French protectionists have no shame...

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Maniac
Why don't you volunteer to emigrate to China and work in some low wage long hour no social security polluting factory if you think their system is sooooo much better?

Ahh. So it isn't just the environment that this is about for you.

Nice to know.

[Maniac]

Besides environment taxes I would also support social import taxes of course. Btw, I wouldn't mind if those import taxes were used to improve the environment and social security of the countries the taxed goods came from. Then you can't use the protectionism argument anymore. We'd just be doing the work the local govnerment fails to do.

[notyoueither]

Of course you would. You'd support taxing the hell out of anything that comes from anywhere that has different conditions from your home.

**** 'em all if they can't be just like you.

Problem is when those sorts of ideas are implemented. Global trade? Who needs that? Oh, did you ever pause to consider that the EU needs the rest of the world a hell of a lot more thasn the rest of the world needs the EU?

Edit: DanSing bastard!

[Pekka]

System vs system. Love it or leave it. That's the name of the game. Socially progressive as well as tolerant

[Maniac]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Of course you would. You'd support taxing the hell out of anything that comes from anywhere that has different conditions from your home.

**** 'em all if they can't be just like you.

Damn right. I believe the world would be a better place if all followed social-democracy. So tell me why I should support undemocratic and asocial countries that don't treat their people well, as a consequence are more competitive than social-democrats, which in the long run also will make the social-democracy at home disappear? System vs system indeed. Of course you can't expect the poorest countries to abide by our rules, but more developed countries such as China or India are already rich enough to start making social reforms. But they don't.

Problem is when those sorts of ideas are implemented. Global trade? Who needs that? Oh, did you ever pause to consider that the EU needs the rest of the world a hell of a lot more thasn the rest of the world needs the EU?

No. To give the example of China, because they're still a developing economy, at the moment they still need the US and EU more than we need China. So NOW is the time to have an influence on their system, not in a couple decades when they're more powerful than us and can dictate us what to do.

[Kuciwalker]

So tell me why I should support undemocratic and asocial countries that don't treat their people well, as a consequence are more competitive than social-democrats, which in the long run also will make the social-democracy at home disappear?

Because if you cut off most of the world you won't be able to support that system at home anyway.

[Maniac]

The proposal was not to cut off the world, but to raise import taxes and encourage other countries to follow social & environmental rules. If they did that, the import taxes would become unnecessary.

And again, for the moment the rest of the world needs us more than the other way around. They'd be damaged more by being cut off, so it would be wise for them to take over our rules to prevent being cut off.

[Dinner]

Here is the UNFCC's website which officially is in charge of the Kyoto treaty and it has a new data set which was released on 31 OCT 2006. Trends? Over all since the treaty was signed the average yearly increase amoung the states which were supposed to cut their output has actually gone up 4.1% per year during the 2000-2004 data set (the latest available). To compare output in places like China and India increased by an average of 11%.

Kyoto is a total failure and will remain a failure. So far France has decreased it's output by 0.8% since 1990 due mainly to a lose of industrial jobs. Germany is down 14% based on closing of Eastern German plants but has been rising every year since the mid 1990's. The only one who seems to be significantly down and not tied to the failure of communist era industries is the UK. I'm not quit sure why that is though I suspect the death of the UK's coal industry has something to do with it (the government tried to privatize it and then watched virtually all of it go belly up in the very early 90's).

Either way the trend for all of them is generally up or at best flat since the treaty was signed.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Maniac
The proposal was not to cut off the world, but to raise import taxes and encourage other countries to follow social & environmental rules. If they did that, the import taxes would become unnecessary.

And again, for the moment the rest of the world needs us more than the other way around. They'd be damaged more by being cut off, so it would be wise for them to take over our rules to prevent being cut off.

You invent reasons for your barriers, they'll invent reasons for theirs. Everyone can sit in their own self-inflicted crap as we all enjoy a global depression. Yeah!

Oh, and you're assuming Europe makes anything that nobody else can make.

[Dinner]

Normalize that graph to cover the period from 1997 to present (basically the period when they started negotiating the treat on wards) and EVERYONE will be up. Or atleast every country with a significant output would be up.

[chequita guevara]

You know what? We should just burn as much carbon as we want, cuz we're not gonna fix the system until its too damn late. May as well enjoy the Titanic before she sinks.

[Dinner]

Re: Re: French protectionists have no shame...

Originally posted by Drogue



Finally someone realises that if political pressure isn't going to get action on climate change, economic measures may be needed. As long as US pollution affects Europe, gaining reparations in the form of import duty seems quite sensible.

The WTO will shoot that down and a coalition of countries which are effected by those tarrifs will be given legal sanction to recover damages and impose punative tarrifs on top of it. Economically it just doesn't make sense.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
You know what? We should just burn as much carbon as we want, cuz we're not gonna fix the system until its too damn late. May as well enjoy the Titanic before she sinks.

Strike up the band!

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Maniac
No. To give the example of China, because they're still a developing economy, at the moment they still need the US and EU more than we need China. So NOW is the time to have an influence on their system, not in a couple decades when they're more powerful than us and can dictate us what to do.

They really, really don't. China is has a booming domestic market and a booming industrial sector to match. They could close their borders and continue growing rapidly. The EU, on the other hand, relies upon China for a lot of its manufacturing. If trade ties were cut, the price of most manufactured goods would go up a lot, with the largest price rises on the cheapest goods (that have the most work done in developing countries).

Now, much of SE Asia may be relient upon external trade, but that's primarily trade with China, Japan and the US. The only developing area relient upon the EU is Eastern Europe, which is already largely part of the EU.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Asher

Why should they care what the WTO says if the US doesn't?

Take it up with Bush. Yep, he's an asshat who played a game of legal delay based upon spurious grounds.

The reason why they'd care about the US, China, India, Australia, and who knows who else is because they have real economic power, while relatively speaking, Canada on its own doesn't bat in the same league. Personally, I have always thought Bush was wrong to ignore WTO rulings but eventually a negotiated solution was found.