as the world is currently collapsing economically and socially (soon to include militarily and ecologically), the return of racism would be something to worry about for those not familiar with the Divine Solution...
in my opinion... things aren't going to get better, until after they've become unimaginably worse.
not that I have a clear "topic of debate here", it's just that there is no activity in the other forum. I guess a topic of conversation could by "why do you think Entry By Troops is possible before (or without) an absolute collapse of the world as we know it?"
the tension created by the new racism could set the stage for another Hitler like figure. and that would cause all kinds of additional misery on top of everything else.
how does that feel to be a lawnmower man? must be a real rush.
I might agree that there is a resurgence of ethnocentricism and or xenophobia. However I disagree that there is a return of "racism".
I do agreee that the economic decline in may play a role in the resurgence of ethoncentricism and or xenophobia however Norway and Germany both have relatively good economies but are still seeing increases in both ethnocentrism, religious bigotry and xenophobia.
I might agree that there is a resurgence of ethnocentricism and or xenophobia. However I disagree that there is a return of "racism".
I do agreee that the economic decline in may play a role in the resurgence of ethoncentricism and or xenophobia however Norway and Germany both have relatively good economies but are still seeing increases in both ethnocentrism, religious bigotry and xenophobia.
ethnocentricism is a word I hadn't heard before. would you say that is what Hitler felt against Jews?
ethnocentricism and racism exist from the same underlying cause of prejudism, do they not? so it's not as if one could be called better than the other.
we should also expect to see protectionism on the rise soon.
from the Baha'i perspective (of unitying humanity) these will all contribute to making problems worse, not better.
what remains to be seen, is how bad can things must get... before humanity open its mind to hearing the remedy as perscribed by God?
how does that feel to be a lawnmower man? must be a real rush.
I might agree that there is a resurgence of ethnocentricism and or xenophobia. However I disagree that there is a return of "racism".
I do agreee that the economic decline in may play a role in the resurgence of ethoncentricism and or xenophobia however Norway and Germany both have relatively good economies but are still seeing increases in both ethnocentrism, religious bigotry and xenophobia.
ethnocentricism and racism exist from the same underlying cause of prejudism, do they not? so it's not as if one could be called better than the other.
I don't think so.
For one thing racism is abeliefordoctrinethatinherentdifferencesamongthevarioushumanracesdetermineculturalorindividualachievement,usuallyinvolvingtheideathatone'sownrace issuperiorandhastherighttoruleothers.
So far as I see it "race" is a false believe and therefore the doctrines that derive from the flase belief are also false. The best availble scientific evidence leds me to conclude that there is only one race, the human race. To hold the idea that there are separate "races" is due to ignorance.
What is irrational about wanting to protect trade?
all forms of isolationism are bad. it's easier to see when it's carried to an extreme...
if every country stopped doing any trade with any other country, the entire global standard of living would drop hurrendously.
the big countries like the US and Russia would be able to adapt over time and not feel it as bad as all the other countries. but the majority of countries don't have the breadth of technology or the range of human experience to simply begin manufacturing their own cars, airplanes, computers, software, etc.
when employment in country A increases because their sales to country C increases, they'll have money to purchase products from country B.
it was 20 years ago since I had economics in college, is this still taught in economics?
when each of us benefits... we all end up doing better because of it.
coming together (ie uniting) to solve our difficulties. is the core foundation of the Baha'i Faith.
and it's the ONLY way we will emerge from our present difficults.
at the moment the G20 countries are in a race to devalue their currency, and it isn't going to solve anything...
except create inflation (ie pain) for their citizens.
how does that feel to be a lawnmower man? must be a real rush.
if every country stopped doing any trade with any other country, the entire global standard of living would drop hurrendously.
If every country stopped doing any other trade with any other country that would be carring trade protectionism to an extreme. I agree that it would drop the standard of living dramitically. Of course the opposite extreme will produce the same results.
But it is very, very, very, very unlikely that every country would carry trade protectionism to such an extremes.
I will give you an example of how the lack of trade protectionism lowered the standard of living.
At one tiime there was trade protectionism in Haiti in the form of tarrifs on the importation of rice from other countries. The United States......encouraged Haiti to lift this tarrif. The price of rice droppped. It was cheaper than the price of rice that was grown and processed in Haiti.
That is a good thing for the poor people in Haiti who can by rice at a lower price.
However it was not a good thing for the poor rice farmers in Haiti who could not sell their rice or the poor people in Haiti who were employed in the processing of rice grown in Haiti. The were eventually unemployed.
the big countries like the US and Russia would be able to adapt over time and not feel it as bad as all the other countries. but the majority of countries don't have the breadth of technology or the range of human experience to simply begin manufacturing their own cars, airplanes, computers, software, etc.
But the technology to manufacture cars, or airplanes can be imported to the other countries. They can be manufactured in those developing countries at a much lower price because the cost of labor is much lower and because there are no labor unions. A person working in a factory making cars in Mexico would be thrilled to work for five dollars an hour. Of course the person in the United States who was making twenty five dollars an hour would not be as thrilled if he was unemployed because the company went to Mexico.
when employment in country A increases because their sales to country C increases, they'll have money to purchase products from country B.
When employment in country A decreases because the jobs were sent to country because of the lower cost of manufacturing then they do not have the money to purchase products from country B.
When you had your economics class, did you ever study international trade? Or was the focus on economic theory?
I ask as there are times in which protectionalism can actually be good for an economy.
For example, one of the big issues in regards to international trade is "dumping", in which a company unloads excess merchandise by going to another country and selling it below-cost. Dumping can hurt or even destroy local endeavors dealing in that product category, and so anti-dumping laws are all the rage now. The US is actually going back and forth with China over dumping charges.
if every country stopped doing any trade with any other country, the entire global standard of living would drop hurrendously.
You realize that it's never going to happen, right?
A nation can disentangle itself from trade with one or two other nations, but for a nation to completely shut off the rest of the world is economic suicide. It's simply impossible for most nations to even begin to produce everything they might need in-house; even if they had the know-how and experience, there's the issue of resources and efficiency in design / development / construction.
Not even hardcore communistic nations like Cuba were stupid enough to blockade any sort of foreign trade.
when employment in country A increases because their sales to country C increases, they'll have money to purchase products from country B.
That's actually a fairly, and perhaps overly, simplistic view of matters.
For starters, that presumes the government doesn't respond to the increased sales with increased taxes or other disincentives to success. Likewise, it also presumes favorable currency exchange rates between the three nations; any sort of significant shift in the ratios can easily wipe out any profits from increased sales.
It also presumes that B produces products that A wants or needs... and that can pass muster with customs and other government regulatory bodies. For example, Fortress Maximus is one of the most popular Transformers toys ever produced. Unfortunately, in the early 1990s the US government overhauled the national toy safety laws, strengthening a number of them. As part of it, Max no longer meets the "drop test" requirements; in order to make a figure of that size still be affordable to most parents, the vast majority of his components had to be hollow, and so they don't have the structural integrity they'd have had if they were solid. Because of this, no matter how many times Hasbro or Takara wish to re-release him, they can't legally sell him in America; any US collectors would have to have contacts in Canada who can funnel them in (which is what happened back in 2001).
So yeah - there are a lot of nuances at work in regards to international trade.
it was 20 years ago since I had economics in college, is this still taught in economics?
Which college?
Which state?
Requirements vary from school to school and state to state.
But the technology to manufacture cars, or airplanes can be imported to the other countries. They can be manufactured in those developing countries at a much lower price because the cost of labor is much lower and because there are no labor unions. A person working in a factory making cars in Mexico would be thrilled to work for five dollars an hour. Of course the person in the United States who was making twenty five dollars an hour would not be as thrilled if he was unemployed because the company went to Mexico.
We're actually seeing that here within the United States.
Have you heard of the flap between Boeing and the National Labor Relations Board?
Boeing realized that their current factories in Washington State would be insufficient to produce the number of new 787 aircraft that the company anticipated would be ordered. In response, they went looking for a new factory site.
After weighing several options, they selected a location in South Carolina. South Carolina has had a number of manufacturing firms relocate there within the past 10 years, and so the state has a surprisingly large pool of skilled machinists and fabricators. What's more, as a non-union state, the going rate for factory workers was $14 / hour vs. $25 / hour in Washington State.
The main labor unions representing Boeing's employees sued, claiming that Boeing was obligated to build their next factory in Washington State and that any attempts by the company to build in a non-union state were somehow "retaliatory". For reasons unknown, the NLRB sided with the unions. This sparked a massive amount of outrage, such that if a Republican or Independent wins the election next year then we'll be seeing a lot of unemployed NLRB officials.
But the people who had higher paying jobs and are either not employed or not employed at jobs with the same rate of pay do not benefit.
What we're looking at right now is actually a rather large structural shift in the entire nature of the economy.
A lot of companies are, legitimately, looking for ways to wring more savings out of operations. That, unfortunately, all-too-often means letting people go.
Thing is, these people were trained for one single, specific task. As such, if no other companies need people with that type of training, then they're officially unemployed until either their skill set becomes valuable again or they learn a new skill set.
I myself, by all rights, should have my own private cubicle in some white-collar business firm. Instead, I'm throwing newspapers because the economy has rendered white-collar job openings in my area few and far between; you need to have specific certifications already in hand when you apply, whereas in better times these companies would have been willing to train you.
I don't think that the G20 countries are in a race to devalue their currency. What they are in a race to do is to try and STABLIZE their currencies.
Pretty much.
Problem is, what we're looking at is a number of situations wherein the axiom "when all you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail" is coming into play.
Here in the US, the Democrats are beholden to Keynesian economics and so keep trying to apply it to each new problem as it arises. However, in doing so they're applying it to situations that Keynes likely never anticipated having to work with; a more nuanced approach is needed.
In Europe, the EU is beholden to its image as an enlightened international league, and so is loathe to let any one nation stumble lest the entire league suffer. Unfortunately, Greece is so sick that cutting it loose and allowing it to switch back to the drachma might actually be the best solution, as that would allow the drachma to float or sink as needs be to reflect the Greek economy w/o putting other nations at risk.
In Japan, the nation is being forced to confront the fact that it, like the US, based their economy on a number of assumptions that just weren't true. The US recession has resulted in the yen gaining value against the dollar, making Japanese goods and services more expensive for America. Thing is, over in Japan entire industries developed around being able to export whatever they produced to the US and other nations, with little worry about domestic consumption. For example, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Japanese animation industry adopted the mantra "don't worry about quality; even if it's a dud here, we can always export it and it'll be a hit somewhere else"; this resulted in a number of movies and TV shows being greenlit that otherwise would have screened out, resulting in several studios getting smacked around when the recession vastly reduced foreign demand.
