Comments by "" (@jmitterii2) on "70,000 STRIKE In Mexico! Workers Winning!" video.
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In our international economics class we learned about Maquiladoras, essentially sweat shops. We did a mock business plan based on one using NAFTA. And did several reports about various maquiladoras. At the end, our economic professor asked us what we thought of globalization and maquiladoras: did you think more positively or negatively.
We all unanimously though worse about this type of sweat shop trade.
We had to explain the macro effects: displaces our workers and theirs, and the new jobs in place are lower paid. So less demand will occur.
All she said was, "Oh, I didn't think about that, I just thought quality issues could be the only negative."
WTF? She's a fucking economic professor! This doesn't take that many classes to understand macro economics particularly virtuous cycles and vicious cycles.
It's an obvious race to the fucking bottom.
A beneficial trade is one with authentic comparative advantage:
1) They have know how and skill to produce more and/or of better quality.
2) They have a resources that is more abundant than the other country.
Inauthentic comparative advantage exists:
1) Dumping: when country either directly operates and supplies a good at a loss causing the other countries producers of that good to eventually go out of business: usually an incitement to use quota, tariffs, or embargo of that good.
2) Externality costs: they don't have an environmental, humanitarian policy and/or they don't enforce such policies that are near equal in strength: those policies being pollution, waste, sewer, etc. controls, and labor rights and civil rights.
Inauthentic comparative advantage known not be beneficial to the economy at large, and particularly harmful in the long run to the economy.
It's as if even economists all had lobotomy of the part of the brain which they stored their learning of economics.
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