[BeaverFever]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

$1:

Of course, you could look at it the other way too: virtual slaves with few rights living under a communist regime supply us with our prosperity.

Canada shouldn't buy Venezuelan oil then. I can't think of any communist regimes out there anymore....except the North Koreans and they're so phouckt up they can't even produce CO2

...better example would be Saudi oil, or oil from just about any other country.

[Lemmy]

KorbenDeck KorbenDeck:

Better yet we put a tariff on all foods coming from these poor countries and use that money for international development. Canada being a nation that seems obsessed with "human rights" should be very tough in all our trade agreements about the treatment of workers.

But who do you think pays the tariff? When we put a tariff on something, it's Canadians that pay that money. A tariff is a tax on our own citizens. So you really think we should tax Canadians because of China's or Mexico's labour laws?

[BeaverFever]

Why not? If they want to buy things from those countries, and doing so undermines our domestic job market. Canadians dont have to buy Mexican or Chinese goods, nor is there a 'constitutional right' to do so (as the conservatives like to say).

[Lemmy]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Why not? If they want to buy things from those countries, and doing so undermines our domestic job market. Canadians dont have to buy Mexican or Chinese goods, nor is there a 'constitutional right' to do so (as the conservatives like to say).

Why not? There's a dozen reasons why not. Tariffs are a dead-weight loss. There's nothing economically to gain. As I've already said, they tax (already overtaxed) Canadians. They are a violation of just about every international trade agreement we're part of. Canadians don't HAVE to buy Mexican goods, but clearly they WANT to. You'd take that freedom from your fellow citizens because YOU don't agree with what Mexico's laws are?

The argument that Mexicans are undermining our domestic job market is NONESENSE. There's nothing that Mexicans are doing that we want to do with our labour. Why would we want Canadians doing things that will only earn them a few dollars a day?

You're dreaming of a place called Xanadu where all products are gold-plated. That world doesn't exist.

[BeaverFever]

I would argue that those reasons are less than rock solid.

1)As you mention, its a voluntary tax. If you don't want to pay it, dont buy imported goods when domestic alternatives are available. "Consumer freedom" is not really freedom. The only reason Canadians want imported alternatives to domestic goods is price, period. And that price difference only exists as a result of exploiting those undeveloped nations and the result of elminating long-standing tariffs which were in place for most of our history. We already have all kinds of trade restrictions for economic protection as well as other reasons. You are not "free" to import invasive animal species, kiddie porn, blood diamonds, products made from slave labour camps, etc. Freedom has limits and you have no right to cheap products made from 3rd world countries. If you want to pay the tariff for it, go ahead.

2)International trade agreements: There are a host of legal tariffs in place, we do not have free trade with every country on the globe, not even the US (e.g. softwood lumber). Second, trade agreements are not rulers of nations. Nations volunatarily sign on to them and nations can voluntary withdraw from them as they see fit. We rule the agreements, they do not rule us. Also, trade agreement and dropping tariffs is a fairly new phenomenon as a result of globalization. One of the primary reasons for dropping tariffs is so we can exploit the poverty and corruption of undeveloped nations.

3)Raising tariffs would probably be of greater benefit to the taxpayer than the billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies we pay out so our farmers can be "competitive" and stay afloat as their own countryment buy foreign alternatives.

4)You miss my point: Canadian farmers want to grow food. Its in our national interest to have a domestic food supply. Canadian factory jobs are going to Mexico (e.g. John Deere) and the people who worked those jobs didnt want them to go. You're right that Canadians dont want to work for a few dollars a day but those jobs shouldn't pay a few dollars a day, up until recently they did not, and they don't necessarily have to.

5)You miss my overall point: This is not about imposing an emargo on Mexico over their policies, its about not allowing corporations to exploit third-world economies while undermining our own for private gain.

We can't be a nation of 33 million MBA's, unless an MBA is made the equivalent of a 2 year community college degree. We can't have an economy whose primary economic product is financial market activity, because that has no intrinsic value and is largely subject to speculation and casino-like gaming. If this meltdown has shown us anything, its that your economy has to be based on producing goods and services, not making up bogus and opaque investment vehicles and playing speculative games that crash the whole economy.

We have a society based on there being a large and stable number of "average" middle-class workers doing "average" middle class jobs, making "average" middle class wages; wa small number at the very bottom flipping burgers and a small number at the very top making millions round out the economy. The only way that works is if the people at the very top making millions don't try to outsource everybody else's jobs. It seems a little insincere to watch a good-paying canadian job get outsourced to mexico for a few dollars a day, and then say "canadians dont want that job, it only pays a few dollars a day!" Canadians want those jobs to stay here, where they pay decent wages; we know that whatever job it is replaced with will pay less, and even if it doesn't that will be outsourced in a couple of years too. I get that there is an evolution but thats not whats happening here, this is not grass-roots, organic shifting of labour with innovation, this is top-down outsourcing that makes the people at the top richer and everyone else poorer. Then those poor people have to go and buy Honduran slave-labour potatoes because they can't afford PEI potatoes and around it goes. That is not the cylce of life, that is the death spriral of a society being eaten from the inside out.

[Lemmy]

Your concerns are all legitimate, Beaver, but tariffs aren't the solution. The problems that you've raised are fundamental failings of "the corporation" that can only be corrected by completely changing what "the corporation" is. Protectionism isn't the solution; redefining business organization and practise is.

[BeaverFever]

I just don't think that it is realistically feasable to change the corporation. The most powerful nation in the world can't even infringe on their strangle-hold of that country's health-care system, let alone redefine their modus operandi.