From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Erik Reuter >* Andrew Paul ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>> While I am not a supporter per say of tarrifs and subsidies, what >> about the strategic issue of a country being able to feed itself in >> times of strife. >Too indirect. If you are worried about war, then invest in defense. >There are an infinite number of low probability events that you could >worry about. Better to try to look at the most likely and/or most >damaging and come up with the most direct solutions. If you are worried >about a naval blockade, then instead of fighting battleships with food >tariffs, your best bet is to prepare for such a war -- for example, >prepare your defense and/or offense to combat such a blockade, build >alliances to help deter or fight such a blockade, etc. Fine if you are the USA, not so sure if the beating of every plough in Burkina Faso into sabres would really scare the 82nd Airborne that much. And its pretty hard to fight a war on an empty stomach. I, like you I think, await a world government, where the need for national armies, and thus the need for protection agianst this sort of problem, becomes irrelevant. > As you say Eric, until wages and costs across the globe come a lot > closer to parity, that is going to be pretty difficult. >No, Androo, closer to wage parity is not what I said. Sufficiently high >absolute minimum standard of living would do it, even if the gap between >the top and bottom increases. Surely it always going to be relative? You will need to explain this more, cos as I see it, if its 1/20th the cost to do it by hand in Guandong Province, then its 1/20th the cost. I am at a loss to understand how it benefits the world in a big picture sense (and putting aside geographical reasons like its impractical to grow mangoes on a large scale in Canada say) for us to ship iron ore to China, into founderies powered by imported coal, for them to turn into steel, to make iron they ship to Vietnam, to make car bodies they then ship to Australia. It only happens cos of wage imbalances, surely (again, putting aside geographical resource issues). If workers in the steel works in China were paid the same as those in Australia, it would not happen. I am not opposed to efficency, but efficency based on practical considerations, not wage and condition disparities. And to address that, dont we need to level the playing field a bit, not just raise them all a little higher? I like the idea of raising them all, but how does it solve the problem? Andrew -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
