[spudbuddy]

I was going to post this in the economics forum, but as sometimes happens, that particular forum seems to disappear from the forums list, from time to time.
A small transgression, I hope!

From the reading I've done in the past 18 months, a pattern has begun to take shape, and I wanted to comment on this.

It is true enough, at least here in North America, that there is a huge vested interest in keeping up fond hopes of continuing fossil fuels maintaining levels suitable to support the favored lifestyles - those including the brandishing of McMansions, sprawl, long commutes in guzzling SUV's, etc.

I was reading the other day about how car parts now often come from a multitude of international manufacturing sites, and eventually are assembled somewhere here in North America.
That same day I overheard a radio report that described how 70% of the food that is consumed in my region (one possessing a lot of good farmland) is imported. Along with the exotic (pineapples, Kiwis, bananas) are the lowly common carrots, turnips, and various other garden vegetables. Like their Third World brethren, local farmers hardly bother trying to grow anymore, what feeds my city. They can't compete with Agribusiness price tags. So instead they turn their farmland over to "cash crops." Stuff we don't need in the least.

While cruising through various reports, debates, and overviews on Globalization, it suddenly occurs to me:

Of course. It is in the best interest of the transnationals to set things up this way. It puts a lot of wealth into their pockets. It doesn't put much of anything into yours and mine.

What amazes me - is the political power that they are able to purchase (with their economic financial power, of course.)
Consider:
Manufactured products that travel the globe, staying briefly in perhaps half a dozen different nations before their assembly is finally completed and they wind up the local

showroom.
The profit margin connected to the 2500-mile carrot, as opposed to the 25-mile carrot. Someone somewhere needs us to consume the long distance one - because THAT is the one whose price tag provides their capital gain.

Pondering this (and its millions of versions in today's "free" markets) it occurs to me -
In the face of hydrocarbon depletion (and all its consequences) the activity of global long-distance trade is ramping up.
It is doing this because that is where the profits are the greatest.
This is happening because the owners of these profits are so damned powerful, that their energy consumption over-rides political restraint, regulation, restriction - against any concerns regarding the sustainability of their commerce. (which of course, plays right into the business mantra: grab those profits quick, while you still can.)

I am no fan of Globalization, just as I have no love for the business model that regards labor costs as a lab techinician would regard an evil and deadly virus.
Any healthy economy requires a populace that can afford to consume products, for the well-being and comfort of their own particular lifestyle, and to spread the wealth around through a shared public realm.
I do believe that the more the amount of generally shared wealth disappears out of the pockets of ordinary workers, on all levels - the more debt is created. (for example - refinanced mortgages, credit and consumer debt.)
Big boxed cheap trinkets aside, we benefit not at all from off-shored and outsourced labor. But transnations benefit greatly.

I have long pondered the fundamental disdain and contempt existing in the business mind which results in a transnational (who maintains a strong North American identity) eliminating the North American worker from the picture. I have come to the conclusion that this is indeed, an immoral construct.

However, as it now occurs to me that this is all happening while fossil fuel reserves peak (and the consequences of this are knowingly understood) that the 12,000 mile running shoe is in fact, an evil thing.
Apart from that, it is downright stupid.
My gut reaction is to attack that stupidity, because I don't have a whole lot of faith in the act of moral or ethical appeal.

What a sad world - that the only thing perhaps that will ultimately take these vermin down...our "pest control" so to speak - will probably be the advent of the $200 barrel of crude.

While simmering this on the back burner, I recall every time I have ever heard the claim the BIG BUSINESS'S unrestricted mercantile activity is the responsible, citizen-friendly, astute and adept gathering of productive best efforts that indeed, make the world go round. In their minds, government is the ponderous spoilsport that impedes their (and our) progress....
We wait for the trickle-down....and wait....while we begin to notice the explosion of billionaires spreading across the firmament like shooting stars, along with their 50-million dollar "summer cottages" and the cat begins to get out of the bag a bit, I think.

It may be some fun - to watch this snakeoil salesman run out of town on a rail.




You're just as robbed with a fountain pen
as with a gun, son.

[auscanman]

I disagree with your claim that multinationals view governments as an impediment to their goals. Quite the contrary, most governments are now willing allies in pursuit of the objectives of multinationals. No western nation is anywhere close to being a free-market. The entire regime (laws and policies) in place in North America has been manipulated to suit the ends of these multinationals and other large corps. Take zoning as an example, where municipalities effectively predetermine the types of building they will allow in their municipality, and in turn the types of retail businesses that will open there. Providing far more zoned land for parking and large box buildings will naturally result in more large corporations setting up there, creating a more favorable environment for the likes of Wal-Mart as compared to smaller retail stores. The differential provision of subsidies and taxes further skews matters in favour of MNCs. I'm certain that if a truly level playing field was provided a lot of MNCs, particularly in retail would have trouble competing with smaller more specialized stores.

Western governments are now more concerned with the social engineering of their population than they are with creating the framework for a level playing field that would maximize the population's well-being.

[spudbuddy]

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Western governments are now more concerned with the social engineering of their population than they are with creating the framework for a level playing field that would maximize the population's well-being.