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China Plans Domestic Software Quotas
October_30th writes "In order to fight the alleged Microsoft monopoly, the Chinese government is establishing quotas for foreign software. While the details are still unclear, the government may require that up to 70% of software on Chinese computers is produced domestically. Regulations like this are, of course, expected to come under fierce criticism from the WTO."
You can't convict somebody of being a monopolist, there is legally nothing wrong with having a monopoly in any given market. You can however convict a company of not acting responsibly with the monopoly that they hold.
Bullshit.
There were no such laws passed in the US. There were a whole lot of "Buy American" calls from workers and some politicians but there were no laws passed because it is illegal under the WTO and it anti-competitive behaviour and most people who understand the free-market knows that it would be counterproductive.
Japanese auto-makers opened American plants because during much it was much cheaper to produce the vehicles and sell them locally rather than import them from Japan (or elsewhere) where you are subject to import duties and the vagaries of fiscal economics where the fluctation of currencies can erode profits.
People, please mod the parent post down appropiately.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
MoFscker
IIRC:
Americans work the most hours on average, but are NOT the most productive on average per hour worked - they rank 3rd there, I think. The researchers explained it with some relatively simple logic: after X number of hours, you start to lose some productivity. Sounds reasonable to me. They still win the overall productivity per worker prize, which isn't too shabby.
And, BTW, you look like a fool when you say "USian" (I am NOT calling you a fool, only saying you appear as one to someone who doesn't know you, such as myself). People who live in the USA are "Americans". People who live in North Americans are called "North Americans". People who live in South America are called "South Americans". There is no continent called "America", last time I checked, and thus there is no reason to get confused unless you're a total moron. By the same token, calling Mexicans "Americans" is idiotic, too, because they're not. They're "North Americans".
Sorry about that, but it's a pet peeve. Just refer to residents of the United States as that ("residents of the US"), if you can't bear to bring yourself to say the hated term "American" (which, you know, is accurate: "United States of America". Hence, "American", for the last word).
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
You're confusing a single economic policy with an entire socio-economic political philosophy there. The governments of most countries were protectionist prior to the mid-XIX century (for instance, England had the infamous "Corn Laws" and "Navigation Acts"; and, in the U.S., the New England States nearly seceded in the late 1820's over tariffs), but that didn't make these governments socialist in the least. It was classical liberalism (today's conservatism, at least in economics) that proposed free trade. Quite the contrary, as modern socialism didn't even exist then.
In fact, IIRC, isn't Marxism opposed to tariffs, at least in theory? Aren't they mostly used to become economicly self-sustaining, so socialist states don't need to rely on their capitalist opponents? I could be wrong on that, it's been a long time since I delved very deep into the subject.
- the Conprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
- the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines
- the Rome Statue of the Internaitonal Criminal Court (ICC)
- a protocol to create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)
- the Kyoto Protocol
- the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The report continues: "The U.S. is also not complying with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Commission (CWC), the BWC, and the UN framework Convention on Climate Change". And as the parent comment mentions, there are plenty of violations of the WTO as well.Dear Mr Bush: It's not your 'FREEDOM' that the terrorists don't like...
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
There is precedent for this in the EU television Directive of 1989.
That Directive requires that European broadcasters reserve a majority of broadcast time for European works.
If China is attacked under WTO rules, they can point to this unfortunate precedent for cultural protectionism.
Lenz Blog
Hell, we could double your example Chinese worker's salary at a cost of much less than $.25 per T-Shirt. How would this be a bad thing? My point here is that there is no real economic reason for garment workers to be so economicly screwed.
You are engaging in wishful-thinking-economics. Since one white cotton T-shirt can basically be substituted for any other white cotton T-shirt, the T-Shirt market is extremely elastic, that is, suppliers that can provide a shipload of T-shirts for just $10 less than their competitor will get the contract from the supermarket chain, no matter whether or not the individual customer would have been ready to pay $0.25 more or not. If the supermarket chain would indeed add, as a bonus, $0.25 per shirt to benefit the labourers, it would quickly be outperformed by other, not-so-generous supermarket chains, retail margins being extremely low as they are. Suppliers would, as well, underbid each other by approximately $0.25/shirt to get the contract that is now worth $0.25/shirt more to them.
This is called "market economy". Its mechanics have been well understood ever since Smith and Riccardo, and there is indeed a rational reason why trade flows are what they are. To change the equilibrium result, e.g. to raise Chinese worker's salaries, some form of government intervention would be required, which by definition would destroy some measure of wealth by disrupting the equilibrium.
Consider, though, that every single Chinese worker works at $0.25/shirt not because the State forces her to (China is now capitalist in all but name), but because she considers herself better off in that position than in any other (e.g. unemployed, other job). If any social engineering remains to be done, then, it's up to the Chinese government to institute it (e.g. with minimum wage laws), and not the U.S. or European taxpayer.
You may or may not have a point about software. The difference to other industries are the extreme network effects. This requires some more thought than can be put in this /. post.
The problem with most of the replies here is that they didn't read the article.
requiring a minimum percentage of software purchased by the government be produced in China
So, please, don't cry about companies not being able to choose the best tool. They can. It's more like the decision of the Munich local government. But it seems most of the US-based commenters lose their ability of independent thoughts when it comes to China.
Move Sig. For great justice.