Globalization

Originally Posted by Martin

I think that competition through globalization is a good thing .

Not really aimed at you, Martin, but this part of your post caught my eye.

I don't think it matters if people think globalization is a good thing or a bad thing.

The fact is that it is happening, and it isn't going to be stopped, reversed, etc.

Either cope with it or not, but the people who cope with it are going to do a lot better than the people who don't.

[NousDefionsDoc]

That's all I'm saying...

[lrd]

Originally Posted by Greenhat

Not really aimed at you, Martin, but this part of your post caught my eye.

I don't think it matters if people think globalization is a good thing or a bad thing.

The fact is that it is happening, and it isn't going to be stopped, reversed, etc.

Either cope with it or not, but the people who cope with it are going to do a lot better than the people who don't.

Your last sentence makes me want to repeat your first sentence to Martin, GH.

I would feel much more comfortable about globilization if I felt like we had a plan and were guiding instead of coping. I keep wondering who is driving the globalization train...

Originally Posted by lrd

Your last sentence makes me want to repeat your first sentence to Martin, GH.

I would feel much more comfortable about globilization if I felt like we had a plan and were guiding instead of coping. I keep wondering who is driving the globalization train...

That is what I'm suggesting too.

A globalized world can function in different fashions, with not one specific that holds all trumph cards. What we need to do is transform institutions, principles and policies to match the direction we want it to move in.

I think what is driving, perhaps what is, globalization, is communication. It won't stop, but those doing the talking will set the tone and affect culture with their taboos, etc.

I almost agree with you, GH, but I think that in this view it does matter if people think globalization is a good thing. If our fellow westerners don't compete, our culture will be dominated by those who do.

Originally Posted by lrd

Your last sentence makes me want to repeat your first sentence to Martin, GH.

I would feel much more comfortable about globilization if I felt like we had a plan and were guiding instead of coping. I keep wondering who is driving the globalization train...

The "invisible hand"... which has always done a hell of a lot better than any government.

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally Posted by Greenhat

The "invisible hand"... which has always done a hell of a lot better than any government.

Exactly.

[Roguish Lawyer]

http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/21/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

China revalues yuan

Move away from fixed dollar peg could lessen competition for U.S. firms, raise import prices.
July 21, 2005: 10:44 AM EDT
By Chris Isidore, CNN/Money senior writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - In a move that could trim the trade gap with the United States, China revalued its currency higher against the dollar Thursday and said it would no longer have the yuan tied to a fixed rate against the U.S. currency.

The move, while small at this point, could be the first step to reduce competition for some U.S. companies from lower-priced Chinese imports.

A stronger yuan could also increase the sales U.S. exporters get from business with the world's largest country, one of the fastest growing consumer markets. U.S. exporters could keep their prices the same in U.S. dollars, thus lowering the price in yuan and spurring increased sales. Or they could keep prices in yuan level, and bring in a greater amount of dollars.

Reuters reported that U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow praised the move in a meeting with reporters Thursday morning. Both the administration and members of Congress have been calling on China to end its fixed dollar-yuan peg. There is legislation before Congress that threatens trade sanctions on China if the yuan did not start trading freely in currency markets.

"This is a good first step, albeit a baby step," said a statement for U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the authors of the legislation. "It is smaller than we had hoped, but to paraphrase the Chinese philosophers, a trip of a thousand miles can well begin with the first baby step. If there are not larger steps in the future, we will not have accomplished very much. But after years of inaction, this step is welcome."

On the downside for American citizens, it could lead to increased prices for Chinese-made goods such as apparel and electronics. But economists doubt that with a change in valuation as small as Thursday's move that prices will increase.

"The change is pretty slight but very significant because of the fact that they did allow it to revalue. Now speculation is that this will pave the way for further valuations down the road," said Ezechiel Copic, currency analyst for MG Financial Group.

The fixed rate between the yuan and the dollar has been blamed for the soaring trade gap between China and the United States, as it kept Chinese-made goods cheap here.

The trade gap between the United States and China was $72.5 billion the first five months of this year, by far the largest gap of with any trading partner. It was more than the U.S. gap with Japan and OPEC combined during the same period.

Jay Bryson, global economist for Wachovia Securities, said that there is still more unknown than known about the way the new valuation system will work. He doesn't expect it to cause an immediate impact on the economics of that trade, but he said it opens the door to further strengthening of the yuan.

"Will the yuan be 30 percent stronger vs. the dollar a year from now? I doubt that. Could it be 10 percent stronger? Yeah, that's reasonable," he said. "It will help somewhat people who compete against Chinese exporters. It doesn't mean textile jobs will come back to North Carolina, those jobs are gone. But it might help a manufacturer who is still here."

U.S. stock futures soared immediately after the statement from People's Bank of China just after 7 a.m. ET Thursday. But an hour later much of those gains had evaporated after traders had a chance to examine and weigh the statement.

The statement said China will immediately value the currency at 8.11 yuan, down 2 percent from the 8.28 rate previously. It also said it will now peg the yuan against a "market basket" of numerous currencies, although it will keep the yuan in a tight band rather than letting it trade freely. But the central bank did promise that the exchange rate band would be adjusted when necessary according to market developments as well as economic and financial situations.

Reuters quoted another statement from the bank as saying any sharp swing in the yuan's exchange rate would hit China's financial system, and therefore would not be in Beijing's interest.

The U.S. Congress had been threatening to impose stiff trade sanctions on Chinese imports if it did not allow more market-based valuation of the yuan. The move by the Chinese reduces the threat of that kind of trade war, which is one of the factors that likely lifted futures early, said Bryson.

"Obviously they're getting a lot of flak from Congress and the Europeans as well. It was going to happen at some point anyway. It probably happened sooner than it would have if Congress and the administration hadn't said anything," said Bryson.

But University of Maryland Professor Peter Morici, a vocal critic of the Chinese government's policy on currency, said this move doesn't suggest any significant change in the economics of trade is on the horizon.

"This is a fig leaf. It's an attempt by the Chinese to do the least amount possible," said Morici, who estimated that the yuan is about 40 percent undervalued because of the trading restrictions.

"Even a pace of 10 percent change a year will get us there too slowly," he said. "(With this change) China will continue to have very large trade surpluses and cause damage to industries that compete with Chinese companies."

A little thought struck me a few days ago... While I think it is far from impossible that China could be a threat and in either case believe the US need to maintain a capable conventional force, and the ability to expand it... If the Pentagon and the U.S. government seriously consider China an emerging threat and use that to motivate funding of big ticket projects for countering a rising China - why are they closing down so many CONUS bases and why are they consolidating critical functions? Then the defense spending as part of GDP while at war, contractors... I hate to say it, but the situation does partly seem to be taken lightly.

Am I missing something?

Martin

I have a question and this seemed an appropriate thread.

I admit, I haven't been following the trilateral agreement proposed in 2005 very closely: The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. (SPP. This NAFTA Super Highway will start construction this year. NASCO

Dr Corsi (Co-auther with Swift Boat Vets) is very strongly against this proposal. I won't post his website.

I was wondering if anyone on this site has been following this proposal and has an opinion?

thanks

[tk27]

"NAFTA Super Highway" is a misnomer, all the roads already exists, I35, I29, and I94. This is an infrastructure improvement project, mostly to improve roads in the middle of the country, but also to improve Detroit-Canada connections. Also Alberta, particularly Calgary area is booming right now due to the tar sands investment, so a lot of and material will be flowing in. Hence the I94 improvements.

What are your concerns about it?

Originally Posted by tk27

"NAFTA Super Highway" is a misnomer, all the roads already exists, I35, I29, and I94. This is an infrastructure improvement project, mostly to improve roads in the middle of the country, but also to improve Detroit-Canada connections. Also Alberta, particularly Calgary area is booming right now due to the tar sands investment, so a lot of and material will be flowing in. Hence the I94 improvements.

What are your concerns about it?

The reason I looked closely at this gov website was because the Canadian Govt released publications this week. One of the online news blogs described the documentation. I can't post the website because it is one TS has said he doesn't like.

I may be misreading the SPP website but it seems very similar to the European Union. I only listed one piece of this thing, the transportation improvements.

Some of the items I see in the EU that appear to be part of this SSP:
Agriculture, Consumers, Economic and Monetary, Public Health, Transport, Energy, Food Safety, Environment, Fisheries and Maritime Affairs....

I started reading one of the PDF's on trade law. I am not a lawyer and muddle my way through legal-eze. After reading the document I wondered what affect it would have on the lumber industry, for example.

The prosperity agenda: " Lower costs for North American businesses, producers, and consumers and maximize trade in goods and services across our borders by striving to ensure compatibility of regulations and standards and eliminating redundant testing and certification requirements." Does this mean we change our FDA standards? For example, the citrus industry. Oranges from FL have to adhere to different standards than oranges from outside the USA. We have tougher pesticide control for example.

On the surface the function of the SPP appears to be opening borders and standardizing laws. I didn't check any of the security proposals, but after living in Canada for 15 years, I really doubt they will ever change their open door policy on immigration.

.02

[Ret10Echo]

This is a bit lengthy and some is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but sometimes the perceptions from outside our borders are interesting.


Washington diary: Land of ideas
By Matt Frei
BBC News, Washington



I am happy to report to you that the Oxford Union, in its infinite wisdom, has allowed America to continue existing.

After a raucous debate in front of a packed house, the motion - "this House regrets the Founding of America" - was overwhelmingly squashed.

My colleague Jonah Goldberg, from the National Review, made a witty and punchy case for the birthright of America, lambasting the Union for a motion that "sounded like a bad joke".

Peter Rodman, a former US assistant secretary of defence, entered the fray with patrician aplomb and, for what it's worth, this was some of my contribution to joust for the country where I keep my toothbrush and pay my taxes:

It is very easy to find Americans who disagree with its current direction. But you'll be hard pressed to come across those who regret its very existence in a fit of collective self-annihilation. The confusion of one with the other strikes me as the fundamental flaw of this motion.

Let's say you didn't need to regret the founding of America, because it had never been founded. How different might our lives look? We would not be listening to George Bush's fluent Texan. We would never have had the benefit of Donald Rumsfeld one-liners or clogged our arteries on a Big Mac.

But what music would we be listening to on our iPods? Would it be German marching songs or Russian ballads? Would we even have an iPod?

Yes, the beloved iPod was designed by a British citizen, Jonathan Ive, a son of Chingford, Essex. But would his design have changed the world of music if it hadn't been for Apple, an American company, based in Cupertino, California?

Freedom to dream

So much for iPods... what about ideas? How different would the world be without the Bill of Rights? What about Thomas Jefferson?


The Declaration of Independence was the quintessential treatise of self-determination. If America had never been founded it would have remained unwritten. And who can imagine life without the Dumb Waiter, another Jefferson innovation?

The list goes on and on (and I apologise for any omissions): Thomas Edison, who had 1,093 patents for inventions in his name; Henry Ford; the Wright brothers; Bill Gates; the Boeing corporation; Desperate Housewives; The Sopranos and, of course, SpongeBob SquarePants.

As a TV correspondent, I would be out of a job. The television was invented over decades by a German, a Brit and a Russian but their ideas all came together in the middle of Middle America.

The United States created an environment in which inventive minds had access to easy credit, a willing market and the freedom to dream and create without fear of prosecution or recrimination.

As the writer and poet John Ciardi put it: "The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself"!

Europe's offspring

If we regret the founding of the US we regret a thoroughly European creation. If George III hadn't been as mad as a hatter, if the Redcoats had been more in touch with the feelings of His Majesty's subjects in the colonies, the English colony of Jamestown might never have given way to Yorktown, where 174 years later the English crown was finally defeated in the War of Independence.


There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America
Bill Clinton

To be against the founding of America is not to be original but to continue a long line of misguided bigots who always resented the birth of the US. In the late 18th Century, the eminent Dutch scientist Cornelius De Pauw wrote that everything from America was "either degenerate or monstrous". He was considered the foremost expert on the New World of his time and, like many critics of America, he never went there once.

Then there's the Oscar Wilde quip, plagiarised by former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau: "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation". Anti-Americanism is as old as America and it continues to miss the point.

America did not come from nowhere. It was an offspring of Europe, the step-child of a corrupt, moribund post-feudal system. America encapsulated the principles of the Enlightenment - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - wrapped them in the pursuit of happiness, underpinned them with an inalienable right and turned an IDEA into a country.

It took the missteps of the French and the English revolutions and it made them work.

Yes, there were terrible mistakes - the gross hypocrisy of slavery, segregation and McCarthyism, to name a few. But America found and keeps finding the solutions to its mistakes. It is a giant, rolling social experiment in constant pursuit of self-correction. As Bill Clinton once said: "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."

In America the idea was ragged, rough and imperfect but it kept growing, it kept evolving and, if this isn't a vote of confidence, it kept attracting people, millions of them - Dutch pilgrims, Russian Jews, persecuted Egyptians, hungry Mexicans, uprooted Kurds, homeless Armenians, unloved and underpaid British film stars, now luxuriating in Hollywood. Ask them if they regret the founding of America!

Real promise

The US is a nation built not on ethnicity, not on religion, not even on history but on an idea.


Not only does this make America different, I would argue it also makes it ideally suited for the 21st Century. We live in a globalised world in which national boundaries are less and less relevant and the citizenship of ideas is more and more defining.

Al-Qaeda also strives for a world without borders, a trans-national entity based on ideas, which a majority of Muslims find as unpalatable as we do. So, ask yourself and be honest: where would you rather live - the Caliphate or California?

We Europeans created America and to regret this is to engage in a colossal act of self-denial verging on self-mutilation. We have a stake in its survival and its success and we ought to nurture it, not bring it to its knees or delight in its misfortunes. We can criticise its leaders without regretting its existence.

The reality of America may be vexing, frustrating, infuriating and puzzling but its promise is no less real and, given the right voice, should be no less inspiring.

Guantanamo Bay, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and yes, so many aspects of the war in Iraq, were big mistakes. But these are aspects of current foreign policy, not part of the nation's DNA. They are lamented as much inside the US as outside. And that too speaks for America!

To quote the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington: "America is not a lie; it is a disappointment." But what is worse than being disappointed? It is not even to know what you're missing.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...as/6613861.stm

Published: 2007/05/02 11:40:46 GMT

© BBC MMVII

[WhiskeyBoarder]

I have a question as pertains to this thread. I must admit, though, in my haste to post between classes I did not read this entire discussion. However, from the thread’s development, I think that the following situation has not been addressed.

I am currently taking an upper level class entitled, in fact, “Globalization.” One of the theories suggested as the outcome of globalization termed “globality,” will be cultures that are very similar to every other culture. This is to say that the world would be, in effect, Americanized. Of course, there are skeptics who view this outcome as highly unlikely for various reasons.

However, for discussion’s sake, let’s consider that in the near future, the world does start to look drastically Western; languages begin to disappear, English is adopted more then it already is and values begin to mimic those more recognizable to Westerners.

What effect does this outcome have on the CMF of Special Forces? Surely, there would have to be drastic alterations made to a profession that prides itself on its unmatched knowledge of foreign cultures. If cultures stop being so foreign, how does SF continue to perform in ways “special;” that is to say, unconventional?

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

[x-factor]

Even if a homogenization of world cultures does occur (which I think is preposterous), it would not happen overnight. You're talking about a process that would occur over the course of at least a century, probably several.

Given that long a time frame and all the other factors that come into the equation over that long period, I don't think there's any way to answer your question. It'd be hard enough to speculate on what militaries in general will look like in a hundred years...much less a specific kind of specialized unit in an even longer period.

The idea of special units (specifically selected, highly trained, reliant on unconventional tactics, and devoted to missions of extraordinary impact) will almost certainly continue as long as humans maintain armed forces, but the specifics will always be dependent on context. I don't think you can get much more specific than that.

[Sionnach]

Originally Posted by WhiskeyBoarder

....

However, for discussion’s sake, let’s consider that in the near future, the world does start to look drastically Western; languages begin to disappear, English is adopted more then it already is and values begin to mimic those more recognizable to Westerners.

....

Any thoughts?

Ever seen Firefly? I think Josh Whedon has as good a guess as any on the culture of the VERY distant future. As far as your concerns of the world domination of Western culture, I wouldn't count on English, or any other language replacing the world's languages any time soon. Remember, Gaeilge is still spoken in Ireland even though the English occupied it for around 500 years.