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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (24360)	1/15/2004 4:16:22 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793677

You could have fooled me. You sound positively left wing on the issue… or you sure you aren’t a closet union activist, humming “we shall overcome” while nobody on SI is listening? These are indeed tough bananas, but no matter what you bleeding-heart liberals say, coddling is neither desirable nor, in the long run, possible. ROTFLMAO...OLOLOL!!! Steven, Well done. Your article makes it clear to me that many look at trade as standing alone in a vacuum. I may do that too sometimes. Trade is but one part of a complicated foreign relations equation. Trade does not stand alone and cannot be looked at so. I agree with your point about clinton having a reasonable China policy. But I still believe it was a continuation of policy begun during the Nixon, Reagan, Bush China visits. I don't see where clinton initiated anything new...except to approve the transfer of some top secret missile technology to China. uw

To: Dayuhan who wrote (24360)	1/17/2004 11:51:54 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793677

If we want the developing world to stop being torn apart by brain drain, unemployment, and poverty, if we want to stop these countries from being breeding sumps for terrorism and chaos, we have to give people in these countries a chance to do productive work. That means letting our people buy their products, especially agricultural products, and letting our companies hire them, preferably without having them sneak into our country. There’s no other way to produce real development and give these countries the ability to purchase the goods we can produce efficiently. While I concur in part with this, I do so with some trepidation. In today's NYT, there was an article on AARP trying to heal some rifts by calling for changes in the drug law that they just weeks ago supported. See nytimes.com. One paragraph in particular stood out for me and is relevant to this topic: "When the government negotiates, it's not a real negotiation," said Ian D. Spatz, vice president for public policy at Merck & Company. "Federal officials make you an offer you can't refuse, because they have all the power...." The same is true for individual employees without the shelter of labor laws or a union--most of them simply can't truly negotiate with companies most of the time. This is why the so-called "Iron Law of Wages" works. In some third world countries (e.g. Korea), unions are recognized and have power, but in many they don't. Indeed, in this country, until unions got some power and were backed or at least not hindered by the Federal government, neither wages, working conditions nor benefits were particularly good for most people. As long as workers don't have collective bargaining power, and as long as governments don't support that they won't, wages will continue to edge downward as jobs flow to low wage areas, and middle classes in this country and elsewhere will suffer--which isn't to say that upper classes won't grow, but I don't think it is a good thing to have large upper classes, huge lower classes, and dwindling middle classes. Someone wrote in a magazine article a few years ago that, "India is going great economically, everyone has four or five servants there." Not a good thing, IMO, but where we may be going.