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No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

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Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#131

Post by spc476 »

jussij wrote: post #68
pvnick wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, then don't buy them. But don't be a hypocrite and restrict their access from others who may be too poor to buy organic.

> Fine, then don't buy them If they have a monopoly you no longer have that choice. The 'big four' biotech seed companies—Monsanto, DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred, Syngenta and Dow AgroSciences own 80% of the US corn market and 70% of the soybean business. They are looking to achieve similar results in the rest of thw world. The US government went after Microsoft because it was seen as a monopoly in the PC market. Why doesn'…

The US government has always realized that monopolies can come to be "naturally" (that is, through normal market forces) in an industry. The US government over goes after a monopolist when they attempt to enter or influence a different market by exploiting their monopoly.

The US government didn't go against Standard Oil because they owned 90% of the refineries in the US, they went after Standard Oil because Standard Oil was using their 90% oil refinery market share to control the rail shipping industry.

The US government didn't go against Microsoft because they owned 90% of the PC operating system market, they went after Microsoft because Microsoft was using their 90% operating system market to control the web browser market (along with some other sub-computer markets).

Why isn't the US government going against Monsanto (for instance?) Because they aren't trying to gain control of another industry outside agriculture (or better lobbyists, take your pick).

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#132

Post by [deleted] »

samstave wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are plenty of brilliant free thinking people in the world Ah yes, and you are one of those brilliant, free-thinking people I assume. One of the enlightened ones, who sees the folly of government and the glory of anarchy?

Nice ad hominem -- so lets discuss; first though I'm posting from my phone so this first post will be brief: There are soon to be 7 billion people on this earth, comparatively, yes, I've won the genetic lottery... But that has nothing to do with the fact that there is an active war on the minds of humanity. If you want references and are completely devoid of any understanding of history I'd be happy to provide some s…

[deleted]

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#133

Post by queensnake »

saosebastiao wrote: post #93
csense wrote: post #86

Why should the US sign free trade agreements? The US was screwed by signing NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the USA and Mexico beginning in 1994). A bit of history: From c. 1950-1980, unions had a monopoly on labor supply in many industries. This allowed them to charge monopoly pricing, so employees gained a greater share of the wealth generated by their businesses. With the opening of…

The answer is simple. Imagine how successful your manufacturing union would be if it had a monopoly on manufacturing labor within your state. Now imagine how successful it would be if your employer couldn't sell the products you manufactured to anyone outside your state. Free trade gives American companies access to markets to sell their products, and it gives citizens (and not just those lucky enough to be in a unio…

> imagine how successful it would be if your employer couldn't sell the products you manufactured to anyone outside your state.

Well, but that's imaginary. We have free trade within all 50 states. That's reasonable, for what you get in return - greater equality (wages for the less skilled), happier people.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#134

Post by DanBC »

samstave wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are plenty of brilliant free thinking people in the world Ah yes, and you are one of those brilliant, free-thinking people I assume. One of the enlightened ones, who sees the folly of government and the glory of anarchy?

Nice ad hominem -- so lets discuss; first though I'm posting from my phone so this first post will be brief: There are soon to be 7 billion people on this earth, comparatively, yes, I've won the genetic lottery... But that has nothing to do with the fact that there is an active war on the minds of humanity. If you want references and are completely devoid of any understanding of history I'd be happy to provide some s…

> There are soon to be 7 billion people on this earth

A minor nit, but we're estimated to be over 7 billion already.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#135

Post by DominikR »

pvnick wrote: post #42
wazoox wrote: post #6

Frankly, I can't see a single good reason for this trade agreement, and a lot of good reasons against, starting with that I (and all other Europeans) don't want GM food, hormone beef and chlorinated chicken in my plate any day soon.

I don't normally downvote comments I read here, but c'mon man. First of all, your comment was off-topic. Second of all, at least with the GM food, yours is a knee-jerk reaction unsupported by science. GM food has the potential to save billions (with a B) of lives, starting with Golden Rice.

We certainly don't need to save millions of lives in the EU with Golden Rice.

It is just a fact that most European countries are in strong opposition to genetically modified food. I wouldn't eat that either, and I do not even want it to be sold here.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#136

Post by wybo »

oleganza wrote: post #7

Actual translation: because of the behavior of U.S. government, E.U. government(s) will make it hard for E.U. citizens to trade with U.S. citizens. So normal people get spied on and bullied by one government, then because of that their life is made even more complicated by some other government. Great outcome! When people will realize that the problem is always in the governments themselves as a concept, not in any p…

Free trade agreements bring more than just benefits.

A nation/country is a bit like an ecosystem or a company, with its own interests, internal culture, customs, and market. Opening that market up to another country requires trust. If that trust is violated because one party is spying on the others internal negotiations, it makes sense to delay or cancel trade agreements.

You would not want everything you say in boardmeetings to be immediately passed on to competing startups/companies...

Also, trade-agreements do more than bring universal benefits. They also kill off companies due to increased competition. And given that Europe has quite different (labour) regulations, can even lead to unfair competition.

So please stop that anarchist BS about governments being bad, and them ONLY making peoples lives more complicated. Yes I know there are bad governments, but please speak for yourself instead of generalizing. In Western-Europe most people are pretty happy with their governments, because - quess why - these governments do a pretty good job most of the time...

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#137

Post by tomp »

pvnick wrote: post #42
wazoox wrote: post #6

Frankly, I can't see a single good reason for this trade agreement, and a lot of good reasons against, starting with that I (and all other Europeans) don't want GM food, hormone beef and chlorinated chicken in my plate any day soon.

I don't normally downvote comments I read here, but c'mon man. First of all, your comment was off-topic. Second of all, at least with the GM food, yours is a knee-jerk reaction unsupported by science. GM food has the potential to save billions (with a B) of lives, starting with Golden Rice.

It's not supported by science either. You would need at least 100 years to study the effect of GM foods on the long-term well-being of people.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#138

Post by tomp »

pvnick wrote: post #70
threeseed wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give us all a break. It's so easy to make that choice when you and your family aren't literally starving to death.

Why is this simple piece of logic so difficult for anti-GMO extremists to understand? These technologies literally have the potential, without even being hyperbolic, to save Billions of lives. And these clowns are worried about the providers making an extra buck.

> to save Billions of lives

But not in Europe.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#139

Post by cheald »

_k wrote: post #26
rorrr2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It deeply saddens me that a tiny tiny percentage of the population can really fuck up the lives of everyone - financially, socially, politically, religiously. The real problem is in how we set up the governments. We give to much power to a few people. What we really need to do is let people vote on individual issues. Want to go to war that will affect everyone and will cost trillions? Let's have a vote.

I understand what you're saying but letting people vote on individual issues isn't always good. Here's an example : I live in Belgium, a country where 3 million people are paying for 8 million others. Those 8 million include kids, people without a job and people in retirement or who got sick. And we should help them. But it also includes 1.3 million government employees (hundreds of thousands more than The Netherland…

To simplify: When 51% of the people discover that they can vote themselves the wealth of the other 49%, they will.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#140

Post by cheald »

tomp wrote: post #137
pvnick wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't normally downvote comments I read here, but c'mon man. First of all, your comment was off-topic. Second of all, at least with the GM food, yours is a knee-jerk reaction unsupported by science. GM food has the potential to save billions (with a B) of lives, starting with Golden Rice.

It's not supported by science either. You would need at least 100 years to study the effect of GM foods on the long-term well-being of people.

Well, worst case, it helps to solve our overpopulation problem. /s
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