Quake3World

Bush signs CAFTA

I'm not 100% versed in what this agreement will entail, but I don't buy the sunshine that Bush is trying to blow up America's ass. Eliminating the export tariffs is a good thing, but it's what they're not saying in the media about the agreement that worries me.
I'd really like to know how this is going to create more US jobs.

duh you idiot, how are we supposed to sell this new surplus of cheap goods to the consumer? We get more stock boy jobs at walmart! Go bush!

In addition to worrying about jobs here in the US, I also have concerns about the conditions of the places where they are farming out the work. Sweat shops?

fucking lol, what a joke

"Two decades ago, many of the CAFTA nations struggled with poverty and dictatorship and civil strife," he said. "Today they are working democracies, and we must not take these gains for granted. These nations still face forces that oppose democracy, seek to limit economic freedom and want to drive a wedge between the United States and the rest of the Americas."

and who was in power in the US two decades ago? ronald reagan, the guy who invaded grenada, backed death squads and conducted a terrorist war against the democratic sandinista-governed nicaragua. and bush is the guy who won't allow aristide back as haitian president in spite of aristide being elected by a large majority, not to mention the attempted US-backed coup against Chavez's democratic government in venezuela in 2002

go democracy and freedom!

It really is amazing how much politicians bank on people's ignorance and short attention spans. That's why I want to know what's not being talked about in this agreement.
Like Bush's last energy bill, all he did was tout the alleged decreases in pollution at some point in the future and never mentioned the huge tax breaks and relaxed controls for the energy industry.

The world's economy will slowly progess towards an equilibrium where wages and taxes are pretty much the same everywhere in the world.
Side-effects may be painful.

You really think so? I have a hard time believing that, simply because there are so many countries in the world whose main export is immigrants and stench.

It will take a long time, but the people-producing countries will become more and more civilized, thus raising their wages a little (after they lowered ours with their cheap work) and reducing their birthrate.
It will just take a really long time, like 100 or 200 years from now.

Nice thing about working for the state is that my job can't be outsourced unless they want to move the college to India, China, Canada or some other third world country \o/

canada

There are only two kinds of people in this civilized world, who to rule and who to be ruled and not the other way around such as who to be native as such.

SplishSplash wrote:The world's economy will slowly progess towards an equilibrium where wages and taxes are pretty much the same everywhere in the world.
Side-effects may be painful.

the only way that will happen is if wages in the west are cut so we can 'compete in the global marketplace'. cut wages means less disposable income, hence to maintain a decent profit margin, corporations must either raise prices or cut costs or lobby for more tax cuts. raised prices will cause the market to shrink, cut costs (i.e. wage bills) will simply mean even less disposable income to spend on their products (leading to more cost-cutting), tax cuts will mean cuts in social spending to the point where there's barely any. an inevitable outcome of the particular form of 'globalisation' being pursued here is even greater concentrations of wealth and power, a situation which brings with it increased crime, social breakdown, authoritarian government, and the degeneration of democracy into merely the form of democracy. oddly enough, we we can see this already

if someone wanted to create the conditions for some sort of future revolution in which capitalism would be overthrown and replaced with some sort of socialist order, they could hardly do better than implement a NAFTA-style system worldwide

/rant

As for taxes, we should, at least, never forget the anger when they are improperly used or just abused, at least, unless we are belonging to the opposite side.

a13n should become a politician :icon14: