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Australia-US Free Trade Agreement Examined
PeterBecker writes "An evalutation of the impact of the changes Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement is available from the Australian Parliamentary Library (Research Paper #14). It takes a very critical stance, with statements such as "IPRs fit awkwardly in an agreement that has the aim of advancing free trade." and "While there has not been a comprehensive economic evaluation of IPRs, the Productivity Commission has found that, as a net importer of IPRs, Australia would lose more than it gains by strengthening IPRs. The net economic impact is thus likely to be negative.". Interesting read especially for those of you who might be affected but missed the fact thanks to close to no coverage in the mainstream media."
It's bad, and not just for OSS developers. Software patents, a DMCA-alike and more.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
this report and ask the same question:
Who would profit from legalizing software patents, the American or the European software industry?
Lenz Blog
Thanks to the free trade agreement, Australia is now likely to get DMCA-like laws.
Our copyright law is already strict - we aren't allowed to copy a CD that you own to tape to listen on a walkman or in the car and we have no "fair use" copying for backup purpose. Now add the DMCA.
Tack on to this the extension to the copyright period for most works approaching 90 years and we have to ask ourselves, was this "free trade" agreement worth trading in our reasonable copyright law in exchange for selling some more sugar, wheat and wool in the US market?
It is entirely understandable that the mainstream media did not give this issue much attention. It really is a small thing. An examination of some of the shortcomings of a trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia does not effect most people directly.
_____
Thank you.
America... the land of the free (hence the intellectual thought police), and the home of brave (hence the amount of security in the US). What went wrong?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
We heard plenty of coverage about the agreement, but most of it was complaining from Sugar farmers......
Advanced users are users too!
That's not a Free Trade Agreement,
[pulls out big piece of paper] THIS is a Free Trade Agreement.
What is apparent is that Australia did not get the big gains in access to US agriculture it was asking for, but still agreed to some serious changes to Australian social policies which the US was demanding. While the agreement - unlike the North American Free Trade Agreement - will not allow corporations to sue the government for breaches of the agreement, it will mean restrictions on the right of Australia to regulate local content in the media, changes to Australian quarantine laws, new avenues for US pharmaceutical companies to press for greater profits from the Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme, and greater restrictions on creative products under copyright.
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
except for lawyers.
The point of free trade agreements should be to open avenues of exchange, and not just of goods, but of services, ideas and the like.
If the only winners are lawyers and political kudos then it ain't really a unilateral open and honest FTA.
Maybe I just hanker back for the time of cooperation and backscratching that was the early days of the internet instead of the $$make money fast$$ and backstabbing that seems to goes on now.
It will be interesting to see how many Australian companies incorporate separate R&D subsiduaries in New Zealand or Vanuatu etc to protect themselves against the much more matured and voracious legal 'profession' in the US chasing 'possible' IPR infringements (most of which I'd assume would be to financially cripple competition instead of really protecting IPRs).
btw, what, if any, has been the Canadian experience with this - and can any parallels be drawn (or lessons learnt).
And ask this question:
Who are the persons authoring and adopting this treaty getting kickbacks from, American or Australian industry?
Correct! It is indeed enforcement of IPRs. Parking meters on a grand scale.
Of what benefit to Australia is:
- opening their markets to the biggest property-rights sharks in the world?
- joining their markets to those of a country whose income is earned not so much from innovation or production as from milking them both?
- Moving their laws towards those of a country already neck-deep in litigation?
- Opening their markets to a huge producer of Australian staples like wheat?
From an Australian perspective, she's a no make sense.At all.
So why is it going ahead regardless?
Enquiring Aussies want to know.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
1) Get pressured from US. 2) Sign DMCA like document. 3) ??? 4) Profit! In soviet russia, free trade signs you! I don't trade you insensitive clod!
Moo!
I recently attended The US-Australia Free Trade Agreement and Intellectual Property - A Symposium which was hosted by the Baker & McKenzie Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, UNSW Law Faculty. You can find the transcript here, and mp3 sound files here, here, and here. It was a most interesting presentation, although in some ways I think it missed important 'features' of the FTA. Features which affect us all like most of Chapter 17, especially the introduction of DMCA like laws. More time was spent discussing mostly irrelevant issues like the 'protection' of information that may otherwise be cached by ISPs. The site is a good resource nonetheless - it's just unfortunate that people don't know what's good for them and are more interested in irrelevant news than items which will actually make a difference to them.
what do you mean it doesn't "effect most people directly"?
a consumers rights being limited - how direct can you get?
[too lazy to deliver more substantiating examples]
i believe the reply to your statement to be far more accurate.
why would the interest holders critically report, what they desire?
having said that, i believe (speculatively) that in the editors room the same argument was used, to kill off a journos report on the subject! i just wonder how they might have responded.....
If Only Johnny howard and the rest of our wonderful government had some balls and decided to stop arse licking dubya et. al
but i guess we would miss out on things such as this 'free' trade agreement,
fear and the 'forever threat' of terrorism as a political point scorer
iraq
not to mention an american administration and its embassy commenting on our domestic issues (read labour party)
would be nice if our sovereignty was respected and little johhny had some kahunas to protect it.
I think its pretty obvious that the US needs a separation of Industry and State the way they separated church and state.
The DMCA just a symptom.
Bush give special attention to Florida? Pshaw.
Well from an Australian perspective this looks bad but it would have been possible to turn it to our advantage. A tightening of IP rights would hurt us in that we seem ot rely on importing IP because the government here is intent on pumping all the funding into primary industry. It is hard to get government assistance and funding for any business that trades in tertiary and secondary industry as the government has this insane idea (founded on our traditions) that the way forward in Australia is still "riding on the sheep's back".
However, Australia is one of the top countries in the world for education and literacy. For research purposes in Software Engineering we have 2 of the top 15 universities in one city (Melbourne). If the government were to change their ideas of what Australian business is and what our exposts should be we could become a net exporter of IP. Currently we are a net exporter of tertiary education.
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
WTF happened to the Canadian - US free trade agreement?
DAMN YOU BUSH!!
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
Just another step closer.
Why is this modded as flamebait?
.au
It is insightful.
This is a very real issue in
--- Who put this sig here? ---
That Helen Clark, our PM of New Zealand actually stood up to the US Governments bulling tactics and lost the chance for a free-trade agreement with the US. Looks like it wouldn't have been much of a benefit anyway...
If you don't like the agreement, go call your parliamentary representative and tell them so. I'm sure they'd be happy to hear your thoughts.
/. where the _only_ thing that matters is IP and copyright stuff, but you take the good with the bad and the bad with the good, you know?
Personally, I would also consider the benefits of getting relatively unfettered access to one of the world's largest markets. I know this is
However, it's not my place to tell you your priorities, so go ahead and make your own decision. Just remember to act on them and call your representative either way.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
As an Australian I despair that none of our elected reps can do anything other than present their rectums for pounding by America.
...there isn't really any such thing as "independant countries"; the truth is that we're all obviously incapable of making our own laws, and making our own decisions as to what's legally, socially and morally right. All countries should be begging the US to strongarm them, er, I mean help them to make changes to their laws. After all, the US is the perfect model to base a country on, putting it's most important members (corporations) first, leaving the little guy to fend for himself. We can only hope that in coming years this planet of ours will cease to be known as "Earth" with all of it's different and unique cultures, and come to be known as "America - Planet of Legally Encumbered Thought and Filty Rich Lawyers".
But seriously, I'm rather miffed at the whole superiority stance the US seems to have in regards to other countries, including Australia.
The most insulting part is slipping this into a "Free Trade" agreement... just what the h*ll did we get out of this, anyway? We already lag behind the US in terms of the concept of Free Use (it's illegal to, say, tape an episode off the TV to watch later over here). I remember reading part of the FTA, and it said the aim of the IP section was to bring the IP laws of Australia and the US together. But instead of getting this, we're just being shafted with all the nasty horrible laws that would make big US businesses the most money.
Do we have the words "51st state" plastered somewhere we can't see? (John Howard walks past with arm around cardboard cutout of George Bush)
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
I'm guessing the "moderator" saw the bold font and marked it down.
We don't need yer stinkin' "free moderation" deal either!
Also, send letters and sign the petition.
Please help.
Rusty.
I agree.
I doubt more than about 5% of Americans don't even know what Region Coding is, and expect a DVD/Game disc/whatever to work where ever they are in the world, regardless of where it was purchased. The percentages are probably about the same with respect to power outlets (like 110v/50hz vs 240v/60hz) and the different video systems (like PAL vs NTSC).
People who live in the rest of the world are very conscious of the differences, it just seems that the US couldn't care less.
Here in Peru, the government is currently in the middle of negotiations regarding our own US-Peru free trade agreement. There's a lot of hype about it, most people consider it to be the great economic panacea which will solve most of our terrible economic problems, and the one instrument which may single-handedly bring us out of underdevelopment. I say 'Ha!', but I don't think they really care about my opinion.
Anyway, mainstream media is nothing but sugar talk for the FTA, and have hardly noticed all of the fine print, especially regarding "enhancements" on our IP law, or other areas of our Constitution - essentially opening wide for foreign investment without any kind of protection for our inner markets.
So, to the point, as a sort of mini Ask Slashdot: how would you go about publicizing these little known issues, particularly the IP one, especially when most of the mainstream media just tries to shush any voices that are just not complying with their views? These are legitimate issues which could very possibly rally valuable support, yet none of it is being mentioned, anywhere, just the positive aspects of the agreement are publicized, particularly by the government. As far as I know, similar issues are popping all through Latin America, perhaps even other places. I would certainly appreciate any insight from Australians who've just went through this, or anybody else with similar experiences, which we may possibly adapt to our local scenarios.
http://castorexmachina.wordpress.com - Filosofía, tecnología y cultura.
It was pretty big news how the AUSFTA completely screwed over our (Australia's) sugar industry. And so what is johnny going to do? Government handouts to the sugar industry to compensate them, of course.
what the hell? What was the point of AUSFTA again? How is this helping our economy? I am yet to year of ONE single benefit for _Australia's_ economy. The US government is probably rolling on the floor laughing at our pollies for letting them get away with such a one sided "agreement".
If John Howard wins the next election, I'm moving to New Zealand.
to see the first time that a "free trade" agreements includes provisions banning one of the parties from legalizing gay marriages
What worries me is that there has been little public debate or community consultation about the free trade agreement. Such a bilateral trade negotiation places Australia in a very weak bargaining position given the relative sizes of the US and Australian economies.
What worries the Australian population is that the terms of the FTA will be unacceptable in regards to the Australian culture, health and safety, public interest and economic independence.
Makes me wonder who the government on both ends of the deal was looking out for. The best interests of the political system? Or the best interests of the people?
However, I am in somewhat of a quandary as to where I should redirect my vote. I'm tempted by Labor for the first time ever - Latham has made their economic policies much more palatable. However, on the other hand he's absolutely set in withdrawing our commitment in Iraq, something I think would be a very bad idea at this point. The Greens and Democrats have way too many wackos to even be a consideration.
Damn, where's a responsible voter supposed to go ?
Hopefully latham labour and the minor parties in the senate can block this so-called "Free" trade aggreement.
They don't make the laws, they just use them in their client's interests.
Blame the politicians, who write the laws. Most of all, BLAME YOURSELF for letting the politicians write the laws without fear of retribution from you, the voter. Australians should stop whining about how other people are responsible for the ills in their country, get of their backsides and DO something about it. Politicians are affected by the public, believe it or not. If enough backbench Coalition MPs get enough letters and complaints from their constituents, they will start piling the pressure on Howard to back out of the deal while he still can. Look at the amount of noise the sugar farmers managed to make - other Australians could make just as much of a fuss about other parts of the deal.
Yes, IAAL, an Australian one too. I will not benefit from all of Australia's IP being hauled off in a big boat to the US any more than you will.
Read Pynchon.
I hate to think that our parallel import laws that damaged Australian music so much and that were fought for by American music companies might die now that US business has started to lose money from those same laws.
It warms my heart that Region Coding is illegal in Australia and modding your dvd player to multiregion is ligal.
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
What's the most ironic is how many argue that poorer countries are hurt by free trade. So many protesters at every WTO meeting claim that they are protecting those in third-world countries. If you want to force poor companies in poor countries with poor people to compete under the same labor laws as rich companies in rich countries immediately, you'll never get anywhere. As money flows into poor countries through trade, the standard of living rises and labor laws gradually conform to industrialized standards. Also, when protectionists cry out about workers in developed countries losing jobs, and how terrible their lives have become, let's remember that this job went to someone much poorer. If the worker in a developing country who got the job hadn't gotten it, he/she would be in far worse shape than his/her wealthier counterpart.
Anyways, I put in my pro-globalization ten cents. Free trade is important, and if there are little imperfections we don't like we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
Do it the way it's worked since forever: copy a big stack of flyers, and pass them out to everyone you see while yelling about your views on the issues.
Just do it on a busy streetcorner or market or mall (I don't know what you have in Peru, sorry) instead of Slashdot - we already agree with you (and can't vote in Peru anyway)!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
52nd. Canada was the 51st state.
Free-trade agreements like this are a clear demonstration of the diversity of US weapons in its government's quest for global dominance. Why place sanctions upon and then invade a country like Australia when you can muscle in on its local laws and markets with empty bribes to a bunch of greedy farmers with grosse over-representation? Should this supposed FTA ever become law you'd better believe that agricultural produce won't be the only thing we'll be expatriating on a permanent basis. Local content protection and regulation, a stringent but reasonable copyright law and pharmaceutical prices that match the world's very best for a developed nation - all gone the way of the grain-fed cow to fatten American wallets as well as stomachs.
It's right in front of your face. Grab hold of it.
To summarise:
Well that just sounds wonderfull...
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Of course you're not going to get much in the way of agricultural concessions. You already get BILLIONS in the form of artificial supply restrictions paid for by US tax payers. Say, "Thank you, great benefactor!" and leave it the fuck at that. You want to get rid of US farm subsidies, and be locked into "free trade". Good luck affording any food when all the Australian farmers have been out of business for a generation and a cartel of agri-business controls its resource like OPEC does oil.
No one in the world wants real free trade. That would be that the US would use it's huge market as a lever against all the other economies of the world. It's a huge advantage and we bend over backwards giving other people in the world massively discounted access to it.
I'm with you. I hope that ends too. Ungreatful fucks.
All of that stuff we can already get cheaper from Asia. Hardly any of these "American" branded products, except the cars, which you're welcome to, are actually manufactured there now. For instance there isn't a single Levi jeans factory in the US now. If you buy from a multi-national like that they ship it direct from their third world factory. US trade laws are irrelevant.
"Globalization is the future and history has shown that over the long-run, it's always beneficial to everyone." - Playing fields are never level, markets are never free, and the ref is always biased.
"As money flows into poor countries through trade..." - If money flows into... this is not a given.
The FTA is all about corporations, not people. Call me strange (or just idealistic), but I believe the governments obligation is to the citizens foremost (those who actually elect them), and not the corporations (who buy the decisions they want).
I would recommend reading a few of the dissertations upon FTAs:
Helleiner, Gerald. 1993. The Political Economy of North American Free Trade. New York and Montreal: St. Martin's Press and McGill-Queen's.
Gerry Helleiner [Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto, and a Canadian development economist actively involved with economic development policy in Latin America and Africa for many years] is fairly critical about Mexico and NAFTA. He argues that NAFTA implies "Mexican policy disarmament" [p.46], and that Mexico [a small country] would do better to bargain multilaterally through the GATT process than through bilateral bargaining over US-Mexico free trade given the asymmetric relationship between the US and Mexico. The impacts of Mexico joining NAFTA or a US-Mexico FTA on Mexico's relationships with Latin America are also seen as problematic. (My emphasis). There are many other examples of the larger economic power (ahem) flexing it's muscle to force issues to the detriment of the FTA partners.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
In addition, there's a profound debate that's been ongoing, pretty much since the Vietnam war, within the Labor Party about America and Australia's relationship with it. The details of the whys and wherefores of this are arcane and largely irrelevant; however, there remains a suspicion in the electorate that Labor is incapable of keeping "the Yanks" committed to Australia's security.
Now, I happen to think this view is bogus, and leads to counterproductive Australian subservience. But you have to understand the fear that we'll be abandoned that resides in some parts of the Australian electorate.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Being an Australian resident and being particularly keen on seeing a developing Australian industry I have three questions I would like to ask:
It doesn't matter that the major concessions are all held out as mere possibilitites to be reconsidered in eighteen years (I'm not joking there either), they can still argue that something was acheived on that front. The disadvantages to primary production hurt the minor party in the coalition, but the minor party has been told to take it or leave it - and the constituants of the major party are mostly convinced that investment of any kind is good, since Australia is just coming out of a major property boom with little negative consequence.
Australian govenment makes little sense currently until you consider that every state governemt is held by a party the Federal government hates intensely, so health and education become issues to withold payment and embarress the states and law enforcement is something done by the states (apart from new anti-terror laws, until recently enforced five days a week). So it's things like trade deals, immigration and military action where the federal government can do something visable to the general public. This trade deal is big news, and so long as it is big and complex enough it doesn't matter if it works, it will show the people the government is doing something to make things better. It's like putting face-recognition systems in airports, it doesn't matter that the cutting-edge research still has a way to go before it works - spending X million on something with the right name show the voters that you care enough to try from a certain perspective.
You fools. Australia has one of the best health systems in the world, if your sick you get the best drugs as long as there on the PBS for $22. The free trade agreement will slowely destroy this scheme. John Howard has ass licked for the last time. Isn't it convenient how many government departments fail to pass on information to him and his ministers. Tampa, Iraq etc. He'll be out this Novemeber. I'm voting for Garrett. "US Forces get the nod ...."
Again, this is rubbish (we have quite adequate defences against conventional threats), but some people still think it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It could have been a lot worse, but as it is it is still a scam conconcted as a confidence trick. It still leaves the Australian negotiators with something since they have delivered what they came to get in name. The recent very close military alliance between Australia and the USA has made the Australian government incapable of saying no to anything the USA asks, and this supposed reward of the free trade agreement for help in Afganistan, Iraq and in the UN has backfired.
The US went in for the weapons, for revenge for 911, for niger uranium and for whatever an old wrestler was thinking - we just went in for the cash reward.
ok, it seems some people still dont get it. "Why does john howard not do whats best for australians?" type thing. Easy, the global elite of the rich and powerful have banded together to rule the world. They like you to think that they are looking after the local interests, but they are not. Howard, Bush, Blair and the like are all on the same team. It is all us workers around that have to team up against them. I'm for globalization - globalization of worker solidarity. Power to the workers and peasants world wide! UNITE!
yes, perfect example of the power socket one was when i was staying in a hotel in Belguim, and one US lady plugged her hairdryer in and blew the electrics on the whole floor.
I went up to fix it (the night porter was a female trainee of about 18 and had no idea about fuseboxes etc so me and another guest went up).
After we found the fusebox and restored power this lady comes out and says 'i don't know what happened i just plugged this in'. to which I had to point out even though the sockets are the same there is twice as many volts running through it.
Difficult to tell whether this is a lack of external foresight or whether we have plenty of daft brits who don't check those things out but get lucky because its the same voltage.
actually as well i think your power things are wrong isn't it 110/60 and 240/50?
Free Trade is Good Period
Bzzzt, wrong. "Free trade" is a myth. True, free trade would be warlordism, might makes right.
Instead, we have a huge number of laws that attempt to discourage negative competitive behaviour (fraud, protection rackets, smuggling without taxes, lying about the competition, property ownership laws etc.) and allow positive competitive behaviour (improving the product, decreasing the price, finding synergies etc.).
That framework of laws is what matters in this "free" trade agreement and at the the moment the IP laws do almost nothing to stop negative competitive behaviour. In fact they create entirely new ways to compete negatively by pulling the competition down.
if there are little imperfections
Hardly minor. This is going to affect generations of people to come. In the not too distant future when people spend their entire lives in virtual realities (now they just spend eight hours a day in front of the box) intellectual property laws are going to define people's lives. Bad IP law will mean corporations write citizen's lives. Science fiction dystopias have been written about this.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
we hate Howard. He's a fuckwit whose so far up Bush's ass that he will do ANYTHING Bush says too. We went to war because Howard was too scared to say no to Bush. We allowed Australian citizens to be illegally detained by America because Howard was too scared to stand up to Bush. Now we're going to get screwed over with this trade agreement because Howards is too scared to say no to Bush.
When will it end?
if there really was anything but hot air and BS
that really exists
i as an individual would be FREE
but then again
people that will accept the notions
P.S.
in order to have a truly valid claim to an intellectual property
Sorry, would you mind speaking english! :)
If the history of free trade and mexico is any indication, wages will decrease slightly, and the corrupt and powerful will get yet more powerful.
It's not actually a direct effect trade aggrements with the US. But rather a side effect of weak central goverments, rampant corruption and cronism exacerbated by nearly instant access to vast amounts capital.
So your life will get worse, unless you're rich and powerful or are buddy buddy with someone who is.
On the plus side for us, we've been importing that corruption at a premium. So yay, everyone loses.
This is only going to hurt any Australians that have actually devoloped something, then twenty years down the track the bloody "yanks" are going to steal it then patent it and we won't have a leg to stand on!!!!! Message to the yanks: Stop Stealing. First you steal the Name Ugg Boots, what next.
i just finished writing an essay on this for my professional issues class. Dang, we could of used this? If our topic was different. Ie we investigated the impact of the circumvention laws on inhouse development.
Through this research i've found a dislike for the US-Aust FTA but, all is not bad. Things have to be passed through the government yet and there are provisions in the FTA that allow us to do what we want if it is for the good of the country.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
If the Austrailian deal it's anything like the Canada US free trade agreement you DO want it.
The free trade agreements between Canada and the US have been good for both countries. The amount of cross border trade has been huge and contributed to significant growth in both countries.
Trademark arguements have nothing to do with free trade, just trademark law. I understand you're upset, but trademark suits will happen anyway.
The other point is that if something is in widespread use in commerce, you can't trademark it. By your reasoning it is invalid, someone just needs to challenge it.
I think the problem with the current IP systems are that it is too difficult and costly to fight someone.
my island home... is waiting for me...
although i may be far from the ocean, it will never forget me
WHEN Will Australia learn to Stand up on its own feet? without fear? without looking to US to hold its hands?
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Please. (Hello from Adelaide, Rusty)
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
i would say when we get some military hardware that is less than 40 years old. maybe.
Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern!
In moderate and conservative Australia the majority of folks seem to believe that Indonesia wants to invade us. But why? (Hell if my next door neighbour was John Howard I would want to jump the fence an snot the little prick).
The Keating and Hawke governments had the right idea of actaully forming relationships both diplomatic and economic with our northern neighbours. After all these are the people who live in our region! Well we should say contempory Australia lives in their region after all just over 200 years ago this country was actually invaded by the colonial British and all the indigenous peoples of this nation we basically wiped out. The only people in this country who have anything to fear today are refugees (who get put in concentration camps in the desert) and Indgenous Australian's who through government legislation always get the raw end of the stick!
As for the US and its free trade agreement Bush can stick it were the sun don't shine!
and a bastardization of the language. Free trade means free trade.
The following is a real free trade agreement:
"Country A and Country B agree to free trade across their borders."
Done.
Anything else is not free trade, and is thus a sham.
But not being from either .au or .us, I won't comment this further; instead I'll give an example from my area, that is the EU. They are supposedly support free trade, and it does show to an extent - within the EU it's very easy for an individual or a company to order goods from another member state. And there is a point to using Euros, it naturally helps tourism but it's especially good for small businesses that rely on importing goods. Exchange fluctuations aren't an issue if you happen to have a large cash reserve or are able to get a loan easily; not the case with many small shops.
So everything is well and good in Euroland? Nope. One major point (there are several others, just as an example) is agriculture. Member states support their local farmers a lot, while imposing severe import taxes to products coming from third world countries - agricultural products being one of their main export. Naturally the products are eventually sold in the union, and the prices are quite high too. But a large part of the sales go to the union, with mandatory VAT and that import tax. The producing countries get very little.
Now, since there isn't a free trade agreement between EU and it's African counterpart (I know there isn't (yet) an African Union as such, but it seems the policies are set on a continental level), this behaviour is within the right of the EU, although it's constantly protested in the WTO. But I find it infuriating that such a vocal supporter of free trade supports it only when it's in their interests.
Which brings me to the point, instead of free trade we should be aiming to fair trade. We give corporations a status of an individual, i.e. a corporation can own property and has to pay taxes, yet it seems that they don't have to obey the same laws that we do. Naturally the purpose of the corporation is to make profit, yes, that's the last part after '???'. Currently it seems that ??? == exploit your surroundings as much as you can. IMHO it should be more along the lines of ??? == do your business with fairness in mind. Third world countries are very poor; duh, we're keeping them that way. While it's obvious that when we employ people there they don't get the same wage as in the western world, I'm sure they could use a bit more. I'm sure they'd appreciate being able to do trade with less taxes, thus helping create an economy of their own instead of having to rely on international support and foreign companies.
But who am I kidding, this wouldn't happen even with severe governmental regulation. To do something like this would be against our very nature, and that's something that regulation just can't change. So I'll just end my rant by rasing a toast. Here's to my future job going to Estonia (the Finnish alternative for Mexico).
I mean, an Aussie won Miss Universe that week! Who's going to devote column centimetres to a bunch of guys in a stuffy room? And if they'd given the negotiations a reality-TV format, maybe more people would have watched.
I saw a weekly news summary in today's paper, coverage of the Olympic Torch relay out-did nearly all other news items combined.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Nothing ever changes...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
A real free trade agreement can fit on a post card:
"We the undersigned agree to immediately and directly remove all trade barriers against each other, including but not limited to tariffs, quotas, subsidies for domestic industries, and outright bans."
Any agreement that takes a "baby steps" approach, or concedes that trade barriers against certain goods will remain, or that provides for new ones being erected is not a free trade agreement, it is a "managed" trade agreement.
Why does this matter? I'm sick of free trade getting a bad name from NAFTA and it's ilk. Free trade always benefits the consumers of both nations (and that's who matters: consumers!). The key word is ALWAYS. Managed trade lacks this property. With managed trade, there are inherently winners and losers.
uhh didn't they resolve this issue earlier this week?
The US is free to impose tarrifs and duties however they choose. The free trade treaties give a legal framework to fight them if they are unfair.
If we didn't have a free trade treaty, we'd have no recourse.
My NAFTA experience is that where I work, we are buying a lot of Canadian high tech equipment (satellite receivers, modulators, and television scheduling software). Not having to pay tariffs is nice (compared to the satellite receivers we import from Sweden).
"I would recommend reading a few of the dissertations upon FTAs:
Helleiner, Gerald. 1993. The Political Economy of North American Free Trade... He argues that NAFTA implies "Mexican policy disarmament" [p.46], and that Mexico [a small country] would do better to bargain multilaterally through the GATT process than through bilateral bargaining over US-Mexico free trade given the asymmetric relationship between the US and Mexico. "
Smaller countries can definately do better in multilateral bargaining, but note the date on the paper, 1993. The reality is that the multi-lateral trade talks are, atm, dead. The politics of the WTO have become so heated that it's impossible to do anything now. The world is filled with activists convinced that must make demand and if demand isn't met, screw the WTO! Sabatoge it! To comprimise or to take the good with the bad is selling out and proof that you're a corporate shill!
Not surprisingly this means that the WTO is deadlocked. So the poor countries go home from a WTO meeting basking in the glow of how they stood up to the evil US/EU/Japanese...only to discover that they're still poor and then they try to negotiate bi-lateral agreements that suck-even-more. Good job guys!
Uncanny! This is exactly the same with our media. Whenever there is talk about the FTA the sugar cane farmers are plastered all over the media. Seriously, what the fuck is up with the mainstream media and sugar?
I just realised that you "sugar talk" probably meant the same thing as "sugar coating" it, i.e. making it sound sweet. Is that a metaphor? Probably.
Anyway if that is what you meant then disregard my comment above. In the Australian media we do get a lot of talk about literal sugar when the FTA is mentioned. Or we did. That's what confused me.
Just forget that I said anything.
It goes: oil, drugs, oil, bombs, planes, planes, franchise chains. Don't forget the aids drugs you wanna be able to turn a good profit on them.
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actually as well i think your power things are wrong isn't it 110/60 and 240/50?
Yes, it would appear that you are correct... 110v/60hz (or 115v/60hz) and 240v/50hz (or 220v/50hz).
im gona go make a comment that i obveously put no thought into it and didnt read the article
They wanted to give away all of WA and the NT too, as well as parts of SA. You can bet that was popular with the Sandgropers and Territorians! And Indonesia seems to remember that, since some of their maps mark the area as South Irian.
Full disclosure: hello from Perth, Western Australia.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Most of the neighbours concerned have entire societies which march to a different drummer. An agreement with someone like Indonesia wouldn't be worth a pinch of goat dung if they decided that we had land they needed.
Many Indonesians are fairly decent people, but you have to remember that they're currently beating up, raping and killing each other; in particular, the "native" more-or-less-Islamic Indos are coming down hard on the Chinese Catholics. How much easier would it be for them to do the same to even more different-looking (and snotty) neighbours like us?
There is one blind spot which appears to be shared by both Aussie and Indo governments, though. They both keep proposing (every so often) to fill the Pilbara and Kimberley with millions and millions of people. Let's just say that it's prima facie obvious that neither of them have gone out and walked that ground themselves. Speaking as an ex-resident of Paraburdoo, Dampier and Pannawonica, and an occasional visitor to Argyle, Broome and Port Hedland: they're nuts.
Another question to ask is: the United States of America defends Australia from sundry greedy South-East Asians by expressing an interest in us. But who is to defend us from the USA? So they come with writs instead of guns? Does it really matter how it's done if in the end we have no rights, no property, no privacy?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...but in the eyes of a militant Mohammedan, anyone who refuses to embrace Shari'ah needs chastisement (read "bombing or whatever else it takes to either persuade or destroy them").
This also applies in varying degree to reciting the (at least) daily Shahada, five-times-daily Salah, doing your Zakat (I do this anyway, and I'm not Muslim), and annual Saum (can't see that doing most Westerners any harm either) and - at least once - Hajj. I think you'd be forgiven the Hajj and the Zakat would be overlooked (in fact, in some places it's really not applicable: how does someone who has absolutely nothing to offer implement Zakat?), but the rest would be regarded as straightforward and enforceable.
Odd side-effects: you'd have to destroy a lot of statuary and other artwork which would be regarded as idolatrous, bulldoze any building that looked religious but not Islamic, and close down a lot of Humanist, Christian and Atheist organisations, even schools and charities. Transport would have separate men's and women's sections. Theft would dwindle (many hands cut off make law work), and sodomy increase (too many spare males hanging around).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Harradine might sell out again (see also: vote to sell Telstra) if the government shovels money into his electorate.
I am not trying to defend the current bi-tri-multi-lateral agreements or there efficacy in the current WTO environment. I was responding to unfounded all-encompassing statements like "Globalization is the future and history has shown that over the long-run, it's always beneficial to everyone." - This is fairly obviously false as it implies a sum-gain that is relatively equally distributed amongst all parties.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
But we have experienced equipment, like F-111's and Seahawks that fought in Vietnam... no better experience for the modern climate than that!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
I for one really hope that we "do a New Zealand", in so many ways!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Well, it looks like New South Wales' invasion of Queensland has been narrowly avoided for yet another week... As for your sore point on road-spending I'd be very interested to hear your opinion, though perhaps a direct email would be more effective and prevent us being moderated for going off-topic. cloaksmrf@bigpond.com if you're interested...
> America... the land of the free (hence the intellectual thought police), and the home of brave
> (hence the amount of security in the US). What went wrong?
106 years of American Hegemony . Its been "wrong" for a l-o-n-g time! That's in regard to How the US Political-Military-Industrial combine treats the rest of the world, and How it treats its OWN citizens.
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(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
With no strong IPR legislation, some countries may not provide export/import benefits to Australia.
I've read "somewhere" that Australia adapted it's IPR legislation to the US, as the US is one of the most important trade partners.
This issue should be taken into account as well. Anyway, with respect to this specific issues, Australia is not in a favourable position, IMHO.
Both Australia and the USA are making a concerted effort to remove any fair use provisions
John Howard is 100% pro-American and willing to do anything and everything that the USA asks. Can this really be put down to incompetence?
Howard has lied to Australia on several occasions and then blamed it on internal lack of communication within the government, why does anyone believe anything he says?
If you think the greens are wacko - you haven't recently looked closely at them.
they still may not be your cup of tea.. but most of them are credible nowadays