Interesting economic info buried in this article.... "Global exports falling rapidly"

[TwixVoy]

The main focus of this article involves the riots going on in Geneva over the WTO. Here is a little interesting detail....

"WTO called the meeting of its 153 members to examine major issues at a time when global exports are falling rapidly and the WTO's long-sought Doha liberalization round is limping into its ninth year."

But gee I thought we were in a recovery? Now the WTO is having a special meeting on how to fix the problem. How interesting.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34182788/ns/business-world_business

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Saturn square Pluto, of course." - Ronald Reagan's Dead Republicon Astrologer*

"We republicon occultists have known all along that Pluto would enter Capricorn and form a square with Saturn in 2009 and 2010. Things are gonna get way more Shockey & Awey. That's why we set things up so pathetically, then picked Grumpy McCain and Sarah PaleHorse to, um, 'lead' us to ignominous defeat in the election last year: surefire republicon FAIL FREAKS. As usual. Smirk. Now it's your mess, America. Ha ha ha. Smirk."

- Ronald Reagan's Dead Republicon Astrologer* &
Allied Republicon Darkside Occultists



* Courageously channeled by the Intrepid SpiralHawk from the vast netherworld of republicon occultism.

[Warpy]

2. One thing that will never, ever occur to the WTO

is rebuilding enough industry in the US to start us back up as the world's favorite marketplace.

The rest of the world was never able to buy that much. Now we've been beggared and easy credit has dried up, and we're joining them.

Maybe we should start a pool on how long it takes the captains of industry to figure out that no matter how many tax breaks and bailouts they get, they can't stay in business without customers.

[rusty charly]

3. Yeah.

You'd think they'd cover that in the first two weeks of an MBA.

[HamdenRice]

10. "never, ever occur to the WTO" -- the WTO isn't really a "thing" anything can "occur to"

WTO is a bunch of things, but it is not "one thing" capable of having a point of view -- something I wish more people understood in making their critique.

There is a WTO bureaucracy to administer the work of the inner WTO, but their point of view is insignificant -- they are gofers.

Then there are a bunch of treaties -- many of them much better than one would expect considering the outcomes that WTO generates.

What the WTO actually is, is a big room. It's more like a court or an exchange than a single thing. It is where all the countries who are members negotiate trade deals.

WTO reminds me of criminal law and criminal courts. If you just looked at the law and what it's supposed to do in theory, it seems fair to everyone. Then you sit in court and contrast the way wealthy defendants with their lawyers are treated compared to the poor and indigent criminal defendants.

The treaties that create the WTO have lots of loopholes for poor countries, but they can't use them because they can't afford a permanent staff of trade lawyers in Geneva -- one of the most expensive cities in the world.

The most difficult things about the WTO for poorer countries is that each member has to negotiate separately with each other member -- all 153 of them. That means, to get anything you need about 100 lawyers at a minimum. Imagine the process by which a country like, say Swaziland, negotiated its entry with 153 members, including the US, UK, China, all the European countries, etc. More than likely it had one lawyer going down these long tables sitting one at a time with the heavy hitters, asking for concessions, getting hammered, trying to get all 153 to agree to the same text of the concession to Swaziland, while his phone is bugged by the NSA when he discusses things with the Economics Minister back in Mbabane, Swaziland, for use by the US Trade Rep, so the US Trade Rep knows what he's going to say before he says it. It's an impossible task.

"The WTO" in terms of what "it" thinks, therefore is mostly the US trade representative and the European trade representatives. They get their way because they can out-lawyer everyone else, and then they "blame" the outcome on the WTO back home in the US.

Recently, though, Brazil has won some pretty astonishing victories in the WTO on behalf of developing countries. The global south is finally binding together to use the WTO for their benefit, and the future outcomes look like they could get very interesting soon.

[Warpy]

11. Oh, for gawd's sake

Go pick nits off somebody else.

[HamdenRice]

12. It actually goes to whether most people even know what the WTO is

and the answer is, apparently not at all.

[Democrats_win]

4. On the other hand, the real recovery from materialism is going very well!

[BeFree]

5. ....

We had a huge bubble.
Fueled by borrowing the bubble grew and grew.
Fuel oils prices bubbled up to $4 a gallon.
Housing bubbled to twice it's normal size.
Then the bubble burst.

Americans have stopped buying so much stuff.
Most of things we bought were made overseas.
The bubble is no longer reaching over the oceans.

We will never recover to those bubbly conditions.

[corpseratemedia]

6. so basically, we are taking a bubble bath

thank you, I 'll be here all weekx(

[SpiralHawk]

7. It's the Hammer and the Tongs

to the existing systems -- finance, manufacturing, transportation, whatever. Existing systems are in their death throes. But then...comes...the emerging. Whatever that will be, we shall see.

[BeFree]

8. Made a speech one time...

...told the assemblage that Change was coming.

But the main point was that we, as kids, were told by our parents that they were working to have us kids in a better world. Then the bomb: we can't tell our kids the same thing.

Didn't get a rousing response... imagine that?

We have had one hell of a ride, have we not?
We have been very fortunate.. the most fortunate, as a group, than any other humans before.

Now, it seems, the end is near. What emerges, what change we shall see, is really gonna be a Change.

[DemReadingDU]

9. Slideshow pictures

from a link in the article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34182950/ns/news-picture_stories/displaymode/1247/?beginSlide=1