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Are problems like this an inevitability of international trade among economically unequal parties? If one party offers N dollars per ounce of palm oil, and the
by tengbretson 7y ago
Are problems like this an inevitability of international trade among economically unequal parties? If one party offers N dollars per ounce of palm oil, and the other party desperately needs money more than anything else, how could you expect anything less than the most desperate of measures taken to produce as much palm oil as possible?
What are our options? No trade among economically disadvantaged countries at all? Devalue our currency? Paternalistic oversight?
- nickik 7y agoCountries very often also keep exporting when its not 'unequal'. While richer countries tend to have better environmental policy, that can also go in the other direction sometimes.
- ipnon 7y agoWhen international trade consists only of material and not migrants Mass wealth can only be generated in advanced economies. For the people of developing countries to benefit their countries must participate somehow in these advanced economies. With globalization they are allowed to participate only by the exchange of goods (either selling manufacturing in developed countries like China or natural resources in undeveloped countries like Congo). Before globalization, they could not participate at all. Advanced economies like the US and EU allow immigration only in a limited capacity, and they do so in way that benefits mainly the investor class, entrepreneurs and high-skill workers. Consider the typical Silicon Valley visa, the H1-B. The H1-B only allows corporations to sponsor highly-skilled workers to take jobs that are hard to fill with Americans. Think software engineers working at Google. This kind of immigration benefits investors in Google and workers in the software industry while increasing competition for Americans in the market for high paying jobs. Excluded from all of this especially are low-skill foreign workers. Everyone wants to be rich, and they will not stop this pursuit. As long as the majority of people in this world, those who are living in non-advanced economies, can only become rich by the selling of manufacturing and natural resources instead of their labor, then there will always be billions of people whose work effects the planet's environment in a significantly damaging way.
- solotronics 7y agoIn no way does a H1-B benefit anybody but possibly some execs. It is exploited to drive down wages in our high demand industry. Probably the worst is that instead of taking new grads and mentoring them up there are many places that would rather contract some H1-B instead.
- dnissley 7y agoH1-B definitely benefits H1-B recipients.
- boomboomsubban 7y agoThough they may be better off as a result of getting an H1-B, it's not clear that the system benefits them compared to other possible immigration methods.
- titanomachy 7y agoMaybe it doesn't benefit American software developers very much, since they would prefer less supply in their industry and higher pay. Non-Americans are still people, and they benefit a lot from this. And they often become Americans, so America benefits by gaining skilled and hardworking people who otherwise would be stuck producing less value in some worse place.
- tengbretson 7y agoNo one asked for any of this. Where is the power button on this thing??
- ipnon 7y agoThe power button for my commentary or the power button for exclusionary immigration policy?
- tengbretson 7y ago.