A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
I think you guys are being sarcastic and to state the obvious. The mother had sole custody of the child. She tried to take her child to Florida but she dies in the attempt. Her kid survived. Once she was dead custody then was transferred to the father. But the mother, while she was alive, clearly wanted her boy to be in Florida.

The key point being that she was dead, and no longer had custody.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Not necessarily. You ignore the equal concerns of the state of returning a child to an unsafe environment, to wit, a oppressive, violent political regime.

But Clinton didn't care about Elian - or his Republican-voting Miami based, Cuban exile family - so we all know how that argument went.

The equal concerns of the State? Since when? Even if your preposterous statement wre true, which thank God it isn't, the kid was a citizen of Cuba, not the US. His Republican-voting exile family had perhaps some standing to argue for custody; the US had none. What's more, they had no real in personam jurisdiction.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by taxwonk
The key point being that she was dead, and no longer had custody.

And that the father did not necessarily agree with the mother's wishes.

To leave the U.S. with a child, one generally must demonstrate that both parents consent. There is a reason for this.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
To leave the U.S. with a child, one generally must demonstrate that both parents consent. There is a reason for this.

But that would mean he shouldn't have been taken out of Cuba in the first place.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
But that would mean he shouldn't have been taken out of Cuba in the first place.

Who said he should have been, as a family matter? There's a political matter, as well, but that's separate, and of considerable debate as to whether it should supercede the family matter.

If it does, you should worry, because Atticus and your mother have agreed you should walk back over to Windsor. Gwnc, btw, can suck it if she doesn't like the outcome.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Spanky
What brought that on? When did I talk about sex?

Um, did you not see the inherent tension between "we don't talk about sex on this board" and posting "suck my left one"? I was just using you as a platform.

Do you feel dirty?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Who deleted that other thread? It was just starting to get interesting.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Um, did you not see the inherent tension between "we don't talk about sex on this board" and posting "suck my left one"? I was just using you as a platform.

Do you feel dirty?

Rape isn't an act of love, fringe

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Rape isn't an act of love, fringe

That's why I thought he might feel dirty.

[Hank Chinaski]

http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/10/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

Gender bias in IKEA instructions?

Norway's prime minister says company should alter brochures that show only men assembling furniture.


OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - Swedish home furnishings giant IKEA is guilty of sex discrimination by showing only men putting together furniture in its instruction manuals, Norway's prime minister says.

IKEA, which has more than 200 stores in 32 nations, fears it might offend Muslims by depicting women assembling everything from cupboards to beds. Its manuals show only men or cartoon figures whose sex is unclear.

"This isn't good enough," Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was quoted Thursday as telling the daily Verdens Gang. "It's important to promote attitudes for sexual equality, not least in Muslim nations."

"They should change this," he said. "There's no justification for it."

IKEA stores are visited by 365 million people a year around the world. Many products have to be assembled by the buyer -- the "flat pack" concept saves the company huge amounts in transport, storage and sales space.

Bondevik added: "I myself have great problems with screwing together such furniture."

Verdens Gang quoted an IKEA spokeswoman as saying: "We have to take account of cultural factors. In Muslim countries it's problematic to use women in instruction manuals."

IKEA was not immediately available for comment

I don't think Ikea is aware this bias against women is only true in 1 or 2 countries

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Actually, what liberals objected to was the fact that we supported regimes that oppressed, tortured, and exploited their lower classes, while making the governing elite incredibly rich, often through business connections to US and other developed nations. Witness Citibank and United Fruit in Latin America; BP, Shell and the US majors in Iran; Anglo-American Mining in South Africa, etc.

This may sound OK in theory but the facts don't support it. You are just spouting the communist line but that theory has been totally discredited. Anyone that works on development related issues knows that this propaganda just doesn't stand up to the facts. When a US corporation moves to a third world country and creates employment the liberals always scream that they are going to exploit the workers. What they don't realize is that these jobs pay more than what the workers were earning before. They also create a tax base. They may be paying the workers less than what we pay them here but they are starting from a much lower per capita income. YOu never see the workers saying - hey get this company out of here it is exploiting me. The workers may demand higher wages but they never say - get rid of this job.

Originally posted by taxwonk A market is not really free if only a small portion of the population is allowed to participate as anything other than subsistence level labor. .

Define subsistence level labour. That is a meaningless term. Can you cite me a case where US companies have opened up shop in a region and have actually reduced the standard of living? Costa Rica, which has been the most receptive to US businesses, has the highest standard of living in central america. When Nicaragua stopped US corporations from "exploiting" their workers their standard of living dropped like a depth charge. Why do you think they were voted out of office so quickly when the people had the chance. And they voted in a government that opened Nicaragua back up to "US exploitation". And now with all the "US exploitation" their economy is doing signicantly better.

Originally posted by taxwonk You really should do some catch-up reading. I suggest David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill for the basics, and perhaps a good dose of both Milton Friedman and Heilbronner for both sides of the early modern market theories. .

This is a joke right? How about studying what actually happened in these countrys. I would suggest you look at which countrys adopted which economic policies and how they turned out. Pick one country in latin america and trace its economic growth, GDP and the standard of living of the bottom fifth of the population and see what policies caused the different circumstances.

Originally posted by taxwonk You're largely spouting the neocon pundits' line without showing any appreciation of or understanding of the principles they profess to espouse. A more nuanced view would show that they are spinning like crazy to make the world's current situation fit their politics, rather than arguing real economics.

You accuse me of not arguing economics yet I have not heard one argument from you backed up by any facts.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by taxwonk
tipped the cy

So, what you're saying is that, as a foreigner who only participates in the economic activity if the ruling elite, you understand how the economy affects the poor. Or did you comfort yourself with the knowledge that you always tipped the cyclo driver more than he usually made in a week, so things must be getting better?

Are you actually telling me that the people of Thailand are worse off today than they were twenty years ago? The funny thing is when I first went to Thailand there were "cyclo drivers" all over the place. Now they all are driving motorized vehicles. Every analysis of development of Thailand I have ever seen shows that every sector of the societies PCI has increased significantly since 1975. If Thailand chose the wrong economic policies, which country should it have emulated? Vietnam? Cuba? Burma? Laos? Where are these countries that resisted "American Imperialism" that are doing so well?

Originally posted by Spanky
YOu never see the workers saying - hey get this company out of here it is exploiting me.

Oh how Carlos Mesa wishes this were true. I thought you read The Economist?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
What did you notice about the totalitarian regimes in Africa and the Middle East, and how well they are doing economically and from a civil liberties perspective?

Oh, and I am bowled over that you really do know absolutely everything. Why are you not yet Supreme Ruler of the World?

That position is occupied by someone else.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
This may sound OK in theory but the facts don't support it. You are just spouting the communist line but that theory has been totally discredited. Anyone that works on development related issues knows that this propaganda just doesn't stand up to the facts. When a US corporation moves to a third world country and creates employment the liberals always scream that they are going to exploit the workers. What they don't realize is that these jobs pay more than what the workers were earning before. They also create a tax base. They may be paying the workers less than what we pay them here but they are starting from a much lower per capita income. YOu never see the workers saying - hey get this company out of here it is exploiting me. The workers may demand higher wages but they never say - get rid of this job.

Define subsistence level labour. That is a meaningless term. Can you cite me a case where US companies have opened up shop in a region and have actually reduced the standard of living? Costa Rica, which has been the most receptive to US businesses, has the highest standard of living in central america.

This is a joke right? How about studying what actually happened in these countrys. I would suggest you look at which countrys adopted which economic policies and how they turned out. Pick one country in latin america and trace its economic growth, GDP and the standard of living of the bottom fifth of the population and see what policies caused the different circumstances.

You accuse me of not arguing economics yet I have not heard one argument from you backed up by any facts.

You actually sound like a McCarthy Republican. I'm not swallowing any "communist line," you're just talking out your ass. What I'm saying is that in Latin America, to take the easiest example, United Fruit came in and entered into contract farming or purchasing arrangements with large landowners. The US companies did nothing to foment the development of a skilled labor/merchant/educated management class. The counrty's economy continued to be run by the existing elite.

None of this did anything for the poor. The host country did not increase the level of public education, nor did they provide health services or build infrastructure in poor rural villages or city slums. The US did not contract with small farmers. They actually created an incentive for the plantation system to grow, squeezing out the land available to squatters or small farmers.

Thus, the only available employment for the poor was in the country, picking fruit for large landowners or in the city, acting as servants or waiters in the growing number of restaurants and nightclubs. Nobody had the opportunity to get an education, and to work their way up through the economic scale. There was no support for small merchants to develop. Ther was no growth of a service industry.

All of these factors led to an increasing concetration of wealth in the hands of a few, and a greater portion of the poor forced off land that had been available for small farms near the rural villages for decades, if not centuries.

Take Brazil as a classic example. There is an article Hunter Thompson wrote for Collier's, years before he became a gonzo journalist, which begins with the image of a wealthy resident of one of the cities, shooting golf balls off his balcony, to land in the slums below. That pne paragraph speaks volumes.

This situation is repeating itself in Brazil today, with thousands of acres of the Amazon rain forest being plowed under to be replaced by large ranches, mines, and natural gas fields. The large companies come in and basically run off the villagers in the area, or they simply destroy the ecosystem they have lived off of for generations, forcing more peasants into the cities. There are no jobs, there is not adequate education or health care.

There is a democracy in Brazil, but I wouldn't call the country democratic, and I certainly wouldn;t describe its economy as a free market. What you have is an oligarchy, and an economy that serves it.

You're on the right track. A thriving, free market economy with a strong middle class, supported by small to mid-sized merchants and manufacturers, peopled with entrepreneurs and middle managers is the key to a truly democratic society. But this middle class doesn't simply appear. Someone needs to provide the infrastructure and the financial, police, and political support for it to grow.

The lack of this middle class is a product of, and a support mechanism for the totalitarian regimes of all stripes that populate the developing world. If we really want to spread democracy, we'd be sending in the WHO and AID along with our military.