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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (12114)	11/30/2001 8:12:49 PM
From: Doug Soon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, I have heard those arguments before and they are no more illuminating now than before. Determining cost is absolutely the most controversial element to this conflict. It's not like manufacturing chewing gum which has more easily identifiable cost components. The US has a mechanism of forest management that is different from Canada. Which one is right? Probably neither, but the US adding a 32% tariff in the last 2 months is clear protectionism. There is no doubt that the sagging Canadian dollar has exacerbated the issue. The weaker the Canadian dollar is, the lower the apparent cost structure to produce Canadian wood. Should Canada be punished for a weaker dollar? Every proponent of free trade will say no. Free traders will say let Canada's trade balances grow to where the Canadian dollar appreciates and finds a fair market level obviously higher than it is today. What the protectionists are saying is that they want the Canadian dollar down and to stay down. That is so contrary with the spirit and intent of any free trade policy to make NAFTA ineffectual. I never did believe from the outset that NAFTA would benefit Canada. I know what free trade is. I see it in Europe with the unimpeded flow of goods and services from country to country. I see an attempt to unify currencies with the Euro. NAFTA is nothing more than a trade agreement that sets rules for the traffic of various goods and services across borders, including quotas. Not free trade at all. Never was. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest Brian Mulroney's shorts.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (12114)	12/1/2001 5:01:25 PM
From: marcos	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, that is partisan propaganda you are posting there, the US timber lobby pays people to make that stuff up ... observe that stupid graph - it purports to compare state of Washington stumpage with that of BC, but if you get into the details of how they make that up you'll find they're ignoring any factors not useful to their polemic, like for instance the costs and responsibilities of BC companies that are not included in the bare price of stumpage, yet add significantly to total cost, unlike in Wash where the state pays reforestation and all forest service costs out of the total wrapped-in 'stumpage' .... also, one monolithic cost structure for BC is ridiculous, there are two principal and quite distinct biogeoclimatic zones, the Coast and the Interior, with totally different conditions in every respect ... average delivered log cost on the coast is somewhere around 80Cdn/cubic metre i believe, and that covers everything including pulp, which i can sell here now for tops around 30Cdn/cubic metre ... the only way these people can make their case is by this playing with numbers to confuse the public while they're greasing palms down there in DC Observe that poor negro on the page of your second url - not well fed, is he ... i betcha they don't pay him much, and deny him the right to organise with his fellows to improve his working conditions .... now look at what he's doing - that's called a greenchain, where the lumber comes out of the edger and gets sorted as to grade and length etc ... you don't see manual greenchains except in hobby mills in BC, they're all automated and far more efficient [and when we last had greenchains they were better done than that one] ... this is a perfect example of the way the yeller-pine pushers have permitted themselves to fall behind the technological curve, spending their money instead in political pursuits 'It's politics' - oh yeah, no question, however - it is not one people against another, not BC workers against US workers, it is about the interests of the great majority of people on this continent against the entrenched interests of a timber lobby who currently control the 'Commerce' department ... 'International Trade Commission' my arse, there's nothing international about it, it's an internally-rigged system designed to benefit a few at the expense of the many