The Problem with the UAE Port Deal
When Thomas Jefferson wrote of King George III in the Declaration of Independence,
"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation…"
he just as easily could have been writing of the World Trade Organization, which now has the legal authority to force the United States to overturn laws passed at both local, state, and federal levels with dictates devised by tribunals made up of representatives of multinational corporations. If Dubai loses in the American Congress, their next stop will almost certainly be the WTO. (Read More)
When Thomas Jefferson wrote of King George III in the Declaration of Independence,
"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation…"
he just as easily could have been writing of the World Trade Organization, which now has the legal authority to force the United States to overturn laws passed at both local, state, and federal levels with dictates devised by tribunals made up of representatives of multinational corporations. If Dubai loses in the American Congress, their next stop will almost certainly be the WTO. (Read More)
posted by Van at 7:38 AM
4 Comments:
On a slight tangent, since I already said I think the UAE deal is fine...
Going by your post and talking about independence, shouldn't we leave the UN? When people do not like the result (ex. Iraq war) we went in unilaterally, we failed to obtain the "ok" from the UN. Most would think that is the end of the world. Why? We did something independently. I would just like people to either stick by the UN and all attached, or decide for ourselves.
If they go to the WTO, then what is so bad? I thought we were supposed to run things past the international community?
I am in the mindset that the UAE offers a service no company in the US bid for! We were supposed to just stop the ports? I think that if you want to stop the deal with the UAE, good take a stand. But then you had better be ready to have a way to run 15 major US ports, replacing 80% of the current companies.
If there was not one company to take over for these select terminals, how are you going to find enough to replace the companies running 80%?
MD- You wrote:
"Going by your post and talking about independence, shouldn't we leave the UN? "
Leaving the UN may not be one of the worst things that we could do but there is a fundamental difference between the U.N. and the WTO.
The U.N. is still a democratic body. The U.N. votes on issues and uses representatives of various nations to speak for the people.
The WTO is not democratic. Yes, there is a vote with the WTO, but not represenative of the people, the votes are represenative of business interests. There is nothing wrong with big business making money, I'm not a Marxist. But there is something wrong with multinational corporations over ruling the soverighity of a nation state. This is what the WTO is established to do.
The WTO protects multinationals from the laws of a nation (the people). This is not democratic, and we should leave this organization asap.
As far as the ports go.... We the people are getting screwed again. The reason that foreign countries have so many dollars to purchase our commons is because of our imbalanced trade policies.
A hypothetical - We purchase say 200 billion in goods from China, we sell them say 32 billion. China has over 150 billion in dollars left over, after expenses, so it purchases U.S. assets - dumps the dollar on assest that produce income, i.e. Ports.
China makes a tons of money monitoring the port, sends the money back to china, and we lose more of our assets and our tax base.
This is happening everywhere. Before long, we will have very little to sell. Then what? We sell our military?
The problem is not just the Port deal, it is the trade policies of Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush.
The wealthy win, the rabble, we the people, we lose.
When more and more people catch on to what is really happenig, there will be more and more protests for deals like this - it's not just me who sees the elephant in the room.
MD, we are losing the floor that we are standing on. Our government must borrow billions of dollars a day to stay afloat.
Our lack of exports can only lead to one thing, a weak dollar. It's not weak now, things seem fine now, but we cannot continue on this path with having to pay back what we owe someday....
I see a very long recession in our future and it's gonna hurt.
Sorry to rant.
You can rant as much as you want, it is your blog! And hey, your rants make sense, unlike others.
I am well out of my class here because flat out economics, especially to this degree, are well over my head. If you want to make every port US owned 100%, of course that is what I want. (I just don’t see how it can be done.) Between not having the ability at this point to do so, and making enemies it might be a mistake. I want all to remember that we may have problems with a country and just because it is not out in the open does not mean we don’t get help “under the table”. There was a pretty big anger at the PX when all the US flags there have "China" on the tag.
(There was a pretty big anger at the PX when the US flags there have "China" on the tag.)
I am a pretty simple person, you know the economics far better than I. What I know is that it is not the security issue that people want it to be. Although some other information has been provided to me that does bring up a few questions. So, my solid stand may be forced to budge. Not nearly enough now where I would do anything but provide support.
As for voting in the UN, how often do those votes really act in OUR interest...so I don't really consider the UN worth anything. But so many do, that is the rule we have to play by for now.
They may buy everything but they won't buy our military. Many forget the military is as much a thought of mind as it is hardware.
PS-Thanks for your kind words on my blog.
Hi Van, great blog! And I always love a good picture of Thomas Jefferson. Bush needs to do some reading about him as well as Abe Lincoln.
It's nice to know there are other people out there who distrust the current government as much as I do.
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