If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
Because if we don't have the same definitions then we are arguing at cross purposes. What do you mean by "free trade"? Policies that are currently being implemented by the WTO, IMF etc? Or something else?
Yes you might say that this is often associated with other measures but that does not mean they are the same thing.
The largest free trade bloc in the world is the EU, has European free trade been associated with enforced privatisation etc of any kind?
taking my argument to an extreme i see - some level of self sufficiency is required otherwise your country would be like argentina or other south american countries where companies pull out without warning suddenly causing huge changes in employment and good produced, and the same in farming where a country depends on exported cash crops not regular crops that are not so volitile
it's what we do in the EU im quite happy for some level of farm subsidy to exist here, just not for the farm produce we export out of the EU
its about having a some trade independence
back on topic - do you honestly think america will alllow full trade liberalisation into the US after forcing it on south american countries? i comfortably say 'non'
You may think it is a good idea to have some self-sufficiency, I don't generally.
Also how exactly would you seperate subsidised goods in the EU from non-subsidised goods with regards to exporting? Sounds difficult to me.
As for the US I really don't know, the Democrats campaigned in part on the fact that many US mfg jobs had been lost due to free trade.
Also the US cannot force anything on South America, they have to give something in return.........
So you're talking about an ideological position disengaged from the reality?
Except that they come as part and parcel of the same ideological position and part and parcel of the actuality of "free trade"
The EU is definitely in the business of promoting privatisation and corporatisation.
Evidence?
I like the way you ignore all my other points
http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/briefings/waterday.html
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/win98/wr_win98euroaid.html
http://www.corporateeurope.org/
The stuff about Scotland is interesting but it suggests that any Eu driven privatisation is a result of other organs of the EU, not as a result of our legal obligations on free trade.....
Even when presented with evidence you continue to deny stuff. Amazing!
So you're not interested in having commonly agreed definitions of terms?
Yes but I get a certain sense that you will not be interested in hearing anything else, as this is my experience with you on here..........
Most of that evidence was concerned with the EUs role in non-Eu countries, which is irrelevant to the point I was making.......
The stuff about Scotland was to do with EU competition policy, not fundamental to the trade agreeements we are signed up to as part of the Eu........
Oh quit being so bloody dishonest! You have a history of ignoring difficult points and changing the subject. If you want a debate, lets have one. Otherwise don't bother.
Your evidence shows no such thing.......
No you didn't. You asked for evidence of my assertion that "The EU is definitely in the business of promoting privatisation and corporatisation.". Which I provided.
See, this is why knowing what you mean by "free trade" is so important. You appear to view it as an ideological position divorced from reality. What I'm saying is that "free trade" as it is currently practiced does promote privatisation, as I have shown.
Errrr...yes it does.