Chris, My lesson in free trade is the wireless keyboard I'm typing on.
It was made in China and that enabled me to buy it relatively cheaply. You may not want to buy keyboards from China and that's all right. I wouldn't want to force you to buy one. That's the difference between the free trader and the Protectionist - or perhaps in this case the socialist - perhaps the same thing. I believe that people should have freedom of choice - they should be able to visit the marketplace and buy things from China, Thailand, Taiwan, or from anywhere else. That's because I'm a free trader (which is normal trade) and I don't want to impose my will on others. The socialist always knows best. This leads him to protect others from themselves. He passes protective tariffs, quotas, dumping duties, and all kinds of other restrictions on people to prevent them from buying what they want. If that sounds dictatorial, it's because it is. Dictators always know best. One of the interesting consequences of this left-wing meddling is that certain large companies get a free ride, free from competition. (The US has some 9,000 tariffs, quotas, and dumping duties which are designed to extract from the poor man's wages increased profits for the fortunate companies.) So, I would regard Protection as an evil conspiracy between monopolistic corporations and left-wing dictatorial types to screw the citizens.\\ It's interesting you are with them. Harry -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Christoph Reuss Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 2:28 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] A Lesson in "Free" Trade > Japanese honeybees have developed a fairly effective defense against > the Asian hornets. Replacing European honeybees by Japanese honeybees is not something the beekeepers would want to do, i.a. because the latter produce less honey. > There have been several > instances in which Africanized bees have been imported to North > America via shipping containers. But these few punctual incidents are not sufficient to populate a large area -- for that, it took the migration from South America northwards. > Does this mean humans should not be active? Not a very > practical outcome at this point. Distinction between useful and harmful activities, and relating gain to risks, is obviously necessary. "Free" Trade is useful only for a few rich grabbers, while the vast majority (and the environment, i.e. future generations) loses big time. Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
