Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (316252)	12/18/2006 7:21:18 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1576775

Liberalterian? OK, not perfect... there are still winners and losers. Still it's a free trade thing, with a social agenda. EU trade chief pushes green practices By AOIFE WHITE, AP Business Writer Mon Dec 18, 9:58 AM ET Europe can green the globe by pushing trade partners to eliminate tariffs on clean and renewable power technology, EU trade chief Peter Mandelson said Monday. "It should be possible to agree a zero percent deal for these key goods," Mandelson said in a podcast posted on the Web site of the European Commission's trade department. He said he was writing to Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization, to ask him to spearhead this push as the world was faced with the "urgent challenge" of greening the growth of rapidly expanding economies China, India and Brazil. Europe had a lot to gain in getting ahead of the curve on technologies and services that attempt to tackle climate change and European companies are already exporting wind farms and solar panels to China, he said. China worries environmentalists by building one coal-powered electricity plant a week to feed its booming economy, adding to the carbon emissions that cause climate change. "We can ... export the tools and expertise to tackle climate change worldwide," he said, stressing that other countries could also win, citing India's growing exports of low-power water heaters and China trading wind-powered electricity generators with Africa. "Wherever possible, restrictive national rules on investment or services trade that prevent this transfer of expertise and technology must be removed," he said. The EU will also push green trade in the bilateral trade pacts it is readying to strike with major partners India, South and Central America and Association of Southeast Asian Nations. "I want to use our bilateral agreements to provide new opportunities for companies that provide public services like construction in an environmentally friendly way," he said. But he ruled out a climate tariff on countries — such as the United States and Australia — that have not ratified the Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse gas releases by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

To: TimF who wrote (316252)	12/19/2006 2:01:40 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576775

they should be paid less because the system doesn't need to pay them that much. What mechanism would you use to lower their pay? Not really sure. The point is they could be paid less, and many if not most would still pursue athletics and entertainment as a career. How to lower their pay, I'm not sure. For entertainers it could be done by weakening intellectual property laws about digital piracy so that bootleg DVDs/CDs would be more legal - perhaps everything digital would be in the public realm within a year after release? Boom, there goes artist's main income generation stream, and would lower their pay, as well as lower the cost of DVDs/music for the rest of us. As for athletes, the NBA could just implement salary caps on players. Maybe there are three tiers of pay, $80k, $120k and $200k, with only players with X years of experience elligible for the higher levels. If baseball player salaries are capped at (I don't know the number, say $150k), there will still be millions of athletes that will pursue the job. There aren't millions, or even thousands, probably not hundreds, of people with the talent to play at the highest level. There are millions, maybe many millions of people who can play decent baseball (or football, or basketball), and thousands who can play extraordinarily well) well, but only few who would legitimately rank among the very best. Teams bid on that scarce commodity. And you can't make up the difference by hiring 1000 players with AA potential, as only so many players can play at the same time. History proves athletes will still play at high levels with low pay. 80 years ago pro sports players made peanuts and Babe Ruth did fine. If the max salary in the NBA was $160k, you are still going to have loads of high school kids wanting to play in college, and loads of college kids wanting to play in the pros (rather than become meat packers). If athletes salaries were capped, the number of college athletes that would choose to go into the pros if they got the opportunity would probably be ~98% of what it is now. As for how to avoid all the cost savings being passed on to the team owners, not really sure, but it should cause a decline in ticket prices. If the Yankees payroll went from $200 million per year to $5 million one would hope tickets prices would come down. This whole idea sounds like it would have to be imposed by government since no one is going to get player salaries down without an outside mandate. As for entertainers, if copyright law for music/film/TV were weakened significantly, the lower cost would flow through to the consumer naturally. And actors, writers, singers are still going to pursue their craft, but the wealth motivator will be much less. It might free us from the talentless money hungry Jessica Simpsons of the world and leave us with the Becks that have talent and would (hopefully) try to make good records even if it didn't make them millions of dollars.