Aug 11 2008
Greetings folks, welcome to another edition of Manufacturing Monday. Sorry about last week, it’s normally my goal to have a new edition out on the first day of the week, but sometimes life can be unpredictable and throw you a curve ball. Well, several interesting things this week ranging from manufacturing activity to California looking to gain Tesla’s plants. Plus the Financial Times reports on China dethroning the US from it’s Manufacturing title.
Jun 15 2008
cross posted from The Dream Antilles
Police Break Up Today’s Protest
This past Spring (Fall in Argentina) Argentina’s president, Cristina Kirchner, decided to raise export taxes on grains. This has led to more than three months of bitter protests by farmers, essayed here, and to shortages of meat, oil, flour and fuel. Kirchner has refused to repeal the tax increase, which she claims will cut inflation and increase food supplies to the poor. Farmers have responded by cutting off transportation routes in an effort to strike back at the government. And the government has said in response to blockades of roads by farmers that it would guarantee free travel on all roads in Argentina.
As a result, food that normally ships to Europe and Asia has not made it to port, and hundreds of thousands of gallons of spoiled milk have been dumped on rural routes, and there are huge shortages of food in the capital city and elsewhere. In other words, after more than 3 months, there remains a complete deadlock.
Please join me in Gualeguaychu.
Apr 04 2008
Original article, subtitled Elisabeth Martens interviewed in “Le Courrier”, by Bénito Perez via Dissidentvoice.org.
Elisabeth Martens was interviewed by Bénito Perez for Le Courrier in Geneva on 27 March 2008. Here is the entire interview in which she directly answers all questions on the history, recent events, repression, the Dalai Lama, and the social problems of Tibet.
Speaking of dissident voices, this is an article which sheds light on what’s going on in Tibet. Be warned…it does not take a pro-Tibetan independence position, which is what makes it interesting. We also get a view of Tibetan history we aren’t often told about.
Mar 29 2008
cross posted from The Dream Antilles
Argentinian Farmers Protest
Argentinian farmers, whose strike for more than two weeks has crippled the country, have agreed temporarily to break off their strike, to negotiate with the government. Details via the BBC:
Farmers in Argentina have suspended a crippling strike called in protest at rises in export taxes on farm products.
A farmers’ spokesman said the 16-day protest – which included roadblocks and caused food shortages – had been halted to allow talks with the government.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had refused to negotiate with the until the action was stopped.
She says the taxes will redistribute wealth, but farmers say they and their communities will be hit hard.
Does any of this matter to the US, and if it does, where is the reportage about this strike in the traditional media?
Join me in BA.
Mar 19 2008
“Economically, we depend much more on China than they do on us,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Wednesday. “It is an essential partner for pretty much every country in the world.
“When you conduct foreign relations with countries as important as China, obviously when you take economic decisions, sometimes it’s at the expense of human rights,” he told France’s BFM television.
Feb 15 2008
The rough beast that is George W. Bush–gaze blank and pitiless as the sun–is today slouching towards the continent of Africa, pronouncing “paternalism [] a thing of the past,” and decreeing that henceforth the peoples of Africa must, for the greater good of global capital, be pitchforked into The New World Order. For Africa, so sayeth the beast, “joint venturing with good, capable people is what the future is all about.”
Fantastically, the people who put the words into George II’s mouth have, with the text of his African address, admitted that the interests of the people of Africa must be subsumed in those of global capital (headquartered, natch, in the USA). They are echoing, in Bushspeak, what the exiled Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o so artfully expressed two years ago in his work The Wizard of the Crow.
Side-by-side comparisons of the words of the wizard, and of the beast, below the divide.
Feb 12 2008
Archived from the OAC Blog, shutting down today
BruceMcF in Arguments & Analyses
4/18/2006 at 1:13 PM EST
Why are the experts wrong so often about the impact of “free trade”?
What is wrong with “fair trade” agreements? Why is it that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold as a job creator but turned out to be a destroyer of jobs both North and South of the border?
Its very simple. The arguments for these so-called “free trade” agreements are about how the agreements work in a make-believe world. The make-believe world is different from the real world in very important ways. So when set loose in the real world, the predictions turn out to be false.
Why should ordinary people care about “fair trade”?
The thing is, there is a lot to like about that make-believe world. If we could move the real world closer to the make-believe, it would benefit America. And that’s what I call a fair-trade agreement — a system that tries to actually deliver the benefits that so-called “free trade” agreements can never deliver.
Dec 22 2007
Today Public Citizen released a new report “Santa’s Sweatshop ‘Made in DC’ by Bad Trade Deals”. According to the report toy safety problems have skyrocketed as major U.S. toy corporations relocated their production overseas to exploit sweatshop wages in countries where they cannot ensure the safety of the products. Thankfully the good folks at Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has put together a easy to use petition to the presidental candidates that simply says this:
Our current imported toy safety crisis is a symptom of race-to-the-bottom globalization. We need new trade policies that protect our kids and support strong consumer safety protections – not trade deals like NAFTA and WTO that promote the relocation of toy production overseas to venues where safety cannot be ensured.
The U.S. President has the power to ensure U.S. trade policy doesn’t undermine the safety of children at play. Urge the candidates to oppose provisions in trade deals that provide special benefits and protections for manufacturers to produce goods in other countries and limit U.S. border inspection and imported product safety standards. Also urge the candidates to provide greater funding for domestic agencies responsible for product safety.
That sound sensible to you? Join me below the fold to learn more about the issue and how to take action.
Oct 30 2007
—————-
Your humble sleep-deprived author is back to offer a counterpoint yet again to some of the ongoing analysis we see in lefty blergsville.
Two points continue to appear on the radar:
1) Our trade policies suck. Too many left-leaning financial types have bought into the myth that ‘Free Trade is Both Inevitable and Good’.
2) The lower value for the US Dollar is not the end of the world. At least not for those of us who live and work here.
Updates on both below the fold…
Oct 07 2007
Remember when they were an opposition party? Remember when they were on our side? I’m sure most of you have noticed by now that they just aren’t anymore.
Oct 01 2007
Clear evidence is emerging that the secret government is clashing with the “sheeple” government and they can’t get their stories straight. While Pelosi is dissing “the fence” the reality of a long term pet project of the Bilderburg/New World Order/CFR crowd is pushing for an EU style merger called the North American Union.
Yes, elite shitheads whose sole existence consists of being parasites want to grab even more power for themselves.
www.spp.gov, ya, that is dot gov
http://www.nascocorr…
Note that these pricks have changed their site, updating it to make it out like it’s a benevolent service.
http://www.augustrev…
And as timely as government is the factories are already flying out of Mexico in favor of far cheaper China labor rates.
I can testify to the efficiency and “stellar” quality coming out of the factories in Mexico. The company I work for did it. Massive goat fuck that was. Incidentally the flight to Mexico actually started before NAFTA. I do remember one of my projects in the late 80’s was to recycle American made parts because the ones from Juarez were useless. So will that make it twice in my lifetime I get laid off because some asshole wants his 1.78 billion golden parachute bonus.
Hmm…If I wrote my memoirs would they just rub me out?
http://www.bilateral…
http://www.teamliber…
Just as I said three days after those Nov 7 elections I knew Pelosi was with the Illumninati and this one shows it once again. Note here I should not use the term Illuminati, but rather global interests who own the US government.
So on top of nuking Iran, thug cops tazering and breaking the arms of high school kids, the bird flu, bio-safety-level4 labs,depleted uranium tanks in Kansas, Habeus Corpus and that funny echo effect you hear on your cell phone, what’s up in your life. Ain’t “freedom” wonderful?