Oh my! So many flaws and problems with this essay(?) that I don’t know where to begin!
griz wrote:Globalization uses up finite resources more quickly.
Possibly but not necessarily. Free trade leads to a more efficient use of resources, which should in theory reduce the speed with which we use them up. However, a consequence of free trade is a general growth in prosperity, which means more people have more money and so demand goes up, which may lead to resources being used up more quickly.
griz wrote:Globalization increases world carbon dioxide emissions.
Marginally, because of transports, but partly offset by a more efficient use of resources. Let me go back to Swedish tomatoes. We can grow our own tomatoes just fine, but in greenhouses that have to be heated most of the year. If we instead import tomatoes from the Canary Islands (Spain), the carbon dioxide emissions actually become lower, as the cultivation of these tomatoes hardly cause any emissions, and the emissions caused by the transport is negligible in comparison.
What does happen though, is that the reduction of poverty that free trade causes, means more people can afford more stuff. As I pointed out earlier, in 1981 80% of the population of East Asia (which includes China) lived in extreme poverty, ie less than USD 1.90/per day. In 2015 that figure had dropped to 7.2%. When I was in Beijing in 1990 there were hardly any cars at all. Everyone was riding bikes. But in 2009 China surpassed the USA as the country where most cars were sold. In 2015 24.6 million cars were sold in China, as compared to 17.4 million in the USA.
Of course, when all Chinese lived in squalor and owned no cars, their carbon dioxide emission levels were lower. But are you really comfortable arguing that the majority of the world’s population must accept to remain poor and on the border of starvation, while we in the Western world lead a life of luxury they can hardly imagine?
To argue that we should not strive to reduce poverty, and at the same time gripe about stagnating wages at home, is to me a highly immoral and hypocritical stance.
Instead we must work to phase out fossil fuels, and as you may know, many European countries have come a long way. CO2 emissions per capita in 2014 were 17 tonnes for the US, 16 for Canada, 11 for Russia, 9.8 for Germany, 9.7 for Japan, 7.1 for China and the EU average was 6.8 tonnes. Sweden emitted 4.6 tonnes per capita.
http://www.globalcarbonatlas.org/?q=en/emissions
Now, let me break it to you: our climate is worse than yours, we have mining, forestry, auto industry and a pretty decent standard of living. There is no freaking reason the US should emit four times as much carbon dioxide than we do, except that the US has stuck its head in the sand and ignored the threat of global warming, in part probably because the supreme court awarded the presidency to Bush instead of Gore (who had the popular vote) in the 2000 election, and thus is stuck with old fashioned fossil fuel dependent means for manufacturing, transports and heating. This is what should be challenged. Not free trade.
griz wrote:Globalization makes it virtually impossible for regulators in one country to foresee the worldwide implications of their actions.
Right… as opposed to which wonderful form of wizardry that would allow them to easily “foresee the worldwide implications of their actions”? Sheesh! :-D
griz wrote:Globalization acts to increase world oil prices.
Nope. According to all economic theory, it lowers them. Of course she wrote her article at a time when oil prices happened to peak, but since then they have fallen drastically. Did globalization end?
What, you think “globalization” would magically increase the price of one commodity (oil) while lowering it of another (labour)?! Please explain!
griz wrote:Globalization transfers consumption of limited oil supply from developed countries to developing countries.
Globalization transfers jobs from developed countries to less developed countries.
Globalization transfers investment spending from developed countries to less developed countries.
These are good things! This is what reduces poverty in the third world, increases life expectancy, lowers child mortality and allows you to live like a king. What do you think those clothes you wear would cost if they had been produced in Europe or North America? And to boot, you put food on the table for a Bangladeshi family and enabled their kids to go to school. Or maybe you only wear Armani?
griz wrote:With the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, globalization leads to huge US balance of trade deficits and other imbalances.
Which is of huge benefit to the US economy. This is why you you don’t really need to worry about your trade deficits. The Euro was created in part in an attempt to move that effect to Europe and boost our economy. Not quite there yet…
griz wrote:Globalization tends to move taxation away from corporations, and onto individual citizens.
To some extent. It’s not really an effect of free trade though, but of beggar thy neighbor policies in which many countries try to get ahead of the competition by luring big corporations to invest there. Short sighted, as they at the same time undermine their own taxation base.
But this can be fixed by negotiating international agreements on minimum levels of corporate taxes rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water. The EU has already agreed on such standards within Europe. In a perfect world, Nafta could do the same, Mercosur as well, ASEAN as well, etc, and then all these groups can harmonize their tax laws till this problem is gone.
griz wrote:Globalization sets up a currency “race to the bottom,” with each country trying to get an export advantage by dropping the value of its currency.
Only true if you decide to compete with price rather than quality. An undervalued currency also means you put yourself at risk of other countries buying not only your products but also all your assets, as if you were holding a garage sale…
Eg Germany or Switzerland do not attempt to do that. They just make sure to produce stuff that people will be willing to buy despite the premium cost. That’s the smart alternative. Of course, it means you have to invest a lot in your workforce, so that you can rely on them to deliver top notch products.
Besides, most countries have floating currencies these days, which means that their value is decided by the market rather than the government. Sure, the respective governments can adjust it marginally with interest rates and buying and selling bonds, but few countries are in full control of the value of their currency. I guess the US and China do have the financial muscle to do it though.
griz wrote:Globalization encourages dependence on other countries for essential goods and services.
Globalization ties countries together, so that if one country collapses, the collapse is likely to ripple through the system, pulling many other countries with it.
Another benefit! This helps prevent wars, like in the olden days when France and Germany would constantly attack each other. Today their economies are so intertwined, they have no option but to stay at peace.
And it also works in reverse. When the economy is soaring in a major country, the boom is likely to ripple through the system, pulling many other countries with it!
‘the smaller Aegean islands’ means any islands in the Aegean Sea except the islands of Crete and Evia.
