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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.