Excellent article on Iraqi WMD backstory: 'Wilson’s House of Lies'
POSTED BY: lynchaj
UPDATED: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 03:16
VIEWED: 3925
PAGE 3 of 6
I have some thoughts about globalization and some of what DT has spoken about but to get up to speed with where I’m coming from and so that my points don’t get lost in explanation a preamble is called for…….
There’s a principle in classical economics called comparative advantage. Basically it goes like this --- Adam Smith in “The Wealth of Nations” gives an example of free trade where by England trades wool with Portugal for wine. England at that time made most of its money from wool (in fact the Chancellor of the Exchequer sits on a wool sack to remind him of that) and wine was Portugal’s primary export. Smith argued that it was in the countries best interests to trade what they had for what they needed rather than attempt to be self sufficient in everything. Later an economist called David Ricardo considered a variation on Smith’s example. What happens, he wondered, if by chance Portugal was better at producing both wool and wine than England? In that instance it would appear at first sight that the Portuguese were self sufficient and needn’t trade with England at all. However, the value of wine is more than the value of wool. Ricardo argued that economically it was better for the Portuguese to stop producing wool and convert that farmland into more vineyards than continue to have a mixed wine/wool economy. It could then trade the extra high value wine produced for England’s lower value wool rather than produce its own wool. Though able to produce both Portugal had a comparative advantage in producing wine and economically it was in its interest to stick with what its good at.
Comparative advantage is the basis on which we have built global free trade. The argument goes that it is better to make high value products like computers and software in the US and buy in the steel the country needs from cheaper countries, than to make the steel locally in Chicago and Pittsburg. The US has a comparative advantage making IT equipment – so we will sell them high value computers and buy back low value steel.
In Ricardo’s example both wine and wool needed the same resources --- agricultural land – so the source of your comparative advantage was restricted geographically and finite. The first few hundred years of industrialization also had geographic constraints – initially it was power, first industries were powered by water, later by steam. Countries that industrialized early had easily exploitable coal and iron reserves --- again a geographic advantage. Later in colonial days the imperial powers fought for control of geographical resources. Empires are great examples of comparative advantage being exploited, third world colonies sent low priced raw materials to the mother countries where industry turned them into expensive finished western goods and shipped them back to the colonies for sale. Needless to say the manufacturers in the UK, Germany and France tended to be the ones that profited from this.
Physical heavy industry remains geographically restricted; it needs special plant, has energy and raw resources requirements and is highly dependent on support infrastructure. So, you can’t build it just anywhere and once it becomes established it becomes very difficult and expensive to move. You could call this “comparative advantage inertia.” At the end of the day comparative advantage is about “who does it cheaper” but as manufacturing industry requires so much effort to set up initially it becomes hard to move. In the west people don’t move factories hundreds of miles to take advantage of a few dollars in infrastructure savings. The move of industry to places like China only happened after the Chinese spent billions setting up the support infrastructure to allow that level of industrialization. Having that infrastructure and artificially low labour costs now gives them a comparative advantage for manufacturing that is hard for multinationals to ignore.
Up until now we’ve been content to let them have those industries because in Ricardo’s model we are still winning the game --- they sell us cheap consumer goods
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Quote:You can't PROVE to me that Clinton lied about having any sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. All you have is so-called 'evidence', and maybe he was wrong, but he never actually lied! Convictions can be obtained through less than legal means, so they don't count, either.
Originally posted by lynchaj:
I am not willing to discuss further on the issue because your other arguments are based on the faulty assertion that "Bush Lied". If and when you can support your assertion, I will continue and expand to other subjects.
Only GOD can deem someone guilty, and he's GW's pal, so no, he never lied.
And don't even START on common sense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chrisisall, who never lies.
"Andrew, I'm lying...."
But if he never lies, then he is telling the truth! But if he says he is lying...
Norman, co-ordinate!
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Quote:And I have previously provided the example of the cost to Medicare of Bush's proposed drug program, which was widely touted by the Administration as $400 billion. However, that was not the figure calculated by the chief actuary.
All I have been asking for is a specific, verifiable, documented quote where President Bush or someone in his administration has publicly LIED about something
Quote:foi.missouri.edu/whistleblowing/mysterious.html
Late one Friday afternoon in January, after the House of Representatives had adjourned for the week, Cybele Bjorklund, a House Democratic health policy aide, heard the buzz of the fax machine at her desk. Coming over the transom, with no hint of the sender, was a document she had been seeking for months: an estimate by Medicare's chief actuary showing the cost of prescription drug benefits for the elderly. Dated June 11, 2003, the document put the cost at $551.5 billion over 10 years. It appeared to confirm what Ms. Bjorklund and her bosses on the House Ways and Means Committee had long suspected: the actuary, Richard S. Foster, had concluded the legislation would be far more expensive than Congress's $400 billion estimate -- and had kept quiet while lawmakers voted on the bill and President Bush signed it into law.
Oh, I'm sure you'll come up with some kind of rationalization as to why this wasn't a LIE. So PLEASE don't bother replying to my post, just let it be noted that I expect some sort of mental gymnastics of the kind I've seen from you many times before. In fact, I will PM someone with your expected answer.... You see, I know your bullshit as well as you do! Sign me (again) "Been there, done that". This will be my last post to you on this topic.
Who volunteers to get the PM?
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Fletch,
1. Comparative advantage. Sure, that's how division of labor between countries happens, why Afirca is in agriculture.
2. Tricky tricky here. I don't think it is really ever about who does it cheaper. Industry tends to gravitate towards the highest wage countries, not the lowest wage, as is commonly believed. Every once in a while a situation like Korea or Eastern Europe will spring up where huge currency differences make educated labor realitvely cheap, but this soon corrects itself. This is not, IMHO, the driving force of industry shift.
3. Who does it better is really the issue. If the Japanese made cheaper suckier cars, they would hold the section of the car market held by Yugoslaiva. People buy Japanese cars because the product is superior. Hands down superior. I love this country, but honestly folks. People buy from Korea because the products are superior. Sometimes they are surperior to the Japanese, sometimes not, But typically superior to the American.
4. People move factories to Korea not because labor is cheap, but because labor is more productive. High worker productivity, high skill base, and favorable govtl. regualtions are the typical things cited at board meetings when moving abroad. Sure there are low end labor markets like Walmart slave labor camps. But on the important tech industries, these are the issues.
5. Think about it, if cost of labor were the issue, everyone would outsource to Haiti. Cheaper than China, anda lot closer too. If skilled labor were the issue, which it often is, everyone would be in easter europe. But skilled labor, favorable regulation and worker productivity are the issue. The places to be are Korea, Japan and Eastern China. On a global scale there are some of the highest wages on Earth.
6. Unfortunately, this presents a more serious problem then your model. If the problem were cost we could simply subsidize and add tarriffs and compensate. This won't cut it. The principle problem is that Koreans are smarter than us, more efficient than us and better organized than us. Sad but true. We need to combat this on every level, with a drastic changes to education, govtl. regulation and work environment.
7. The final place for us to fear is India, for similar reasons. Smarter than they are cheap. China and India both outnumber us in the extreme, but India has a better grasp on education. They are much more likely to mint off 200,000 biochemists for that reason.
8. I was principally talking about players militarily. As an economic force, Here's my list of players:
Saudi/Open/Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a major military player, they will dominate 1 billion people I suspect. They are making noise in Europe, which is very far from their home turf, you have to bet that they will be shaking it up in their own world. The Saudis and opec have a ton of cash to throw around. They are another ownership society, but as a risk board, I have to see the black and green army as holding a lot of territory. Al Qaeda and the Saudi's biggest asset is ownership, particularly of the US media, but they will shift it to whatever is working. They invest well.
China and the commies.
India/America. India will take over much of the US economy, and be much more likely to work with us rather than against us.
PNAC/India/America. This is the opposing global monopolist branch of american economic thought to the regularly free market capitalist thought.
Both the America branches will basically be republicans and democrats will be totally marginalized.
EU/Russia will be a lesser player.
Japan/Korea. Together they are probably an America. They're less populated by better educated with fewer slackers. America's actual working population is far lower than that of its rivals percentagewise.
BTW I think international copyright is a doomed prospect, I hope it's not key to anyone's strategy.
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To all and sundry- I PMd RUe with my guess as to what AJ would say and dang if I wasn't right on target. As I said- AJ has an idee fixe. Only time and an SSRI or beta blocker can help him, and no amount of discussion will change his mind.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Lynch,
Quote:
I am not going to do your research for you
And the same back to you. Actually, it is YOUR research not mine. I told you where I got this info I posted, from watching cspan religiously, and then I sent you a random link there are an inifinite number of sources.
Here's what I think: (The consensus seems to be)
You are unshakable from your position because:
A) You are some sort of religious extremist who sees the Bush agenda as part of a prophecy, or
B) You benefit from it financially.
In either case, there is no way to win an argument.
Finally I gain nothing by educating you. It seems to be a task that would take an inordinant amount of work and achieve nothing.
Your failure to discuss the actual important issues indicated you know nothing about them, in which case, my interest in this political discourse is zero.
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Quote:
Only time and an SSRI or beta blocker can help him
ROFL
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Quote:Hey Andrew, you give me a quarter, and I'll give you a Reeses peanut butter cup, my kid says there's one in the kitchen (hmm, I thought I ate it, oh well...).
Originally posted by lynchaj:
Nobody says it better than the Boss himself.
Okay, I got your quarter, but I can't find the candy...
What? You want your quarter back? I already spent it, sorry. But the candy IS there, I just can't find it right now... be patient.
*Years pass*
DUDE, I'm still lookin', in the mean time, you wanna buy my issue #1 of The Amazing Spider-man, mint condition? My kid tells me I left it in my study...
Chrisisall, who still never tells a lie,
but the truth can get a mite bendy...
Now we sing:
"Born in the USA, I was, born in the USA..."
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I will that this truth become unbendy?
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Yer not singin' the Boss' song.
EVERYONE NOW....
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