Algeria is joining some of its OPEC buddies and limiting foreign investment. In some cases no foreign money is allowed at all. I find it interesting that while the western world is opening fully to global trade and losing millions of jobs and thousands of companies to Asian countries such as China and South Korea - they in turn, continue to increase protectionist policy.
We are being played like a fiddle - distracted by cowboy politics and conflict by George W - following them in free trade without the forecast benefits.
5 comments:
There is virtually no evidence to support your claim that opening up trade has led to a net loss of jobs.
If anything, it's the
economic wall-building that has only exacerbated poverty in the third world and led to higher prices in this country -- higher prices for goods affects our poorest citizens most of all.
While NAFTA and other agreements have proven problematic when not followed (or when dispute resolution was weakened as a result of anti-free-trade lobbying), Of the NAFTA countries, Canada led the way in GDP growth from 1993-2005 at 49%, the US growth in that period was 48%, the Mexican growth was 40%. It is also estimated that every one billion-dollar increase in Canada's exports sustains jobs in this country.
If anything, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are sick of seeing unfair trade bans on their fish and seal products should be leading the charge for more free trade. Some of the most successful NL companies, including some of our biggest employers, do well because they have diversified investments and projects all over the world. To cut off this country's reciprocation of that would be to jeopardize businesses right here in Newfoundland.
One word of proof Liam FISH
Fish is an excellent word. Thank you for pointing out the most sustaining and important export in the entire history of Newfoundland and Labrador.
If we would like to see more processing done here in this province, we should first consider moving away from the Canadianized upalong-imported Mao-Tse-Tung style of management and setup of processing, take a look at actually economically successful outfits in places ranging from Iceland to New Zealand, enact & truly enforce custodial management, get the resource harvesting regulated by the province instead of the feds and then maybe we could talk to operators about what sort of an environment they'd need to have more viable processing in this province.
Or we can pretend as if we have a monopoly and all the cards when we don't and continue to micromanage everything out of the ass pocket of a few technocrats in a government office somewhere.
I support local management as you know - Danny has not followed up despite the blue book intentions. Iceland has a law which punishes harvesters by removal of quota if they do not process with Icelandic firms. Fishermen reign supreme in that country.
In Iceland: they have a rational and more senisble tax regime; they have a small government; they run the fishery like an industry with real people running real business, not a politicized social program science fair project; they have less burdensome regulation; it's easier to start a business.
Yes, fishermen reign supreme in Iceland. In Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada these days, it's beauracrats.
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