This is a spinoff to the "New Cold War" thread. http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/26/news/international/wto_sanctions.reut/index.htm
This isn't a new thing. The EU recently hit the US with a bunch of sanctions over illegal subsidies that Bush gave to the Steel industry. The sanctions were enacted as a means to force the US to comply with the WTO's ruling. When they did enter compliance, the EU ended the sanctions, and there seemed to be no lingering acrimony about the subject from either side in the conflict. That having been said, much of the EU seems to use the WTO in a way that fundamentally is in conflict with the way that most of the United States has historically felt about the subject. By this I mean that EU member states seem to invoke the WTO any time a company seems to attain a measure of success that affords them a significant portion of market share, even if the success is obtained without using anti-competative means, and even when the success is a result of a genuinly better service or product. This is fundamentaly in conflict with the way that Americans have traditionally viewed anti-trust measures. For Americans, these measures are only to be used when an entity is using their market size as a means to beat down the comptetition. Much of the way that the Europeans use the WTO to be the equivlant of putting all of the smart kids in a school into the remedial class in order to protect the dumb kids from feeling stupid. If there ever does become a conflict over the WTO, I'm sure it will come from this philosophical divergence, not over any specific measure.
This is fundamentaly in conflict with the way that Americans have traditionally viewed anti-trust measures. Only elitist Americans have fundamental views on anti-trust measures.
What is this even supposed to mean? I assume you are attempting to denigrate me in some form as "elitist" is a pejorative label with different meanings for both liberals who use it to describe obscenely wealthy industrialists who seek to exploit blue collar workers ruthlessly and conservatives who use it to describe "ivory tower" liberal college professors. Perhaps you don't remember basic high school American history, but the names John Rockefeller, John Jacob Astor, William Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and William Randolph Hearst should mean something to you. They were all famous exclusively because of the high profile that public concern about their trusts generated. Put into perspective the classic Parker Brothers board game Monopoly, which monopolized on the public obsession with the trusts that began to captivate the public as early as the 1890's, and was so universal a subject that it could be made a popular children's game without being to obscure a subject for mass consumption. I'm not sure what disturbs me more, the possibility that you might be an arch-conservative who is familiar with the history, but considers the Sherman Act to be a liberal pinko flight of fancy, or the possibility that you are a liberal who considers all business to be inherently to realm of fat cat exploiters who take joy in overworking virtuous and pastoral American laborers.
I assume you are attempting to denigrate me ... That's why I made sure and atributed what I quoted. BTW, I think that I read that GWB is going to work to avoid the WTO sanctions, thus, fulfilling his campaign pledge of kowtowing to international, unelected, anti-USA organizations. No nuances here.
If they really wanted to ruin the U.S. they could. If they forbid all foreign investors from investing in the U.S. and cited deficit spending, a growing debt, and lack of phiscal responsibility as the reason, we would sink incredibly fast. Maybe that is what it would take to get some phiscal responsibility from our President and Congress. Maybe then we could see an end to these irresponsible tax cuts.
So what? If the US forbit our investors from investing od foreign entities you think that would help them? Get over the fact that a majority of Americans like what our government is doing. Could you also please tell me about what irressopnsible tax cuts you're referring to? Are you saying the tax cuts Mr. Heinze wanted to keep was a bad idea? Besides raising taxes on people making over $200k what are you referring to? Perhaps the mythical tax cuts for outsourcing? All in all you've been beating the same drum for awhile now, unfortunately most in the US don't agree with you. So please explain what irresponsible tax cuts you're referring to.
I don't know who Mr. Heinze is. If you mean Kerry and are making a joke because he has a rich wife, with a mind of her own, it wasn't all that funny and certainly didn't make a relevant point. Some of those tax cuts Kerry favored might be irresponsible. When a government needs to fund a war, and fund new defense programs, fund countless other programs, plus pay interest on what it already owes, anything that would greatly reduce the amount of money that govt. is taking in would be irresponsible. If I am running a family household, I don't decide to take a lesser paying job(bringing less money into the household) but decide to spend more money. That is irresponsile on my part, and it is what the President is doing. As far as economics the majority of the country favored Kerry in that category. Bush was the loser in that category. That topic didn't rank so high on what people were voting for, or Bush wouldn't be in office now. But it is simple to understand why some people might like the economics. Lloyd Benson said it best when Reagan and Bush ran up the deficit. It is easy to have fun, and make things appear like they are going well, when you are writing hot checks to pay for everything. Our country has a deficit. We are spending more money than we are taking in. That has increased under this president, and is growing more now. That will only make things worse. Imagine if we had no interest to pay off. Everyone could get a 20% tax cut, and it wouldn't hurt any other program. Paying the money on interest is roughly 20% of our govt's. total expenses. We don't see anything in return for that money being spent, and it doesn't help pay down our debt. Paying down our debt, and lowering our interest payments is a good way to reduce the amount of waste in govt. As the interest payments go down, then tax cuts might be responsible in phiscal sense.
Paying for a war and getting our country's economy on track are 2 separate things and another reaon I am thankful President Bush was in charge. Tax cut and protecting our country are 2 different events. The tax cuts were needed to stimulate our economy after 9/11 and after the corporate scandals occured (note they occured under Clinton's tenure so don't blame Bush for that). We needed to go after the terrorists and we couldn't put a budget on fighting the best war possible. ANd let me help you out with your family situation: If one of your family is diagnosed with a severe disease and you needed to take time off from work to help them AND it ran up additional expenses for medication, hospital stay, etc, would you do it? According to what you told me it would be one or the other. If you couldn't afford the treatments you wouldn't get them. A budget is a budget right?
This is a very real fear but there is one thing keeping this from happening is that we are locked in a feedback loop with most of our debtor countries. Most of the foreign countries that hold our debt are also heavily dependent upon trade with us. If they were to slow down investment and hurt our own economy it would hurt theirs also.
One the tax cuts were enacted before 9/11 and even now when the economy is on somewhat of a recovery the Admin. is pushing to make them permanent. In fact even before the economy hit the skids when it was booming GW Bush had been campaigning on large tax cuts. The tax cuts were never a pragmatic response to economic crisis but an article of faith that were being pushed no matter what the economic situation was. Also corporate scandals occured under GW Bush's watch too.
First of all my family would have needed the medical treatment. We didn't need to invade Iraq. Secondly I would only quit working and bringing in income if I had to. We didn't have to give the wealthiest Americans the tax break. That was by choice. If I had the choice to still work and bring in money to help pay for the medical treatment I would do so. Thirdly as had already been mentioned the tax cuts were in effect before 9/11 and then kept going afterwards. If I had planned a vacation before the medical treatments were needed, and then found out they were needed and were going to put a financial hardship on the family, I would go ahead with the planned vacation. The economy and the war aren't totally the same, but one does cost money. Money does have a little something to do with the economy so there is a relation.
I agree. I wasn't predicting that it would happen. I was just saying in the event of a serious all out trade war, they had that to use as ammo against us. It would be a definite hardship for them as well. Like with most wars it would be hard on both sides. But when people here would be upset at programs cut, huge increases in prices etc. Whatever leadership was in charge at the moment would be held responsible by the voters.
So you would spend money you didn't have on medical treatments? Wow perhaps everyone should quit selling you medicine and treatments since you are so fiscally irressponsible and are not able to control your own spending. I mean there is never an excuse for running up debt. At least that's what you told me in your 1st post, are you know saying there are situations where it is ok to spend more than you bring in?
I said there was never an excuse for running up a larger debt than needed. I never said that there was never a situation when one couldn't incur a deficit. But I will say when you know that you are going to have spend more than normal it is irresponsible, to cut out a source of income unless there is no other way. The president could have revoked his tax cuts for the wealthy, and not made more tax cuts for them. That is irresponsible. We went through WWII, Viet Nam, Korea, and even the Great depression without this kind of debt and deficit. Do you mean to say that this President can't get us over the 9/11 incident without it?
We went through WWII, Viet Nam, Korea, and even the Great depression without this kind of debt and deficit. Do you mean to say that this President can't get us over the 9/11 incident without it? <Insert comment about the President misspent youth, crippling his ability to understand basic history and civic lessons.> AND 9/11 changed everything. And if you have any deeper thoughts than this, you my friend are elitist.
Somewhere back in the 80's there was a saying in Houston real estate circles: If you owe they bank 2 million dollars they own you, if you owe the bank 200 million dollars you own the bank. The devaluation of the dollar and the Asian currencies that are pegged to it will hurt the Euro the most. Yes it is going up in value but that makes European companies less competative as compared with US companies. (we don't compete with Asian contries on labor intensive products) It's a scary tactic, borrowing to the hilt and devaluing the currency with the expectation that increased exports will restore the balance but it's the American way. And just like Donald Trump there is very little chance that our bond holders would let us default; they would go broke too.
I got a tax break and I'm no where NEAR one of the wealthiest Americans. People keep saying that: "the tax cut was only for the wealthiest Americans" and while wealthy Americans may have received tax cuts, they were for pretty much anyone who paid taxes. FYI, our combined incomes (wife and I) were around $120,000.00 last year. This year, because I'm working contract I'm going to make around $25,000.00 (for a combined total of around $65,000.00). My wife and I are selling some property to help pay down some bills and we're probably going to have to pay capital gains taxes on it. We make $65,000/year and have to pay capital gains. I thought capital gains taxes were only for the rich? Please quit perpetuating economic myths.
