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EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

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Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#271

Post by ascar »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #22

Japan has avoided the madness of tariffs and trade wars that has affected the west recently. Instead they have been quietly negotiating trade deals with everyone and generally getting along. Good on them! Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy.

> Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy.

As a German living in Japan for the past four months I somewhat doubt that's going to change a lot. Maybe some lower prices in speciality stores, but I can't imagine my local supermarkets to stock more different cheese or that demand is rising just because a small piece of Camembert costs still expensive 3€ instead of 4€ (roughly converted from ¥), which I buy for 50 Cents in Germany.

The prices are also so high, because it's an exotic food with no use in the local cousine, meaning low demand.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#272

Post by bobthepanda »

irrational wrote: post #258
avar wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your proposed alternative to this sort of international tribunal? To me it feels like obviously the correct solution, and e.g. the EU/EEA has this with the EFTA courts and the WTO has it with its courts. Point in favor: 1. It makes sense for a corporation in say Malaysia to be able to sue Australia over state subsidies, otherwise they need to convince their own governments to bring it up at the inter-state lev…

The people in the international tribunal come from somewhere. Wouldn't they still be biased toward the part of the world they come from?

Presumably a panel of said international tribunal would have equal members of participating countries to avoid such favoritism in the first place.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#273

Post by pawelmurias »

superpermutat0r wrote: post #257
pawelmurias wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's benefiting the special interest of GMO companies at the expense of the special interests of stupid people who are irrationally scared of them.

GMOs, together with massive animal agriculture are a black swan in the making. Let's modify the organisms, create billions of them, have them as a testing ground for bacteria and viruses, let the bacteria and viruses evolve to eventually kill the resistant individuals, then after it happens we need 10 more years until more than a thousand billion individuals produce a human targeting strain. There is absolutely no sc…

How is raising GMO animals more risky? Or do you think the EU should mandate farming boars instead of pigs?

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#274

Post by rodgerd »

Barrin92 wrote: post #232
zeroname wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free trade is great when applied evenly. Free trade is great even when applied unevenly.

Surprised this was being downvoted because it is true. If countries engage in protectionism unilaterally, they are predominantly harming their own consumers and undermining competition of their own businesses. As Friedman used to point out, if Japan wants to subsidize its steel at the cost of their own taxpayers, just take the cheap steel and be thankful for it.

> If countries engage in protectionism unilaterally, they are predominantly harming their own consumers and undermining competition of their own businesses.

That must be why economies such as China, Japan, and South Korea stayed economic basket cases in the late 20th century. Because of their protectionism.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#275

Post by ascar »

athenot wrote: post #230
hinkley wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the weird, nearly constant cultural boundaries is fermented foods. I suspect even without the tariffs cheese will still be expensive in Japan. It doesn't really 'go' with a lot of the cuisine. I mean, if you handed me donburi with cheese in it I'd probably say, "Okay, that's weird but it could work so let me try it," but I'm wracking my brain trying to think what other dishes you could fit in it. Certainly eth…

Cheese (at least in France) is not a topping but something consumed after the main course (and with bread). I could see a donbury followed by some mild cheeses. Perhaps stronger cheeses might even go with bonito flakes or other dried fish products. I'm sure some experimentation in pairing could yield some interesting results.

That's probably only France, where cheese after meals is common.

While it's frequently used as a topping in Italian cousine, it's nearly exclusively eaten on top of slices of (dark) bread as a standalone dish in German cousine (though Germans eat a lot of Italian food).

The most American use of cheese (i.e. not Italian cousine related) is maybe the cheese flavored corn-snacks (e.g. cheetos).

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#277

Post by vertex-four »

zeroname wrote: post #247
mrkstu wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which works fine until they own a monopoly to a business with high cost of entry and decide to raise prices again. Things like this are rarely simple.

That's basically the fallacy of predatory pricing. It doesn't work. Sure, you can raise prices after killing the competition, but only so far as to not revive the competition. Your price ends up as the fair market price . Cost of entry is irrelevant here, it's a cost like any other.

Sure, except that reviving the competition costs money in its own right many times - it's usually not a Bitcoin miner that can be turned off when it's unprofitable and turned on again with the flick of a switch when it becomes profitable to run.

So your price ends up at fair market price... when averaged over many decades, maybe, but likely not for long at any particular point in time. And in the meantime workers get screwed over as industries and skillsets lose economic value.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#278

Post by ascar »

hinkley wrote: post #222
hkmurakami wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still remember how horridly expensive cheese was in Japan. This is excellent news.

One of the weird, nearly constant cultural boundaries is fermented foods. I suspect even without the tariffs cheese will still be expensive in Japan. It doesn't really 'go' with a lot of the cuisine. I mean, if you handed me donburi with cheese in it I'd probably say, "Okay, that's weird but it could work so let me try it," but I'm wracking my brain trying to think what other dishes you could fit in it. Certainly eth…

Sushi goes very well with cream cheese added as part of the filling, e.g. Philadelphia roll. Pork Donburi with grated cheese on top, maybe Gauda, would be a great fit. Also possible for a Yakiniku bento. You could also use a cheese dip for Yakitori. That's basically also the dishes I eat most of the time.

God, I'm getting homesick again. Food is such an essential part of feeling home and you only realize this once it's missing for long enough. Eating good European cousine in Japan is complicated and pretty expensive.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#279

Post by hinkley »

ascar wrote: post #275
athenot wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheese (at least in France) is not a topping but something consumed after the main course (and with bread). I could see a donbury followed by some mild cheeses. Perhaps stronger cheeses might even go with bonito flakes or other dried fish products. I'm sure some experimentation in pairing could yield some interesting results.

That's probably only France, where cheese after meals is common. While it's frequently used as a topping in Italian cousine, it's nearly exclusively eaten on top of slices of (dark) bread as a standalone dish in German cousine (though Germans eat a lot of Italian food). The most American use of cheese (i.e. not Italian cousine related) is maybe the cheese flavored corn-snacks (e.g. cheetos).

I'll have to insist on nominating the grilled cheese sandwich. We are big on our comfort food.

But I think we might have also inflicted 'cheese food' (cheese 'flavored', processed food) on the world and I do apologize for that.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#280

Post by repolfx »

notahacker wrote: post #176
Tomte wrote: post #3

"The service market will be opened, including financial services" This is going to make the UK mad. But apart from that, wasn't there the position that services cannot be part of a trade deal?

There's the EU position that full and equal access to the services market is dependent on also allowing free movement of people, and the fairly standard EU position that foreign companies' access to its services market must depend on them following standards harmonised with EU law. The former is a sticking point for the UK achieving the same level of services access before, the latter an impediment to a UK government…

There isn't really much services market in the EU, the "common market" only ever really worked properly for goods. This is one reason the UK doesn't like it much - it's got a more services oriented economy than the other countries, but the EU doesn't care much to open up e.g. German service industries to British competition.

Meanwhile the EU only requires free movement of people for trade deals for geographically European countries, because those are the ones it feels it should be able to fully absorb, whereas it has no interest in trying to take over Canada or Japan. So whilst the UK is told to pay billions, accept unlimited immigration and obey the ECJ if it wants a trade deal of any sort whatsoever, Japan is required to do none of those things.

Ultimately this makes the EU a much worse deal if you happen to live near it than further away.

Also the Commission has made clear that the financial services market in the EU will be entirely closed to the EU no matter what happens, even if some deal is reached. Not tariffs, outright bans. There's no "sticking point" about it - the EU sees loss of access to financial markets as the penalty for any attempt to leave at all, or even just not join. See how Switzerland is also being banned from EU financial markets it previously had access to because of unrelated trade disputes.

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