Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watcgl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!jchapman From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: High Duties => Increased Competitiveness? Message-ID: <2550@watcgl.UUCP> Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 09:17:51 EDT Article-I.D.: watcgl.2550 Posted: Tue Sep 24 09:17:51 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 24-Sep-85 23:46:36 EDT References: <1394@utcsri.UUCP> <2188@mnetor.UUCP> <2223@mnetor.UUCP> <14@ubc-cs.UUCP> <1692@watdcsu.UUCP> Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 46 > > This quote is from an article about textile import quotas that appeared > on the editorial page of the local newspaper a couple of months ago: > > "The North-South Institute in Ottawa estimated in 1981 that consumers > had to pay an additional $500 million for their clothes, or about $83,000 > a year for every job saved." (That works out to about 6000 jobs.) > > It would actually be cheaper for the government to pay those people > $20,000 a year not to work. Now, it's unlikely that those workers are > getting paid much more than maybe $20,000 each. Wonder who gets the > rest of the money? > Normally I'm willing to take this kind of information at face value but it's pretty hard to believe these figures without some explanation. What are they using as a base price for clothes? Perhaps the labour component of the cost of shoes is relatively small so that any increase in the price of materials is a high percentage increase in the retail 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?). > To find out, do the following experiment: when your newspaper prints an > article about harmful effects of import quotas watch the letters to the > editor for the next few weeks. See who writes letters defending the > need for import quotas. If you know somewhat about economics you can > often recognize a high bullshit level. You can also recognize who will benefit from free trade if you read the papers - you don't see much from labour lauding it, while you do from business (well known friend of the worker, 0.5 * :-) ). > -- > David Canzi > > Hmmm, folks must not be heavily into freedom these days. -- Garfield -- John Chapman ...!watmath!watcgl!jchapman Disclaimer : These are not the opinions of anyone but me and they may not even be mine.