What if...

[brimofinsanity]

...the US established a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union? Not that it would ever happen but... what do you think?

[Ry]

hmm well the EU is shafting eastern europe. The way the deal is is that both eastern and western europe have mobility with their businesses for a time BUT after 6 years the east can not move into the west yet the west is still allowed to move businesses into the east. You can see the writing on the wall.

The US already pretty much has trade with western europe. Free trade is a joke, it is never really free/fair trade, there are always teriffs or quotas or 'quality checks' indirect gov assistence with certain companies or companies with offshore adddresses that are not really in that area who move products to theirself and them sell them to new distributers or some other BS way of getting around it.

[brimofinsanity]

hmm well the EU is shafting eastern europe. The way the deal is is that both eastern and western europe have mobility with their businesses for a time BUT after 6 years the east can not move into the west yet the west is still allowed to move businesses into the east. You can see the writing on the wall.

Really? so basically Western Europe is fucking over Eastern Europe almost the same way the US is fucking over all these other countries with CAFTA?

I dont know anything about EU policy, its all new to me.

[Fat Pat]

Free trade is like a bag of ice on the sun if you have the government subsidizing corporate power. Capitalism in it's purest most humane form hinges on TRUE competition where everyone who has a good idea has the opportunity to persue it. This also means no one gets too far above anyone else. The only reason people can expand into so many different countries is due to artificially low prices through subsidies and wars that bring about forced cheap labor.

We wouldn't dare wreak economic havok on a country that supports our blood-soaked foreign policy. We save that for poor dumb niggers, wet backs, and gooks. *the racist vocabulary a reference to the racist policy*

[Ry]

thank you pat. and I will add to that.

it is a mistake to view countrie as eithe capitalist or communist the truth is all of them are a mixture of both. The state sponsor it's own indurties with money taken from the banks and in interest is paidfor with tax moeny and inflation.

the free market part of it is for all of us suckers who don't get government funding. I am ok with the state paying for things like public schools and a postal service based on our taxes. but i am not ok with the state using tax money or loans take from banks that are not based on deposits but rather fractional reserve banking, to be given to bail out industries and private corporation mainly centered in argobuisness, weapons, and drugs/pharmaceuticals.


As for the EU. To be blunt if I may, yes, Eastern Europe is getting fucked, however, they were already being fucked before, so in a sense they are now getting fucked less than they were getting fucked before. So I can't call the EU a good thing yet it is still a step up from the old BS so I tacitly support it. Each Eastern European nation got roped in in one crafty way or another its a sad long story. Basically the careerist politicians will jump on the 6 year wagon and leave the mess for some other guy.

It is a litttle diffferent than CAFA though. I'll explain that later, I have to run. .

[Left of Larry]

all I have to say about "Free Trade" is that once again under the disguise of good, it is being used by "major" corporations to rape and pillage 3rd world countries. Corporations use "Free Trade" as a means to escape paying taxes, to find cheap labor, etc...I mean seriously, how many guatemalan companies do you see setting up shop here in the states????? It is one sided, not even all neocons liked this idea anyway, it baaaaarrely passed in congress with pork and arm twisting, once again showing that the elitist right is pursuing an ideology not shared by mainstream america.

Done right, free trade would help poor countries build up their economy, however, how many american powerful corporations do you know of that actually CARE about people and not money? This is a case of the richer getting richer and the poorer getting poorer....

[brimofinsanity]

but dont you think that it would be different with the industrialized countries of western europe?

[Fat Pat]

but dont you think that it would be different with the industrialized countries of western europe?

I see what you're saying. It might. Especially because we have similar qualities of life - that helps a lot. I don't know. I'm not an economist. But I know extremely bad policy when I see it.

[brimofinsanity]

it definitely would suck because it would just give US corporations another mass of people to exploit... Eastern Europeans. But i was just kinda curious what it would do to the relationship between Western European countries and the US, and the effect it would have on their respective economies. Not that this would ever happen... the EU is the US's biggest competitor. if i remember correctly, i believe the US and the EU have nearly equal GDP.

[Fat Pat]

No, I'm pretty sure the EU surpasses us in GDP. It only makes sense though. That's a group of soverign nations as opposed to a group of states with a BIG Federal government controlling nearly everything and putting a hamper on true capitialism.