit.

Liberalizing global trade is corporate doublespeak for enriching the corporations at the expense of workers, the environment, and consumer safety.