So all WTO protestors are rich, white people?

[Drake Tungsten]

South Korea isn't a Third World country, genius.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by realpolitic

It is insane in the developed world, but in the Third World, agroculture is the only way some people can survive. To sacrifice your life so others will live is heroic, whether it's the NYFD or someone protesting deadly policies.

According to the CIA World Factbook, S. Korea has a (2001) per capita GDP of $19,400 with a whopping 4% of people under the poverty line and over 50% of the population Internet users.

Sounds about as third world as you can get.

[Kaak]

rich white people don't protest, they lobby

[Ted Striker]

good point drake and johnt

[Alexander's Horse]

look, I'm not going to quote the hundred thousand studies out there about the benefits of trade reform for all economies. Go and do your own research.

But I do think the GATT made a big mistake changing its name to the World Trade Organisation - that name sounds sinister to the conpsiratorially minded and economically illiterate. So in spite of all the good work it does, the WTO has become a kind lightening rod for every kind of economic luddite and loony political fringe dweller.

[:) Smiley]

Well if there is so much evidence backing up trade reform, why the heck doesn't the WTO try to get that message out more?

[Alexander's Horse]

They do - but most governments, quite rightly, see it as their sovereign responsibility, and not the WTO's, to inform their citizens about trade issues. So the WTO secretariat keeps a low profile as is expected of it by member countries.

Most of you don't even know what the WTO is. It has a tiny secretariat, it has no policy or decisionmaking role, its role is basically to provide a venue for meetings by the WTO member countries and to administer the agreements. So much for the international conspiracy theory about it. Its probably because the WTO is so small that people get these weird ideas about what it is doing.

I should also point out that the WTO has consensus based decisionmaking. That means if only one of its over a 100 member countries disagrees, there is no agreement. Hardly a formula for radical evil international schemes, LOL.

[:) Smiley]

I have yet to see a government that finds promoting such trade issues to be politically favorable. On the contrary, trade issues make a great scapegoat for anything. In the US for example, political opposition to free international trade has taken many forms from "buy American" to the "big sucking sound" of jobs going overseas.

It's not just political propaganda though. People are not just consuming devices, they demand more than just low cost goods, and current trade reform doesn't deliver. For example, tariffs prop up the Japanese rice industry because the people there don't want to starve in the event supplies stop coming in. US citizens recognize that low-skilled jobs are needed to keep low-skilled workers employed and off the streets or welfare rolls. In Europe concern over the Americanizing of Europe leads to dislike of certain US companies.

In short, world trade without world government leads to a lack of accountability and responsibility. I don't say that world trade is a bad thing, it's just that it's ahead of its time.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I have yet to see a government that finds promoting such trade issues to be politically favorable. On the contrary, trade issues make a great scapegoat for anything. In the US for example, political opposition to free international trade has taken many forms from "buy American" to the "big sucking sound" of jobs going overseas.

Say what? In the last US Presidential election, BOTH candidates were in favor of free trade, and found that promoting such trade issues (pro-NAFTA stuff for both Gore and Bush) to be politically favorable.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Smiley
I have yet to see a government that finds promoting such trade issues to be politically favorable. On the contrary, trade issues make a great scapegoat for anything. In the US for example, political opposition to free international trade has taken many forms from "buy American" to the "big sucking sound" of jobs going overseas.

It's not just political propaganda though. People are not just consuming devices, they demand more than just low cost goods, and current trade reform doesn't deliver. For example, tariffs prop up the Japanese rice industry because the people there don't want to starve in the event supplies stop coming in. US citizens recognize that low-skilled jobs are needed to keep low-skilled workers employed and off the streets or welfare rolls. In Europe concern over the Americanizing of Europe leads to dislike of certain US companies.

In short, world trade without world government leads to a lack of accountability and responsibility. I don't say that world trade is a bad thing, it's just that it's ahead of its time.

This kind of loony uninformed ranting is almost impossible to respond to

You have no idea what you are talking about, do you

[Alexander's Horse]

Here is the Executive Summary of an OECD report called Open Markets Matter, which was put out by the OECD in 1998 to help member governments put the case to the public for trade and investment liberalisation.

Its easy to read and addresses a lot of the questions which frequently come up on this forum on trade issues.

http://www1.oecd.org/publications/pol_brief/1998/9806_pol.htm#4

[Drake Tungsten]

I just had to pay ¥1980 for a five kilo bag of rice (and that was on sale). All of you anti-free-trade people can wrap around my ass.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

we should force them to work for less pay and more brutal working conditions in corporate factories producing Nike's for 5 cents a pair when they are resold for $150 a pair in the US.

You do realize that Nike factories don't hurt for workers. The reason being because they pay HIGHER wages than what the workers would normally get working on the farms. That's the way factories get their worker, by having higher wages than most other jobs.

If farm subsidies of rich countries were to cease, farmers in Third World Countries will quickly get a boost because suddenly there's market for their produce. All of a sudden, these Nike factories don't look so attractive anymore.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Of course there is. Let's just ignore deforestation of the Amazon basin, encroachment of sand from the Kalahari, Namib and other deserts into African farmlands, the hurricane belt in Central America, periodic droughts everywhere, soil depletion from overcropping, etc.

All these are true, but you are arguing totally different issues. Marginalising the poor farmers will only cause pollutions and environmental destructions in other forms.

[dexters]

Originally posted by Sava
I'm glad the WTO is poised to destroy the livelihood of millions just to save a few bucks just so corporate farmers can profit.

I dunno. It seems like we should revert back to stone tool making, hide making, among other things since those were the probably first industries to have ever evolved in human history.

The logic of choosing some arbirtrary industry to protect because it's "the tradition" is illogical.
Throughout human history, industries and livelihoods have been wiped out by change.

I think we all agree to various degrees that some industries that have special meaning to a country should and can be subsidized as it gives the people their identity. But it's rather dumb and stupid, to protect outmoded farming practices so that a class of people can continue their livelihoods to the detriment of future generations.

All it comes down to is your time orientation. Most anti-global activites have their head planted firmly in the past, unwilling to give up to change. Thankfully, most in public have a future orientation that allows them to take globalization for what it is, warts and all, and accept that changes today are needed for countries to remain prosperous in the future.

anti-globalists, should take a lesson from China, whose backward looking policies turned a world class Imperial power into helplessly backwards empire unable to fight off Britain in the Opium wars.

If Korean and other farmers don't want things to change, feel free to fight change. When countries who embrace chance blow them out of the water in world markets, they have only themselves to blame.