World trade and USA unemployment

[JelenaCD]

The only way for third world countries to thrive is for USA unemployment to rise to a level to allow resources to shift to let emerging economies grow , the USA and EU trade unions are trying to stop this yet thats the way we get the world all involved in a common cause , these trade union people are protectionists who are slowing the world economy from mutual growth ! Some people don't understand to keep americans in their jobs means allowing a third world country no chance to thrive and prosper , we have to lower our expectations to be good world citizens , any good liberal should understand this ! A thriving world is not a dangerous world so it's in USA interest to promote free trade 100 % , so these countries have a stake , Columbia , South Korea , C.mon people , get a grip !

[Oli]

We have to lower our expectations?

You first.

On Monday, go into the Boss's office and demand a 30% pay cut.

Do it in solidarity with your 3rd world brethren.

[JelenaCD]

i think not , i should be retained due to my understanding of mutual free tade to benefit the world economy and you sir should be fired for being a zero sum game marxist !

[trish]

Another route to third world prosperity is for their workers to rise in solidarity against the exploiting classes that live behind locked gates and armed stockades and who skim all the wealth of the nation that is produced by hard labor right off the top.

The third world nations lack a middle class precisely because they exemplify the bigoted social Darwinism that lies latent in the outmoded nineteenth century Austrian economic ideologies and their twentieth century libertarian and conservative offshoots.

[JelenaCD]

Trish
That's delusional , like waiting for the event that never occurs , Like the metallica song , the day that never comes '
You have to make the day happen ala Reagen with 'star wars' making soviet union scramble and collapse not only becasue of internal confict yet combined with external forces !

[trish]

Baby, revolutions in the third world are the norm.

[hippifried]

Baby, revolutions in the third world are the norm.Sooner or later, the developing world is going to develop whether anybody likes it or not. A true protectionist policy would be to speed up the process & expand the consumer base. Work toward the equalization of wages around the world. Despots can't hang in a thriving society.

[SugaSweet]

With development in third world companies comes inflation and other problems their economies have no way to handle.A nurse in Costa Rica(excellent educations system and health facilities) makes about 15K a year.15K a year to a native Costa Rican is probably about 45K here.Another side of the coin,for union peopleBridgestone tires comes to mind, a factory worker at the San Jose Bridgestone makes about $700 a month.Here at the Tennessee Bridgestone,they were making about $4,000 a month.I say were because one third of the work force has been layed off,and that has also happened in Mexico.So is there a 'fourth' world on the horizon?Numerous US or European owned factories are closing in Mexico and reopening in some fashion in Central America.Names like Bridgestone,Intel,Caterpillar,and others have large scale operations in Costa Rica.I dwell on Costa Rica because I spend about two months a year there.
Another point to ponder is to what extent does the citizen benefit when these predatory capitalists are expelled from operating in developing countries?Rhodesia is really developing in a postive manner right?You throw the people off the land who knew how to develop it and give it to your friends as opposed to the people who worked it?I think that is the real model socialism has projected in the last one hundred years.Equal misery and poverty.

[trish]

Before the 80's Rhodesia had a 5% white population that had 95% of the nation's wealth and 100% of the political power. I'm sure you're not advocating the unequal misery and poverty they had in that era. It's time to throw away 19th century idealizations of economic structure. Marxism is unworkable, unfettered capitalism is unworkable. We need pragmatic solutions not ideological solutions. We need workers unions in the third world to to check exploitation. We need national health care in this country so that workers can feel comfortable giving up their benefits and thereby make the companies they work for more competitive.

[hippifried]

99% of inflation is artificial. It can be fixed easily enough by fixing the exchange rates which would close the currency markets. There's no need for anyone's economy to "handle" it.

As the developing world continues to develop, & it will, the "predatory capitalists" will run out of places to find slaves. One of my biggest beefs with organized labor is their protectionist stance. If they'd use some of that energy to help labor organize in the developing world, they wouldn't need to take this stance.

A big help would be a push toward micro-lending to help small entrepreneurs around the world get started. We talk a lot about helping small business, but we don't talk to anyone who isn't a government or a multinational corporation.

We need to stop backing dictators too. We'd be miles ahead in development if our foreign aid wasn't predominantly military. These people don't need better ways to terrorize & kill each other. They need schools, farm implements, & engineers. The cold war is over, & it was a waste of time & resources in the first place.

The whole idea that we need to keep countries of whole continents poor in order to keep our own economy stable is just hogwash. The idea that poverty even needs to exist at all is hogwash. Fuck a bunch of Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, John Keynes & the rest. It's long past time to get away from this feudalistic economic mindset. This shit ain't working. We need a rethink.

[SugaSweet]

In no way do I advocate what happened in the past in Rhodesia,or for that matter many countries in Eastern Europe where only the political leaders had or controlled wealth.If you simply say to the people who knew how to farm,go away,and give land to your cronies,does that help in any manner.Marxism and Corporatism are both failures.As far as health benefits go,one way to help pay for national health care is an alternative many do not want to face:a cap on malpractice lawsuits.When a primary physician has to pay over 75K a year for malpractice insurance,who does he or she pass the cost over to?I recently took a semi forced early retirement and I am going to pay my share of Blue Cross premiums until I see how or what develops.Here is another unsettling reality.How can our health care system sustain 10% of the visitors to hospitals who do not have citizenship.Do we get a voucher from their native country to use when one of our citizens become ill in their homeland?

[trish]

It's true malpractice lawsuits are way out of hand. A friend of my who was a very competent obstetrician was forced out of practice because of the rise of malpractice insurance. Of course caps on rewards will bring down the cost of malpractice insurance considerably. It may even have some affect on the cost of medical insurance for the rest of us, but not enough to circumvent the current high costs of medical testing, hospital care, medicines, etc. etc. [I'm not sure that caps is the fair way to go here. Real malpractice can cause a patient problems that can be devastating to their health for the remainder of their life and devastating to their livelihood and their pocketbook. But something should be done to filter out the trivial suits, and make the whole process more efficient and reasonable].

National health is an obvious solution [not to the malpractice problem, but the problem of making health care affordable]. It's been proven to work in scores of societies very similar to ours. I think we can come up with a national structure with which Americans can be happy.

[Edits in square brackets]

[Oli]

It's true malpractice lawsuits are way out of hand. A friend of my who was a very competent obstetrician was forced out of practice because of the rise of malpractice insurance. Of course caps on rewards will bring down the cost of malpractice insurance considerably. It may even have some affect on the cost of medical insurance for the rest of us, but not enough to circumvent the current high costs of medical testing, hospital care, medicines, etc. etc. [I'm not sure that caps is the fair way to go here. Real malpractice can cause a patient problems that can be devastating to their health for the remainder of their life and devastating to their livelihood and their pocketbook. But something should be done to filter out the trivial suits, and make the whole process more efficient and reasonable].

National health is an obvious solution [not to the malpractice problem, but the problem of making health care affordable]. It's been proven to work in scores of societies very similar to ours. I think we can come up with a national structure with which Americans can be happy.

[Edits in square brackets]

I'll stick to the malpractice question. A few points:
-You know that the insurance companies are a for profit enterprise? Insurance prices have risen not only to cover claims, but to ensure profit. A funny thing happened here in CT about 7 years ago. The recession after 9/11 brought calls for Tort reform by doctors and insurance companies. They wanted to cap awards. Then the market took off again and, lo and behold, malpractice premiums went down. No reform, no caps.
-The AMA doesn't police their own people, and individual states have different regulations for policing doctors. Shitty doctors do not have their licenses revoked when they make repeated mistakes.
-Tort reform is only a good idea when it goes hand in hand with a reform of how doctors are policed.