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RE: My Offer
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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 RE: My Offer (in reply to Piwin)
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quote:
I would be more worried about NATO pissing off russia with their games in europe under democrat rule, not mentioning sponsoring terrorists in syria. Plenty of flamenco in spain for those who really want to hear it.
Putting the European issues aside for now, because we will not agree on the definition of democratic action against Russia, I'm more worried about Trump not honoring the rights of legal US residents.
Getting back to how it effects the flamenco- Music and sound media is great industry in the US and it supports millions of people. Flamenco artists in particular stand to make a living if they can mount a US, Canada, Japan tour. The concert promoters that bring flamenco out of Spain to the US cannot book three thousand seat venues a year in advance under conditions where they are not sure if visas will be granted to artists.
Not only does the audience not get to have touring artists, but the Spanish artists themselves who want to tour make less income. The whole music industry suffers if visas are not secure a year or two in advance and this it bad for business, it's bad for local economies that support diverse musics and there is no reason for it. There is actually not plenty of flamenco in Spain, and the old cante is on shaky ground,one of the things that pumps money into flamenco is patronage by touring.
Europeans who don't like NATO, and good for you for not spelling it Nato as the British press will, what can you say to them? If you want to see Eastern Europe assimilated by Russia, that is your perspective to hold. I'm confining the reason to the American music industry and civil liberties cited under our constitution which Trumps Crypto-Nazi henchman Steve Bannon is challenging. The Trump admin is in the opinion of many legal minds either infringing upon the US Constitution or breaking it, or should be scrutinized carefully in regards to the observation of constitutional law, depending on who you talk to.
I'm simply asking people to be aware and hold the Trump ad-men legally accountable for breaches of the constitution.
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https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Jan. 31 2017 23:42:22
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Mark2
Posts: 1871
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: My Offer (in reply to estebanana)
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I've played plenty of restaurants, and usually I was treated very well. I have also played two or three sets for that kind of money, but not for at least 20 years. I'm sure there are still plenty of gigs that pay that. I do have sympathy for restaurant operators though, especially now in the age of yelp, groupon, etc. My daughter got a groupon for a local lunch place and it was obvious the poor owner was terrified that we'd write something negative on yelp. I felt bad for him-here we were eating for half price and the guy was bending over to try to make sure we liked it.
Back in the 90's the club Sol y Luna was very popular -the club was in the financial district of SF and they had flamenco, rumba, and salsa. So many incredibly beautiful women in that place. I got a gig there and they liked us so much they set us a table after the gig and fed us like kings while gorgeous women danced around the packed club. They hired us to play once a week. After that first night, they fed us whatever they had extra of(sometimes just rice, beans and salad)on a loading dock next to the garbage cans. Another restaurant we played for a couple years was part of a small hotel. The restaurant owner told me he grossed about 1,500 a night - he paid us 300. I knew the hotel owner and remarked to him "I don't know how he can pay us" The gig ended a week later :-)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
quote:
Back in the 80's and 90's I did a lot of solo gigs including many society gigs. I was playing a nob hill apt across from the Top of the Mark when Caen did a few steps to malaguena. I also appeared in his column, when he wrote about a gig I did for a bunch of IRS agents. The IRS told me before the gig they'd probably pay me in cash, and Caen wrote that. They wrote me a check. What may be less common knowledge is that Caen was hated by many restaurateurs. Apparently he had a habit of showing up with guests, having a meal, then refusing to pay. That's the kind of juice he had.
I guess he figured if he wrote about your eating joint that was worth the space of his column on a page in the Chronicle. But I hope he tipped out the wait staff. Some restauranteurs deserve to be treated like that, however, so they know how it feels when they ask a musician to play three sets for a sandwich and a lousy 60 bucks.
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Date Feb. 1 2017 17:00:46
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: My Offer (in reply to Leñador)
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Same can go for Tripadvisor.
We were walking around looking for a place to eat the evening meal in the area east of the Piazza San Marco in Venice, where there are a lot of restaurants, many with sidewalk tables, mostly crowded with foreign tourists.
As we passed one place with an attractive display of seafood, the owner (manager?) invited us in. Larisa spoke to him in Italian, jokingly asking for a discount. He replied, "10%" Exchanging looks, we nodded and went in.
The place was nicely decorated. The menu was poorly organized and badly printed, so we asked the waiter for advice. His advice was excellent. The food was high quality, well prepared and delicious, the wine was delightful. The prices were a little higher than most of the nearby places, but we thought the food, wine and service were worth it.
We returned a couple of times and were treated like family. All our conversation with the staff was in Italian. We enjoyed it so much that when we returned to Venice a month later, we went yet again, and were welcomed with warmth and complimentary extras.
The place was never completely full when we were there. There were few foreign tourists, but many middle class Italians, some from other parts of the country, others speaking Veneziano, according to Larisa. It was one of the high points of our six weeks in Italy.
Surfing the net a few months later, I looked up the place on Tripadvisor. It got three stars out of five. A handful five star reviews and a bunch of ones and twos. "Menu poorly organized and badly printed." "Prices higher than others in neighborhood." "Staff distant, poor English." And, believe it or not, "Paper tablecloth." Every restaurant but one in that neighborhood had paper tablecloths. None of the others had as good food or service.
I'm glad we didn't read the reviews, but just walked around and decided for ourselves.
In the large and fancily decorated dining room (real tablecloths, menus elegantly printed and embossed on stiff paper, plenty of silverware) of the 4-star hotel across the canal from our apartment, the food was indifferent and considerably overpriced. The staff was almost all foreign, with little of either Engiish or Italian. The headwaiter seemed prepared to be a bit snooty when I told him we had no reservation, but after inspecting our clothes and shoes he managed to find a table for us in the half empty room.
He ended up conversing with us--Larisa can start a conversation with anyone--and praised us for speaking Italian, saying very few hotel guests did. To be fair, Larisa lived in Italy for four years. But we didn't go back. We thought every restaurant we tried in the neighborhood (near the Piazza San Marco) had better food, better service and much cheaper prices.
Four stars on Tripadvisor.
RNJ
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Date Feb. 2 2017 3:20:21
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: My Offer (in reply to tele)
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quote:
This trump hysteria has gone a bit too far, what has happened in berkeley is insane.
You haven't seen anything yet. It's just beginning.
_____________________
His lies and deceptions aside, he's really not trade savvy. Or understands development projects as he says he does. My uncle is a retired development banker, not super liberal in finance, but socially liberal - he said what they trying to do is amateur hour. My take on his trade plans is that he is deluded about what is real and not real. He can sell his idea and his plan to a small segment of the US population, but actually doing it will be a test I wager will fail. He's not speaking about reality, he's speaking of his reality as if the things he promised are actually viable. One example is the US auto industry and the trade barriers he wants to implement, there's a big risk in upping the trade tariffs for incoming cars because it will deter auto sales of very popular models. It will also put the pressure on US makers to retool and offer a car overseas that is competitive with home markets in Europe and Japan. The big three US auto industry had neglected to do this for the last 30 years, what kinds of incentives will he have to offer them in order to make cars the overseas markets will buy? How much will that cost? And is the price differential worth it? And in the end the US auto industry does not employ that many people....and it's pouring money into an industry that has a shelf life at this point.
Trump is self deluded on the problems between Japan and the US in terms of the auto industry, For starters he claims Japan is a currency manipulator, when in fact the Japanese banks only adjust the Yen to resist in country inflation, so he is conflating that issue to demonize Japan in the eyes of his supporters; while his econ staff is probably wincing at his stupidity. On point with cars and trade, the Japanese market does to want US cars because they don't fit the infrastructure scale of Japan, they don't hold resale value like Japanese cars do, and US cars do not conform to Japanese mileage standards mandated by the government. The US auto industry has known about these issues for years, but they don't develop a 'Japan friendly' exportable car. So for Trump to claim Japan practices unfair trade values is disingenuous at best, or a lie told by a guy who is not very good at doing his homework. He's beinf dishonest about the reality.
And the Republican's in Congress killed the funding to Obama's bid to make cars that could compete on the world market, the plant project was located in Fremont CA. Republicans treated it like a political football and the result of not backing that project through infancy was the loss of thousands of jobs in the Bay Area which compounded the difficulty in the economy in that area. But did the Mandarins of the republican congress care that it hurt California? Nope. They know Ca is resilient and will not vote for them so they trashed the project. Sons of bitches like Mitch McConnell with his his nose up Trumps ass did not care that thousands lost jobs and that they killed a viable start to more economic vehicles that perhaps the overseas markets would have embraced.
Get why people are angry? Particularly in CA?
All of this because the old white racists in congress could not bear the fact we voted a black man into the executive position. As result we get Trump foisted on us and all his madcap ideas. Van Jones said it best , "Trump is 'whitelash'."
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Date Feb. 2 2017 23:24:53
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: My Offer (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
His lies and deceptions aside, he's really not trade savvy.
The interesting thing about both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is that, despite their diametrically opposed views on many issues, both are ignorant troglodytes when it comes to economics and trade. Clinton actually knew better, but she pandered to the Sanders crowd in order to get their votes.
Study after study, from the Congressional Research Service, The Peterson Institute for International Economics, and from well-regarded economists such as C. Fred Bergston, Lawrence Summers, and many others have demonstrated that NAFTA and other free-trade agreements that lowered tariffs and other trade barriers have been good for the United States and the other parties to the agreements. It is a shame that the U.S. has withdrawn participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), because that agreement would have been a net gain for the U.S.
Opponents of free trade agreements in the U.S. always focus on what they perceive to be lost jobs due to the agreements. They believe the loss of jobs is always due to "off-shoring" by companies. While there are some jobs lost by "off-shoring" to countries with cheaper labor, the vast majority of jobs lost in the U.S. over the past 20 years have been due to automation and technology.
Free trade agreements result in a net gain for the U.S. because they lower barriers to the export of U.S. products to, and investments in, the countries that are party to the agreements, and they lower the prices Americans pay for imports from those countries. Troglodytes like Trump and Sanders, and unions that have never seen a trade agreement they liked and always vote for protectionism, are willing to hold the greater American public hostage in order to pander to North Carolina furniture-makers and out-dated industrial operations in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
The great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942 coined the term "creative destruction" to describe how free enterprise and entrepreneurship constantly churn a Capitalist economy with innovation. Older, less efficient methods of production are overtaken by newer, more efficient means. That can mean loss of jobs. The answer is retraining of workers to the extent that is feasible. The answer is not to hold the American public hostage with protectionism for a few.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Feb. 3 2017 13:33:29
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pundi64
Posts: 234
Joined: Jul. 29 2016
From: Thailand
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RE: My Offer (in reply to tele)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: tele
This trump hysteria has gone a bit too far, what has happened in berkeley is insane.
What has happened in America is insane, looks, feels, smells, sounds, like maybe a total Civil War is just around the corner.
I voted for Trump, not afraid to say it, but the LEFTIES are just like Pitbull dogs, once they bite, they won't let go, now some of Obama's people are calling for a coup.
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Date Feb. 3 2017 21:40:19
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: My Offer (in reply to estebanana)
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I want to say something quickly about Berkeley events and why that is prescient.
Cal Berkeley is one of the best schools in the entire world, and it attracts doctorate and post doc students from around the globe. It's one of the brain trusts of the of the Western world. Last week when the Trump admin used an 'executive memorandum' to shake up the country with the travel bans from Muslim countries they openly threatened the the academic world because the free movement and honoring of student visas to those attending U.S. universities is not something to take lightly.
That kind of impingement on free movement and academic, and work visas, is going to be met with great resistance. And the irony is that scientists from around the world travel to Berkeley to conduct research that benefits the U.S. population and creates a healthy job market in the for profit world.
There will be student protests just as there were in Tehran after the religious government took over, but in the US the religious class will not win. The question is will the Trump admin go so far as to reenact Kent State style shootings on college campuses? Will local police depts. use deadly force on student protesters?
Can you imagine the outrage of parents if students are killed on college campuses by government forces? Think of the political blow back in the next election. A little bit of Trump "law and order" goes a long way with liberal voters, it may galvanize the greater public against them. The point is that now it's not about the liberal front in gov. to prove they are correct, it's about the Trump admin performing to benefit all Americans, not just older white America. The Trump people can delude themselves about how popular they are, but in reality Trump has a 50% disapproval rating after two weeks in office. That is a lower rating that any president has ever began with, And lower than most presidents leave office with. They have very little political capital with the public, and I don't see Trump as the comeback kid. They would do well to tread lightly on college campuses.
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Date Feb. 4 2017 0:22:12
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: My Offer (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
The interesting thing about both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is that, despite their diametrically opposed views on many issues, both are ignorant troglodytes when it comes to economics and trade. Clinton actually knew better, but she pandered to the Sanders crowd in order to get their votes.
The great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942 coined the term "creative destruction" to describe how free enterprise and entrepreneurship constantly churn a Capitalist economy with innovation. Older, less efficient methods of production are overtaken by newer, more efficient means. That can mean loss of jobs. The answer is retraining of workers to the extent that is feasible. The answer is not to hold the American public hostage with protectionism for a few.
Bill
Hear hear, I was especially appalled at the lack of nuance in Sanders' trade talk. He and Trump are different but equally as bullheaded on NAFTA. They both went after free trade with a nationalist fervor, and both missed hitting the real issues. They both missed the main event which is automation in favor of backwards protectionism.
To add to what I said about the US car market, the Big Three auto makers do have an export country that loves American trucks, it's called Canada. It's the country we have a free trade agreement with that sits up above us, and a little less than 50% of American made trucks go to Canada.
Our trucks to Canada, and Canada trades to us in lumber and sheet goods, plywood. That means the US housing market, the home building market, benefits free traded lumber from Canada. That means 'housing starts' one of the main engines of the US economy benefit from our trade agreement by keeping tariffs off raw materials from Canada.
I love Canada even if some of them do speak French.
Mexico on the other hand is the US's third largest trading partner.
It's like what Paul Newman said, why go out for hamburger when you can have steak at home? Canada and Mexico are two very sexy economic border states. Geopolitically a country could not put themselves in a better trading position than between great northern Canada with it's resources and Mexico with it's agriculture.
And despite what US people against Mexicans understand, Mexico is a big consumer of US products. Bernie and Trump both failed to break down the real NAFTA issues.
Remember NAFTA was a republican idea co-opted by president Clinton and he sold it back to them. And they bought it, it was not a super hard sell.
___________________________________
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Feb. 4 2017 0:52:04
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: My Offer (in reply to estebanana)
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To me the simplistic bashing of NAFTA is the product of economic ignorance, and in some instances, racism.
We spent Christmas and New Years in Oaxaca. Every time I have visited Mexico in the past few years one of the major impressions has been the country's prosperity, compared to how it was when I first began to visit.
Oaxaca has several upscale shopping malls, with lots of American brands on offer. Nothing of the sort existed in the mid-1960s when we began to visit.
We spent a night in Mexico City on the way to Oaxaca. We ate at the Cafe de Tacuba. It was very different from when I first began to eat there in the 1950s. Then it was quiet, men wore suits, women nice dresses, there was an air of elegant prosperity.
The other night there was a big crowd, many tables with large family groups, the conversation level was fairly loud, people wore casual clothes but not cheap. I described to Larisa the ambience when I first went there in the 1950s and 1960s. A little later I said, "The parents of these people couldn't have afforded to come here. They lived in slums and worried about where their next meal was coming from."
We stayed at the St. Regis. It was more like old time Mexico City upper crust: impeccable food, service and atmosphere, except maybe the manners of the clientele weren't quite so refined. It was way, way cheaper than the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco, but I would bet the St. Regis staff lives better than the Ritz people do.
One visible result of this prosperity has been the reduction of immigration from Mexico. During the last few years more Mexicans have left the USA than have entered. Mexicans love their country and their culture as much as (more than?) we Americans do. With only a tiny number of exceptions, the hundreds of Mexicans I have spoken to in the last 60 years have left for only one reason: economics. As Mexico's economy has improved mightily, many have returned.
With the improved economy millions more Mexicans make a decent living, and have no incentive to move to the USA.
Ten years ago I was staying in Uruapan, 30 kilometers south of the guitar making town of Paracho, in a fancy hotel. At breakfast I met a wealthy Guatemalan, who was in the business of exporting fruit from Uruapan to the USA. He was there to meet his Mexican partner.
The hinterlands of Uruapan stretch from the 8,000-foot altitude cool country north of town, where they raise apples, pears and more macadamia nuts than anywhere except Hawaii, to the tierra caliente to the south, where they raise all manner of tropical fruit. The USA is a major market for these crops, thanks to NAFTA.
When I first visited Uruapan in the late 1950s it was small, poverty stricken, shabby and downcast. Now it is clean, modern and prosperous, thanks to NAFTA. Trump thinks the trade deficit with Mexico is a loss in some simple minded zero sum game. This trade deficit has played a big role in Mexico's economic progress.
Trump and his supporters inveigh against Mexican immigrants being a drain on the U.S. economy, consuming government resources while paying no taxes. He recently signed an executive order barring undocumented people for receiving welfare benefits. Guess what? That has been the law for years. But apparently his "Strategic Advisor" and Chief Xenophobe thought it would be a good idea to try to take credit for it.
People complain that immigrant children burden school systems, and their parents pay no taxes. But their parents rent a place to live, and the landlord pays school taxes just like any other property owner. I know a number of young undocumented workers who graduated from our schools here, who now work hard and productively in the economy and pay taxes--even though Trump has repeatedly threatened to deport them and their parents.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not in favor of illegal immigration. Though my family used to employ hundreds of seasonal undocumented workers, they went home after the harvest. What I am complaining about is a simple minded view of economics as a zero sum game, where someone wins only if someone else loses, and Trump claims to think he and his supporters have been screwed, despite himself exploiting undocumented workers, importing building materials and making his crotch length neckties in China.
Statistics show job growth has been more rapid in the U.S. after NAFTA than before. NAFTA has also visibly benefited Mexico to great effect. Is that a bad thing?
NAFTA is only one case of Trump's "America First" xenophobia.
RNJ
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Date Feb. 4 2017 3:23:25
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: My Offer (in reply to pundi64)
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quote:
quote:
ORIGINAL: tele
This trump hysteria has gone a bit too far, what has happened in berkeley is insane.
What has happened in America is insane, looks, feels, smells, sounds, like maybe a total Civil War is just around the corner.
I voted for Trump, not afraid to say it, but the LEFTIES are just like Pitbull dogs, once they bite, they won't let go, now some of Obama's people are calling for a coup.
When the editor of the most right wing white popular nationalist periodical in America wants to speak on the UC Berkeley campus, which is presently and historically known as a bastion of liberal and civil rights causes and fights, soon after the authoritarian right wing elected president has been freshly ensconced in Wash DC, perhaps it not the liberals who are doing the pit bull routine? The Trump admins exec order of last week is the type lightning rod issue that sets off the environment in Berkeley, so for a regime change which is right wing sympathetic to back a visit from someone who is clearly an agitator to "Berkeley values" does not seem like a peace move. It looks like a gambit designed a garner a reaction. Berkeley city and the surrounding cities
of Oakland and San Francisco overwhelmingly voted against Trump. The whole mish-mash looks like a calculated move to agitate liberals in their home turf.
In other words what the hell were the Brietbarters staff thinking would happen? A freaking kumbaya hug for Turmp? The nationalist front is as much or more responsible for provocative actions as any party.
And Trumps reaction to out of hand protests was typical of his knee jerk tweet rants. "I'm going to cut off federal funding to UC Berkeley! " Sure you are dude, you dumb ass- Maybe Trump is not aware that UC Berkeley science an engineering depts. are jointly funded by Federal funding and BP, British Petroleum and two other oil firms in joint venture to study the energy industry. The private oil industry consortium have invested 500 million into Cal Berkeley and the energy studies development program. I'm sure they will be happy to hear their matching funds from the federal government are going to 'dry up over night' because the new president is having another one of his Twitter rant hissy fits. Besides that fact that it's illegal to cut the funds on those grounds, and that blackmailing a major university to "teach it a lesson" will not end well.
_____________________________
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Date Feb. 4 2017 3:43:34
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chester
Posts: 891
Joined: Oct. 29 2010
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RE: My Offer (in reply to pundi64)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: pundi64
quote:
ORIGINAL: tele
This trump hysteria has gone a bit too far, what has happened in berkeley is insane.
What has happened in America is insane, looks, feels, smells, sounds, like maybe a total Civil War is just around the corner.
I voted for Trump, not afraid to say it, but the LEFTIES are just like Pitbull dogs, once they bite, they won't let go, now some of Obama's people are calling for a coup.
Dude, we just had eight years of the republicans not doing sh1t just to spite Obama. They were pretty upfront about it.
Remember when they didn't raise the debt ceiling and got the US's credit rating down? Yeah, didn't think so.
I live in Berkeley. Things got a little wild (not really though) for a night but everything's back to business as usual. No arrests, no casualties. Look it up.
If there WILL be a civil war, I'm pretty sure it'll be instigated by people who yell things like LEFTIES and compare people to dogs.
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Date Feb. 4 2017 5:54:50
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: My Offer (in reply to Piwin)
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Speaking of languages, Trump has so far proven to be quite a challenge for translators/interpreters.
Most of you probably know that language mediators of the sort try to go beyond words and recreate the impression the speaker is giving in his native tongue.
In French, the problem with Trump is that if you use the equivalent register and limited vocabulary as him, you end up making him sound like a 10-year-old child, not like a straight-shooter or a man of the people or whatever else he may be trying to sound like. A colleague of mine told me that the problem he had wasn't so much the register but the dearth of any form of reasoned content. He felt comfortable he could embellish any register if need be (which is often the case when translating towards French to correct for cultural differences) but with Trump he just didn't have any content to work with that would allow him to do that. And the linguistic analysis of any of Trump's speeches seems to confirm this. It's particularly true of his interactions with the press, where an extremely high percentage of what he says is just repeats of the question that is posed to him.
Another colleague told me she held to the principle "sh*t in, sh*t out", i.e. if the guy sounds like a fool in English, he'll sound like a fool in whatever other language he's being interpreted into. This may work fine for most of them out there, but it may prove particularly difficult for the translators and interpreters at the US State Department. I have a feeling if word gets back to the white house that his foreign interlocutors think he sounds like a child, the blame will be put on these language experts, some of whom have been working there for decades and had no problem interpreting quite a few presidents from both sides of the aisle. Of course, they are used to taking the blame for problems that they did not cause. After all, blaming the translator/interpreter is a good way to smooth some of the rough edges of diplomacy (say when you call a diplomat from South-East Asia a dickhead, you can always avoid a diplomatic incident by saying it was the interpreter's fault). This function is well understood and accepted by interpreters. But there is a difference between being blamed by someone who you know is well aware you aren't the culprit, and being blamed by someone who might actually think he sounds eloquent despite all evidence to the contrary. In other words, Trump is going to be quite the conundrum for his official translators and interpreters and they're going to have to make quite a few editorial choices to make this work somehow and manage to keep their jobs at the same time. I sure am glad I'm not doing their job anymore!
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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Date Feb. 4 2017 12:36:58
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: My Offer (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
Hear hear, I was especially appalled at the lack of nuance in Sanders' trade talk. He and Trump are different but equally as bullheaded on NAFTA. They both went after free trade with a nationalist fervor, and both missed hitting the real issues. They both missed the main event which is automation in favor of backwards protectionism.
International free trade agreements are more than just trade agreements, just like NATO is more than just a successful defense treaty. These international agreements provide a framework within which members can discuss other issues of importance that bind them together. Unfortunately, in rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), not only are we denying ourselves trade advantages, we are also taking a step toward ceding influence in Asia to China. Certainly not in our interest.
Regarding the incident at Berkeley, I normally am against dis-inviting speakers at universities because of their political philosophies and affiliations, be they of the Left, the Right, or some other unpopular persuasion. In this case, however, the speaker is a troll, an "Agent Provocateur" whose sole aim appears to be to stir up trouble, not to engage in a genuine discussion involving opposing viewpoints. In such a case, I don't think the university has an obligation to provide him with a platform.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 4 2017 13:32:30
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: My Offer (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
Could you comment on this, then? If it’s so wonderful, why was it kept secret?
The reason the negotiations were kept confidential was to avoid having everyone from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump and the union leaders pecking it to death like ducks every time an article or negotiating point was made public. The idea was to have a completed trade agreement to present to Congress for debate and to vote up or down on it. This is standard procedure in most trade agreements, particularly when the President is granted "fast-track" authority.
The primary objection to the TPP by those opposed to it was the "Investor-State Dispute Settlement" (ISDS) clause that granted companies who had a claim against a state to bring that claim before an international tribunal for settlement. There are ISDS clauses in many trade agreements worldwide, 50 of which include the United States as a member. The purpose of ISDS is to avoid state-to-state conflict where possible, but the more important purpose is to provide a level-playing field for investors in countries with less than stellar judicial systems.
The ISDS provides foreigners the right to choose impartial arbitration rather than domestic courts when alleging that the government itself has breached its international obligations, whether by discriminating against a foreign investor, expropriating the investor’s property, or violating the investor’s customary international law rights. There are many countries whose courts would almost always rule against a foreign investor in favor of the local government. ISDS arbitration is needed because the potential for bias can be high in situations where a foreign investor is seeking to redress injury in a domestic court, especially against the government itself in countries with weak legal institutions.
The United States is a party to 50 international trade agreements, including NAFTA, that include ISDS. Over the past 25 years or so, there have been approximately 20 cases brought against the U.S. before an international tribunal under ISDS. The U.S. has not lost a case. It has won every one under international arbitration. The criticisms of ISDS--loss of sovereignty, corporations elevated to the level of governments, corporations running rampant--are all red herrings. The real reason for opposition to the TPP was that opponents on both the Left and the Right and the unions were against a free trade agreement that would have provided competition. As I have stated previously, in my opinion the opponents of the TPP held the American public and the wider American national interest hostage in order to placate and provide protectionism for the few.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 4 2017 19:39:06
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