…na obeah in trade
The other foot has come down on Trump’s intemperate slapping of tariffs on steel and aluminium: China retaliated by imposing tariffs on 125 items they import from the US. And as your Eyewitness had said when he predicted this response, there’s absolutely nothing Trump can do about it – since he’s already emasculated the WTO. The American exporters of these 125 items to China will now have to cut back their production…and ultimately fire redundant workers.
This means less local and federal taxes collected and the vicious spiral to an implosion will begin unless some saner heads take over in the States. The sad truth is, while there might’ve been something in Trump’s earlier tariff announcement that included Canada and Mexico – since with the former being the biggest exporter of steel and aluminium to the US, the increased prices might’ve made US production competitive and catalysed the reopening of some shuttered factories in the high-employment Rust Belt. Where many of the yahoos who voted for Trump reside.
But exempting Canadian and Mexican exports just left China and the EU facing the squeeze of increased tariffs. So these countries have no option but to retaliate!! What we’re witnessing, dear reader, is real brinkmanship in play. Forget about the North Korean tinpot rattling his nukes…this move of Trump will affect every country in the world – including little, innocuous Guyana. And kill us just as surely as the nukes – but slower and more painfully!!
The modern globalised world was built on free trade – and it’s a world that’s seen more people lifted from poverty than at any other time in the history of mankind. Free trade, England – the then first industrial country in the world – assured us in the 19th century, would allow each country to exploit their “comparative advantage” to produce goods for the world rather than just themselves. In this way, the goods would be cheaper for ordinary people everywhere than if a single country tries to produce everything. Can you imagine us producing computer chips for ourselves??
This argument suited England and the other countries – such as the US and Japan that followed in the former’s part – ‘cause they had the “comparative advantage” in manufactured goods that they declared to be worth many times than our “primary goods”. They were onto a good thing till the 1970s – when the Far Eastern Tigers then China, plunged into manufacturing with such dedication – the older developed countries like England and then the US just couldn’t compete.
The resort to “wrong and strong” behaviour just won’t cut it.
The only way out is to facilitate the WTO to become an honest broker.
…na obeah on Winnie
Winnie Mandela just passed away and it’s really the passing of an era. She’s been criticised quite heavily because she didn’t live up to what the world thought the wife of Mandela should be like. But here greatest credit is she didn’t allow herself to be railroaded in changing who she was just to fit into the mould that others created.
Let’s face it – it can’t be easy being married to a saint. And this was what the world decided Mandela was. He was overtly compared to Gandhi – who just happened to have invested his “saintly” image in South Africa. But in the hundred plus years of his beatification has anyone asked what a burden it must’ve been for Kasturbai, his wife?? See that, dear reader…you didn’t even know the poor woman’s name!! The only time she rebelled against the saint was when he told her she had to clean the buckets into which the latrines delivered faeces.
So Winnie…if necklacing of collaborators was necessary at the time – you did it YOUR way!!
…na obeah on Trotman
So the AFC wants “action” on all the workers at GGMC who’ve suffered from mercury poisoning?? Well how about speaking to their LEADER who’s the Minister who’s in charge of the agency??!!
