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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!jchapman
From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: High Duties => Increased Competitiveness?
Message-ID: <2578@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Sep-85 16:26:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2578
Posted: Sun Sep 29 16:26:35 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Sep-85 02:29:07 EDT
References: <1394@utcsri.UUCP> <2188@mnetor.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 58

> In article <2573@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
> >> In article <2550@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
> >> >price.  Since these figures come from the North-South institute are
> >> >they for Canada & US (& maybe Mexico) in which case they work out to
> >> >< $2/yr/person (pretty small) or are they just for Canada?  How much
> >> >is actually spent on clothes in total (i.e. is $500 million 50%, 10%,
> >> >1% or 0.1% of the total?).
> >> 
> >> The above questions are  rather irrelevant. The fact of the matter is
> >
> >Ahhhh! This clears up a lot of your previous postings; now I can 
> >understand how you reason.  There's no point in knowing what region
> >figures apply to - they are correct for some place so we may as well
> >use them for us too eh? No point in knowing how much of total cost
> >these duties account for eh?  10% is as bad as 0.1% right?
> 
> Ahhhh!  This clears up a lot of your previous postings; now I can
> understand how you reason.  "The fact of the matter" doesn't matter
> to you if you can make the matter look small.  If you can't spread
> it out over a large enough population, or make it look like a very
> small portion of the cost of clothing, you can always compare it to
> the U. S. Gross National Product, or the total value of all the iron
> in the asteroids.  Gosh, compared to that, an $83,000 subsidy to
> create a $20,000 job is piddling.

I stand by my comment.  Bandying figures about without even knowing
what group/region they apply to (let alone how they were derived)
is ridiculous.  It seems entirely reasonable to question the 
origin/applicability of the figures (particularily in view of a
previous posting describing how hard it is to even find out where
they came from).
> 
> If that $83,000 figure is accurate, then it is cheaper to pay those
Big if.

> people not to work, and remove the quotas.  If the cost is spread over
> all of Canada and the U. S. and Mexico, it would *still* be cheaper to
> pay those people not to work.  If the cost of quotas to the consumer is
> only 0.1% of the cost of clothing, it's *still* cheaper to pay them not
It may also not be worth bothering about if it is 0.1%; it does help to decide
which issues have an effect worth troubling over.

> to work.  $20,000 is less than $83,000, no matter how thin you spread
> it.
> 
> The partial truth is that textile quotas cost about $20 per Canadian
> per year.  The whole truth is that the textile industry is only one
Sorry to be repetitious but - where does that figure come from?

> protected industry of many, and they all cost us.  If somebody robs
> you of $5, , so what?  If somebody robs you of $5 one thousand
> times, that's different.
That's right - and it still is not clear which is the case here.

> -- 
> David Canzi
> 
> Got a vote to sell?  Brian's buyin'.