Quite simply, most developing nations simply can't afford US-style labor and environmental laws. Recall how each time a major labor or environmental law comes up for debate, it boils down to a jobs vs. rights argument? Well, that's because that is the real tradeoff, and the US, being a very wealthy nation, can afford to give up a certain number of jobs in order to obtain a cleaner environment, happier workers, etc. Your typical developing nations has a much greater need for each extra job coming, so the tradeoffs are much more difficult. Remember that free trade is a two-way street - yes, the international corporation gets to pick and choose where it places production, but the developing nations also get to sell into the rich-world markets by leveraging their competitive advantages.
In short, I don't think your argument that "those laws may have meant that they would be making 4-10x as much" holds any water. There's simply no reason that slapping laws in place is going to magically increase workers wages...
I don't see how you can make the argument that "NAFTA has been bad for... all three countries." Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound" failed to materialize, as the growth in international trade helped create new jobs in the US as many manufacturing jobs headed south. While Perot predicted massive unemployment under NAFTA, in actuality US unemployment hit historic lows throughout most of the 90's, and is still relatively low considering the economy over the last couple years.
By CBO's estimates, NAFTA increased U.S. exports to Mexico by 2.2 percent ($1.1 billion) in 1994--an effect that rose gradually, reaching 11.3 percent ($10.3 billion) in 2001. Similarly, the agreement boosted imports from Mexico by amounts that rose from 1.9 percent ($0.9 billion) in 1994 to 7.7 percent ($9.4 billion) in 2001.
Relative to the size of the economy, the increases in exports never exceeded 0.12 percent of U.S. GDP, and the increases in imports never exceeded 0.11 percent of U.S. GDP. The effects were more significant for the much smaller Mexican economy, however. The increase in U.S. exports to Mexico represented 1.9 percent of Mexican GDP in 2001, and the increase in U.S. imports from Mexico equaled 1.7 percent of Mexican GDP.
I'm afraid you are the victim of "a drastic misunderstanding of economic principles." For the purchaser of a commodity item, the standard of living of the producer is irrelevant. Third-world farmers can indeed be more efficient "in economic terms", due to the fact that while the American farmer may produce 5 times as much, he also gets paid 10 times as much, making the Third-World producer more efficient overall.
Those numbers were totally made up, simply to illustrate the point, which is that applying US "standards of living" to other countries is wholly inappropriate. Do people really expect developing nations to adopt US-style environmental and labor laws, just for the sake of making comparisons to the US worker easier?
It's sad to see massive amounts of garbage like this getting stuffed into what is supposed to be a Free Trade treaty. In typical fashion, special interests are attaching their wish lists to an initiative that seems to have a good chance of becoming law. Hopefully this nonsense will get stricken out and the real work of expanding trade within the Americas can proceed...
And do you think that absent the nuclear standoff, those "secondary wars" would not have taken place? At any given time, there are several wars going on throughout the world...
That's a strange reading, to be sure. His point looks like "when you prepare for war, you're already down the path of starting one." My response is that the nuclear detente represented decades of preparing for war, and by doing so, preventing it (successfully, I might add).
The "moron" crack was twofold - 1) I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, and 2) his tired and overworked phrase is meant to sound wise and insightful, but in reality is idealistic pap.
At least they're trying to shake things up on the software front, with their Java Enterprise System, which costs companies only $100 per user. Whether they can actually make a profit off this obviously depends on how widely it gets adopted, but at least it's a radical departure from the current model. Desperate times call for desperate measures...
Actually, this is quite enough to help them through their "revenue doldrums." $50 million gives them cash to burn for a few years, at least. If you take out the money Microsoft and Sun have tossed their way, they've lost about $3 or $4 million over the last 12 months, and the year before that they lost about $24 million. Bottom line is that $50 million should keep them going for at least 2 more years, even while fighting a hefty legal battle.
Heck, their market cap is $275 million, so you could look at this as an instant 18% boost...
They probably assume that if someone is running Win2K/XP, that most of that 128 MB is sucked up by the OS, IE, any background programs (chat, firewall, virus protection), and of course the media player that would play the music in question. We've come a long way since the days when moving from 8K to 16K was a big step...
In a surprising number of cases, that's absolutely true, although usually in the opposite case. There are a number of great companies out there which have horrible stocks (due to being overbought), but it is pretty rare to have a lousy company and a terrific stock...
Here's a pretty good review of the Deutsche Bank analysis, along with a summary of the stock's position overall. They note that the $45 target is highly speculative, and basically hinges on whether IBM will settle or not. Given the stakes, I don't think that's likely. What is likely is that this issue will linger around for at least another 18 months, so get used to SCOX swinging wildly.
As for myself, I couldn't help doing a little day trading yesterday. Got in at $19.40, jumped out at $20.90. I'll take that anyday!
Apparently, they had a live televised rocket launch a few years back which went horribly awry. The rocket veered off course and several people on the ground were killed. They didn't want to run the risk of having this happen again, so broadcast plans were scrapped...
Not to mention the fact that most folks don't necessarily want their PC in the living room hooked up to the TV. Far better to have a separate enclave for goofing around while the wife is watching Oprah...
But as you'll recall, Russian space explorers are called cosmonauts, which clearly separates them from good-old-American astronauts. This labelling nonsense is more about national politics than anything else!
Personally, I'd be happy if they simply struck the "under God" portion from the Pledge and continue on from there. That phrase was specifically put in by Congress back in the 50's, when God-fearing America stood against the atheist USSR. It was a mistake then, and should simply be corrected.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite simply, most developing nations simply can't afford US-style labor and environmental laws. Recall how each time a major labor or environmental law comes up for debate, it boils down to a jobs vs. rights argument? Well, that's because that is the real tradeoff, and the US, being a very wealthy nation, can afford to give up a certain number of jobs in order to obtain a cleaner environment, happier workers, etc. Your typical developing nations has a much greater need for each extra job coming, so the tradeoffs are much more difficult. Remember that free trade is a two-way street - yes, the international corporation gets to pick and choose where it places production, but the developing nations also get to sell into the rich-world markets by leveraging their competitive advantages.
In short, I don't think your argument that "those laws may have meant that they would be making 4-10x as much" holds any water. There's simply no reason that slapping laws in place is going to magically increase workers wages...
To quote from the CBO's analysis of NAFTA's effects:
Who gives a shit?
Maybe a whole bunch of us should give one...
I'm afraid you are the victim of "a drastic misunderstanding of economic principles." For the purchaser of a commodity item, the standard of living of the producer is irrelevant. Third-world farmers can indeed be more efficient "in economic terms", due to the fact that while the American farmer may produce 5 times as much, he also gets paid 10 times as much, making the Third-World producer more efficient overall.
Those numbers were totally made up, simply to illustrate the point, which is that applying US "standards of living" to other countries is wholly inappropriate. Do people really expect developing nations to adopt US-style environmental and labor laws, just for the sake of making comparisons to the US worker easier?
It's sad to see massive amounts of garbage like this getting stuffed into what is supposed to be a Free Trade treaty. In typical fashion, special interests are attaching their wish lists to an initiative that seems to have a good chance of becoming law. Hopefully this nonsense will get stricken out and the real work of expanding trade within the Americas can proceed...
If they mean death as in, "just another step in the evolutionary chain," then I'd agree...
Well, it at least covered lunch for them, during which I'm sure they joked about the case!
But once you're safely cuddled within the Microsoft bosom, what choice does one need???
dude, this is /. - so here you go...
(.)(.)
And do you think that absent the nuclear standoff, those "secondary wars" would not have taken place? At any given time, there are several wars going on throughout the world...
Oh come on, it mentions patents, Amazon, Linux, and has lots of links! What more do you want???
That's a strange reading, to be sure. His point looks like "when you prepare for war, you're already down the path of starting one." My response is that the nuclear detente represented decades of preparing for war, and by doing so, preventing it (successfully, I might add).
The "moron" crack was twofold - 1) I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, and 2) his tired and overworked phrase is meant to sound wise and insightful, but in reality is idealistic pap.
So I guess the 40+ years of US/USSR nuclear detente was a failure, then?
Moron.
At least they're trying to shake things up on the software front, with their Java Enterprise System, which costs companies only $100 per user. Whether they can actually make a profit off this obviously depends on how widely it gets adopted, but at least it's a radical departure from the current model. Desperate times call for desperate measures...
Actually, this is quite enough to help them through their "revenue doldrums." $50 million gives them cash to burn for a few years, at least. If you take out the money Microsoft and Sun have tossed their way, they've lost about $3 or $4 million over the last 12 months, and the year before that they lost about $24 million. Bottom line is that $50 million should keep them going for at least 2 more years, even while fighting a hefty legal battle.
Heck, their market cap is $275 million, so you could look at this as an instant 18% boost...
They must have had some kinda eBook10K issue that killed the site, like the main database index containing only 4 digits...
They probably assume that if someone is running Win2K/XP, that most of that 128 MB is sucked up by the OS, IE, any background programs (chat, firewall, virus protection), and of course the media player that would play the music in question. We've come a long way since the days when moving from 8K to 16K was a big step...
In a surprising number of cases, that's absolutely true, although usually in the opposite case. There are a number of great companies out there which have horrible stocks (due to being overbought), but it is pretty rare to have a lousy company and a terrific stock...
Here's a pretty good review of the Deutsche Bank analysis, along with a summary of the stock's position overall. They note that the $45 target is highly speculative, and basically hinges on whether IBM will settle or not. Given the stakes, I don't think that's likely. What is likely is that this issue will linger around for at least another 18 months, so get used to SCOX swinging wildly.
As for myself, I couldn't help doing a little day trading yesterday. Got in at $19.40, jumped out at $20.90. I'll take that anyday!
Apparently, they had a live televised rocket launch a few years back which went horribly awry. The rocket veered off course and several people on the ground were killed. They didn't want to run the risk of having this happen again, so broadcast plans were scrapped...
It's either that, or he has to start wearing dresses, pearls, and the odd Toledo Mudhens hat...
Not to mention the fact that most folks don't necessarily want their PC in the living room hooked up to the TV. Far better to have a separate enclave for goofing around while the wife is watching Oprah...
But as you'll recall, Russian space explorers are called cosmonauts, which clearly separates them from good-old-American astronauts. This labelling nonsense is more about national politics than anything else!
Personally, I'd be happy if they simply struck the "under God" portion from the Pledge and continue on from there. That phrase was specifically put in by Congress back in the 50's, when God-fearing America stood against the atheist USSR. It was a mistake then, and should simply be corrected.
Thus anyone using an auto-dialer (i.e. 99% of telemarketers) are inviolation of the law and subject to a $500 fine in small claims court.
Not to mention the hordes of pitchfork- and torch-wielding cellphone users that would seek such telemarketers out and have them drawn and quartered...