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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!dmcanzi
From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: High Duties => Increased Competitiveness?
Message-ID: <1713@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 01:38:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1713
Posted: Tue Oct  1 01:38:07 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Oct-85 00:28:55 EDT
References: <1394@utcsri.UUCP> <2188@mnetor.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Organization: University of Woolamaloo
Lines: 61
Summary: 

In article <2578@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
>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).

I have been in touch with the North-South Institute, they are sending
me a list of their publications, and I know the study in question was
done in 1981.  I may have it within 2 weeks (if I can guess the right
title...)

You seem to think it's very important what country/countries the
figures apply to.  I and one other person have said it's irrelevant,
and made arguments to justify that position.  You simply say it's
"ridiculous" to discuss these figures without knowing what country they
apply to.  "Ridiculous" isn't an argument.  Show us an argument.  Show
us what's wrong with our arguments.  What do you think my original
posting was trying to prove?  And how is the country those figures came
from relevant to it?  Demonstrate to us that there's a brain somewhere
behind that mouth.

It should be obvious to you what country those figures refer to.  But
is it irrelevant?

>> *If* that $83,000 figure is accurate, then it is cheaper to pay those
>> 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.

6000 jobs is less than .03% of the population of Canada.  It just
doesn't seem worth the hassle to enforce quotas for such a tiny
fraction of the population...

>> 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?
No you aren't.  It's based on figures from the newspaper article.
>
>> 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.

Textile quotas.  Shoe quotas.  Marketing boards for dairy products,
eggs, and several other farm products.  (So we pay extra on most of
what we wear and most of what we eat.) Import duties on most things.

Textile quotas are only a fraction of the whole thing.
-- 
David Canzi

"It's Reagan's fault.  Everything's Reagan's fault.  Floods... volcanoes...
herpes... Reagan's fault." -- Editor Overbeek, Bloom Beacon