I'm wondering about "bringing 3rd world countries up to our standards". I'm not a financial whiz kid by any means, but I do wonder about the long-term effects on our global society.

That isn't in the companies best interests. Keeping the manufacturing costs low and selling to a high-end market is the only way to maximize profits.

Also consider this, bringing up 3rd world countries to a level playing field could also lead to:

1. More isolation. If all the playing fields are the same it could make more sense for some companies to only compete within regional sectors instead of worldwide. Why ship overseas, when the market's just as good at home. (Save on shipping costs, overhead on creating new plants and training employees to production standards, changing materials to foreign languages, etc...) OR, CONVERSELY

2. It could lead to mega-mergers. Only giant conglomerates could compete on a world-wide basis successfully. Consider the start-up costs, training, etc... to be able to compete globally. Only the largest and most capital-intensive corporations could deal with such staggering logistics.

With so few companies competing, and therefore, lack of entreprenurial atmosphere, wouldn't it seem rational that prices would NOT decrease? We would be living in a global MONOPOLIZATION. Think "Ma Bell", but on a global scale.

The only thing WTO is for is to use as a "hammer" against governments that have policies that companies don't like. Perhaps they see lobbying as no longer as "expedient" to enhanced profit-making as they'd like. Corporations don't like having to be responsible to others, except their board members. It sounds like WTO is trying to re-define who creates the laws and take the control out of the Legislative, Executive and Judical Branches.

WTO is nothing short of a coup attempt against all governments.

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), December 01, 1999

Answers

Please delete the trolling response above.

-- (brett@miklos.org), December 01, 1999.

The easiest way to bring them up to our level is to bring us down to their level.

Think "crabs in a basket".

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), December 01, 1999.

--saw an interesting commercial for archer daniel midlands on pbs. the "supermarket to the world' company. they said, the only thing stopping them from feeding the world was politics. good and bad. good that people get food, bad that there's ONE company that might control it. the huge multinationals ARE the NWO, and you are right about the monopolistic aspects of it. if you can completely control the worlds food supply, you got everyone by the short and curlys. oh ya, make sure you disarm them first, of course, "for the children"

got non hybrid seeds? zoggus plant manus

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), December 01, 1999.

I think this is so far OT that it could be removed without compromising the 1st Amendment. ;)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), December 02, 1999.

Colin,

You're relatively new here. You seem to be quite eager to sound the 'delete - OT' bell. That's rather boorish.

You've contributed to 'wasted bandwidth', too.

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), December 02, 1999.