[thuja]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '
')
Sweatshop jobs may not sound nice from your comfortable first-world position, but it's already more opportunities than these people ever enjoyed.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '
')
Sweatshop jobs may not sound nice from your comfortable first-world position, but it's already more opportunities than these people ever enjoyed.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', 'A')nd corporations don't have power? And they don't make strong lobbies that pressure the goverments to get what they want?

[jaws]

Here's an interesting story about how a progressive social mechanism called 'cell phones' is helping the poor in Africa.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Cell phone use changes life in Africa

RODRIQUE NGOWI

Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya - Amina Harun, a 45-year-old farmer, used to traipse around for hours looking for a working pay phone on which to call the markets and find the best prices for her fruit. Then cell phones changed her life.

"We can easily link up with customers, brokers and the market," she says, sitting between two piles of watermelons at Wakulima Market in Kenya's capital.

Harun is one of a rapidly swelling army of wired-up Africans - an estimated 100 million of the continent's 906 million people. Another is Omar Abdulla Saidi, phoning in from his sailboat on the Zanzibar coast looking for the port that will give him the biggest profit on his freshly caught red snapper, tuna and shellfish.

Then there are South Africans and Kenyans slinging cell phones round the necks of elephants to track them through bush and jungle. And there's Beatrice Enyonam, a cosmetics vendor in Togo, keeping in touch with her husband by cell phone when he's traveling in the West African interior.

As cell-phone relay towers sprout on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti plain, providers are racing to keep up with their exploding market.

The numbers are staggering.

Cell phones made up 74.6 percent of all African phone subscriptions last year, says the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union. Cell phone subscriptions jumped 67 percent south of the Sahara in 2004, compared with 10 percent in cell-phone-saturated Western Europe, according to Mo Ibrahim, the Sudanese who chairs Celtel, a leading African provider.

An industry that barely existed 10 years ago is now worth $25 billion, he says. Prepaid air minutes are the preferred means of usage and have created their own $2 billion-a-year industry of small-time vendors, the Celtel chief says. Air minutes have even become a form of currency, transactable from phone to phone by text message, he says.

This is particularly useful in Africa, where transferring small amounts of money through banks is costly.

"We are developing unique ways to use the phone, which has not been done anywhere else," says South African Michael Joseph, chief executive officer of Safaricom, one of two service providers in Kenya. For an impoverished continent, low-cost phones make "a perfect fit."

And cash-strapped governments which have had to give up their monopoly on land lines are looking to reap huge revenues from license fees, customs duties and taxes on calls.

"We all misread the market," Joseph said.

The mistake, providers say, was to make plans based on GDP figures, which ignore the strong informal economy, and to assume that because land line use was low, little demand for phones existed.

The real reason for weak demand was that land lines were expensive, subscribers had to wait for months to get hooked up, and the lines often went down because of poor maintenance, floods and theft of copper cables.

Cell phones slice through all those obstacles and provide African solutions to African problems.

[thuja]

There's two things to point out-

1- the system of loans to third world countries for their "betterment" has generally not worked out- not only because you cite corruption but from what many discuss as the ill effects of globalism in general (corporate hegemony, sweat shop labor, exploitation, bla, bla, bla). We can debate it all day but its rather pointless. You'll give me a story about some family thriving because they have cell phones; I'll give you a dozen about 5 year old boys sewing leather for Nike shoes, etc, etc, boring.

2- The second point is that financial help in the form of loans has not helped to make these countries self-supporting or sustainable. And this is what will be necessary post PO. The money will dry up. There will be less capital and jobs available. Since they're nowdependent on the local motorolla factory instead of subsistence farming, they're screwed. Just like everywhere else, localization will become far moreimportant than globalization, and if the indigenous people don't know how to return to their pre-globalized agrarian roots, they will be angry, starving and dying.

So that will be the legacy of our efforts to "help" them. We drew them out with the promise of shiny tvs, cars and shopping malls and then left them there hung out to dry when we ran out of money/energy. Sweet! Yeah, I'm naive...

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'T')here's two things to point out-

1- the system of loans to third world countries for their "betterment" has generally not worked out- not only because you cite corruption but from what many discuss as the ill effects of globalism in general (corporate hegemony, sweat shop labor, exploitation, bla, bla, bla). We can debate it all day but its rather pointless. You'll give me a story about some family thriving because they have cell phones; I'll give you a dozen about 5 year old boys sewing leather for Nike shoes, etc, etc, boring.

2- The second point is that financial help in the form of loans has not helped to make these countries self-supporting or sustainable. And this is what will be necessary post PO. The money will dry up. There will be less capital and jobs available. Since they're nowdependent on the local motorolla factory instead of subsistence farming, they're screwed. Just like everywhere else, localization will become far moreimportant than globalization, and if the indigenous people don't know how to return to their pre-globalized agrarian roots, they will be angry, starving and dying.

So that will be the legacy of our efforts to "help" them. We drew them out with the promise of shiny tvs, cars and shopping malls and then left them there hung out to dry when we ran out of money/energy. Sweet! Yeah, I'm naive...

[thuja]

Ok yes overpopulation and overshoot- there's no question many of these countries have exceeded their carrying capacity and will have to thin down over the next decades. This is because the foreign aid will eventually dry up. Look- its happening in Pakistan right now. What do they call it- disaster fatigue? I know they've tried lessening the population through education, contraception and incentives before (China, India) but it doesn't seem to have worked all that well. So its either decrease population by choice or by force of disaster/war/starvation...

However, the first world has been complicit in this overpopulation. The "Green revolution" that instituted the widespread use of pesticides, fertilizers and oil powered farm and transportation machinery has led to a massive increase in food production, thus encouraging the world to live beyond its means. A fair amount of foreign aid has gone to institute some of these Big Ag remedies for the hungry third world poor.

So when the money dries up, the oil is not as plentiful, say bye bye to the green revolution and watch a major die-off in parts of the third world that are way beyond carrying capacity. Many of us came in with good intentions, and we will end up causing more widespread pain, starvation and scarcity wars than if we had never helped at all....

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'O')k yes overpopulation and overshoot- there's no question many of these countries have exceeded their carrying capacity and will have to thin down over the next decades. This is because the foreign aid will eventually dry up. Look- its happening in Pakistan right now. What do they call it- disaster fatigue? I know they've tried lessening the population through education, contraception and incentives before (China, India) but it doesn't seem to have worked all that well. So its either decrease population by choice or by force of disaster/war/starvation...

However, the first world has been complicit in this overpopulation. The "Green revolution" that instituted the widespread use of pesticides, fertilizers and oil powered farm and transportation machinery has led to a massive increase in food production, thus encouraging the world to live beyond its means. A fair amount of foreign aid has gone to institute some of these Big Ag remedies for the hungry third world poor.

So when the money dries up, the oil is not as plentiful, say bye bye to the green revolution and watch a major die-off in parts of the third world that are way beyond carrying capacity. Many of us came in with good intentions, and we will end up causing more widespread pain, starvation and scarcity wars than if we had never helped at all....

[grabby]

[quote="thuja"]There's two things to point out-

1- the system of loans to third world countries for their "betterment" has generally not worked out- not only because you cite corruption but from what many discuss as the ill effects of globalism in general (corporate hegemony, sweat shop labor, exploitation, bla, bla, bla). We can debate it all day but its rather pointless. You'll give me a story about some family thriving because they have cell phones; I'll give you a dozen about 5 year old boys sewing leather for Nike shoes, etc, etc, boring.

*** COMMENT *** Loans are made to all countries to basically make them slaves. It keeps them on the dollar. That act of holding those loans at all gives us reserve currency status and free benefit of allowing us to print even more money without consequence.
We gain much more than 1 billion dollars for every billion dollar loan given out.
It also makes us LOOK good. kind of like B Gates who did "SO MUCH* for America and us with the commputer software. I am enjoying immensly Google thrashing him for the war, even though he had been winning all the little battles up to now. I think Google will win.



2- The second point is that financial help in the form of loans has not helped to make these countries self-supporting or sustainable.

**COMMENT Of course not! that is not the purpose. the loans were given to make them our slaves, basically. There is an old saying. "If you can give them a loan, you have their soul."/b]

And this is what will be necessary post PO. The money will dry up. There will be less capital and jobs available. Since they're nowdependent on the local motorolla factory instead of subsistence farming, they're screwed. Just like everywhere else, localization will become far moreimportant than globalization, and if the indigenous people don't know how to return to their pre-globalized agrarian roots, they will be angry, starving and dying.

[b]There will be no government, and there will be a sour grapes war. F WE CAN'T HAVE IT WE HAVE TO MAKE SURE NO ONE ELSE CAN EITHER. This is called nuclear winter. G'night.

So that will be the legacy of our efforts to "help" them. We drew them out with the promise of shiny tvs, cars and shopping malls and then left them there hung out to dry when we ran out of money/energy.

If they go that far and use large devices in the war, there willl be no one to read any legacy that is a certainty. As for the loans,That is how you trap an animal, you use what works. Shiny trinkets for the INDIANS said columbus, Whiskey for the indians, said the homesteaders. Whatever works. In accepting our dollar and our "loans" they work for us.
Basic economics. It works for a while.
quote]

[grabby]

In all governments there are only Slaves and Owners.

If you have a loan, you are a slave in some respedts, you are now indebted to generating money for someone.

With the Bauble of the housing bubble and cheap interest, many millions were tempted into giving up near indepencdance, for 30 more years in slavery.

And will sooon loose all their securities.

America has the hisghest SLAVE rate of any country.
And the rules for loan payback change all the time.

ITs like an egyption pharoh telling the slaves that built the Pyramids
"You're not slaves, you are clay-firing Engineers with benefits."

College is a consumer product. I read where a WHOLE TOWn's children were given a grant to college as a gift!

I mean you know that 2/3's don't have the intelligence to go to college and benefit from it. The curriculum has to be dumbed down and diplomas are a p"ticket" now, kind of I PAID MY DUES HIRE ME!.

I know a lot of people not out of high school who I could trust with my office above some college grads with no work ethics and a diploma.

anyway, slavery is the basis in every system, without slaves nothing would get done. We just don't call them slaves any more.

[Gil-Galad]

As a cynical person, I assume that human over population in the third world is why the AIDs virus has evolved. I was recently in Tanzania, in some parts of that country 60% of pregnant women have the virus, the government does not pay for drugs. This is the same throughout most of Africa.

I think much of the overpopulation has been caused by aid agencies who have provided food for the starving, but not education, a means to earn a living and contraception.

[Byron100]

MrBill, I agree with your comments that overpopulation is the main Problem...I have always felt this way, even as a small child. I'm also a member of the "I have no kids" club. If there is one thing we could do with our foreign aid is to help the third world is to promote NPG (Negative Population Growth) policies. Anything else, we're just making the problem worse.

Another thing that that we should encourage the citizens of all those poor African countries is to ditch their oppressive governments...those people would be far better off on their own without the evil Mugabe's of the world. But to reiterate my point: You have kids, you get no help. You practice birth control and have no kids or just one, then we'll give you a microloan or two to create a sustainable way of living.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'a')nyway, slavery is the basis in every system, without slaves nothing would get done. We just don't call them slaves any more.

[thuja]

In current free market thinking, protectionism is a big no-no because it doesn't allow for the free flow of goods. For example, if we put huge tarriffs on wine from Chile, they would do the same for wine from the US. This would inhibit trade of wine. Wine producers from both countries could not "expand" their market and would produce less wine for only local markets.

In post-PO, energy costs will make it much more difficult to freely trade goods from long distances because the trucking, flying, shipping costs will increase dramatically. (Shipping is actually not very energy intensive and we may find that essential goods will still be shipped around the world to port cities. Its isolated and inland cities that will fare poorer unless a good rail system is developed.) Because of this increased cost, local producers of goods will find that that their profit margin dries up for selling goods over long distances. Because of this, they will concentrate on selling locally to a much greater degree.

Tariffs are usually put in place to encourage buying local goods and services and to discourage sending money to foreign companies who may be able to produce goods at a cheaper rate. With energy costs set to explode, there will be no need for tariffs. It will be too cost-prohibitive to trade many goods abroad and therefore people will increasingly look towards buying locally.

So forget free markets and tariffs- think buying locally as a way to save on energy costs. Except for the super-rich, buying non-essential goods from far-flung areas will become decreasingly possible (unless we supplant our hydrocarbon energy source with a new cheap coal/nuclear world. I wouldn't bet money on that).

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') favorite question I like to ask is "what would happen if America (or the first world countries) were the only country(s) left in existence?" Would we be better off or worse off? Sure, we'd have to make everything we use for ourselves, but would this be such a bad thing? Sure, things would cost a lot more, but the resulting labor shortages would drive wages high enough (IMO) to counter the increased cost of things. Presto, no more need for the "slaves" of the world. Using this line of reasoning, I fail to see why "protectionism" is such a 4-letter word in the world of economics. But then again, I'm just an ignorant bloke when it comes this sort of thing, so you'll have to excuse me

[thuja]

A new book has been written by Thomas Friedman called"The World is Flat" which describes the idea that because of the ease of transportation of goods, the outsourcing of jobs overseas and the ability for well-educated third worlders to work in the IT and service sector realm, we are quickly arriving at a place where we are flattening. First world countries may see a loss of manufacturing jobs and a decrease in salaries to stay competitive while emerging countries are seeing an increase in well paying jobs that have been outsourced, thus creating a new middle class and strengthening the economies of those countries (Think India).

The problem with this is that it is based on pre-peak oil. As we move in to post peak times and eventually as the world economy shrinks ( barring the ability to quickly switch to an alternative fuel source and continue along our way- i.e. "switch and grow") there will be decreased globalization and increased localization. There will still be a need to trade essential goods and resources, but it will begin to be cheaper to produce products "closer to home".

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'A') new book has been written by Thomas Friedman called"The World is Flat" which describes the idea that because of the ease of transportation of goods, the outsourcing of jobs overseas and the ability for well-educated third worlders to work in the IT and service sector realm, we are quickly arriving at a place where we are flattening. First world countries may see a loss of manufacturing jobs and a decrease in salaries to stay competitive while emerging countries are seeing an increase in well paying jobs that have been outsourced, thus creating a new middle class and strengthening the economies of those countries (Think India).

The problem with this is that it is based on pre-peak oil. As we move in to post peak times and eventually as the world economy shrinks ( barring the ability to quickly switch to an alternative fuel source and continue along our way- i.e. "switch and grow") there will be decreased globalization and increased localization. There will still be a need to trade essential goods and resources, but it will begin to be cheaper to produce products "closer to home".

[thuja]

Interesting article Mr. Bill- that actually surprised me...I assumed that there was a great deal of manufacturing expertise but that it was simply being outsourced in order to cut costs.

In terms of India- that was just one example. I would have also discussed other outsourced labor such as sewing shoe leather in Vietnam, clothes in Malaysia and manufacturiing industrial parts in Mexico.

In any event, outsourcing is a frequently common and neccesary part of doing business in order to increase profits. I am not saying it is necessarily bad (except for sweat shops) but that it is unsustainable in terms of energy costs. There will be a heavy bill to pay for creating an interlocking globalized business structure that depends on cheap energy and so many far flung satelites to run right.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'I')nteresting article Mr. Bill- that actually surprised me...I assumed that there was a great deal of manufacturing expertise but that it was simply being outsourced in order to cut costs.

In terms of India- that was just one example. I would have also discussed other outsourced labor such as sewing shoe leather in Vietnam, clothes in Malaysia and manufacturiing industrial parts in Mexico.

In any event, outsourcing is a frequently common and neccesary part of doing business in order to increase profits. I am not saying it is necessarily bad (except for sweat shops) but that it is unsustainable in terms of energy costs. There will be a heavy bill to pay for creating an interlocking globalized business structure that depends on cheap energy and so many far flung satelites to run right.

[thuja]

The difficulty at this point is that corporations can pay cheaper salaries/health benefits/environmental regulation costs in "emerging" countries than in first world countries. At some point the scale will be tipped where energy costs will outweigh these higher costs at home. Companies with a lot of capital who have a decent product that is selling well and who have the foresight to see that energy ill never get cheaper will start the process of returning home.

Companies who are playing the razor's edge of profitability will go bankrupt. Newer companies will emerge to take their place at "home". This will be a very interesting time financially as there will be a dramatic shift in where the money is flowing. I've been following your discussion with Petrodollar about recycling/IOB, etc. In the decades to come, when oil gets increasingly scarce, it will be tremendously expensive. Oil producing nations should reap unbelievable windfalls. How will that money get recycled? That will be the 10 trillion dollar question of the future.

[Zeiter]

Whoa, a few things need to be noted:

*France can hardly be described as socialist. It is better described as social democratic or moderately State-capitalist. I agree, France's current system sucks, whatever you call it. My thoughts on the issue? France needs decentralized democratic worker control of workplaces that allows the workers to reap the full fruits of their labor. Oh, and they need to abolish the State.

*The unrest in Argentina is very much a symptom of what is to come. I agree, class warfare will be on the rise, and it will become increasingly difficult for the ruling class to placate its workers with luxuries as the world economy goes down the shithole. However, unlike past periods of increasing class warfare, this upcoming period is much more tinged with libertarian social thought, ecological awareness, and anarchism than periods of revolutionary activity previously. This can only lead to this upcoming wave of world revolutionary activity being much more successful and producing much more desirable results than ones previously, it seems to me.

*Let's look at the general political trend in Latin America:
Venezuela - Hugo Chavez - socialist
Bolivia - Evo Morales to be elected soon - socialist
Mexico - socialist favored to win next year's election
Chile - Bachelet to be elected soon - socialist
Nicaragua - Daniel Ortega of the Sandinistas to be elected once again - socialist
Cuba - Castro still hanging on like an inorganic cyst on the body of the Monroe Doctrine.

Unfortunately, these socialist governments will bring a certain amount of authoritarianness with them into power, but hopefully the underlying social movements can steer these governments in a more libertarian socialist direction.