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US Faces $100 Billion Fine For Web Gambling Ban
Stony Stevenson writes with the news that the World Trade Organization is seeking billions of dollars in compensation from the United States from their ban on internet gambling. The view of the WTO is that the US has reneged on commitments to the organization. "The disputed concessions arise from Antigua's victory earlier this year when the WTO ruled that the US violated its treaty obligations by excluding online Antiguan gaming operators, while allowing domestic operators to offer various forms of online gaming. Instead of complying with the ruling, the Bush administration withdrew the sizeable gambling industry from its free trade commitments. As a result, all 151 WTO members are considering seeking compensation for the withdrawal equal to the size of the entire US land-based and online gaming market, estimated at nearly US$100 billion."
The Antiguans have formally requested to be allowed to suspend their obligations to the US. If this is granted, they could threaten to sell cheap DVDs & Microsoft software to recover the money. I doubt they would do that, but its more likely a threat to get them to pay.
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The Poker Player's Alliance is encouraging people to fly to Washington DC for two days later this month to lobby congresscritters for legal online poker.
I dunno if the WTO's statement will help or hurt this effort, to be honest. There might be a backlash.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
Huh ?
The WTO isn't trying to override anything - we're simply being asked to honor a commitment made under a treaty which we negotiated. Other nations that didn't want to allow cross border trade in gambling opted out of those provisions, the United States did not. The US has repeatedly argued that it was a mistake the WTO panels have ruled that the record of the treaty negotiation shows that is not the case and the US freely made the commitment. Don't tell me the government didn't have a lawyer read it before they signed.
For further clarification, the US Constitution makes it clear that international treaties ratified by congress become the law of the United States.
As for the meaningless cabal of US bashers - get a grip. We are the WTO. Without our commitment to abide by the treaties there will be no WTO. I really hate the cranks that point to organizations that the US was a key player in founding claiming that they're anti US just because they may disagree once in a while. I'm surprised nobody is claiming the Internet is anti US too.
You don't appear to understand the nature of the dispute. The gambling laws in Antigua (and in most of Europe) are pretty strict, and would conform to or exceed any similar laws on the American books. If the laws to protect gamblers in a country aren't strict enough for the States, I'm pretty sure that they can make an issue out of that (this is an area I'm not too clear on. Feel free to correct).
The problem is that the US allows online gambling internally, but won't allow the same thing from an external source. This is called protectionism and is a no-no under WTO rules. This is a particularly blatant example of it, too (usually it's done through subsidies or unreasonable import taxes so it's not so obvious - see sugar in Europe and wood in the US). Because it's so blatant, and because the US have been really aggressive about it (jailing people who run online gambling sites and requiring payment processors to not allow payments to online gambling firms) it has pissed a load of people off, because the US not only signed the GATS, but basically wrote it and pushed it hard. Suddenly don't like something about it and instead of trying to negotiate or giving in, they unilaterally withdrew an entire section of their economy from the treaty.
This allows all the other signatories with interests in that sector to claim damages ore recompense and if the US don't pay, the WTO can do things like suspend other countries intellectual property obligations to the US. Hint: how much of the US' current exports are IP and how's the trade balance.
The US will have to settle this, and being pig-headed won't be the long-term answer. Most likely, Bush is lining this up for the poor b*stards that are going to follow him giving the probability that the next administration will be democrat. Either that or he doesn't care.
Rational thought is the only true freedom
sigs are hazardous to your health
I'm not a Bush fan much at all, but I do think he got it right when he said essentially that respect for human rights are a fundamental aspect of freedom, and that U.S. policy needs to be dictated thereby. Trouble is, I don't think that the US or other corporations are interested in human rights -- they'd rather have economic slavery and virtual indentured servitude instead.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
What can or can't be done within the borders of a particular jurisdiction is up to that jurisdiction to decide.
Fine and if that were our argument it would have worked. The problem is THIS
Did the USA do this as well? I thought it was just the Brits. Oddly enough, the whole opium war was derived from restrictive trade practices from China. We (the Brits) wanted their tea, they would only accept silver as payment, so we sold opium to the population and would only accept silver as payment, that we then used to buy their tea.
Of course, then we just stole the tea and planted it in India anyway. I guess that would be an IP violation in today's world.
In the history of not-our-finest-hours, this episode was a real bitch.
--Ng
The thing is here that the US has been very very aggressive in enforcing WTO rules when they're in its favour. It's all very well saying how terrible the WTO is in this case, but trust me, the rest of the world has been saying pretty much the same thing every time a ruling goes the other way, and the US wins fair trade in something somewhere. The fact here is that the US allows online gambling. But only if the gambling company is based in the US. The justification given is that gaming companies outside the US aren't regulated, but this is a false argument: external companies could easily be required to conform to US regulations when they operate in the US, but the US has chosen to ban them entirely. This is against the rules. Every other country in the world that allows online gambling is forced to allow US online gambling companies to operate in their country. Why should the US be any different? To put it another way, let's apply it to another industry.... let's say.... selling software online. And put the same conditions in place: Now US-based software companies are free to sell in the US, provided they conform to US law, but offshore all software companies are banned from selling in the US, on the grounds that they might not conform to US law. I work for a software house based outside the US that sells software to US-based firms. If we were banned from operating in the US, while our US-based competitors were allowed to operate there, as well as compete with us in our own country, we would be justifiably upset. This is the position that offshore gambling companies are in now. They're happy to comply with US regulation, but that just isn't enough; the US won't allow them to operate. The point is that for fair trade, the same rules must be applied to onshore and offshore companies. If the US did this, there would be no suit.
That is not the big issue. They are holding our bonds, and we don't have the Gold standard. So we just print them as many dollars as we want and give it to them. They know it too. So they won't cash the bonds, but they might start a war.
In the last war, almost all historians agree, Germany was defeated mainly by the huge industrial output of USA. In the next Sino-US war, just see who has the industrial capacity to out produce weapons to foresee the winner.
Well the massive strategic blundering of the Germans combined with the huge body count Russia absorbed and inflicted likely won the war. The American guns, tanks, and money supplied to the Russians helped. But it would have been a far closer shave if Germany stayed out of Russia, and Russia didn't threaten Germany so much.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The Wire Act of 1961 made it illegal to place an interstate or international wager: And more recently they passed the "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" as a rider to a must-pass spending bill, which makes financial institutions responsible for policing online wagering: The UIGEA is at the heart of the WTO dispute. The bill is intended to illegalize gambling, not by making gambling illegal (something they cannot do) but my making it illegal to transfer money to and from gambling sites and the banks they work with.
Basically, our goddamned government insists on sticking its nose in a place where it doesn't belong.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
It was my understanding that pretty much the entire
cabal that consisted of the then current "G-7" was
involved in the Opium trade. Could be wrong though...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Internet gambling has not been banned in the United States.
I repeat, Internet gambling has not been banned in the United States.
It is illegal to transfer money to a gambling site. There is a fundamental difference. In this case, United States Citizens are in effect throwing away money to Foreign sources. I'm a conservative, so I'm against the Democratic socialist view of "tax everything", but in this case the US government should be seeing something back.
What the US is saying is it's legal for its citizens to gamble in places hosted inside the country, but illegal outside the country in places we have an otherwise unfettered trade relationship with. (i.e., if the place was hosted in Cuba, it'd be illegal regardless.)"
First, let me say, I think it should be legal...what a person wants to do with their money is their own right. However, let me see if I can correct some of your statement. Gambling is legal in SOME states in the US, not every state. Each state has its right to decide what is and is not legal with regard to this. It is a bit different in the US from other countries in that (although erroding) we are a union of independent states...and each state is mostly free to make its own rules. This isn't the same for most other countries...the analogous thing would be the EU...to the US.
I guess a way to do this would be...the US at the federal level could say, "ok" it is legal...but, it is up to the individual states as to whether their citizens could legally gamble online (not that it could really be enforced).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The money raised by the tariffs will go to the government's treasury, which means other taxes could be lowered. You aren't denying access to cheap goods, you change relative prices.
In this hypothetical example, Belgians would pay higher prices for beer imported from the US, but at the same time they could pay lower prices for beer made in Belgium. People working for American breweries would lose their jobs, and Belgian breweries would hire more people.
Gambling is NOT legal in most of the US, unless one counts the stock market.
Or state lotteries. Or on Indian reservations.
Domestic vs. international law
The United States takes a different view concerning the relationship between international and domestic law from many other nations, particularly European ones. Unlike nations that view international agreements as always superseding domestic law, the American view is that international agreements become part of the body of U.S. federal law. As a result, Congress can modify or repeal treaties by subsequent legislative action, even if this amounts to a violation of the treaty under international law. The most recent changes will be enforced by U.S. courts entirely independent of whether the international community still considers the old treaty obligations binding upon the U.S. Additionally, an international agreement that is inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution is void under domestic U.S. law, the same as any other federal law in conflict with the Constitution, and the Supreme Court could rule a treaty provision to be unconstitutional and void under domestic law although it has never done so. The constitutional constraints are stronger in the case of CEA and executive agreements, which cannot override the laws of state governments.
The U.S. is not a party to the Vienna Convention. However, the State Department has taken the position that it is still binding, in that the Convention represents established customary law. The U.S. habitually includes in treaty negotiations the reservation that it will assume no obligations that are in violation of the U.S. Constitution a position mandated by the Supreme Court's 1957 ruling in Reid v. Covert. However, the Vienna Convention provides that states are not excused from their treaty obligations on the grounds that they violate the state's constitution, unless the violation is manifestly obvious at the time of contracting the treaty. So for instance, if the US Supreme Court found that a treaty violated the US constitution, it would no longer be binding on the US under US law; but it would still be binding on the US under international law, unless its unconstitutionality was manifestly obvious to the other states at the time the treaty was contracted. It has also been argued by the foreign governments (especially European) and by international human rights advocates that many of these US reservations are both so vague and broad as to be invalid. They also are invalid as being in violation of the Vienna Convention provisions referenced earlier.
If you post it, they will read.
I believe that Germany was defeated by the huge industrial output of the Soviet Union. You mean to say that Japan was defeated mainly by the huge industrial output of the USA.
It should be noted that fair trade is a marketing term unassociated with free trade. They're actually often notions that are in opposition to each other, while advocates for freer trade claim that free trade is inherently fair and "fair trade" less so.
The WTO was indeed created in the interest of rich nations, but that's not to say it isn't also in the interest of poorer nations. Barriers to trade are almost always harmful to all parties involved because they inhibit the most efficient use of resources. The driving idea behind free trade is that it is in the interest of all parties to trade freely with each other.
Agricultural subsidies are a sore point, and rightfully so. Free trade means free trade, and these sort of subsidies are a significant barrier to further lowering of trade barriers around the world. The recent addition of IP rights to the WTO is another shameful manipulation.
And the other 150 WTO members that would be making claims? Including China?
How much has the US spent failing to "bring democracy" to Iraq?
Actually, the individual treaties the tribes follow define their relationship with the US Federal Government. For 99% of the reservations, it is easier to picture them as an individual state than a sovereign nation. Meaning, they can vote for the US President, serve in the US military as a citizen, etc. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I believe their are some reservations on the US-Canada border that have treaties that make them more like a sovereign nation.
"Well..here I am..." - Jubal Early
Some historical background... The WTO wasn't formed by the United Nations. It came from the general "free trade" talks. US representatives were primary authors. The WTO was "passed" during Bill Clinton's presidency (the lame duck congress session after the 94 elections, iirc). By "passed", I mean that it was not formally ratified in the constitutional sense. Clinton didn't have the necessary super-majority votes in the Senate. Instead, he used the workaround (that's been used in the past by other presidents from all parties) of calling it an international agreement; and asking the congress to agreeing to abide by the agreement. During that process, he needed some votes from republican members of congress; to get them he made a promise that he'd allow the agreement to be re-debated and possibly re-voted on if the WTO asked the US to change three or more laws (yes, this was an issue then, especially with the republicans). Of course, that pledge was "forgotten" after that. The WTO has forced more than three US laws to be overturned. This includes (at least) the "dolphin safe tuna" laws (due to a complaint from Mexico), some clean air laws related to petroleum with heavy sulfur content (due to a complaint from Venezuala (sp?)), multiple rules about tax laws that were thought to be export subsidies in disguise, etc. It's interesting how strongly the resistance is to this particular, arguably not that meaningful, ruling. To some extent it shows how the old Puritan views still hold sway; in others it shows the political influence of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, American Indian tribes, etc.
I'd be willing to wager that at any major poker site the rules of the game and the honesty of the house is greater than at a brick and mortar shop. A site like Full Tilt Poker has hundreds of thousands of players. A very high percentage of those players are using Poker Tracker to log all their hands. That gives millions of hands to analyze. If something is off, it will be caught quickly. And the sites have too much at stake to run a crooked game. They make enough just from the rake.
I'd guess you have more to worry about from a corrupt dealer at a real casino then you do from the house online.
Of course, online you have to contend with people running bots and colluding. But then again similar things happen in real life as well. I'm not really concerned with any of that though. The only reason why I don't play online is that the games are just harder to beat. The hands come so much quicker that the fish lose their money and quit much faster. In a casino, they tend to stick around longer and give me more of their money.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Honestly, I don't think it would make the top 10 of not-our-finest-hours. The opium addicts weren't really the problem but the government's attempt to stop the opium trade brought down the Chinese bureaucracy.
Now don't get me wrong, the imperial government was right in trying to stop it but it made apparent the rampant corruption, cliques and incompetence that had infested the Chinese bureaucracy over the centuries since the Manchu took power. Add to this the clear demonstration of impotence of the Chinese military and you had a recipe for disaster.
Doesn't mean the British were in any way justified to do what they did, but in the larger picture they were just the straw that broke the camels back.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Umm, I don't know if you've noticed, but that's already happening.